"I just hope that there is enough of the "Old Europe" left to justify our saving it.

Again."

Signs It Won't Quite Work Out ...

The way these people Cuckoo Clocks expect:



Chalk up another one for the there is justice in the world files...

The NYeT Staffing Pipeline

"Long winded writing and dodgy facts." Yes, just what we need is more Jayson Blairs to go along with 17th.

Oh brother...

Perfectly Puerile Projection

Projection is back big time.

Gelernter strikes hard on the Dhimmi-crats and their Infantile American Principle:

Now some readers will say, hold on, be fair! Democrats only oppose vouchers because the teachers unions ordered them to. Agreed, teachers unions are a big factor in every major decision a good Democrat makes, starting with what cereal to have for breakfast. But Democrats also oppose vouchers out of honest conviction. They are honestly convinced that ordinary Americans don't have the brains to choose a school for their own kids.

The way I normally think of them is as puerile fascifists. But that's just because I tend toward thinking the best of folks rather than taking the avalanche of evidence at face value that they're on the other side.

Control complexes result in puerile projection. My IQ -- not to mention EQ -- is Oh so much lower than theirs.

NOT.

And go read the hat tip from Armed Liberal while you're in the neighborhood...

"In truth, in a free society, income is earned through pleasing and serving one’s fellow man. I mow your lawn, repair your roof or teach your kid economics. In turn you give me dollars. We can think of dollars as certificates of performance."

Hitch Is Back

With an overdue obit for the "Arab street":

Other Muslim streets are even more problematic for those who lazily assume that the jihadists are the voice of the unheard. The populations of Bosnia and Kosovo—populations that actually did have to confront anti-Muslim violence on a large scale—are generally hostile to Bin-Ladenism. Nobody has ever used the term "Iranian street," at least in print or on broadcast news, if only because everyone knows that Iranian opinion, as registered during the mock elections or voiced to visiting hacks, is strongly against the reigning theocracy.

This doesn't entitle those of us in the regime-change camp to claim the "street" either. It simply means that those who once annexed the term have been forced to drop it, and for a good reason. The struggle for public opinion in the region is a continuing one and cannot be determined in advance, least of all by pseudo-populists who grant the violent Islamists their first premise.

The same will hold true, one hopes, for the cheap propagandists who have lately been flourishing the term "Islamophobia." This word, or slogan, has been gaining ground among soft defenders of Islamism in Europe. It is used to put a stop to discussion about the political aims of Islamists in non-Islamic societies, and it has most recently generated great nervousness in Britain—sufficient nervousness to decide the Blair government to introduce legislation to make criticism of Islam into a prohibited hate crime.

Here again, the most persuasive evidence is the evidence that looks us in the face. In Iraq, Muslim militants place bombs in the mosques of those Muslims they regard as heretics. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, too, the Salafi and Wahhabi extremists commit murder against Muslims they deem unclean or unorthodox. And in the West, there are non-Muslims who excuse such atrocities as "resistance." These are often the same as those who hailed what they thought of as the "street." I don't think they should be indicted for hate crimes, but they should be made to understand that what they say is hateful and criminal, as well as sectarian. The battle for clarity of language is a part of this larger contest, and it is time for the opponents of terror and bigotry to become very much less apologetic and defensive on this score.

And so they would if not for being so risibly puerile...

Canuck corruption continues cheekily...

This Is What *NOT* NYeT

Reads like:

May 2, 2005: There are increasing signs that a rift has developed in the Baath Party leadership. It appears that two camps are emerging. The more moderate group – who might be termed “Accomodationists” – seems to have decided that continuing armed resistance to the Interim Government and its American and Coalition supports is likely to get nowhere, and merely alienate Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, who are the backbone of Baath support. In recent weeks representatives of the Accomodationists reportedly have been in contact with the Iraqi government, US officials, moderate Sunni leaders, and UN personnel. The Iraqi Transitional Government has UN support. The Accomodationists are seeking to discuss terms under which an amnesty might be offered and formal legitimacy accorded the Baath as one of the country’s political parties. Presumably some complex negotiations will result from this. How the more radical Baath Party supporters – call them the “Rejectionists” – will react to this is not clear. Even before Saddam, factions in the Baath movement were wont to settle their differences with bloodshed, so a Baath purge or even civil war is not out of the question.

The Syrian pullout from Lebanon may have some interesting effects on the Iraqi violence. The Syrians have indicated that they will be using the troops released by the pull-out to bolster the security of their frontier with Iraq. This will impede the movement of personnel and materiel from Syria into Iraq in support of the anti-government forces, while, not incidentally, improving Syria’s image with the US and other Western Powers.

Perhaps of equal importance, however, is that the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, leaves Iraqi-sympathizing groups in Lebanon – such as Hezbollah and other Islamist and pro-Palestinian militias – without the moderating influence that the Syrian presence provided. The Syrians more or less protected these groups from any threats by the Lebanese government to bring them to heel, provided some security against Israeli intervention, and kept the sometimes mutually-hostile groups from attacking each other. With the Syrians gone, these groups, which have been supplying men, money, and equipment to the Iraqi terrorists, are likely to reduce their level of support for the Iraqi terrorism in order to strengthen themselves in Lebanon.

