"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose my beliefs are true... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. --J.B.S. Haldane"

"AS FOR America, disturbingly the Bush administration, like the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government, is showing acute signs of policy collapse. In a near inexplicable move, the State Department issued a visa to former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami. Obscenely, the former leader and regime flack for the Islamic supremacist ayatollahs has been invited to speak at the National Cathedral in Washington. [ I'd puke but I don't have anything left after reading this article. Glick is a true prophet of the Tinfoil Apocalypse. Scary. -ed. ] "

"But honestly, violent antisemitism (with Israel as a threadbare excuse) has been on the rise in Europe for years. And the authorities haven't done enough about it because, it seems, they're too afraid of the Muslims, who seem to be behind these attacks and who do blow things up."

"Activist? The AP now refers to these people routinely as “activists?” What the hell is wrong with the media? [ Oooh, Oooh -- Can I answer that question? -ed. ] "

"Someone--if I could remember who, I'd credit him--wrote recently that the Islamic terrorism we are now experiencing is analogous to the Bolshevik and anarchist terrorism of the early years of the 20th century. If that's true, we have a long road ahead of us. Europe will very likely succumb to Islam in the years to come, for reasons of demography and spiritual and intellectual exhaustion. But Americans are no more interested in converting to Islam than they were in adopting socialism. And Americans not only are more stubborn about such things than Europeans, they are also better at reproducing.

So, no matter how tarted up with Democratic Party rhetoric al Qaeda's pitch may be, as long as the bottom line is: convert to Islam or be murdered, they will get precious few takers."

"Going by recent events in Lebanon, Hezbollah has achieved a stature and de-facto recognition that many states would envy. It's funny how Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, though receiving money and training from states to attack other states (called "proxy warfare") are never referred to as "mercenaries"."

Helping Roger: On Wackademic Terminology

The following was posted as a comment on Roger Simon's high annoyance at the Dartmouth "academics":

With Bush finally getting his act together and calling the Islamic Fascists by their right name, maybe it's time we get our act together and do the same for folks like our precious wackademics.

While I'm sentimentally partial to Orwell's invocation of "Fascifist gang", I think David Ramsey Steele's "The Mystery of Fascism" is a tremendously underappreciated resource in the "right names" department.

When you read Steele's piece you realize that the term fascist is not so far off base to apply to many of today's leftist crowd -- and fits well with the pervasive psychological projection underlying their constant drumbeat of calling us free thinkers "fascists" -- but my nomination of an accurate term is "neo-Syndicalist". Or, in the specific case of the wackademics, "Gramscian neo-Syndicalist". (Gramsci was the author of the idea of the "long march through the institutions" or "capture the culture!".)

Why "neo-Syndicalism"? Here's Steele:

At the beginning of the twentieth century, leftists who wanted to be as far left as they could possibly be became syndicalists, preaching the general strike as the way to demonstrate the workers' power and overthrow the bourgeois order. Syndicalist activity erupted across the world, even in Britain and the United States. Promotion of the general strike was a way of defying capitalism and at the same time defying those socialists who wanted to use electoral methods to negotiate reforms of the system.

Syndicalists began as uncompromising Marxists, but like Revisionists, they acknowledged that key tenets of Marxism had been refuted by the development of modern society. Most syndicalists came to accept much of Bernstein's argument against traditional Marxism, but remained committed to the total rejection, rather than democratic reform, of existing society. They therefore called themselves "revolutionary revisionists." They favored the "idealist revision of Marx," meaning that they believed in a more independent role for ideas in social evolution that that allowed by Marxist theory.

Except for the "more independent role for ideas" part(!), this beautifully describes today's Dem/Leftist Gramscian march through the universities and courts, etc. Just add a "neo" to update for the last century of events and less independence for the "ideas" part. (If you've ever read Milosz' "The Captive Mind", you know to smile with contempt at the "independence" part anyway -- but acknowledge that the popularity of their propaganda "front" would utterly collapse without the pretense.)

