Ask Galileo

"Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto."

Lewis: Terror And Migration

"In his perception, the millennial struggle between the true believers and the unbelievers had gone through successive phases, in which the latter were led by the various imperial European powers that had succeeded the Romans in the leadership of the world of the infidels--the Christian Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the British and French and Russian empires. In this final phase, he says, the world of the infidels was divided and disputed between two rival superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In his perception, the Muslims have met, defeated, and destroyed the more dangerous and the more deadly of the two infidel superpowers. Dealing with the soft, pampered and effeminate Americans would be an easy matter.

This belief was confirmed in the 1990s when we saw one attack after another on American bases and installations with virtually no effective response of any kind--only angry words and expensive missiles dispatched to remote and uninhabited places. The lessons of Vietnam and Beirut were confirmed by Mogadishu. "Hit them, and they'll run." This was the perceived sequence leading up to 9/11. That attack was clearly intended to be the completion of the first sequence and the beginning of the new one, taking the war into the heart of the enemy camp.

In the eyes of a fanatical and resolute minority of Muslims, the third wave of attack on Europe has clearly begun. We should not delude ourselves as to what it is and what it means. This time it is taking different forms and two in particular: terror and migration." [ The link to Lewis' speech that I had referred to earlier is now available. The is DEFINITELY a RTWT. -ed. ]

And No More Tea Parties For Women In Germany Either...

"The nihilistic dead end of multiculturalism has been attained in Germany, where a female judge seemingly forgot which culture’s laws she was supposed to uphold: German judge rules Koran allows wife abuse. " [ Ughh. Of course, she's technically correct about what the Koran says... -ed. ]

Looking Past The Tea Party...

"And the danger, of course is that Rashid's recommended center won't hold and Pakistan enters an ever sharpening spiral of extremism that will make events in Iraq look like an English tea party on a summer's day."

VDH On The Anxiety Society

"Just as the nation could not breathe without learning the size of Dick Cheney’s shotgun pellets (I remember a Washington reporter calling me to ask what a 4-10, 20, and 28 gauge were), or the minutiae of Scooter Libby’s testimony, so now the fired federal attorneys hog the airways.

These may or may not be critical stories of the age, but my confusion is over their transitory nature: the world is supposed to stop over the Harriet Meyers nomination or Valerie Plame testimony. Fine, but why then do they become ancient history within hours? Various explanations: 24-hour cable news stations must create scandal and headlines; the NY-DC media is in a serial hysteria over George Bush; the inability of the American viewer to put up with a sustained analysis, etc. In any case the net effect is abject cynicism, with the public realization that what was supposed to work the nation into a frenzy will be sominex in three weeks—and all this tucked between fights over the corpse of Anna Nicole and worry over lost hikers."

Welcome To The Depths

"Between this and the chlorine dirty bombs, the surge has really brought out the artist in them."

Now I'm Feeling Poor...

"In all events, it turns out that the financial resources of the poor in the US tend to be undercounted. For example, the poor tend to underreport income to the Census, perhaps because they fear it will be reported to the IRS. Consequently, Census figures on income relative to spending indicate that the poor spend $1.94 for every dollar of reported income.

Poverty measures ignore the value of household assets like housing. Consider the following facts about the poor in America. Data from 1995 indicate that 41% of all "poor" households owned their own homes with an average size of 3 bedrooms, 1 ½ bathrooms and most had a garage and a porch or patio. Among the poor, 750,000 owned homes worth over $150,000 (an amount that should be much greater given the US housing bubble).

The average poor American lives with 1/3 more living space than the average Japanese, 25% more than the average Frenchman, 40% more than the average Greek and 4 times more than average Russian. Among the poor of America, 70% of "poor" households owned a car and 27% had two or more cars."

Hitch: The One-Man Iraq Memory Hole Antidote

"Was a civil war not predictable?

Only to the extent that there was pre-existing unease and mistrust between the different population groups in Iraq. Since it was the policy of Saddam Hussein to govern by divide-and-rule and precisely to exacerbate these differences, it is unlikely that civil peace would have been the result of prolonging his regime. Indeed, so ghastly was his system in this respect that one-fifth of Iraq's inhabitants—the Kurds—had already left Iraq and were living under Western protection.