In April, the level of car bomb were the highest in about six months. While it's not always easy to determine what the objectives of car bombs attacks are, it seems that only about a quarter of the attacks actually have been successful, in the sense that they hit the planned target. About a third more were partial successes, in that they did some damage to the intended target but detonated prematurely. About another third seem to have been intercepted by security forces or detonated so prematurely that they caused no damage to their intended targets. Naturally, even the premature detonations have killed or injured people. Most of the casualties have been Iraqi civilians, although most of the attacks seem to have actually been aimed at Iraqi, American, or Coalition forces. On the other hand, the assassination rate in April was about average for the past six months, running about 10-15 a week (though the rate for January was very high due to the terrorists attempt to disrupt the elections). Although a mid-level member of the interim government was killed this past week, most of the victims have been relatively low level political, police, and military officials.

The "De-Baathification" Process is a big issue. Accomodationist Baath leaders have been quietly negotiating with Iraqi Interim Government authorities about integration into the political process. The question of "de-Baathification" seems to be a stumbling block. The Baathists would like a halt to further investigations and persecutions. Many Shias and Kurds in the government, and even a few American politicians, seem to want a total purge of all Baath influence, which would mean the complete exclusion of anyone with Baath connections from any role in a new Iraqi government. While parallel's with the "de-Nazification" of Germany have been drawn, most of those drawing the parallels have missed the point. In fact, the Allied de-Nazification of Germany did not actually go very deep. The focus of de-Nazification was primarily on decapitating the Nazi movement. Of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Nazi Party members, only about 6,000 were actually ever charged by Allied officials during the occupation of Germany. And only about 600 were actually sent to jail (this excludes people charged with specific war crimes). Most former Nazi Party members were quickly reintegrated into civil and political life. Even among those sent to jail, almost all were out within a decade.

One major difference between Iraq and Nazi Germany is that in Iraq, Baath diehards continue to fight to regain power. There was no such Nazi terror campaign after World War II. Also, the German Nazis came from every region and religion in the country, while nearly all of the Iraqi Baath and al Qaeda terrorists are Sunni Arabs, which are less than twenty percent of the population. Recently, the Iraqi terrorists have made another major effort to break the morale, and effectiveness, of the government, and particularly the police. In the last four days, terrorist attacks have killed some 120 people, mostly civilians. In the last two months, over 400 Iraqi security troops (police, army, security guards) have been killed, out of a force of over 150,000. An equal number of Coalition troops only lost 87 dead in the same period. This has become a war of Iraqi versus Iraqi. More precisely, it's Sunni Arab terrorists killing Iraqi civilians (including Sunni Arabs.) The Shia and Kurd hard liners are calling for harsh policies against the Sunni population that harbors and supports the terrorists. The government is using this very real threat to get Sunni leaders to negotiate a peace deal. This includes the tribal and religious leaders providing information on where the terrorists are. The terrorists have threatened to kill any Sunni Arabs who do this, and have carried out attacks on Sunni leaders to prove their threat. But more and more Sunni Arabs are ratting out the terrorists, and in the last two months, dozens of raids, often carried out by Iraqi police, have shut down bomb factories and terrorist safe houses. But many of the terrorists are determined to fight to the death. In this respect, they are more like the Japanese soldiers of World War II, not the Nazi German troops. Alas, the Japanese troops, at least most of them, obeyed their emperor's command to surrender in August, 1945. There is no emperor of the Islamic terrorists, and many of the terrorists will fight to the death, the others will become disillusioned and go home. The Iraqi Sunni Arabs have declared Iraq to be the battlefield for a war between Islamic radicals and the rest of the world. The Sunni Arabs have to decide whose side they are on, before the rest of Iraq declares war on them.

Surely you've become a regular Strategy Page reader by now?

And surely you've cancelled your subscription by now to any retarded [That would be pretty much all of them -ed. Can't argue with that.] MSM rags you still retain...

Warren takes on arrant nonsense.

And errant nonsense too. (See the last post.)

Did I Mention That W Is Actually A Septenthian?

Mary Madigan rocks with this post:

Unfortunately, also last week our President exploded another myth. He just killed the belief that America has been fighting a war against terrorism by publicly begging the financier and the source of most Islamist terrorism for a favor.

Appeasing the Saudi government and helping the Royals in any way they can has been a long-standing policy of our Government. It’s doubtful that the Democrats could criticize Bush for his actions when Clinton accepted millions in Saudi donation towards the building of his library, or when Jimmy Carter accepts many millions in Saudi donations for ‘peace’ in Africa.

But like many Democrats, the Bush administration still seems to be living in a 9/10 universe. According to this article, Pump Dreams, published in the New Yorker and in the Energy Bulletin, Dick Cheney stated that the war in Iraq was necessary to protect America’s friends in the region:

.. in August, 2002, seven months before the war started, Cheney warned that Saddam would be able to seize control of the world’s economic lifeline if he acquired weapons of mass destruction: “Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten per cent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies, directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”

America's friends as in Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil wealth pays Osama bin Laden’s salary, and the salaries of most Islamist terror organizations around the world. They are responsible for 9/11. As our president held Abdullah’s hand, Abdullah’s employee and friend, chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan encouraged young Saudis to go to Iraq to kill American soldiers.

"This statement shows the real face of the Saudi government," says Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute, based in Washington.

Al-Ahmed says that while Saudi officials — including Sheik Luhaidan — publicly oppose jihad in Iraq, privately some send a different message.

"He is telling Saudis it's OK to go to Iraq and kill Americans and Iraqis and they won’t be punished for doing that," says Al-Ahmed.

Young Saudis don’t need Al Luhaidan to tell them to kill Americans. They were happy to do that on 9/11, and they’ve been killing, maiming American soldiers and destroying the Iraqi oil fields since the ‘end’ of the Iraq war. As we can see from oil prices, terrorism has been very profitable for the KSA.

These are our friends?

