Danger: Hydraulics Required

"Congress takes up many silly, superfluous, but essentially harmless bills every session. Usually these consist of naming post offices or proclaiming National Caesar Salad Month, which allows constituents back home to believe that their Representative or Senator actually does something valuable. As we have seen lately, it keeps people from asking what the hell Congress has done in its first 100 days.

However, sometimes they adopt resolutions so laughable that one has to bring hydraulic jacks to place one's jaw back in place. This week, Congress plans to dedicate a coming month to -- are you ready for this? -- financial literacy! HR 273 promises to highlight all the failings of the American people, in the biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Perhaps Congress might want to consider leading by example, rather than dedicating a month of the year to scolding its constituents. They refer to the fact that "consumer debt totaled $2,400,000,000,000 in 2006, of which credit card debt alone exceeded $825,000,000,000," but fail to note that Congress once again spent hundreds of billions more than it received. They note that personal savings dropped last year for the first time since the Great Depression, but they fail to note that Congress still passes supplemental spending bills that go directly towards the nation's debt without any accountability in the budget. Rep. Hinojosa and his colleagues decry the fact that only 42% of the nation's workers have calculated how much they will need for retirement, while successive Congresses have done everything possible to avoid reforming the coming insolvencies of Social Security and Medicare."

Bye, Bye Brown

"In other words, what we will get from this process of multiculturalism is precisely the kind of "separate but equal" facilities struck down by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education in 1954. These Muslim activists want to create a separate society within the United States for Muslims, and they want the US to provide them the facilities with which to create it. Separate dorms, separate cafeterias, Muslim-only physical-education classes -- they want a separate Muslim college at MCTC and everywhere else. It's self-initiated apartheid.

Forty years ago and more, we had segregationists insisting that different peoples could not live within the same area without dividing lines. They used the same excuses as multiculturalists do today, too; each culture feels more secure when they can exclude others. We heard it from white supremacists and from black separatists -- and we proved them wrong. We made sure that people knew America stood for peaceful integration and not for Balkanization, even for what seemed to be good reasons to some.

Now we have Muslims who want to reopen the argument in order to create a closed society for themselves within the US. We have no problem with Muslims who integrate into our society and become Americans in deed as well as in name. If Muslims want to open their own universities to ensure the proper exercise of their religion, well, that works too. But if Muslims want us to recreate the French banlieus and an homage to Jim Crow so they can get even more insular than they already are here in the US, then we need to put our foot down -- washed or unwashed -- and say, "Enough!""

Heggy On The Koreas

"In addition to the previously mentioned comparisons between the two countries, the amount of the total economic production in South Korea is equivalent to $1200 billion while the economic production in North Korea does not exceed $40 billion, which means that the local production of South Korea is 30 times what it is in North Korea. The per capita real income in South Korea has reached $24,000 per year, while in North Korea it is less than $1,800 per year. It could be useful and even funny for readers to know that the average height of males in South Korea has increased to 1.74 m, while it remains 1.58 m among North Korean males. Finally, life expectancy in South Korea is approaching 80 years, while it remains ten years less than that in North Korea.

I think that readers will agree that these comparative statistics are extremely significant indicators that need no explanation. One country chose poverty, backwardness, and suffering, while the other chose progress, prosperity, health, and production. Talking about the pride of a nation, one side chose to receive donations and financial aid, while the other chose development and wealth and has subsequently obtained excess funds so that it can offer aid to others." [ As I have pointed out, a virtual laboratory experiment that leftists keep very, very quiet about... -ed. ]

Pravda Truthers Onion Heh

"“In a clear sign of its intent to reign in dissident American media personalities, and their growing influence in American culture, US War Leaders this past week launched an unprecedented attack upon one of their most politically ‘connected’, and legendary, radio hosts named Don Imus after his threats to release information relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks upon that country.” (Pravda) You know, the Onion couldn’t have said it better." [ You know, these are the kind of people that the left says we need to ally with. I guess Media Matters *could* be a Rove front organization. Or not... -ed. ]

Visualize Whirled Myths

(HT Pajamas)

The Implicit Assumption Revealed: The Dark Nuts(hell) X-Rayed Once Again...

"Implicit in the enemy use of these tactics is the presumption that its political target has a moral sensibility -- that it somehow cares about the threat to kill innocents unless it bends to their evil will. Otherwise it would not be affected. Blackmail is useless against those who don't care for the victims because there can be no assault on the sensibility of the insensible. Pity and virtue are treated as weakness -- but only by evil -- by those who hate pity, and hate it from pride.

But still more evil than terrorists are those who help them in projecting a moral inversion. For terrorists are themselves fully cognizant of the difference between innocence and guilt. It is this fine sensibility that allows terrorists to design one outrage greater than the other; that teaches it to seek out the child that they might mutilate it. Lucifer would have been a poor devil had he not the memory of an angel. But their apologists have no sense of evil; and are in some way morally inferior to the terrorists themselves. They have no memory of Paradise Lost. Darkness and light are all the same to them; or rather darkness is light and night their shade of preference. For the apologists of terror, the victims themselves are "little Eichmanns" and those who try to defend the victims blamed instead of the murderers. And not only do they believe this but will try to persuade anyone who will listen of its truth. The phrase "lost soul" is not just a metaphor but a diagnosis.

How can anyone leave the field to such evil? Or think that we could, by giving it victory, escape it ourselves?" [ To which a wise commenter leaves the following: -ed. ]

"How many times have you heard a critic of the US discuss Middle Eastern Radical Islamic terrorism without pitching it as a reaction to the West, rather than discuss it as a pathology of the societies from which they spring? A pathology which, if Israel or the West didn't exist, would simply be setting a different target, rather than not existing itself?

Choosing to treat terrorism as the response to Western actions, rather than the cause of them, is an act of whistling by the graveyard: It's an act of superstition, not logic, attributing to the West a level of control over other societies that it doesn't even have over its own. But it is comforting to apologists, as it does allow them the moral inversions you describe." [ I would remind the terror apologists once more to take a long hard look at the "oppression" laboratory experiment of North and South Korea. Has North Korea been oppressed by the West? Really? How did we forget to oppress the South then? -ed. ]

The Daily MSMemory Hole

[ Glad to know that this doesn't exist in Carl Levin's mind. What? I guess I'm in a generous mood this morning, huh? -ed. ]:

"Forgetting all of these circumstances, among others, Tom also recalls, as Steve Hayes, myself, and others have for some time, that in 1998, "Ayman al-Zawahiri was in Baghdad ... and collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime." I would add, for context, that this was in the same time frame as bin Laden and Zawahiri's infamous fatwa calling for the murder of Americans — which, if you read it, argues that American actions against Iraq are a big part of the justification. It also came just a few months before al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in east Africa, the Clinton administration bombed a Sudanese phramaceutical factory because intel indicated it was a joint Iraqi/Qaeda chemical weapons venture, and Clinton counter-terror honcho Richard Clarke fretted that "wily old Osama would boogie to Baghdad" — of all places — if the U.S. made things too hot for Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Sure, maybe all this is just a big coincidence. But, given that al Qaeda is a 24/7 terror operation whose main target is the U.S., I've always wondered for what earthly purpose Senator Levin and other connection naysayers figure Saddam Hussein gave Ayman Zawahiri 300K?"