So, you seriously mean to say that we would not be living in a better or safer world if the coalition forces had turned around and sailed or flown home in the spring of 2003?

That's exactly what I mean to say."

Has The Flying Pig's Clock Stopped?

"PARIS, Mar. 18 — Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials said.

The ultimatum was delivered in Moscow last week by Igor Ivanov, Russia’s Security Council Secretary, to Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a confidential diplomatic exchange between two governments was involved.

For years, President Bush has been pressing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to cut off help to Iran on the nuclear reactor, which is Tehran’s first serious effort to produce nuclear energy and has been highly profitable for Russia. But Mr. Putin has resisted.

Recently, however, Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, in a dispute that may explain Russia’s apparent shift. The ultimatum may also reflect Moscow’s increasing displeasure and frustration with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz.

“We’re not sure what mix of commercial and political motives are at play here,” one senior Bush administration official said in Washington. “But clearly the Russians and the Iranians are getting on each other’s nerves — and that’s not all bad.”" [ I'm less sure how clear it is. I suspect the pig will tick once more... -ed. ]

An Inch Of Time

"Four years in. An inch of time. Four years in and the foolish and credulous among us yearn to get out. Their feelings require it. The power of their Holy Gospel of "Imagine" compels them. Their overflowing pools of compassion for the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women working quietly at their desks, rise and flood their minds until their eyes flow with crocodile tears while their mouths emit slogans made of cardboard. They believe the world is run on wishes and that they will always have three more."

Totten: Back In The 51st State

"Kurdistan’s rise flips Iraq on its head. The Kurds are ahead, but they started from nothing. Under Saddam’s regime they had the worst of everything – the worst poverty, the worst underdevelopment, and worst of all they bore the brunt of the worst violence from Baghdad. 200,000 people were killed (out of less than four million) and 95 percent of the villages were completely destroyed.

The Kurds seem happy and well-adjusted. Scratch the surface, though, and any one of them can tell you tales that make you tremble and shudder. Everyone here was touched by the Baath and by the genocide. If living well is the best revenge, the Kurds got theirs.

“You see this place now with its government, its democracy, and its system of laws,” my guide Hamid said. “It wasn’t like this even recently, believe me. Before, it was a jungle.”

Baghdad, the Sunni Triangle, and Shia South are still jungles. No one I know here thinks the Sunni and Shia Arabs will be able to reconcile and live with each other in peace – there is too much bad blood between them. I don’t know if that’s true or if it’s not. The Middle East is an unpredictable place, and I’ve made a fool of myself often enough by thinking I know what will happen.

What I do know for sure is that Baghdad is burning and Kurdish power is rising. The question up north isn’t whether Iraq will come apart, but only when, how, and into how many pieces." [ RTWT and hit his Paypal link! -ed. ]

Looking At Algore: Iraq Edition

"Yesterday, I demonstrated Al Gore's incorrigible phoniness. This is a man who pledged upon his sister's death from lung cancer to "pour his heart and soul" into taking on the tobacco industry, but then campaigned on his affection for tobacco and took campaign contributions from the industry. And this is a man whose lifestyle represents the antithesis of what would be required to make a dent in dealing with the global warning problem which has become the centerpiece of his attempt to return to the limelight.

Hoping perhaps to redeem Gore, Cenk Uygur links to a speech the former Vice President gave before the war in Iraq. Uygur calls Gore's remarks "prescient." It turns out, however, that Gore's core predictions and analysis were wrong in hearly every particular.

First, though, let's give Gore some credit. He was correct in noting that "Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf." He was also correct that "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Gore may have incorrect in stating that "we know [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemicals throughout his country," but that's what our intelligence agencies had been saying for years (including during Gore's time as VP), so his mistake here was understandable.

Why, then, did Gore think we should not take military action to remove the threat he acknowledged Saddam posed? His speech asserts four main reasons, all of which turned out to be misguided.