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

"Peter Clarke, head of Metropolitan Police anti-terror efforts, said police and intelligence agents were now attempting to track thousands of people believed to be directly or indirectly involved in terrorism, according to comments made public Friday."

"RED CROSS AMBULANCE DRIVER KILLED: But nobody cares, because Israel didn't do it. Heck, there weren't even photoshopped images making it look as if Israel was involved, which is kind of hard to believe, really. Is Reuters falling down on the job?"

"Protesters occupying Mexico City's center said they were ready to do whatever it takes to support Lopez Obrador. Fernando Calles, a 26-year-old university professor, said he was ready to fight for the former Mexico City mayor "until the death, until the final consequences." [ But the disintegration of Mexico doesn't fit the "Bush = Hitler" storyline ... so it's not on TV. Did I mention this will get harder and harder to ignore? -ed. ] "

"Knobloch also warns Der Spiegel readers about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his rhetoric about Jews and Israel. She understands better than most how appeasement policies backfire, and she warns against dismissing his fiery calls for the destruction of Israel and the Jews. History, she says, repeats itself over and over, and people still do not learn. The rising levels of anti-Semitism demonstrates that Germans and perhaps Europeans in general still have not learned that it always starts with the Jews, but it never ends with the Jews. The last time this lesson got taught, six million Jews died among over 50 million worldwide over a six-year period. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, that total could be achieved in weeks instead of years."

"None of this has apparently moved the Russians and the Chinese. According to Robert Einhorn, former State Department head on nonproliferation under the Clinton administration, only a "smoking gun" will convince them to support sanctions. Unfortnately, the only smoking object that would qualify for Russian and Chinese firmness would be the radioactive remains of Tel Aviv. [ No it wouldn't. They'd claim that Israel nuked itself or something equally crazy. -ed. ] "

"Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."

"Is that what you really want? Does the prospect of your wives and children becoming martyrs of Jihad fill you with joy? If so, then I suppose I have nothing more to say. But if you are expecting the U.S. to continue to exercise Judeo-Christian restraint and compassion in response to your attacks, then according your own accusations, you are wrong. If what you have been saying about our degeneracy is true; then we are no longer a morally restrained Judeo-Christian nation. If most of us are, as you claim, hedonistic materialists, then we are just as capable of vengeance and cruelty as you are. [ We're the "weak horse" that's too limp to use our nukes that's filled with devils who were the first to use nukes in war and will use them again. Oh, and Iran can win a nuclear war. My head is spinning ... and your's isn't? -ed. ] "

"I think a great many Americans mostly wish the war against the terrorists would go away. A childish attitude, shared by many, rests on the idea that the current conflict is of our choosing, and that we can somehow say "never mind," and it will disappear. I am reminded of Trotsky's grim dictum: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." The terrorists are interested in us, whether we like it or not. There is nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. We didn't choose this war, but we are in it, and have been since 1979. There are only two choices: win the war or lose it."

"Iran could make an argument -- and does -- that the Non-Proliferation Treaty allows for the development of peaceful nuclear energy, and that the West has no basis on which to stop their uranium-enrichment program. That argument puts the onus on the West to prove that they have other intentions for the nuclear cycle, which the West has attempted to do on several occasions. This kind of foolish argument only makes it more obvious that the Iranians have something else in mind besides producing miracle cures from water. The Iranians aren't scientific idiots and pretending to be only makes their deception clearer."

"The media showed little interest in pursuing the truth, as documented by many in the blogosphere, including myself. They still seem more attracted to political football than honest reporting on the anniversary of the disaster, a disaster that would have happened without Katrina, with a much greater loss of life. Kevin does a good job in reminding all of us of the media's failure to properly inform the public of the nature of New Orleans' destruction."

"To date, as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies. [ Melanie's conclusion deserves a post of its own. This is sobering indeed. -ed. ] "

"But the road to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. Reality isn't always what we are certain it should be, even when our carefully selected images try to create it. If the picture below really isn't true, so the argument goes, it ought to have been."