Alaa On The Core Of The Gap

"The U.S. army maintains about 150,000 troops in Iraq, the numbers on the enemy side, most certainly, are not less than this figure if not much higher. If we estimate that the cost of the upkeep of the average terrorist is only one tenth of his American counterpart including the cost of weapons, operations, logistics etc., which is surely an underestimate, we conclude that the budget of the “insurgency” is consequently 10% of the American budget of the war. And we all know that this budget is almost $ 100 billions annually. It follows that the “insurgency” requires at least $ 10 billion annually. That is almost a quarter of the annual budget of the Iraqi State that has been recently announced with much fanfare as being one of the biggest in our history. This kind of financing is orders of magnitude beyond the means of any local Iraqi group. No amount of kidnap money, extortions, thefts; or even the amounts looted previously by the Baathists can provide such finance.

It follows from the previous point by elementary reasoning (my dear Watson), that there must be a powerful source of external financing for this sustained terrorist campaign that has been going on and escalating for the past four years. Iran and Syria, you might say. Well perhaps, to some extent, but considering the finances of these particular two, the full burden is well beyond their capabilities. Who else can do it? It is not difficult to discover that, if you really look around in the neighborhood. If we, poor ordinary people can easily answer this question, it is difficult to imagine that the financial wizards of the greatest World economic power can fail to solve this “mystery”. It should be clear even to an idiot that without the financial backing the insurgency cannot possibly continue and thrive, at least not on the present scale. But how little do we hear about this aspect of the “War on Terror”?! It makes you really wonder. Perhaps the matter is deeper than we think, and is way beyond our poor ordinary-man comprehension.

I shall not elaborate any further and leave it to the imagination and wits of my friends to ponder upon this issue; an issue which is at the very core of the problem." [ Yes. Alaa has placed his finger on the very lungs of the Tinfoil Apocalypse. -ed. ]

The Dream Creed

"In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the “Great Satan” during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.

Bill Clinton would likewise add that he bombed Iraq, and Afghanistan, and East Africa without congressional or U.N. approval because of the need for unilateral action against serial terrorism and the efforts of radicals to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naiveté about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.

I also dreamed that the British government only laughed at calls to curtail studies of the Holocaust in deference to radical Muslims, and instead repeatedly aired a documentary on its sole Victoria Cross winner in Iraq. The British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish foreign ministers would collectively warn the radical Islamic world that there would be no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind, no more backpeddling and equivocating on rioting and threats over cartoons or operas or papal statements. There would be no more apologies about how the West need make amends for a hallowed tradition that started 2,500 years ago with classical Athens, led to the Italian Republics of the Renaissance, and inspired the liberal democracies that defeated fascism, Japanese militarism, Nazism, and Communist totalitarianism, and now are likewise poised to end radical Islamic fascism.

Europeans would advise their own Muslim immigrants, from London to Berlin, that the West, founded on principles of the Hellenic and European Enlightenments, and enriched by the Sermon on the Mount, had nothing to apologize for, now or in the future. Newcomers would either accept this revered culture of tolerance, assimilation, and equality of religions and the sexes — or return home to live under its antithesis of seventh-century Sharia law.

Media critics of the ongoing war might deplore our tactics, take issue with the strategy, and lament the failure to articulate our goals and values. But they would not stoop to the lies of “no blood for oil” — not when Iraqi petroleum is now at last under transparent auspices and bid on by non-American companies, even as the price skyrockets and American ships protect the vulnerable sea-lanes, ensuring life-saving commerce for all importing nations.

I also dreamed that no columnist, no talking head, no pundit would level the charge of “We took our eye off bin Laden in Afghanistan” when they themselves had no answer on how to reach al Qaedists inside nuclear Pakistan, a country ruled by a triangulating dictator and just one bullet away from an Islamic theocracy.

…

And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.

Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it." [ For those who actually pay attention to history, this is rather hard to differentiate from the serial appeasement that got us into WWII. For instance, most folks don't realize that Britain nearly tried to make yet another agreement with Hitler after Munich: ]

"Chamberlain still wielded power within government as the head of the main home affairs committees, most notably the Lord President's Committee. He served loyally under Churchill, offering much constructive advice. Despite preconceived notions, many Labour ministers found him to be a helpful source of information and support. In late May 1940, the War Cabinet had a rapid series of meetings over proposals for peace from Germany which threatened to split the government. Churchill, supported by the Labour members Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, was against the proposals, which were favoured by Lord Halifax. Chamberlain was initially inclined to accept the terms, but this division threatened to bring down the government. Over the course of three days, Churchill, aided by Greenwood and the Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair, gradually persuaded Chamberlain to oppose the terms, and Britain remained in the war.

At this stage, Chamberlain still retained the support of most Conservative MPs. This was most visible in the House of Commons, where Conservatives would cheer Chamberlain, while Churchill only received the applause of Labour and Liberal members. Realising that this created the impression of a weak government, Chamberlain and the Chief Whip, David Margesson, took steps to encourage the formation of a Conservative power base that would support Churchill. [ But of course, nothing like this would be imaginable with the Islamists? Would it? As they say, history repeats itself the second time as a farce... -ed. ]

Speech As Weapon

"What we have then are two positions about the nature of speech. The postmodernists say: Speech is a weapon in the conflict between groups that are unequal. And that is diametrically opposed to the liberal view of speech, which says: Speech is a tool of cognition and communication for individuals who are free.

If we adopt the first statement, then the solution is going to be some form of enforced altruism, under which we redistribute speech in order to protect the harmed, weaker groups. If the stronger, white males have speech tools they can use to the detriment of the other groups, then don't let them use those speech tools. Generate a list of denigrating words that harm members of the other groups and prohibit members of the powerful groups from using them. Don't let them use the words that reinforce their own racism and sexism, and don't let them use words that make members of other groups feel threatened. Eliminating those speech advantages will reconstruct our social reality - which is the same goal as affirmative action. A striking consequence of this analysis is that the toleration of "anything goes" in speech becomes censorship. The postmodern argument implies that if anything goes, then that gives permission to the dominant groups to keep on saying the things that keep the subordinate groups in their place. Liberalism thus means helping to silence the subordinate groups and letting only the dominant groups have effective speech. Postmodern speech codes, therefore, are not censorship but a form of liberation - they liberate the subordinated groups from the punishing and silencing effects of the powerful groups' speech, and they provide an atmosphere in which the previously subordinated groups can express themselves. Speech codes equalize the playing field." [ Antonio Gramsci must be very, very proud ... -ed. ]

"Screw Iraq, Invade Darfur"

"Tell Joe Biden to ask the Europeans. . . 'Why don't they have 2,500 troops to send to Darfur?' If an area w/300 million people can't raise that many troops, then perhaps it's time we have a discussion about 'free riding' with them." [ Let it never be said the Eurabians are free riders. Well, OK, I'll say it. -ed. ]

McCain Gets The War

"What struck me upon my return from Baghdad is the enormous gulf between the harsh but hopeful realities in Iraq, where politics is for many a matter of life and death, and the fanciful and self-interested debates about Iraq that substitute for statesmanship in Washington. In Iraq, American and Iraqi soldiers risk everything to hold the country together, to prevent it from becoming a terrorist sanctuary and the region from descending into the dangerous chaos of a widening war. In Washington, where political calculation seems to trump all other considerations, Democrats in Congress and their leading candidates for President, heedless of the terrible consequences of our failure, unanimously confirmed our new commander, and then insisted he be prevented from taking the action he believes necessary to safeguard our country's interests. In Iraq, hope is a fragile thing, but all the more admirable for the courage and sacrifice necessary to nurture it. In Washington, cynicism appears to be the quality most prized by those who accept defeat but not the responsibility for its consequences.

Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering."

The Nuts(hell) Rages On

"No more tedious individuals exist on our national landscape, although they are in a certain sense exemplary. They represent the triumph of narcissism over intelligent discourse in close to its purest form. No idea or thought exists free of how it affects them - their fame, their glory and, ultimately, their cash. Every second we spend thinking or talking about these two is a second completely lost from our lives. And I'm stopping now."

Democrat Holocaust Victim: Back To The Future Ovens!

"Objectionable, unfair and inaccurate???? It's hard to believe a Holocaust victim of Lantos' stature is applying those banal euphemisms to a man who is not only a Holocaust denier but most probably the most powerful Holocaust denier since the event itself? How about "Homicidal lunatic liar"? Ahmadinejad, as I assume Lantos must know, is the man who ordered the state-sponsored Holocaust denial cartoon contest in Tehran last year, the one with the seemingly-endless collection of vicious anti-Semitic cartoons out of the pages of Der Sturmer.

What does the Congressman hope to accomplish by "having a dialogue" with such a person. What does Lantos expect Mad Amadinejad to say? "I see your point, Tom. Maybe all those Jew were incinerated in those ovens, after all." Not bloody likely. In fact, it is Ahmadinejad who has everything to gain by such a meeting and Lantos nothing.

Back in the interview I did with the Congressman (link above at "overly-cozy"), Lantos said an interesting thing vis-a-vis Google, Yahoo and the Chinese: "I would hope than they would change China, but China changed them." He should think about that when he next considers venturing forth to "dialogue" with a Middle Eastern potentate." [ I wonder if this one might not be enough to have even Chamberlain rolling in his grave? People forget that Chamberlain died during the early part of the war of stomach cancer not knowing whether his beloved England would survive the Nazi onslaught. I have to question whether Lantos has really learned the *real lesson* of the Jew who survived the Holocaust and finally paid attention. -ed. ]

Pakistan In A Nutshell...

"So there's the Pakistani problem with Islamic terrorists. The Islamic conservatives, who tend to be pro, or at least neutral, towards Islamic terrorists, are needed to keep the generals in power (and safe from prosecution during those years when elected officials are allowed to run, and plunder, the country). But the madrasses continue to turn out new Islamic terrorists, who want to turn the country into a religious dictatorship. Until this contradiction is cleared up, Pakistan will remain unstable, and a haven for Islamic terrorists." [ Don't count on it anytime soon... -ed. ]

Plagiarism, MSM Style

"So Katie didn't plagiarize, because the piece that appeared under her name was actually written by someone else, not her! "Genelius said it is 'very common' for the first-person commentaries to be put together by staffers without Couric's being involved in the writing, but that she does participate in topic selection.""

Belated Happy Easter...

I had such a nice one with the family yesterday that I forgot to mention it. That's probably as it should be...

The Chamberlain Way

"People who think Britain won anything in this standoff need to re-read Winston Churchill's first volume of The Second World War and the first half of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. The West has given the hardliners in Teheran a tremendous boost in their reaction to this hostaging, and they can expect more of it in the future."

Michael Has Another Must Read Update From The 51st State

"“You should know that Kurds are the main friends of the Americans in the Middle East,” he said. “In the past we had only God and the mountains as friends. But now we want Americans to support us in all matters, to be another mountain. Our Minister of Peshmerga has great relations with the American forces. We are in the same trench and we are fighting the terrorists just like Americans are. It will be in the future this way, also. Not one American person has been wounded in this area. We have a real alliance with America. We are proud of this relationship. We want the American nation to know we are real friends.” ***

“I want you, as a reporter, as a journalist,” the general said to me, “to get our Kurdish voice to the American people so they know about Kurdish suffering in Iraq. We don’t want the American army to leave this area. The terrorists are excited about what is going on in the Congress.” ***

“What do you think will happen,” I said, “if the United States withdraws from Iraq next year?”“It will be easier for terrorists to attack us,” the general said. “We are surrounded by enemies. They will attack Kurdistan from everywhere. We believe, as Kurds, it is not honorable for Americans to withdraw. It will be bad for Americans, too. They will be killing themselves. If Americans leave us we expect terrorists will reach the American country very soon.” " [ Luckily, they have apparently never been exposed to the American left or I suspect the friendliness might undergo some modification. Also luckily, Nancy Pelosi isn't bright enough to even know they exist much less pay a visit. Please go hit Michael's tip jar. -ed. ]

Chemicals For The Untermenschen

[Nobody cares] "...about chemical weapons, do they? For the ninth time in recent weeks WMDs are used by the terrorists in Iraq:

BAGHDAD - A suspected al-Qaida in Iraq suicide bomber smashed a truck loaded with TNT and toxic chlorine gas into a police checkpoint in Ramadi on Friday, killing at least 27 people — the ninth such attack since the group's first known use of a chemical weapon in January.

But, just like women stoned to death in Iran, or the mass starvation of the people of Zimbabwe, these horrors are greeted with the silence that racists reserve for the less-than-humans who behave in an uncivilized way. Their unspoken attitude is, well, what can you expect of these untermenschen?

And anyway, it's all Bush's fault."

MSMemory Hole Today: The Top Crank

"There you have it. Dr. Gray is a fuddy-duddy who "has long railed" and is outside the "mainstream." He has "dug his heels in" and is so out of date that he tries to dispute the obvious fact that the world is currently getting warmer! The AP is telling us that, however distinguished Gray may be, he can safely be disregarded on this issue.

But wait! Does Dr. Gray really deny the "ample evidence that the world is getting hotter"? Maybe the AP reporter just took Emanuel's word for it. Maybe he was too lazy to do any research. Maybe he deliberately misled his readers. Through the miracle of Google--do AP reporters know about Google?--it took me approximately 30 seconds to find this interview of Dr. Gray, in which he talked about whether the earth is "getting hotter":

Q: ... is global warming behind this increase in hurricanes?

Gray: I am very confident that it’s not. I mean we have had global
warming. That’s not a question. The globe has warmed the last 30 years, and the last 10 years in particular.

The AP is resorting here to the media's constant trick of misrepresenting the position of those who oppose the global warming theorists. The issue is not whether the earth has recently warmed; it has, by around 7/10 of a degree in the last century. The questions are, 1) to what extent, if any, is that warming (or the cooling that also occurs periodically) caused by human activity, 2) how much warming (or cooling) is there likely to be in the future, 3) what will the net effects, good and bad, of such warming or cooling be, and 4) are the benefits, if any, of reducing CO2 emissions by a given amount worth the costs?

The Associated Press, like nearly all mainstream media outlets, runs interference for the global warming hysterics by misrepresenting the nature of the debate, misrepresenting the positions of those who oppose the hysteria, and subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) suggesting that all who question the anthropogenic global warming theorists can safely be dismissed as cranks." [ And trust me, they'd all fall dead of heart attacks if you were ever allowed to read THIS. -ed. ]

What Went Wrong -- The Insider's View

"Not many years ago the brilliant Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world's decline, entitled "What Went Wrong?" Astonishingly, there was, among many Western "progressives," a vocal dislike for the title. It is a false premise, these critics protested. They ignored Mr. Lewis's implicit statement that things have been, or could be, right.

But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world. Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq. Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom. One would expect the orthodox Islamic establishment to evade or dismiss these complaints, but less happily, the non-Muslim priests of enlightenment in the West have come, actively and passively, to the Islamists' defense.