Of course, in WWII FDR had to make common cause with Stalin to defeat Hitler. I sincerely hope that's what W is doing. What's going on with Musharraf in Pakistan comes to mind along that vein.

Or W may still be a Septenthian.

And some of us actually understand that another key player in this battle is either nuttier than a Cuckoo clock or a step from Lucifer himself.

Or BOTH.

Ummmm -- Yes, Mr. Khamenei

That would be correct:

Tehran, 27 April (AKI) - The Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has said that “human rights, are a weapon in the hands of our enemies to fight Islam.”

Speaking at the Conference for the Unity of Islam which opened in Tehran yesterday, Khamenei said: “The awakening of Muslims, had weakened the plot by America, by international Zionism and by other hidden forces on the planet implicated in a universal strategy which has the objective of fighting Islamic nations, which are a force of one and a half billion believers and with the large natural reserves.”

To a mixed audience of Iranians, Arabs and other foreigners at the conference, Ayatollah Khamenei said that it was “only through the unity of all Muslims, can they confront these diabolical attempts.”

Khamenei also explained how Iran is viewed globally in the role that it plays within the context of Islam. As the supreme leader of the Islamic republic, he said, that the “country has contributed to the awakening of Muslims and our enemies are trying to compensate for their poverty of thought, and so they have raised the banner of terrorism and are armed with human rights in order to defeat Islam and Muslims.”

Yes. That would be all that "poverty of thought" contained in the Magna Carta, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution and modern science. You know, all that stuff that the Islamists are too busy chopping off heads to read up on.

Anyone who can't understand the Iranian Islamists as the brutal paranoid thugs that they are from comments like this -- not to mention their actions -- is quite simply insensate.

Or worse...

BINGO.

First go read "The Last Jaw Dropper" over right. Then read these few paragraphs. Then ponder them together...

"They sit there with blank expressions, mouths hanging open like a brook trout, staring off into the distance."

Majority Vote Wins

Ann strikes again:

If the details helped liberals, I promise you we'd be hearing the details. Most important, if liberals could win in the court of public opinion, they wouldn't need the federal courts to hand them their victories in the first place. The reason liberals refuse to elaborate on "extremist right-wing ideologue" is that they need liberal courts to give them gay marriage, a godless Pledge of Allegiance, abortion on demand, nude dancing, rights for pederasts, and everything else they could never win in America if it were put to a vote.

Umm -- yeah.

Who turned my world upside down?

Quoting: The Ultimate Cruelty

MSMemory Hole Update: Pot. Kettle. Nuts?

Here's nice encapsulation of the state of the loony left -- which now seems truly indistinguishable to me from the corpus of the Dhimmi party -- in it's conspiracy unified effort to repeal majority voting for judicial nominations.

You really can't understand this sort of stuff anymore without the help of Dr. Sanity I'm afraid... (And here's the series you missed...)

Our Moderate Salazar

Salazar and the Dhimmi-crats told the people of Colorado that they were electing a moderate. Yes, that's right -- moderates have a habit labeling people they don't like as the "anti-Christ". And then his "apology" is to back off and call a Christian preacher "un-Christian". So his idea of a safe retreat to a moderate position when (inevitably) exposed as a hateful radical is a moderated position of ad hominem attack.

One word: Horsepucky.

Sowell Rocks On Redneck Culture

This just got added to my classics:

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both.

If this disparity is not due to race, it is equally hard to explain by racism. To a racist, one black is pretty much the same as another. But, even if a racist somehow let his racism stop at the water's edge, how could he tell which student was the son or daughter of someone born in the West Indies or in Africa, especially since their American-born offspring probably do not even have a foreign accent?

What then could explain such large disparities in demographic "representation" among these three groups of blacks? Perhaps they have different patterns of behavior and different cultures and values behind their behavior.

...

Disparities between Southern whites and Northern whites extended across the board from rates of violence to rates of illegitimacy. American writers from both the antebellum South and the North commented on the great differences between the white people in the two regions. So did famed French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville.

RTWT -- it's not long...

Borking pure and simple...

Another Crucial Milestone

In Egypt is pointed out by Glenn:



Yup. No burkas and ropes for her!

"The Democratic tent has shrunk to the size of a dunce cap."

Democracy NYeT!
Sad, but the NYeT norm I'm afraid...

If it's real, now you know who to blame.

The lighter side of evil. And you absolutely must read Wretchard's take if you can't take the time to RTWT...

What Hateful Idiot Leftists Will Never, Ever, Never Ever

Get:

Let nobody mislead you, the Iraq that we inherited in April 2003, following the British and American-led liberation, was a tragedy.

The Ba’athist criminals had starved the country of an infrastructure and the people of their freedom.

Apart from the Kurdish safe haven, Iraq was a playground for thugs and a prison for the innocent.

Saddam’s war against the Iraqi people was on-going; we have evidence which demonstrates that the regime was executing its challengers until the last days of its rule.

It was that war, lasting almost forty years, which was the true war of Iraq.

(HT: Roger again)

"Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment" (HT: Roger)

"It follows that President Bush should be inviting Muslims like that to his ranch, not Muslims like Crown Prince Abdullah."

Gandering And Guffawing At Galloway's Gallows

Sometimes you may think there's no justice in the world. But once in while a story comes along that just warms your heart like this one about British Saddam sycophant George Galloway:

Given Galloway's high profile anti-war record, his richly deserved reputation as a Muslim sycophant and his frequent visitor status with Saddam, plus the fact that Muslims may be reluctant to vote for a black Jewish woman and even less likely to vote Conservative, George had reason on his side in thinking he could have been a natural shoo-in.