"In short, much of the most incendiary media coverage of this war seems to have been either staged or fabricated. The big question is why the western media would perpetrate such institutionalised mendacity. Many ancillary reasons come to mind. There is the reliance upon corrupted news and picture agencies which employ Arab propagandists as stringers and cameramen. There is the herd mentality of the media which decides collectively what the story is. There is the journalists’ fear for their personal safety if they report the truth about terrorist outfits. There is the difficulty of discovering the truth from undemocratic regimes and terrorist organisations. There is the language barrier; there is professional laziness; there is the naïve inability to acknowledge the depths of human evil and depravity; there is the moral inversion of the left which believes that western truth-tellers automatically tell lies, while third world liars automatically tell the truth.

But the big answer is that the western media transmit the lies of Hezbollah because they want to believe them. And that’s because the Big Lie these media tell — and have themselves been told — about Israel and its place in history and in the world today has achieved the status of unchallengeable truth. The plain fact is that western journalists were sent to cover the war being waged against Israel from Lebanon as a war being waged by Israel against Lebanon. And that’s because that’s how editors think of the Middle East: that the whole ghastly mess is driven by Israel’s actions, and that therefore it is only Israel’s aggression which is the story to be covered. Thus history is inverted, half a century of Jewish victimisation is erased from public consciousness, victims are turned into aggressors and genocidal mass murderers turned into victims, and ignorance and prejudice stalk England’s once staunch and stalwart land.

That’s why the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees from the north of Israel fled to the shelter of strangers in the south; that within one third of Israel, those too poor or old or handicapped or disadvantaged to seek refuge elsewhere were forced to live in shelters for a month in great hardship; that the entire economy of northern Israel was effectively shut down for a month; that thousands of rockets were fired at northern Israel, hundreds every day, many times more than were daily fired at Britain during the Blitz — that’s why none of this was reported in Britain (where as a result such facts, when now related, are received with open-mouthed astonishment) because journalists were told to ignore it all since that wasn’t the story their editors wanted. Israel’s victimisation simply was not, could not, be the story. The only story was Israel’s aggression. But that story is a Big Lie. So a host of lies were transmitted to support it."

"The opening sequence of the film takes up more time than I think it needs, and it delays one of the film's most important themes from developing until almost midway through, which is the correlations between Islamism and Naziism. To this purpose, the film makes excellent use of Alfons Heck, an elderly German academic who once served as a high-ranking officer in the Hitler Youth. Heck points out that a worldy and sophisticated German people fell for the crudest kind of anti-Semitic propaganda -- so why should anyone expect the Arabs to resist their own government-produced propaganda? Indeed, Obsession fills itself with television clips gleaned from all over the Arab world, giving American viewers perhaps their first real taste of how pervasive the paranoia gets in Arab culture."

"I created a scene with a column, many years ago, when I wrote about the young men in the corridors of the University of Montreal, who stood by and watched while Gamil Garbi (alias Marc Lépine) shot fourteen women to death. To a man (if you could call them men), they explained afterwards, “We couldn’t do anything, he had a gun.” As I pointed out at the time, we have bred young men who will stand by and watch a psychopath shoot defenceless women, so long as he assures them he will not shoot them. And we have bred the young women these young men deserve.

Men without chests, men without character, men who don’t think twice."

""Lord, if only I could have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided."

Think of that!"

"The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical.""

"This scene and dozens more like it flashed around the planet. Only one thing was missing—the thin wire security strip that runs from top to bottom of a genuine US$100 bill. The money Hezbollah was passing was counterfeit, as should have been evident to anybody who studied the photographs with due care.

Care was due because of Hezbollah’s history of counterfeiting: In June, 2004, the U.S. Department of the Treasury publicly cited Hezbollah as one of the planet’s leading forgers of U.S. currency."