These "progressives" frequently cite the need to examine "root causes." In this they are correct: Terrorism is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes are quite different from what they think. As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, I know firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist. Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it. While there are many ideological "rootlets" of Islamism, the main tap root has a name--Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of the religion.

It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong." [ It just got added to the classics... -ed. ]

Off To The Solomons

"I like the [Fukayama's -ed.] casual assumption that "transcending" sovereignty is a good thing to do. No "We the people" nonsense for these intellectual chappies. Still, if he genuinely thinks Europe's democratic deficit, unaffordable entitlements and declining human capital is the way to go, remind me to go to the Solomon Islands for the end of history. " [ Or someplace more remote if possible. -ed. ]

The MSMemory Hole (Part 89235)

"Ask most Americans if they were aware that Iraqis, by almost a 2-to-1 margin, believe that life today is better than it was under Saddam Hussein, and you'd most likely elicit incredulousness, blank stares or outright laughter. Not because it isn't true, though. It is.

The mainstream media just forgot to mention it."

How A State Rots...

"Shiraz Ahmed was tending his music store in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, when a group of 15 bearded young men walked in bearing bamboo poles and a chilling message. Politely but firmly, they instructed him to take down the colourful array of Bollywood and bhangradance tunes on display and to restrict his business to Islamic music. “They told me I had to change my business,” said Mr Ahmed, 25, whose family has run the store for 15 years. “I am so confused. I don’t know what to do.” Until last week he might not have worried about these men from Islamabad’s Lal Masjid (Red Mosque). After all, his shop is legal and within walking distance of Pervez Musharraf’s presidential palace. But this was just one of several signs in the past ten days that a creeping campaign to “Talebanise” Pakistan has spread from tribal areas on the Afghan border right to the heart of the capital. And to judge from the Government’s response, even here it is reluctant to confront the radical clerics who openly preach jihad (holy war) and defy the writ of the state."

Welcome To The Fear Industrial Complex

"Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming "crisis" and the coming of bird flu. . . .

Here's another example. What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for "20/20," I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I'm sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don't know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Media exposure clouds our judgment about real-life odds. Of course, it doesn't help that viewers are as ignorant about probability as reporters are."

Don't You?

"So, Bush invaded Iraq to steal the oil from what could possibly be the 4th largest producer of oil in the world, trailing the United States, which, last time I checked, Nancy Pelosi was president of.

Er, well, you get it." [ I'm trying very, very hard to get it. And failing somehow... -ed. ]

Oooops

"WHY DO THEY HATE US HIM? Al Qaeda targets the Dalai Lama. But I thought they were only mad at us because Bush wouldn't ratify Kyoto or something?"

Beyond Clausewitz

"If ours is the age of the “strategic corporal” (Krulak), ncos and junior officers will need a different kind of “situational awareness” than in the past — and that, in itself, will call for a radical transformation of professional military education (pme). Of all the social sciences, anthropology is the one that can offer the most useful insights (psychology, by contrast, can only lead to a “babble for hearts and minds.”) That said, the “strategic corporal” will have to keep in mind that, just as a military officer can be brilliant at the tactical or operational level and less than stellar at the strategic level (or vice versa), area studies specialists can offer invaluable expertise at the tribal and regional levels, yet display a total lack of judgment at the global level.36 At the interagency working level, and for the foreseeable future, “know thyself, know thy enemy” will continue to be more important than “know thy Clausewitz.” So will “know thy Trotsky” (institutional infiltration), “know thy Gramsci” (cultural hegemony), and “know thy Schmitt” (intra and international lawfare) — for this is the remarkable trinity on which the “operational code” of the Fifth Column is based today."

For You Will Be Mocked

"Let me now quote an articulate young reader -- from Ottawa, born in 1984 -- to speak for the youffs:

“I for one, although young and idealistic, and much desiring to be a gentleman, have less idea than I would like as to how to go about such. And, even if I can do so (which is the main thing, I suppose) is it possible to set our civilization back upright? ... We did not, of course, get into this state suddenly. What comes first if we wish to reverse some of this? Is there any sort of roadmap?”

Now that is worth answering. And I think it can be answered in less than a column.

Especially in this Holy Week, we must realize that we are speaking of difficulties beyond our making, and of resolutions beyond our imagining. For those who were the builders of our civilization, as for those who may be the rebuilders, the task was and remains beyond the work of human hands. At the centre of the whole project was redemption in Christ.

The biggest single thing any individual can do, is to re-embrace that centre. He must endeavour less to change the world, than to change himself. And necessarily, to ask for the grace of God in doing so. For the project is no less than to rebuild Christendom: the foundation of the West. And this can only be done in human souls. The buildings and the clothing, the art and the music, that mysteriously hopeful view of the universe -- these things are outward reflections of what is wrought in human souls.

I believe the answer begins in personal conversion; in reading and thinking as deeply as we can about reality, and about our history. This requires courage: for you will be mocked. I would hold that the “roadmap” exists, in the Bible and the teachings of the Church and her saints. And that, while reason is our guide, the road is essentially sacramental."

Welcome To The "Democracy" Of Dictatorships (Part 92365)

"It would be an insult that we cannot afford to let pass. If the UN does not immediately fire everyone involved in this scandal and revoke their immunity, then we must cut off all funds for the UN and create a timetable for withdrawal from this thoroughly corrupt organization. We have no need of a debating society whose members transform refugee camps into seraglios, who stuff the pockets of dictators with money meant for those they oppress, and who actively assist other nations in undermining our currency. If the UN fails to cooperate, it's time to push Turtle Bay into the water and bid adieu to the last of the Cold War anachronisms."

Gramscian Pelosian Damage

"As a Muslim, I fully understand respect of our religion by visiting US officials and I applaud that respect. Had Speaker Pelosi worn the Hijab inside a Mosque, this would have indicated respect but for Pelosi to wear it on the streets of Damascus all the while she is sitting with the self-imposed Baschar al-Assad who has come to symbolize oppression and one of the reasons why women are forced to wear the Hijab as they turn to religion to express their freedom is a statement of submittal not only to oppression but also to lack of women’s rights in the Middle East. Pelosi just reversed the work of the Syrian civil society and those who aspire for women’s freedom in the Muslim countries many years back with her visual statement. Her lack of experience of the Middle East is showing.

Assad could not have been happier because Syrian women, seeing a US official confirming what their husbands, the Imams in the Mosques tell them, and the society at large imposes on them through peer pressure will see in her wearing a Hijab as a confirmation of the societal pressures they are constantly under. No one will ever know how many women took the Hijab on after seeing Pelosi wearing it. The damage Speaker Pelosi is causing with her visit to Syria will be felt for many years to come."

UPDATE: "You know, Syria? The puppet government of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Supporters of Hizballah? Insane hatred of Israel and America? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a TV series? Nazi fugitives harbored for years? Am I ringing any bells?"

The Automotive Future Today...

... costs a cool $2 mil. But it is pretty cool...

The Ssssspell Of Dependency

"This is a nuanced view, so let's consider it a bit more carefully, for it explains how evil can exist in a universe created by the Sovereign Good. It is not so much that evil is determined, but it is more or less "inevitable" (or ineveateapple) due to the conditions of existence. It makes no sense to say that evil is “willed by God”; rather, it is more like willing weather, which will inevitably bring occasional hurricanes and tornadoes. Therefore, even if God "cannot eliminate evil as a possibility" on pain of no longer being the infinite God, God would also no longer be God if his divine nature were not opposed to it. And since we are "the mirror and image," we can see how we must be resigned to evil and error in the world, but never accept it. Rather, we must fight against it.