Gore was concerned that our troops would be subject to attacks with the biological and/or chemical weapons he was sure Saddam possessed. That, of course, did not happen." [ RTWT. Like Hitchens, I find it morbidly fascinating to watch all the left's contemporary concern about OIF being repelled by Saddam's WMD being systematically vacuumed down the Memory Hole. Algore saying this as a recent ex-VP has zero excuse for the "Bush lied" vacuities -- he was privy to Tenet's briefings also. Never mind says the left, not only did Shrubbie lie to us, but we were too smart to believe him. And we'll conveniently expunge any evidence to the contrary. Not that we have any sympathy with totalitarian methods, mind you. This also reminds me of the anecdote Bernard Lewis told in his recent talk on Islam in Europe about the Soviet historian pointing out that in his country the issue was not predicting the future but the past as it always seemed to keep changing! -ed. ]

In Full: Omar On WMD

"With this series of dirty chemical bombings a war between al-Qaeda and the tribes in Anbar is no longer a possibility. It just became a fact.

I've read at least two very optimistic reports from al-Almada in the last week about purported victories of the tribes and police over al-Qaeda in Ramadi and Fallujah. I was reluctant to trust the accuracy of the reports which sited unnamed sources but now seeing the reaction of al-Qaeda suggests that the action of the tribes was so painful that al-Qaeda retaliated in the way we see today.

Al-Qaeda's terrorists-whom AP insists on calling insurgents-expended three suicide bombers and precious resources against their supposedly sympathetic civilian Sunni hosts instead of American and Iraqi soldiers and Shia civilians; their usual enemies.

If this indicates anything it indicates that al-Qaeda's is reprioritizing the targets on the hit list. The reason: al-Qaeda is sensing a serious threat in the change of attitude of the tribes toward them and perhaps the apparently successful meeting of the sheiks with Maliki and the agreements that were made then was the point at which open war had to be declared.

The tribes in Anbar are stubborn and they have many ruthless warriors. That's a proven fact and it looks like Al-Qaeda had just made their gravest mistake—their once best friends are just about to become their worst enemy. " [ The bloggers in Iraq know where to prioritize this story. -ed. ]

Media Wunderkind Watch

"The media wunderkind have missed a fundamental point of the "Surge"

Iraqi Army battalions that were at, or near "Indepentent Status" are being pulled into Baghdad, their equipment is being brought up to snuff, and they are being "filled" out to 110% manning. They then get 90 days of actual Urban Combat before they are then sent back to the outlying areas.

Since Iraqi troops are being pulled out of outlying areas, planned Coalition decreases in outlying areas needed to be put on hold..

At the same time that the top IA Units are being rotated thru Baghdad for what could aptly described as their "Final Exam"...20 new Iraqi battalions are being stood up...so that the coalition doesn't need to "Fill In" for Iraqi units being rotated into Baghdad.

The end result is a larger Iraqi Army that is better equipped and better trained not only in Baghdad..but the outlying provinces.

The surge is the proverbial "One Step Back, Two Steps Forward""

Welcome To The Criminal Jihad

"This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as "crime," but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given "hunting licence," granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about 10% of the population in France, they make up an estimated 70% of French prison inmates.

In the city of Antwerp, Belgium, Marij Uijt den Bogaard from 2003 to 2006 worked as a civil servant in the immigrant borough of Berchem. She noted how radical Islamist groups began to take over the immigrant neighbourhoods, but was fired when she warned against this danger in her reports to the authorities:

"Many victims of burglaries in houses and cars, of steaming and other forms of violence, can testify that aggression by Muslims is not directed against brothers and sisters, but against whoever is a kafir, a non-believer. Young Muslims justify their behaviour towards women who do not wear the headscarf, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, by referring to the Salafist teaching which says that these women are whores and should be treated as such. They told me this. I wrote it down in my reports, but the authorities refuse to hear it.""

But It's Not A "Serious" WMD? Ho Hum...

"Chlorine was the first Chem Weapon used in WWI.

If you think it is not a "real" chemical weapon, then go test it on yourself. After your lungs are scared and unable to process oxigen [sic] you will die. Painfull [sic] death.