Alas, last Wednesday night's public meeting ended in a knock-down drag-out between just about everyone. At a dinner in the nearby Bangladeshi curry restaurant (sit down and take-out) Zeera, at a $50-a-head fundraising for King, a surprise celebrity had been announced.

Meanwhile, before King's fundraiser, Galloway and King met on the hustings for some electioneering before a crowd made up mainly of young Muslim men. The sitting MP, King, who holds the Labour seat with a 10,000 vote majority, many of them middle class whites, told the crowd that a vote for Respect would split the Labour vote and hand a victory to the Conservatives. Galloway accused Tony Blair of "waging war on Muslims" and accused Oona King of being "soft on drugs".

Vituperative accusations flew back and forth between the two candidates. Meanwhile, the crowd of young Muslim men pelted King with eggs and slashed her tires. The Independent's Johann Hari wrote of the Muslim men (no women): "They are intelligent and furious young conservatives, driven by hatred of Western liberalism in all its forms, and absolutely convinced they are being viciously persecuted by the 'infidel' state. It is very hard to engage them in a political dialogue that makes sense -- you talk tax credits and they talk Caliphate, you talk a higher minimum wage and they talk about Mohammed's third wife."

Sure enough, if the Muslim crowd didn't like King, neither did they like Galloway -- who has adopted almost every conservative Islamic position on almost everything, and, like Rod Stewart in his golden oldie Maggie Mae, "couldn't have tried any more" -- accusing him of being "a false prophet".

As the crowd was turning ugly, back at the Bangladeshi Zeera, which had had the honor of preparing a take-out for the IOC when they visited London, the surprise celebrity had entered and turned out to be none other than the prime minister's wife Cherie, a High Court judge. Ms. Booth (as she prefers to be called when it suits her), no lightweight, hove onto the little platform and began attacking George Galloway and Respect with a level of petty invective and vulgarity surprising from a British High Court judge.

"I'm sure his mother loves him," she sneered, inexplicably. "But," she revved up the crowd, "give George Galloway a bloody nose!"

The crowd at the hustings had more than a bloody nose in mind for George, informing him that they were "setting up a gallows" for him. It seems that, among the many other things about the West that offend him, Allah doesn't like voting, either. According to these angry young Muslims, the revealed truth is, voting is "un-Islamic". Live and learn. Any young Muslims contemplating voting for Galloway and Respect were warned that they would attract a sentence of death. One of them went so far as to issue a fatwa on Galloway, although as a non-cleric his word carries no weight other than intimidation.

As the level of invective and violence rose, and the two groups of Muslims turned to punching, pulling offensive weapons and kicking each other, Galloway's daughter, who had been waiting for him in his car, called the police.

The bad news is that these people psychopaths want to kill us too...

Move along now. The U.N. is perfect. Perfect I tell ya...

ACLU hypocrisy watch.

A NEW BENCHMARK IN MSM INSANITY? "Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion." Brother.

Well at least we can breathe easy that he won't be an ambassador -- until the next Dhimmi-crat administration...

The Roots Of Modern Jihad

Bat Yeor puts the Armenian genocide in context in a quote embedded in an article by Dr. Bostom:

The genocide of the Armenians was the natural outcome of a policy inherent in the politico-religious structure of dhimmitude. This process of physically eliminating a rebel nation had already been used against the rebel Slav and Greek Christians, rescued from collective extermination by European intervention, although sometimes reluctantly.

The genocide of the Armenians was a jihad. No rayas took part in it. Despite the disapproval of many Muslim Turks and Arabs, and their refusal to collaborate in the crime, these masssacres were perpetrated solely by Muslims and they alone profited from the booty: the victims' property, houses, and lands granted to the muhajirun, and the allocation to them of women and child slaves. The elimination of male children over the age of twelve was in accordance with the commandments of the jihad and conformed to the age fixed for the payment of the jizya. The four stages of the liquidation- deportation, enslavement, forced conversion, and massacre- reproduced the historic conditions of the jihad carried out in the dar-al-harb from the seventh century on. Chronicles from a variety of sources, by Muslim authors in particular, give detailed descriptions of the organized massacres or deportation of captives, whose sufferings in forced marches behind the armies paralleled the Armenian experience in the twentieth century.

Didn't realize how historically ignorant we are of the Jihad, did you?

Did I mention Annie's back?

And you're not going to believe what you will learn about James Woods...

Move along now. No pattern here...

Tinfoil Apocalypse Watch

Here comes our next failure of imagination.

They won't get the subs though. And after a few million dead we will use them.

UPDATE: Wretchard foreshadows an update to the Three Conjectures...

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: An actual examination of the Constitution and a review of the historical context of the Fortas filibuster. But let's not have facts get in the way...

Do what I say...

Thanks Bangor!

The part they leave out...

The concise critique...

Today's Air Safety Announcement

Things you didn't know that will prepare you for things you may find yourself needing to do:

Hey guys, there's a way to open those lavatory doors on an airplane. There's usually a small metal plate underneath the "locked" sign. You can lift it up, and there is a latch underneath. Slide it over. Then open the door. Have a cup of hot coffee in your hand, that you just got from the galley. If he's doing nothing bad, say "excuse me". If he IS up to no good, throw the hot coffee in his face, and scream TERRORIST! HELP!

Do this if some of these middle east goons are on your flight making synchronistic hand-signals and going to the lavs together and staying in there a long time.

No one else is going to save your lives. There's not air marshalls on every flight.

THAT will teach THEM a lesson.

Good practical advice...

Hoot! Hil's hot!

On The Lamm

Glenn has it right on the recent Richard Lamm row. What DU admin is saying by not publishing it is that they have (or believe they have) largely left wing donors -- and they're too stupid and easily offended to read Dick's piece.