"This entire episode should shame every member of the Upper Chamber. Using a cheap and secret political manuever to block passage of a bill that would do more to provide open government than anything since the Freedom of Information Act is not ironic, it's cynical beyond belief. If anyone needed an example of why the nation needs S 2590, this display of political cowardice and secrecy gives perhaps the clearest one possible."

"AS IS the case with the Palestinian war against Israel, one of the most notable aspects of Hizbullah's latest campaign against Israel has been the active collaboration of news organizations and international NGO's in Hizbullah's information war against Israel. Like their rogue state sponsors, subversive sub-national groups like Hizbullah, Fatah and Hamas, see information operations as an integral part of their war for the annihilation of Israel and defeat of the West. And their information operations are more advanced than any the world has seen. As becomes more evident with each passing day, they have successfully corrupted both the world media and the community of NGOs that purportedly operate in a neutral manner in war zones."

"PALESTINIAN #1: Let’s kidnap some infidel journalists and force them to convert to Islam on video!

PALESTINIAN #2: Why? What's the point?

PALESTINIAN #1: Huh?

PALESTINIAN #2: Oh, I get it. This is brilliant, Hassan. Just brilliant. Once they convert, the journalists can hold themselves hostage, so they can negotiate with themselves for their own release and leave us out of it. Maybe while they're at it they can hold a knife to their own throats unless the infidels vote for Ned Lamont.

PALESTINIAN #1: It is symbolic of our struggle against the Zionist occupation!

PALESTINIAN #2: Yeah, right. Symbolic of your struggle against reality is more like it."

"On the other hand, it's surely only a matter of months before some U.S. court rules that prisoners are entitled under the Geneva Convention to their own penis pumps. By contrast, Muslim men arrested in Denmark for plotting an actual terrorist attack face life imprisonment. In Denmark, life sentences are automatically commuted after 16 years.

Hmm. Three years for a penis pump, 16 years for planning to murder thousands of people."

"The French believe that what they say is at least as important as what they do. They spin grandiloquent phrases and strike postures. Rhetoric is a way of life and if you point out it is divorced from all strategic reality that is thought to be nitpicking."

"I gather that special prosecutor Fitzgerald knew back in 2003 that Armitage was Novak's original source. At this point, the whole investigation is something of a mystery. What Fitzgerald thought he was doing, and why he was doing it, are matters known only to him.

But, as I said, I don't care. No doubt some of the current questions will be answered in due course, but the bottom line, in my view, is that this sorry episode shows how unbalanced and even irrational our whole media culture has become. That Washington could be roiled for months by such a silly non-story speaks volumes about the lack of seriousness that infects many of our journalists, pundits and politicians."

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

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

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

And another...

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

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

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

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

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

Comment of the day:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Do You Mean "Tinfoil Apocalypse"?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bernard Lewis(!) On August 22

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

Bernard Lewis on the "Tinfoil Apocalypse":

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO BUMPED:

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

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

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

We didn't believe Hitler either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today's Orwellian (Fascifist) Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The plot develops with the progressive takeover of the world Islamist movement, by the ayatollahs of Iran; and has been further thickened by the huge propaganda victory that Iran’s client, Hezbollah, has just won over Israel. This has had and will continue to have the same effect on Muslim mass psychology as the Al Qaeda terror attacks. It shows the most virulent and aggressive forms of Islam to be triumphing -- to be, in effect, the wave of the future, the standard around which all Muslims may rally. It leaves all those who reject this standard not in the position of “moderate Muslims”, but rather in that of isolated and irrelevant or treasonous holdovers from some “Western imperialist” past."

Allahpundit sobers us up a wee bit. And I reinforce with some classic Theodore Dalrymple for your gobsmackification:

"By that logic, their devotion to God is partly a function of their desire to destroy Israel. Let that sink in for a minute. Also, how much it smacks of “magical” thinking: rather than take a scientific approach to victory, by focusing on military strategy and technological development, they’re essentially trying on different ideological sweaters in hopes of stumbling upon the one that finally “works.”