If you do not die then you probably will have lung problems the rest of your life and may be blinded by it.Those photos of collumns of blind soldiers marching to the rear from WWI were of chlorine victims..." [ Come to think of it, the plethora of "[sic]" is entirely appropriate for this one -- you will be very, very sic[k]... This story is currently ranging mostly in 3rd to nonexistant place on the MSM with the sole exception of #1 (amazingly) at LAT. It would seem that we're constrained not to give the appropriate response until they have nukes. And even then I've begun to wonder what NYeT will say from the grave. What's that? Why would NYeT be in its grave you ask? You've forgotten AQ's fixation with NYC and DC haven't you? -ed. ]

Strolling Down The Memory Hole With Plame And Wilson

(link) (from the FrontLine archives) "Narrator voiceover

"...but Cheney had no faith in the CIA."

David Kay

"I think there is one thing that influences him [Cheney], at least in our conversations. He remembered as clearly as I remembered how wrong intelligence had been in 1991." [emphasis added]

Narrator voiceover

"They had been wrong about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Iranian revolution, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, and more."

Richard Clarke

"There was a massive nuclear program in Iraq [in 1991], nuclear weapons development program, that was probably 9 - 18 months away from having its first nuclear weapon detonation. And that CIA had totally missed it. We had bombed everything we could bomb in Iraq, but missed an enormous nuclear weapons development facility; didn't know it was there; never dropped one bomb on it." {emphasis added]

David Kay

"That's at the forefront, at least in my conversations with him [Cheney], about Iraq. ‘They were wrong before; they didn't get the evidence; how do we know what they know now?'"

Richard Clarke

"There's no doubt that the Dick Cheney that comes back into office eight years later - nine years later - has that as one of the things burned into his memory: that Iraq wants a nuclear weapon; Iraq was ‘that close' (holding up thumb and forefinger) to getting a nuclear weapon; and CIA hadn't a clue." [emphasis added]

The problem that the Administration faced after 9/11 was that intelligence was not providing an early-warning system for the nation on issues of weapons and attacks. This left the Administration essentially blind to what to expect next from the bad guys, particularly al-Qaeda, but by extension, any opponent that wished us ill.

***

Is your confidence in this mission waning yet? Would your confidence be waning if, like the vice president, you were part of the very small team who is responsible for protecting the country from nuclear attack? After we have already been attacked in a totally unexpected way on 9/11?

The purpose of the Wilson narrative was to discredit the Administration by discrediting part of its case for war made in Bush's State of the Union speech of January 29, 2003. And with no report having been filed - no paper trail - Wilson was subtly able to alter the terms of the debate to the question of whether a uranium transaction had occurred - not the point at issue - instead of the original British claim, repeated by the Administration, that a uranium transaction had been sought.

Wilson's column was an attack on the Administration and, when you think about it, a CIA attack on the Administration. The CIA neither restrained Wilson from publicizing his mission nor punished him for doing so. His column came at a time when Wilson wanted to establish a position with the Dems for the upcoming election, but principally in the wake of the failure to find WMDs in Iraq following the combat phase of the war. Who had said there would be WMDs in Iraq? The CIA. And who worked in the WMD section of the CIA? Mr. Wilson's wife!"

Lieberman On Hell In Washington ... But There's Hope In Iran?

"Increasingly, the debate over our foreign policy is becoming so polarized, so partisan, so bound up in the battles we are having here in Washington, that it seems blind to the real battle outside of America, the challenge of our time from the Islamist extremists who want to destroy us all, who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and intend to do so again." [ Maybe not very realistic hope in Iran, but you really need to click through and watch the video. Apparently the libs think these women are the thuggish puppets of the hateful Rethuglicans? Excuse me, over? -ed. ]

Of Burglars, Scissors And Double Standards

"I don't buy it. Berger didn't make an impulsive decision--"tired, stressed"--to smuggle documents out of the National Archives. He stole documents on multiple occasions. On one occasion, he sneaked them out of the archives, went to a nearby construction site and hid the documents under a construction trailer, so he could come back later and pick them up. I simply don't believe that Berger engaged in this kind of cloak and dagger behavior just because he found the documents "interesting" and wanted to study them at home.

Most of all, I don't see how Berger's explanation can be reconciled with his own admission that he didn't just take the documents home; he cut some of them to pieces with a pair of scissors. Why did he destroy the documents if he wasn't trying to prevent them from coming to light?"

G-d Done It? Or Perhaps Instead The Weather Witches?