Of course, that's true of leftists in general so we're really not plowing any new ground but rather rehashing leftist projection.

Anyway, here's "Two Wands" (reproduced here in its entirety since it's not getting enough exposure):

Two Wands
Richard D. Lamm
Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues

Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can t wave both wands. Only one.

Which would you choose? I understand that many would love to wave both wands; no one can easily refuse the chance to erase racism and discrimination. But I suggest that the best wand for the society and for those who live in the ghettoes and barrios would be the second wand.

This metaphor is important in correctly diagnosing one of the most significant problems facing contemporary America: the large economic, education and employment gap between Black/Hispanic America and White/Asian America. The problems of crime, educational failure, drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and unemployment that burden certain groups threaten our collective future. They form a nation-threatening social pathology that must be addressed in broader terms than we have done to date.

Most discussion of minority failure blames racism and discrimination. I m an old civil rights lawyer and such racism and discrimination clearly still exists. But the problem is, I fear, deeper than the current dialogue. We need to think honestly about these problems with new sophistication. One of these new areas is to recognize that increasingly scholars are saying culture matters.

I m impressed, for instance, that minorities that have been discriminated against earn the highest family incomes in America. Japanese Americans, Jews, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans all out-earn white Americans by substantial margins and all have faced discrimination and racism. We put Japanese Americans in camps 60 years ago and confiscated much of their property. Yet today they out-earn all other demographic groups. Discrimination and racism are social cancers and can never be justified but it is enlightening that, for these groups, they were a hurdle, not a barrier to success.

The Italians, the Irish, the people from the Balkans America has viewed all these groups and many more with hostility and suspicion, yet all have integrated and succeeded. Hispanic organizations excuse their failure rates solely in terms of discrimination by white America and object vociferously when former Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos observes that Hispanic parents don t take enough interest in education. But Cuban Americans have come to America and succeeded brilliantly. Do we discriminate against Hispanics from Mexico but not Hispanics from Cuba?

I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification, education, hard work, success and ambition are those groups that succeed in America regardless of discrimination. I further suggest that, even if discrimination was removed, other groups would still have massive problems until they develop the traits that lead to success. Asian and Jewish children do twice as much homework as Black and Hispanic students, and get twice as good grades. Why should we be surprised?

A problem well defined is a problem half-solved. We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority failure. Ultimately Blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that the solution is largely in their own hands. Lionel Sosa, one of America s leading Hispanic businessmen, in his book The Americano Dream, titles his first chapter Escaping the Cultural Shackles.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan has insightfully observed, the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

Thus, morally, I would want badly to wave both wands; if I had to choose, I would wave the second wand. A Confucian or Jewish love of learning would gain minorities far more than any affirmative action laws we might pass.

[Emphasis mine.]

Biology AND culture. Or should I say CULTURE (with a hint of biology)?

“Can I just sit here and read?”

DON'T. MISS. THIS!

Vacuuming Out The MSMemory Hole

Freedom for Lebanon? Vanished down the MSMemory Hole of course. This one is a real eye-opener including stats on AP newswire content!

And of course, demonstrations in Iraq are not what the MSM wants you to believe...

UPDATE: In case you missed it, the entirety of the Steyn "Bish" column is worthy of redux on this topic as well...

"Unable to prosper in the medium, liberals have taken to denouncing talk radio as a threat to democracy."

Yes, OF COURSE astroturf is fake!

Unbalanced Redux

I bet you missed my post on "What the h*ll are they thinking?"



It's short. I'm patient. Come back when you're done.

Now read this series by Dr. Sanity. (Kudos Roger and a tip from the comments as well)

Narcisism is pretty scary huh? When you're not balanced then you're, well, unbalanced! Why didn't YOU think of that?

And you never thought evil might seem almost understandable did you?

Yikes! A completely new imperative for the virtue of moderation.

Something Is Finally Missing!

Can you believe it?



I can't.

I never thought I'd be glad to see Old Glory taken down...

Accurate but fake.

On Hating Lincoln Today

In case you were wondering how much the libs would hate Lincoln if he were alive today:

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States

The venom shown to Bush and Reagan would be a pittance compared to what he'd be dealing with today.

And it was plenty bad back then...

On The Gaming Of Near Martyrdom

As if my last post regarding the Palis didn't open your eyes. The child victims of Hamas et al are figuring out how to game their captors!

And yes, that would be Hamas.

You see, the Palestinian children have now figured out that they can escape Hamas brutality via "near martyrdom" with its positive rep in the PA and still safely end up with a better education than they could get in Yassar's burnt-out shell -- in Israeli prison!

There is justice in the world! Leave it to the children to show us the way.

The last laugh may be on the neanderthal thugs after all -- even in the land of al-Husseini...

Apparently, the Japanese think it's finally robot time...

I'm guessing you haven't read Strategy Page on Iraq yet today?

Steyn on Bish. Glenn has the key para not to be missed!

By All Means Let's Give Them A State (Not)

Hamas sees the Taliban -- an apparently raises them even though I didn't think that was possible. Don't follow this link if you're squeamish...

I think we have a rival for Beslan and the Taliban's public execution of women at the Kabul soccer stadium.

What's Beslan you say? If you don't believe in evil after reading this then your soul is dead.



Beasts on earth. Keep your children close.

And when they're ready, teach them to defend themselves.

UPDATE: Somewhere around 100%.