*** NOW CUT TO "AFTER EMPIRE" BY THEODORE DALRYMPLE ***:

The naive supposition on which the argument for education rests is that training counteracts and overpowers a cultural worldview. A trained man is but a clone of his trainer, on this theory, sharing his every attitude and worldview. But in fact what results is a curious hybrid, whose fundamental beliefs may be impervious to the education he has received.

I had a striking example of this phenomenon recently, when I had a Congolese patient who had taken refuge in this country from the terrible war in Central Africa that has so far claimed up to 3 million lives. He was an intelligent man and had that easy charm that I remember well from the days when I traversed—not without difficulty or discomfort—the Zaire of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko. He had two degrees in agronomy and had trained in Toulouse in the interpretation of satellite pictures for agronomic purposes. He recognized the power of modern science, therefore, and had worked for the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, and was used to dealing with Western aid donors and investors, as well as academics.

The examination over, we chatted about the Congo: he was delighted to meet someone who knew his country, by no means easily found in England. I asked him about Mobutu, whom he had known personally.

“He was very powerful,” he said. “He collected the best witch doctors from every part of Zaire. Of course, he could make himself invisible; that was how he knew everything about us. And he could turn himself into a leopard when he wanted.”

This was said with perfect seriousness. For him the magical powers of Mobutu were more impressive and important than the photographic power of satellites. Magic trumped science. In this he was not at all abnormal, it being as difficult or impossible for a sub-Saharan African to deny the power of magic as for an inhabitant of the Arabian peninsula to deny the power of Allah."

Welcome to the "Tinfoil Apocalyphate".

If you haven't seen Pallywood yet, you need to now:

"Some time ago, Richard Landes, a Professor of History at Boston University, and Pedro Zúquete made a film about the Palestinians' use of staged and faked video "bites," and the credulous international news agencies that fall for them. Or, perhaps, collaborate in them. It's called "Pallywood," and is exceptionally well done. The video, which is about 18 minutes long, sheds considerable light on the staging and faking of photos and were so common in the recent conflict in Lebanon.

You can watch the video on Power Line Video, and learn more about the video, and related projects, on Landes's and Zuquete's site, The Second Draft."

"Italian police were searching yesterday for a man suspected of involvement in the killing of a Pakistani woman after her father and uncle were charged with slitting her throat because she dated an Italian man and refused to conform to an Islamic lifestyle. [ 7th century? That recent? -ed. ] "

"On the contrary, each of these new democracies has produced constitutions that enshrine Islamic law. Because Islamic law, known as "sharia," does not permit equality between the sexes or among religions, it is anything but what we in American consider "democratic." Indeed, sharia law endows Muslims, and Muslim men in particular, with a superior position in society. It also outlaws words and deeds that oppose this inequitable power structure for being "un-Islamic." From this same Islamic legal tradition comes the mandate for jihad (holy war, usually against non-Muslims) and dhimmitude, the official state of inferiority of non-Muslims under Islam.

With their devotion to Islamic tradition, then, these new democracies have, in effect, peacefully voted themselves into the same doctrinal camp as the many terror groups that violently strike at the non-Muslim world in the name of jihad for the sake of a caliphate -- a Muslim world government ruled according to sharia."

""I consider it no sacrifice to die for my country. In my mind we came here to thank God that men like these have lived rather than to regret that they have died." --General George S. Patton, Jr. Speech at an Allied cemetery in Italy (Nov 1943)"

"Christianity is growing, I submit, because it has been better able to adapt to modernity, than modernity to it. The Catholic Church is more comfortable with democracy, for instance, than democracies (in Europe, say) find it possible to be with Christianity, unless in public the latter keeps very, very quiet. And it answers something deep in the human spirit, which secularism does not, and cannot."