But the cosmogonic winds blow in all directions, up and down, forward and back, and some people obviously like to get their kicks on route 666 -- which is often paved with good intentions. In this regard, Schuon makes another subtle point, that evil, "by its very nature, tends to communicate itself... but it has this tendency precisely because it is opposed to the radiation of the good and thus cannot help imitating the latter in some fashion. For evil is by definition both opposition and imitation: within the framework of opposition it is ontologically forced to imitate; 'the more they curse God the more they praise Him,' said Meister Eckhart. Evil, insofar as it exists, participates in the good represented by existence." Evil "cannot be absolute," but "always depends upon some good which it misuses or perverts."

Therefore, we have faith that the Good must eventually triumph in the end. However, the Raccoon principle of "March Forth Madness" assures that there will be penalties for having picked and wagered on the wrong bracket in the course of one's life.

Thus, it seems to me that the most dangerous and deceptive form of evil is this grandiose and intoxicating imitation good, or ape of God. Can we just stipulate that this represents the ontological essence of "psycho-spiritual leftism" in all its diverse forms, or must I ssspell it out in another possst? "

(Oh) Brother Biden

"Biden is saying that Iraq is currently experiencing a civil war and that our troops should have no part in it. We should train Iraqi troops--presumably those of the Maliki government. However, Iraq needs a system of local control with a weak central government. So since we cannot militarily step in and help set up such a system, we should... what? Encourage civil war, as long as it's leading to the system that Biden says Iraq needs? That's Biden's 'political solution?'

What if our troops become targets in the Iraqi civil war? What if--sitting at their bases and training troops--insurgents attack them? Are we allowed to move among the general Iraqi population to weed out the insurgents? Because that sounds rather like what we're doing now. Or should U.S. troops simply stay on base and accept the 'slow bleed' as part and parcel of being in Iraq?

And what if we determine that al Qaeda is closely aligned with one of the parties to the civil war? Can we effectively take sides to keep terrorists from seizing large swaths of Iraqi territory?

Does anyone think that the Democratic 'plan'--insofar as it does not involve retreat--can actually work?"

Gagdad Discovers Gramsci

"Now obviously, all of these ideas are warped, twisted, and unnatural. No innocent person could ever spontaneously come up with these perversions. No one can believe these things unless they are placed there by an outside influence, or leftist reptool. Nevertheless, as in Genesis, the snake can have no influence over us unless there is something in man that is drawn to the dark, lower world of the snake.

Now, I wonder. Is there something analogous in the soul to that eery and otherworldly feeling of happening upon a snake in the wild? In a way, it is a sort of "high," for it does take you out of the ordinary, into a sort of thrilling and dangerous existential space. It certainly isn't boring.

Could leftism represent the dizzying thrill of the fall? After all, falling is a thrill, at least until you hit bottom, just as -- no disrespect intended here -- being the Crocodile Hunter was a thrill until he hit a stingray, and being a Euro-socialist will be a thrill until their experiment against reality is conquered by Islam.

You don't learn anything useful in a liberal education at an elite university -- nothing that you won't have to later unlearn. But what a thrill to fall so far in just four years!" [ I just realized what a dope I've been forgetting to put "Gramscian Damage" on my Classics links! -ed. ]

Neener, Neener, Neener

"Tomkins also said that they would be using new RAID technologies which allow them to store copies of e-mail in parallel universes. This means that if their servers crash they will be able to recover your data from another universe where they haven't.

"Once your Yahoo e-mail box is full, you'll be able to transfer it to Gmail and add one more message," said Tomkins. "Those Yahoos will have a hard time beating that."

When contacted about the Google announcement, a Yahoo representative said, "We will be making an announcement shortly about our million-trillion-billion infinity storage," and added, "Neener, neener, neener."

Not to be left out of the storage bonanza, a Hotmail representative said that while they "can't offer unlimited storage, they can delete all your e-mail at random intervals in conjunction with their Live OneCare service, to make sure you never run out of space.""

But You're Already Asleep Aren't You?

"To take an example I've been harping on recently, there are all sorts of appalling violations of power by local police and prosecutors, as Radley Balko has recently exposed with his superb work on the Cory Maye case. Many prisoners endure such brutalization that if I had to choose between going to a high-security prison and being interrogated by the Bush administration's favoured methods, I'd pick the waterboarding. This is a stain on our national honour, an outrage, an abomination. But does it mean that our society is not worth living in? Are we not free? Have we no liberty? Do we live in a police state because some peoples' liberties are thusly threatened? Are we close to a police state? Were we under the Democrats, when such abuses were equally likely to occur?

The other problem with the Democrats is that not all of their liberties abuses are economic. My understanding is that many of the abuses of the WOT result from expanding the Clinton's innovations in the execrable War on Drugs to terror suspects. It was, after all, the Clinton administration that sent tanks and SWAT teams in to deal with what were, at least allegedly, child custody disputes. Likewise, the innovations pushed by Democrats to shake more tax revenue out of the rich . . . like retroactive prosecution, special opaque courts for tax cases, spying on people's cash flows, asset seizure laws, and so forth . . . strike me as major civil liberties violations by any standard, which have trickled down the food chain quite rapidly. Democrats are pushing card check, which strikes me as a license for union organisers to terrorise uncooperative workers. They favour "hate crimes" legislation, which is the closest thing to a thought crime our society has. I could go on, but you're already asleep, aren't you?"

Welcome To The Memory Hole

"Sen Harry Reid (D-NV) :
"…I don’t think anyone can find a war that this country was engaged in where the funds were cut off. No one is talking about cutting off the funds."

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) :
"I do not support cutting funding for American troops."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) :
"We're not going to cut off funding to the troops … no one wants to do that."

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) :
"I don't know of any senator who would cut off funds for troops in the field." " (HT Glenn)

Private Moyse: Were, Were, Were

"The tragedy—and I am using that word in its full and proper meaning—the tragedy is, that these westernized Muslims are banging their heads against that Orwell quote. They have signed on to the modern world and its multi-culti fantasies. There was plenty of courage and good sense on display at St. Petersburg, but not much of those energizing principles Orwell spoke about: “racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war.” It’s the jihadis who have those.

The great genius of the English-speaking peoples was in holding the two sets of ideas in their minds at the same time: both “racial pride, leader-worship (well, to be fair to the Anglosphere, we never really went for that one), religious belief, love of war,” and “the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience ... the equality of all human persons.” This was quite a trick, as the two sets of principles actually contradict each other. It was Orwell himself who gave us the word “doublethink.”

The English, however—from Dr. Johnson down to Private Moyse and my Mum—were an un-intellectual lot, not much bothered by logical contradictions. Were, were, were." [ Wow. RTWT it's short. This one gets added to the classics links over right. Look up at this blog's masthead for the relevant F. Scott Fitzgerald quote... -ed. ]

Welcome To The New Parade (Same As The Old Parade)

"NEWSWEEK: How does your personal experience as a vet in Korea and Vietnam, and as a POW in Vietnam for nearly seven years, shape your thinking in the debate about the best way forward in Iraq?
Sam Johnson: People don't listen to history. If you look back to Vietnam, when we were POWs being held by the Viet Cong, we heard them broadcasting that our Congress had cut off funding. Congress did the same thing then that they're trying to do now—pull money from our war effort. They let the communists overrun South Vietnam after they'd already retreated to the point of giving up. We didn't support South Vietnam, and the communists sensed weakness and moved back in. I'm afraid that's what's going to happen again.