The AP In The MSMemory Hole Again

Power Line returns AP's ludicrous accusations with a fast ball:

Now, it's possible that Jack Stokes, the AP's director of media relations, was incorrect. But for the AP to express outrage that we thought there was collusion between the photographer and the terrorists, without even acknowledging that we based that conclusion on the AP's own statements to that effect, is ridiculous.

Followed by a curve from an ex-NYeT photographer who had covered the civil rights movement:

I pointed out [to the person who showed him the uncropped photo] that the photo depicts a lynching . Lynchings are always local and specific. Their purpose is "educational" in that the lynchers want as wide a distribution of the event as possible. In other words, lynchings fail if they do not have the implicit or explicit support of the media.

Who then proceeds to analyze the "prize winning" AP photo:

THE DISTANCE FROM CAMERA TO SUBJECT:
We do not have the original photo to make a judgment about. It is difficult to tell if the image has been enlarged, or if it has degraded through numerous duplications. However, assuming that this is the original dimension of the finished photo, I would estimate that the lens is the rough equivalent of a 180mm lens on a 35mm format. I would estimate the distance between 15 and 25 meters. The distance would be the same if the lens were "normal" but an enlargement of the print had occurred. This may be a "blow up," in other words.

A PHOTOGRAPHER'S "FEEL":
Leaving aside the ethical specifics of this situation, if I knew that an event was about to occur that included possible violence, I would do exactly what it appears the photographer did in making this picture:

(1) I would choose an elevated mobile platform where I had an unobstructed view of the scene, and where I had maneuverability to observe as well as rapid exit...such as a pick up truck

(2) I would be at enough distance to be somewhat protected and inconspicuous

(3) I would choose a medium telephoto lens that could be hand held in a moving vehicle, yet give me large enough images to be clearly recognizable.

So, the assassination picture has all the earmarks of a planned image, indicating that the photographer had taken most of the considerations that I have written about above.

It's also possible that a passing Iraqi, riding in the back of a pick-up truck, carrying a Nikon with a 180mm lens happened onto the scene, made a few snaps and dropped them off at the AP office in the Green Zone of Baghdad.

The latter is possible of course. But interesting that in the primary hypothesis case -- that the "AP photographer" was a terrorist sympathizer -- or the latter very unlikely case the AP's continuing anonymity cover for the photographer smells of corruption at minimum.

Or of being on the other side in all liklihood...

UPDATE: Wretchard says to bring on the investigation into perfidy -- and tips his hat to Power Line.

"To have remembered everything and to have learned nothing."

World's Smallest Violin Department: "Very, very depressed."

Cuckoo, eh?

"Even Hirsi Ali cannot escape the geometric absurdity that European politics has become: a fantastic creature with two extreme Rights and a Left hovering above the dimensional plane, forever blameless, beyond criticism and past hope."

RAT BASTARDS

Canadian rights hypocrisy update: "Unless, you know, it's embarrassing to people in power or something."

Tonight's Flag Viewing Brought To You By

my neighbor across the street:



I lit it with my flashlight and then enhanced the contrast of the .jpg or you wouldn't have been able to see it at all in the darkness. What? Light a flag at night?

Like I said, I've become morbidly fascinated...

Did I forget to mention that Nichols was trained in the Phillipines by Islamists?

Nazi Prof Fired ...

Because he took too many sick days????? LOL

It's hard to figure out who's nuttier, the university or the Kos Kidz analysis...

Wryly Reading Reuters

Today seemed as good a day as any to analyze Reuter's spin via this Saturday Yahoo News Headlines snapshot ("-->" denotes my snarky analysis of the spin the headline is meant to impart) :

• World leaders praise pope as force for peace --> That Iraq war was d*mn bad

Amazingly, W's praise for "a faithful servant of God" and Schroeder's positive comments about his having "changed our world" actually appeared in the article before Hugo Chavez' praise for the Pope's opposition to the Iraq war -- but Kofi was immediately after W with his recollection that the Pope "felt that in war, all are losers". Well, except for those damn uppity Iraqis that actually think freedom is a good thing and worth sacrificing for...

• Rome prepares for influx of pilgrims --> Suprisingly neutral

• Pope's death triggers scripted ritual --> Damn scheming Catholic morons

• Selection of new pope shrouded in secrecy --> Damn scheming Catholic morons

• New pope unlikely to be from United States --> Serves that unilateral warmonger W right

• Daylight-saving time returns this weekend --> Even Reuters doesn't screw W in one like this -- yet...

Worthy Of Praise? -- Preemptively NYeT!

And of course, the NYeT has its smears all ready and primed for the barely passed away Pope. He was instrumental in wrecking the rag of Duranty's Communist icons don't you know...

WHOOPS! (via Roger)

AP Sights Reality, Can't Quite Get There

Via James the AP seems to be getting dangerously close to reality:

Influential Sunni scholars encouraged Iraqis to join the country's security forces and protect the country, issuing an edict Friday that departed sharply from earlier warnings against participating in the fledgling police and army. . . .

Friday's edict, endorsed by a group of 64 Sunni clerics and scholars, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen.

But Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars who read the edict during a sermon at a major Sunni mosque, said joining the Iraqi security forces was now necessary to prevent the country from falling into "the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction and violated the sanctities."

If heeded, the announcement could strengthen Iraqi security forces, who are trying to take over the fight against the Sunni-led insurgency.