"This is one message posted on ClearGuidance, to give you an idea of what was taking place there in August 2002, as “jihadi” Ibn Musa lovingly relates how he’d slaughter an infidel:

EA..oKay..and hey....when u DO i.then DO it soo badly that he spits out blood and and starts crying really badly...stab him till da muslim blood from his abdomen comes out ...and ....ermmmm....lets make this more freaky....hey CUT his head off .... i mean like not FAST....i mean cut it in a SLOW MOTION....and let him shout ...cry....and do anything he wants lol......then leave him alone...on the floor....let the blood come out from his THROAT...+ ABDOMEN....and yea yea yea...lol.... and wait till he dies okay....when he dies....then give him a KICK and tell him that it was from IBN MUSA lol...hey we dont want kumo sis or anyone to faint while lukin at theyr own thread rite?...so ST OP it here man..lets do this in DA BRO AREA ..... [ Alright. I agree with the lefties now. These folks are clearly my intellectual superiors and I should submit to them in every way. No question about it. They're going to lead us to goodness and light. Where did I ever get the idea that they were actually headed back to the 7th century ... or beyond... -ed. ] "

"ADAM LIPTAK in the New York Times: "Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday. . . . Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.""

"The PCUSA chose to publish this gibberish. It is responsible for it. The "it doesn't represent us" rhetoric is as cowardly as the conspiracy theories are marginal.

What next? Ward Churchill for Moderator?"

"What does mainstream Christianity have to say about freedom? To cite another famous Slavophilic Russian writer, Dostoevsky, in his remarkable work "The Grand Inquisitor," although freedom is part of Christ's message to the world, it has at times been subverted and undermined by Inquisitors who don't trust humanity with freedom. [ Did I mention how smart neo was? Not to mention Dostoevsky of course... -ed. ]

If you've never read "The Grand Inquisitor," which is actually a chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, you owe it to yourself to do so. Here's the text.

Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor doesn't just stand for the historical figures of the past who were the actual Inquisitors. He represents all attempts by religions and belief systems--including secular ones such as Communism--to perfect humanity by denying people their freedom in the hopes of creating a better world.

I cannot believe that Solzhenitzyn, with his experience in the Russian Gulag, meant to advocate a return to a religion that denies that individual freedom. At any rate, it's not Solzhenitzyn's particular views that are important, it's the questions he raises. The dilemma remains, and it's an ancient and exceedingly important one: how to foster and protect freedom without leading to anarchy and loss of meaning, including the loss of the courage to protect ourselves?

The answer is still unclear, but the hour is getting late--much later than it was in 1978. [ No kidding. -ed. ] "

Today's August 22nd update:

""The maneuver is aimed at introducing our new defensive doctrine," Ashtiani said, adding that 12 infantry regiments would participate in the upcoming exercise dubbed "The Blow of Zolfaghar."

Zolfaghar is the sword used by Imam Ali, one of the most revered figures for Shiite Muslims. [ Luckily, there are no signs that they're fixated on the return of the 12th Imam. Other than obsessing about the 12th imam's sword and using 12 infantry regiments. Other than that there's no sign whatsoever of unhinged lunacy. And starting it just before August 22nd surely can't be significant. Keep praying that the London bombing plot was all there was. I remain less than sanguine... -ed. ] "

"Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned. [ But luckily nothing was imminent. And yes, that's sarcasm. -ed. ] "

Whoops:

"A few photo-illusions are probably due to the lust for the most sensational or striking-looking image—that is, more aesthetic bias than political prejudice. Also, many photographers know that war victims are money shots and some will break the rules of the profession to cash in. But true as well is that local stringers and visiting anchors alike seem to have succumbed either to lens-enabled Stockholm syndrome or accepted being the uncredited Hezbollah staff photographer so as to be able to file stories and images in militia-controlled areas.

It does not help that certain news organizations have acted like government officials or corporate officers trying to squash a scandal. The visual historian in me revolts when an ABC producer informs me that Reuters “deleted all 920 images” by the stringer who produced the “Beirut double smoke” image and is “less than willing to talk about it.” Can you say “18-minute gap,” anyone?"