Do you think it's valid to compare what happened in Vietnam to what's going on in Iraq today?
I think it's a valid comparison. The only difference was we were fighting communists then in one country, and we're fighting terrorists now, worldwide. If you look at this Iranian capture of those British seamen, they acted the same way the communists did. They're parading them around on TV just like the Viet Cong did with American POWs. I don't think you can call the terrorists we're fighting now communists, but it's obvious that they've taken some lessons from somebody.

And you think what the Democrats in Congress are doing now compares to what the Democratic Congress did during Vietnam?
Sure it does. Furthermore, nowadays I think it won't just prompt the takeover of one country or part of one country, but it will stimulate activity worldwide in terrorist environments. They've already said they're out to annihilate the U.S. and Israel."

Surprise!

"Well, shucks! Looks like we underestimated those darned Iranians once again. Who knows how they'll surprise us next? Perhaps a mushroom cloud on the Hudson, or a series of them around Tel Aviv ..."

In Case You Were Wondering...

Reagan got the same MSMemory Hole treatment of course...

Did I Forget To Mention The MSMemory Hole?

"Mr. Stephanopoulos doesn't mention his own valuable expertise on the subject of fired federal prosecutors, the kind of expertise that might help place the current mess in context. Mr. Stephanopoulos was the Clinton White House communications director in 1993 when the Justice Department cleaned its slate of all 93 U.S. attorneys, and he was central to the administration's finessing of the episode--just the sort of insider experience, presumably, that prompted ABC News to hire Mr. Stephanopoulos fresh out of the White House in 1996.

And yet even when Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopoulos engage in the sort of exploratory anchor-reporter chitchat that is a staple of network news nowadays, somehow the two manage not to crack up as they rake over the latest sinister developments in the fired-prosecutors "scandal" without acknowledging that one of the newsmen knows a good bit more than he lets on about how these things work.

Mr. Stephanopoulos remains just as sober when working solo on Sunday mornings as the host of "This Week" or helping out on "Good Morning America." There hasn't been this much stone-faced comedy in circulation since Buster Keaton's heyday.

It's a pity, because Mr. Stephanopoulos might be able to help viewers understand why the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in the Bush administration has been by far the biggest television-news story lately, and yet when dozens of federal prosecutors were fired during the Clinton administration, it was barely noticed by network newscasts. According to the Tyndall Report, which tracks this sort of thing, during the week of March 12-16, the three network evening newscasts spent a total of 45 minutes on the prosecutors story, with the war in Iraq placing second at 16 minutes. "World News with Charles Gibson" logged 13 of those 45 minutes on the prosecutors.

By contrast, in 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno's wholesale firing of U.S. attorneys appointed by George H.W. Bush was a non-story on the ABC evening news--literally a non-story, according to records kept by the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive, as in zero coverage. CBS also skipped it; NBC gave it 20 seconds.

At the risk of putting a damper on all the fun, here's a primer on the sort of White House experience that ABC's chief Washington correspondent could draw on to enlighten viewers.

First of all, misleading messages from a hapless attorney general can be corrected: Janet Reno had only been on the job for a matter of days when she announced the blanket dismissal of U.S. attorneys in March 1993, and she bungled the job, letting word get out that prosecutors involved in significant investigations would be allowed to complete them. As was noted at the time, this would have meant that an ongoing investigation of the powerful House Democrat and vital Clinton ally, Dan Rostenkowski, by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jay Stephens, would continue uninterrupted.

The White House, or rather Mr. Stephanopoulos, quickly torpedoed that idea. In a press briefing, he announced that among the prosecutors whose resignations had been demanded, "there are at least some people who are in the middle of trials right now who will not be replaced." Trials, he specified, not investigations. "Interestingly," a Hartford Courant editorial noted back then, "Miss Reno didn't explain the impending dismissals. The president's personal spokesman, George Stephanopoulos, did the fast talking.""

The MSM Copperhead Blackout (Part 89754)

"And of course, there is irony that Sen Thurmond or Sen Lott have been hounded on charges of racism, but the only Senator who is a former member of the KKK, and who voted against both Black Supreme Court nominess (one Repub, one Dem) and both black Sec’ties of State (both on Pres Bush’s watch) is the guy there at the event to honor the Tuskeegee airmen.

Naturally, the press won’t breath a word about it."

Welcome To The New Corruption

So much better than the old of course... (Power Line via Glenn)

Today's MSM Pork Slop

"In fact, the word “pork” did not appear even once in his story.

He called it “pet projects.”

That has a much nicer sound, doesn’t it?

It is as if congressmen and senators were adopting animals from the local shelter.

Who could oppose pet projects for schoolchildren? Only those mean Republicans, right?

Milbank is not alone in the media shilling for congressional Democrats."

Hellholes Are Hard To Help

"African leaders often point fingers at the West for "not doing enough." But last week's meeting of the Southern African Development Community shows why sensible wealthy nations are reluctant to give aid.

For at that meeting, some of Africa's so-called leaders disgraced themselves by endorsing the brutal, murderous regime of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe's 27 years of misrule have taken a country that was once prosperous — the breadbasket of Africa, it was called — and turned it into a poverty-stricken hellhole rife with famine, genocide and terror, and lacking rule of law."

Leftist Kurds On The NorKorCom Starvation Monarchy

"Lasswell: In the United States the primary organizer of the anti-war movement is a group called ANSWER – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.

MJT: They lost all the left values, as well. They support North Korea, for God’s sake.

Mohtadi: How could they support North Korea! It’s not Marxist, it’s a kind of secular religion.

Lasswell: It’s a Starvation Monarchy." [ I highly recommend Totten. Go hit his tip jar. You just won't find this kind of depth or sanity in the MSM. And can I trade our leftists for Kurdish ones? Just a thought... -ed. ]

Thompson On Hirsi

"But her new autobiography, Infidel, is out now and the usual suspects are furious that she would argue for the liberation of Muslim women. Due to serious and credible threats, she is once again surrounded by guards.

There were many Germans and other Europeans who came to America and warned of the Nazi threat in the 1930s, including writers and filmmakers. Can you imagine that any of them would have ever needed bodyguards?

Hirsi Ali does — right here in America. Yet too many people still don’t understand what our country is up against. They might if they read her book." [ I have to admit that Thompson has been using his guest host gig for Paul Harvey well. Well enough to remind me of Reagan's communication skills even... -ed. ]

VDH: The End Of Mellifluence

"There are reasons along more existential lines for why Iran acts so boldly. After the end of the Cold War, most Western nations — i.e., Europe and Canada — cut their military forces to such an extent that they were essentially disarmed. The new faith was that, after a horrific twentieth century, Europeans and the West in general had finally evolved beyond the need for war.

With the demise of fascism, Nazism, and Soviet Communism, and in the new luxury of peace, the West found itself a collective desire to save money that could be better spent on entitlements, to create some distance from the United States, and to enhance international talking clubs in which mellifluent Europeans might outpoint less sophisticated others. And so three post-Cold War myths arose justify these.

First, that the past carnage had been due to misunderstanding rather than the failure of military preparedness to deter evil.

Second, that the foundations of the new house of European straw would be “soft” power. Economic leverage and political hectoring would deter mixed-up or misunderstood nations or groups from using violence. Multilateral institutions — the World Court or the United Nations — might soon make aircraft carriers and tanks superfluous.