But of course reality is both more positive and complex:

IRAQ: Sunni Arab Clerics Giving Up On Al Qaeda
April 1, 2005: Another major Shia religious festival, which lasted from 29-31 March, ended without incident. The government made a major effort to provide security for the large gatherings of Shia Arabs attending religious ceremonies and moving around in southern Iraq. Sunni Arab terrorists, especially al Qaeda, consider these ceremonies a major insult to Sunni religious beliefs. The government deployed a security effort on the same level as the one rolled out for the January elections. Coalition troops deployed mostly as back up and quick reaction forces. Al Qaeda tried to use suicide car bombers, but none of them got through to large assemblies of Shia Arabs. In one incident, a car bomb went off and killed five people, which was the most any of the attacks were able to do.

Another reason the attacks were not successful was that, in the days before March 29th, police arrested hundreds of Sunni Arabs and foreigners suspected of being terrorists. Many were, and this is because an increasing number of Sunni Arab religious leaders have changed their minds about armed resistance to democracy, and coalition forces. This has made it easier for Sunni Arabs to pass on information to the police. The Sunni religious leaders have done the math and concluded that they were backing the losing side. Some have made deals with the government, to provide information, or pro-government sermons, in return for favorable treatment (money, access to jobs for their followers, reconstruction projects). But most have simply stopped preaching violence, or cut back on the intensity of their calls for violence against Kurds, Sunni Arabs and infidels (non-Moslems). Many Sunni Arab clerics have also noted that most of their followers are not in favor of terror attacks that kill Iraqis, no matter what their religion or ethnicity. The terrorists have largely given up attacking American troops. The level of such attacks is about half what it was a year ago. The reason is that the attackers are much more likely to fail, and get killed, when they attack American troops. It's much easier, and safer, to attack Iraqi civilians, or even Iraqi police and troops. But the Iraqi government forces are becoming more lethal as well, and Iraqi government forces usually have American troops backing them up.

The impact of all this has been striking. The overall level of terrorist violence has fallen by about half in the last month. Terrorist attacks that target Iraqis has been very unpopular in Iraq, and caused even many Sunni Arabs to turn against al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorist organizations. But at the street level, most Iraqis are more concerned with criminal gangs (who commit far more violence against Iraqis than terrorists) and corruption (which is encountered daily, while you might go weeks without even hearing about a terror attack in your neighborhood.)

Maybe the AP should venture out of their hotels a bit more...

Just A Misdemeanor Ma'am -- And I'll Keep What I Wanted Thanks Very Much

Don't worry -- our judges and legal system are right on top of things. Sandy Burglar only gets a misdemeanor and gets to keep hidden what he stole:

He returned most of the documents, but still missing are some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.

You don't want to know what I really think of this...

UPDATE: Glenn has much more and is lots more civil about it than I would be so I suggest you go there instead.

ANOTHER: Thank you ScrappleFace!

Cuckoo Courts Continue

Getaloadofthis:

Moreover, whatever happened to the public's "right-to-know?" I find it ironic that every deeply personal detail of a politician's life is fair game for the press --- and if that same politician stands on a stage full of reporters screaming that his political enemies are "liars," "queers," and "child molesters," --- that there are judges who think it should be ILLEGAL to let the public even know what was said.

Furthermore, have these justices really considered the chilling effect --- of not allowing a neutral reporting privilege -- that this could have on free speech? Consider this real world example cited by press lawyers:

"Otherwise, they said, for example, the press could not have reported last year on the charges lodged against Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth because Kerry's supporters said their charges were false."

Imagine simply reporting on a story like the Swift Boat Vets for Truth and getting a cease and desist letter from the Kerry campaign threatening legal action for simply detailing their allegations.

Depending on how this court case comes out, in a future election, we may not have to just imagine it...

WTF, over? LOL RTWT!

Churchill At Home

Check out Ward-baby at the Anarchist Bookfair! (Warning: Not for minors!)



Any more questions? [via Charles]

Maybe We Need To Keep The Trapdoors ...

for the Demo donkey when it dies. Via Rantburg comes some Baghdad insights:

Some learning will need to take place among the population. The old Iraqi sewage system used large trap doors instead of manholes. When one Iraqi saw a new US-sized manhole, he protested. They are too small. How, he wondered, would he fit his donkey down them when it died? (That tells you something about the state of the sewer system in Baghdad under Saddam.)

A quick and worthwhile read. Go. Now.

Suddenly Within Reach?

Strategy Page provides a perspective update:

March 30, 2005: For most of March, enemy attacks have been running at less than half the level of the past few months. Attacks have not been this infrequent since last April. It is believed that the attacks are fewer because of poor morale among the attackers, and the loss of many terrorist and Sunni Arab leaders. The anti-government forces never really recovered from the beating they took in Fallujah last November. While most of the enemy leaders got out of Fallujah and set up shop in other Sunni Arab cities, the failed effort to stop the January 30th vote exposed many of the surviving terrorist groups to attack by Iraqi and coalition forces. The terrorists also suffered from the increasingly bad reputation they were getting. When the “resistance” began 18 months ago, it was pitched as a “popular uprising” against “foreign occupation.” But the foreign troops proved to be deadly opponents, and they were aided by a growing number of Iraqi police and troops. In fact, the Iraqi government forces were seen as a deadlier enemy to terrorists and anti-government gunmen. An Iraqi cop could more quickly identify who was bad, or hiding guns, or bomb making equipment. So the terrorist increasingly turned their guns on Iraqis. Over the last six months, the anti-government efforts turned increasingly into brutal terrorism against Iraqi “collaborators.” Recently, the terrorists have been releasing more video tapes of Iraqis, or foreign civilians (particularly Arabs or Turks), working for the government or coalition forces. But pure terror often doesn’t work, and tends to backfire. It’s backfiring now, and the terrorists are trying to come up with a new tactic. There aren’t many options. Iraqis have gotten numb to all the suicide bombings and assassinations. Moreover, people have more to fear from criminal kidnappings (there are several hundred a month), robbery, hijacking and burglary. Foreign terrorists are in greater danger than ever before, with more Iraqis willing to turn them into the growing number of Iraqi police. In more cases, Iraqis are taking the law into their own hands, and killing foreigners, or Iraqis, suspected of terrorist, or criminal, activity.