"Even though such contributions were indeed unverifiable--particularly the one that required Binalshibh to read bin Laden's mind--the 9/11 Commission came to rely on this information, giving it the benefit of the doubt when conflicting information surfaced. For instance, the commission uncovered CIA documents that threatened to complicate matters by dragging Iran into the 9/11 conspiracy: The documents revealed that Iran had "apparently facilitated" the travel of most of the 9/11 "muscle hijackers" in flights from Afghanistan by not stamping their passports, and that Imad Mugniyar, the Hezbollah terrorist group's infamous chief of terrorist operations, had flown with the hijackers. But the commissioners merely referred the "troubling" matter to the CIA project manager.

At that point, the report was only one week away from publication. The project manager quickly ran the information past the agency's prisoners [ What possible reason could there be not to trust AQ prisoners after all? -ed. ] and sent a reply back "just in time for inclusion in the Report," Messrs. Kean and Hamilton write. Result: "We found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack." Such CIA feeds permitted the commission to hew to its theory that al Qaeda carried out 9/11 with no help from any outside party or government. [ How could it possibly be otherwise? -ed. ]

With this book, Messrs. Kean and Hamilton have shown how a government-appointed commission managed to create the appearance, if not the reality, of an exhaustive independent investigation and artfully transformed itself into a lobby for the reorganization of the intelligence establishment. Now that is without precedent."

""If Hezbollah really did the best they could to avoid killing civilians with their inaccurate rockets (as their apologists claim) I would have set up shop in Kiryat Shmona. But the situation was exactly reversed. The exception was the town of Metulla, and the reason for that, presumably, is because it is immediately surrounded on three sides by Lebanon. With that exception in mind, the claim that civilian areas were safer places than military areas is terrorist propaganda." [ I should have highlighted this in my previous reference to Michael's post as well. -ed. ] "

"It couldn't be part of an overall Islamist war plan or anything."

And then there's the new "improved" France:

"After insisting on a cease-fire in Lebanon and demanding international action to separate the combatants, the French have performed one of their traditional about-faces and refused to substantially contribute to the effort. Efforts to create a strong international force to support the Lebanese Army centered on commitments by the French of up to 5,000 troops. Now the Chirac government says they could scrape up maybe 200, if they're not too busy on their August vacations."

Plus ca change and all that...

What Churchill said about the French:

"If the circumstances are such as to warrant it, force may be used. And if this be so, it should be used under the conditions which are most favourable. There is no merit in putting off a war for a year if, when it comes, it is a far worse war or one much harder to win. These are the tormenting dilemmas upon which mankind has throughout its history been so frequently impaled. Final judgment upon them can only be recorded by history in relation to the facts of the case as known to the parties at the time, and also as subsequently proved.

There is, however, one helpful guide, namely, for a nation to keep its word and to act in accordance with its treaty obligations [Churchill is referring to France's obligations to Czechoslovakia]. This guide is called honour. It is baffling to reflect that what men call honour does not correspond always to Christian ethics...Here [] the moment came when Honour pointed the path of Duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at the time would have reinforced its dictates."

Hench Churchill's famous quote: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."

"Missile war may be replacing terrorist war. It's more effective than using hijackers and suicide bombers. Only missile war caused hundreds of thousands of Israelis to flee.

This war was a transition, the testing of a new doctrine. It's a disaster for Israel, but in the end it will be an even bigger disaster for those who think it's a terrific idea.

I don’t know about some of the unhinged Lebanese Hezbollah supporters, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Lebanon if ten Iranian-made Zelzal missiles crash into the sides of Tel Aviv apartments and skyscrapers every hour.

War is coming again, and it’s coming like Christmas. It will not resemble the Middle East wars we are used to."

Today's August 22nd update:

"Blog of the Week Vital Perspective notes that the government of Iran is going from building to building in Tehran, smashing satellite dishes. This can only be construed as an effort to cut Iranians off, as much as possible, from news originating in the outside world. Which strikes me as ominous, especially with August 22 only five days away."