All this was predicated on dealing with logical nations — not those countries so wretched as to have nothing left to lose, or so spiteful as to be willing to lose much in order to hurt others a little, or so crazy as to welcome the “end of days.” This has proved an unwarranted assumption. And with the Middle East flush with petrodollars, non-European militaries have bought better and more plentiful weaponry than that which is possessed by the very Western nations that invented and produced those weapons.

Third, that in the 21st century there would be no serious enemies on the world stage. Any violence that would break out would probably be due instead to either American or Israeli imperial, preemptive aggression — and both nations could be ostracized or humiliated by European shunning and moral censure. The more Europeans could appear to the world as demonizing, even restraining, Washington and Tel Aviv, the more credibility abroad would accrue to their notion of multilateral diplomacy.

But even the European Union could not quite change human nature, and thus could not outlaw the entirely human business of war. There were older laws at play — laws so much more deeply rooted than the latest generation’s faddish notions of conflict resolution. Like Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance, which would work only against the liberal British, and never against a Hitler or a Stalin, so too the Europeans’ moral posturing seemed to affect only the Americans, who singularly valued the respect of such civilized moralists."

Welcome To The Fountain Of "Youths"

"Signs that the times are changing —24 hours after the punk jihad riots, the media delivered a profile of the “kid” whose arrest sparked 8 hours of mayhem in the bowels of the Gare du Nord.

The “kid” is one Angelo H. He is, it turns out, 32 years old, an illegal Congolese immigrant, and subject to a deportation order 1993.

The “kid” has been in trouble since he came to France at the age of ten—twenty-two registered condemnations for violent incidents and many that went unreported.

The cops initially went to arrest a little cheater and found they had bagged a hardened criminal. Instead of paying for a ticket like millions of law-abiding passengers Angelo H. jumped the turnstile and was, exceptionally, arrested. In a matter of seconds he had head-butted—or slapped—one of the RATP agents. When the agents wrestled him to the ground, Angelo screamed bloody murder, a small crowd gathered in protest against the agents’ brutality. And the call to battle rang out.

Almost instantly Angelo became a thirteen year-old boy whose arms were fractured by the cruel agents (shades of Mohamed al Dura). Then a pregnant woman was added to the list of victims of police brutality. All that was missing was “the infidels set fire to the mosque.”

Police reinforcements arrived, tried in vain to calm the situation, resorted to the use of tear gas. The crowd swelled to an estimated three to four hundred, battled the police until 1:30 AM (the incident began at 4:30 PM) when calm was restored.

For how long? Anyone who has visited Paris and hurried down the endless corridors of, for example, Châtelet metro & RER station & banlieu hangout, can imagine future battles in this ongoing punk jihad. The clash of civilizations that Europe does not want to recognize is rolling into Paris on the metro rails.

Against the Giuliani principle, represented in a mild French version by Nicolas Sarkozy, stands the jihad-intifada strategy: I disrespect your laws, defy your authority, attack you frontally and if you dare lift a hand against me I scream “victim” and call in my troops."

The Polite Hitch

"At present, it seems that some Democrats are interpreting public disillusionment with Iraq as a mandate for isolationism and for treating a country that occupies a keystone position between Iran and Saudi Arabia as if it were negligible or irritating or an obstacle to plans for universal health care or the arrest of global warming. That this is a huge historical mistake is the least offensive way of putting it."

Offside Farcical Worms

"The flagrant and outrageous Iranian seizure of 15 Royal Navy personnel on patrol in the Shat al-Arab, well outside Iranian waters (we needn’t waste time discussing absurd Iranian claims) is not necessarily connected with anything. The Iranians often pull stunts like that, without fully thinking through their purposes. Rather it should be taken as the latest indication of how unpredictable they are. This is, after all, a country whose president utters public fantasies about nuclear war, in the context of Shia Islamic apocalyptic hallucinations.

But even in this comparatively small matter, in which the Iranians have behaved, yet again, in defiance of all norms of international conduct, just what do the British propose to do about it? Prime Minister Blair said yesterday that efforts to obtain the sailors’ release will enter a “different phase” if diplomatic negotiations fail. In other words, the British will start yelling louder.

What else is possible? It may make no sense for any politician in the West to sink himself, doing what really needs to be done now, to prevent Armageddon farther down the road. It may make more sense to let the catastrophe happen. Whenupon, pretty much everyone will be onside for doing something fairly definitive about Iran." [ Unfortunately, I'm beginning to believe that everyone won't be "onside" when this happens (notice the missing "if"). How I wish I could be more optimistic. We have come to believe that we're history buffs if we can remember the last five minutes and have forgotten that even in WWII there were only 9 Allies. We now ignorantly refer to it as the grand coalition rather than the close run thing it was. The second time a farce and all that... -ed. ]

Something Useful

"My equally ex-RN wife's remark upon seeing Turney on TV wearing a headscarf was "I would have thanked them for giving me something I could use to strangle one of the guards with when I eventually make my escape, but if they want me to wear it, well I would have told them exactly where they can..."

My good wife is a forthright person and decorum prevents me from finishing her remarks."

And Again: Here We Are

"What is the most serious threat facing our civilisation?

Loss of classical liberal values in those western societies that embraced them.

England was the first modern state, the first superpower, the first nation to deal with moral issues around the world, and the first nation to install the benefits of what we might now loosely term a liberal society. I mean that in the 19th century sense of liberalism. That notion of liberalism was also present in America, but made it to the Continent only in a pale and limited form. It is a wonderful social conception that must be vigilantly guarded. It is not shared by other nations in the world. Nor is it shared by many citizens in English-speaking countries. Peculiarly, many of our most educated citizens are least sympathetic to classical liberal ideals. Indeed the term 'liberalism' in the modern day has come to imply a constellation of attitudes that John Stuart Mill would not recognize as liberal at all. Nor would, say, John F. Kennedy recognize them as liberal. Kennedy's conception of liberalism was simultaneously more tolerant and more tough-minded: tolerant about varieties of behavior within the society, and tough-minded toward threats to a tolerant society from without.

That's all gone, now. Today there is far too much sensitivity within societies, and too little hard-nosed recognition of threats from without. We are inclined to be intolerant of speech by our friends and neighbors, and tolerant of beheadings, rape, and homophobia in distant lands.

This makes no sense. But here we are."

Michael Thanks You Very Much

"What is wrong with us that we ignore this human misery and focus on events a hundred years from now? What must we do to awaken our phenomenally rich, spoiled and self-centered society to the issues of the wider world? The global crisis is not 100 years from now—it is right now. We should be addressing it. But we are not. Instead, we cling to the reactionary and anti-human doctrines of outdated environmentalism and turn our backs to the cries of the dying and the starving and the diseased of our shared world.

And if we are going to remain too self-involved to care about the third world, can we at least care about our own? We live in a country where 40% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate. Where schoolchildren pass through metal detectors on the way to class. Where one child in four says they have seen a murdered person. Where millions of our fellow citizens have no health care, no decent education, no prospects for the future. If we really have trillions of dollars to spend, let us spend it on our fellow human beings. And let us spend it now. And not on our impossible fantasies of what may happen one hundred years from now.

Thank you very much."

The New Tribal Lands

"The flight routes from Pakistan to the United Kingdom are now the most important ideological conduit for radical Islam. The London bombers last summer were British subjects of Pakistani origin. Last week, two more were arrested in connection with the Tube bombings at Manchester Airport as they prepared to board a plane to Karachi.