The war isn’t over by any means. As terrorists and anti-government gangs fade, Iraqis have to deal with the always larger number of criminal gangs, and the long tradition of government corruption. In the West, we take “law and order” for granted, but in Iraq, that sort of thing is seen as an impossible dream that is suddenly within reach.

And read the preceding March 28 entry for a real eye-opener...

(Remember residues? The Tinfoil Apocalypse dictates that no more escapism is allowed.)

Democrat Patriotism Watch

This is how my Democrat neighbor flies his flag:



I kid you not.

In fact I look straight at it out my front door every day and it's been this way for months now.

I've now developed a sort of morbid fascination as to how long this will go on.

Did I mention that he never lights it and never takes it down? You could have guessed the latter of course...

Happy Easter!

"I don't give a hoot about the school's uniform guidelines."

"Seven Faces and No Name"

MSMemory Hole Watch

"How many American newspapers do you think will carry this story tomorrow?"

Or this one? (via Glenn)

And never mind hearing about this one ESPECIALLY. After all, the Iranians just love their brutal thugs...

TigerHawk To The Blogroll

Laser-like posts such as this:

As much as I believe that the world would be better off if Israel would define its borders clearly and settle up with the Palestinian Arabs, I have very little sympathy for Palestinian Arabs. They sided with our enemies, or the enemies of our allies, in every war since the beginning of the 20th century. They sided with the Ottomon Turks during World War I, their primary religious leader was a Nazi ally during World War II, they supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they were just about Saddam's only friend during the Gulf War. They publicly cheered on September 11. Even if you don't like Israel, it is hard to think of the Palestinian Arabs as anything other than America's enemies. Indeed, their hostility to the United States long ante-dates American support for Israel, which did not begin in any meaningful way until 1967.

This photograph is a useful reminder of that fascist history. According to the A.P., this picture is of "[m]ilitants of the Palestinian ruling Fatah party salute during a pre-election rally for the students council at the Al-Quds university in the West Bank town of Hebron Monday March 21, 2005." Who in today's world would adopt such a salute if they did not want to honor Hitler's legions? [My emphasis]

Get you on the blogroll in these parts.

These are the real Fascists that our home-grown fascifists support. We have somehow managed to turn the arts and humanities faculties our campuses and social research institutions into mental hospitals for those with low emotional intelligence and dysfunctional analytical and social skills.

For the fascifists it's all about raising themselves up by tearing others down. That would be Bush (it was Reagan previously in case you had forgotten), America and Israel of course...

"I surely missed something, but it seems like some young people are missing even more."

"BTW, did you notice that a four-star general is blogging?"

OUCH. Me Neocon.

No news is good news!

A Portrait Of The Preening

"The great advantage that conservatives have over liberals is that we are bilingual. We can speak our language and we also know theirs. They however even now still don’t know ours and cannot be bothered to learn."

"It was a dictum in Field Marshal Zhukov's Army that a good commander never reinforced failure only success. It is a maxim of the United Nations that progress is achieved by doing everything that never worked all over again."

I Didn't Decide To Write This Post

Now this is a good way to start a post: "The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." - Thucydides

And this post ain't bad either. Does the left believe in free will? Well, I would say they're the only candidate pool for that sort of idiocy -- how many Christians do you know who don't??? (via Glenn)

The Game

Power Line points out that Steyn has a bead on Bush's new game:

Most of the American media are equally stunned [by the appointment of Bolton as the spokesmen of "the international community" are]. The New York Times wondered what Bush's next appointment would be:

"Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate a new set of Geneva conventions? Martha Stewart to run the Securities and Exchange Commission?"

OK, I get the hang of this game. Sending Bolton to be U.N. ambassador is like...putting Sudan and Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission. Or letting Saddam's Iraq chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Or sending a bunch of child-sex fiends to man U.N. operations in the Congo. And the Central African Republic. And Sierra Leone, and Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Kosovo, and pretty much everywhere else.

Ummm ... yup. RTWT and be sure to click thru to Steyn.

The alarming future of Eurabia...

Blogger is a mess. I'm equally unhappy and having similar and worse problems. My apologies -- I will start looking elsewhere soon...

Today's Best (Obvious) Comment

"There are nuts who would argue against gravity, but I wouldn't put them on TV."

It's actually quite a commentary on our times that today's best comment is another resounding "restatement of the obvious". (Look up at the masthead.)

For the rest of you who actually understand the horror of Auschwitz, a little fact to remind you of what real hell consists of: if 10 Jews represented the Jewish population of Poland before the war, there would only be 1 alive at the end. Three MILLION dead out of approximately 3.3 million!

Did I mention that Holocaust deniers are the scum of the earth?

"What's all this about "looting"?" (via Charles)

"Also, while a sane world would not employ 5-foot-tall grandmothers as law enforcement officers, a sane world would also not give full body-cavity searches to 5-foot-tall grandmothers at airports."

Anti-Fascifists Pictured

Seen here (via Glenn):

He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal — tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree — existed and even predominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in Airstrip One were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party.

The man who understood fascifism would understand today's events effortlessly. And he would spit with glee on the fascifists...

"Is it because many of these Leftist organizations are remnants of totalitarian European socialism?"

"Universities not in the business of asking these these questions are arguably not institutions of higher learning at all."