Meanwhile, flying back from Karachi and Islamabad to Heathrow and Manchester are cousins, lots and lots of them. In his detailed study of the Mirpur district in Pakistan, Roger Ballard estimates that at least half and maybe up to two-thirds of those living in Britain of Mirpuri descent marry first cousins. This is a critical tool of reverse-assimilation: instead of being diluted over the generations, tribal identity is reinforced; in effect, Pakistani tribal lands are now being established in parts of northern England.

It is often forgotten that the Dark Ages were also the heyday of multiculturalism. Each valley held its petty lord and it was possible for places separated only by a few miles to speak totally different languages. But it can't happen again, can it?"

Gutter Priorities ...

... truly makes we want to you know what. As Golda Meir said, "We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us." (HT LGF)

And When Did They Stop Being Corrupt Exactly?

"This is genuine news. Political corruption on a scale as big as Duke Cunningham, and the mainstream press is worried about 8 US attorneys losing their jobs in a completely legal hard-ball political axing-session.

The Culture of Corruption has 'returned' - bigger and better than ever before!" [ Why the quotes on 'returned'? My judgment would be that it can't 'return' if it never went away! A friend of mine proposes the solution to all of this. He suggests that however long you serve in Congress, you automatically have to go serve an equal amount of time in jail when you're done. While it sounds good, if we did this then what you think is gerrymandering now to keep seats safe would be looked back upon nostalgically as child's play... -ed. ]

A New Form Of Evil

"As a young man, in 1974, I was riding on a bus traveling from Beirut to Damascus. The man I sat next to was an English-speaking Iraqi whom I asked at one point in our conversation, "Can you describe your nation in a sentence?" "No problem," he immediately answered. "We Iraqis are the most barbaric people in the world."

I obviously never forgot that man's words, and therefore anticipated great cruelties in Iraq. But neither I nor anyone who predicted a civil war had so much as a premonition of this unprecedented mass murder of the men, women and children among one's own people as a military tactic to defeat an external enemy.

It is, therefore, unfair to blame the Bush administration for not anticipating such a determined "insurgency." Without the mass murder of fellow Iraqis, there would hardly be any "insurgency." The combination of suicide terrorists and a theology of death has created an unprecedented form of "resistance" to an occupier: "We will murder as many men, women and children as we can until you leave." Nor is this a matter of Sunnis murdering Shiites and vice versa: college students, women shopping at a Baghdad market and hospital workers all belong to both groups. Truck bombs cannot distinguish among tribes or religious affiliations.

If America had to fight an insurgency directed solely against us and coalition forces -- even including suicide bombers -- we would surely have succeeded. No one, right, left or center, could imagine a group of people so evil, so devoid of the most elementary and universal concepts of morality, that they would target their own people, especially the most vulnerable, for murder.

That is why we have not yet prevailed in Iraq. Even without all the mistakes made by the Bush administration -- and what political or military leadership has not made many errors in prosecuting a war? -- it could not have foreseen this new form of evil we are witnessing in Iraq.

That is why we have not won.

There are respectable arguments to be made against America's initially going into Iraq. But intellectually honest opponents of the war have to acknowledge that no one could anticipate an "insurgency" that included people leaving children in a car and then blowing them up." [ Please note that none of this would have slowed the (real) Nazis one whit. They simply would have pitched in and helped slaughter the same civilians with gas chambers just like they did in WWII. Which leads me to the key weakness in Prager's thesis: The Nazis did in fact slaughter their own civilians -- it's just that this was not a tactic to repel the Allies! As the wise old Indian teacher said, if Ghandi had been protesting against the Nazis instead of the British he would have quickly been made into a lampshade (or something close enough to it). The Islamists are doing this in equal parts to repel and trick us -- my apologies to all you BDS sufferers out there but neither I nor my second cousin in the 82nd Airborne (or my uncle in the 82nd Airborne in WWII) are most assuredly not Nazis -- as well as intimidate Iraqis into complicity. They have redefined the dictionary entry for "ruthless men". And will do so again as WMD technology continues to filter into their hands... -ed. ]

QOTD: ""Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." -- Milton Friedman"

Evan Sayet: Below Above The Fold

Pajamas has Evan Sayet below the fold. That isn't the right place for him at all. He's an extremely good communicator and razor sharp...

Go Read Walid. Now.

"The capture of British Navy servicemen by Iranian forces is not simply an incident over sea sovereignty in the Persian Gulf. It is a calculated move on behalf of Teheran's Jihadi chess players to provoke a "projected" counter move by London and its American allies. It is all happening in a regional context, carefully engineered by the Mullahs strategic planners. Here is how:

The Iranian regime's master plan is to wait out the remainder of Tony Blair's mandate (few more months) and the remaining "real time" of President Bush (till about the end of 2007). For the thinking process in Tehran, based on their Western consultants, believe that Washington and London have reached the end of the rope and will only have till 2008 to do something major to destabilize Ahmedinijad regime. As explained by a notorious propagandist on al Jazeera today the move is precisely to respond to the Anglo-American attempt to "stir trouble" inside Iran. Anis Naccash, a Lebanese intellectual supporter of the Ayatollahs regime, appearing from Tehran few hours ago on the Qatari-based satellite and "explained" that the "US and the UK must understand that Iran is as much at war with these two powers in as much as they support the rise of movements and security instability inside Iran." He added that Khamenei is clear on the regime's decision to strike: "we will be at war with you on all levels: secret, diplomatic, military and other." Pro-Iranian propagandists in the region, via media and online rushed to warn that this movement is part of Iran's counter-strike against any attempt to destabilize the regime. Two major tracks emerge from these statements, the Iranian military maneuvers and the capture of British Navy personnel."

Just Another Day In Egypt

"The real reason is simple: Where does the government, the corrupt ministers, the ruthless SS officers and their soldiers come from? Aren't they egyptians? Don't they come from egyptian families and households? Aren't they born and raised here like the rest of us? Well, what does that exactly say about us? Whether we like it or not, the government is a reflection of the people. So if the government is ruthless, corrupt and dictatorial, what does that say about the people? What does it say about the parents of the police officers that order their soldiers to beat up and sexually assault women? What does it say about the families of those corrupt government officials who sign away our future and that of our children for a bunch of dirty money? What does it say about a nation that produces such a government, and accepts it, even as it plunders the country and enslaves its people?

Maybe the government is right: Maybe we don't deserve Democracy. Maybe we don't deserve our rights. Maybe we deserve everything that happens to us. We, as people, seem to lack the sense of self-respect and dignity that makes the human being demand his/her right, so how do we expect the government to respect us or give us those rights? We clearly don't deserve them. We clearly deserve to have our rights stolen, our friends imprisoned, and our women assaulted. Cause, otherwise, how would you explain how accepting we are of those things?

Maybe we don't deserve any better.

For the first time ever, I will go to sleep feeling utter hatred and disdain for my countrymen, while my heart weeps silently for my country!

I hope that none of you, ever, gets to experience that feeling!"

Goracle's Majesty

Power Line has one that's just too good...

In Which Glue Melts To Glass?

"See also this Roggio article on the larger situation in Pakistan, which is rapidly coming unglued; even guys like Carl Levin are beginning to sound the alarm.

There are significant implications here for NATO's Afghan operation, and indeed for the future course of the global war. Musharraf's phony accord has handed Osama and his Taliban allies a base comparable to pre-2001 Afghanistan. One they've been busy consolidiating; there are reports that America has no human intelligence left in those sanctuaries. Sanctuaries protected by the nuclear weapons Pakistan was unwisely allowed to obtain - and with the potential for future access to those weapons as al Qaeda and the Taliban further consolidate their strength within Pakistan."