"Since 19th century European intellectuals decided to murder G-d and throw his remains in a dumpster, Death has stalked the world, reaping hundreds of millions of souls with industrial efficiency. Of course, the really bright, post-normal folk will tell you it was Christianity done it.

Yeah...when I think of WWI, WWII, Fascism, National Socialism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Potism (Who knew?), and Islamofascism, I think G-d, don't you? For a dead guy, G-d sure causes a lot of trouble.

Did something happen to the gene pool during the Little Ice Age?" [ Actually, there were clearly some quite severe problems then. This 7 minute video might help you understand... -ed. ]

Solzhenitsyn Saw

(link) "Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a famous Russian author and Nobel Laureate. He along with several others (Malcolm Muggeridge for example) exposed the sufferings that Russian peasants were facing due to the collectivisation of Russian industry. He along with his companions struggled to beat down the lies of traitors such as Walter Duranty (New York Times journalist) and the misguided George Bernard Shaw (another writer).

In his famous speech of 8 June 1978 at Harvard, Solzhenitsyn railed against the decadence, shortsightness and delusionment rife in the West. He spared no words for the role that the media played in this and to whom he attributed as being the “…greatest power with the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary…”.

He charged that the media lacked responsibility: the “deformation and disproportion” that he observed the media employing would receive no clarification, retraction or correction. Indeed he said that, “…one may safely assume that [the journalist] will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance…”. This would result in “…terrorists heroized, or secret matters pertaining to one’s nation’s defense, publicly revealed…” all in the name of the “everyone is entitled to know anything” mantra. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, this Nobel Prize winner of Literature, identified the uniformity with which the media reported on matters. And not because of the lack of competition. No, he points out that the media in the West enjoyed “enormous freedom”, yet gave “…stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not openly contradict their own and the general trend…” Sound familiar?

For his candidness and for his remarkable foresight (that I will discuss in a later post), Solzhenitsyn was booed off the stage." [ Boy, did he see... -ed. ]

Harsh On The Jews?

"Fortunately, in the US this week, I was struck by an article on the oped pages of The New York Times, the very citadel of leftish political correctness. Written by an apparently completely sane professor at a prestigious US university and entitled “Biased Broadcasting Corporation”, it assailed the BBC’s Middle Eastern services for their consistently antiWestern tone and content.

When the editorial pages of The New York Times accuse the BBC of anti-Western bias it is worth taking notice. It is a little like Osama bin Laden accusing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being a bit harsh on the Jews. It suggests that in other, even pretty unlikely, parts of the world, people are waking up to the menace to our values represented by the BBC. The British sadly, seem curiously content to remain in thrall to it. "

Crichton's A Gas

"Crichton Debates Global Warming Advocates Live. Wins. The Global Warming skeptics team led by Michael Crichton defeated the Global Warming advocates led by Brenda Ekwurzel in a debate moderated by Brian Lehrer before a live audience in New York City. Before the debate the organizers polled 57.32% to 29.88% in favor of Global Warming, but after the debate the numbers flipped to 46.22% to 42.22% in favor of the skeptics." [ The Global Warming Alarmists team didn't seem to lack for credentials either. And after reading the transcript, I really don't think -- even with how good they were -- Crichton's skeptics actually pulled together all the best arguments possible. For instance, only part of this argument about solar cycles and cosmic rays impacts on cloud formation was referenced and only lightly. They also failed to point out that China is about to overtake the U.S. for the #1 spot in emissions this year or next (making all of this posturing into so much dancing on the head of a pin unless China buys in; did I hear a chorus of "not a chance in aich ee double hockey sticks"?), the U.S. while still growing emissions is doing so at a rate substantially less than Europe in spite of all their moralizing about Kyoto signings (!), or that the meat industry in toto is actually the #1 producer of greenhouse gases by the alarmist's definition of them (interesting how PETA is marginalized by the alarmists when PETA points this out; could it be the alarmists don't want the hopelessly bad P.R. wide knowledge of this would entail -- ya think?). But the hugely negative impact on the Third world and even a well aimed shot at eugenics made for great scores. And Crichton's proposal to ban private jets was a nose crusher for the hypocrites... -ed. ]

UPDATE: Here's an older article where they were just starting to understand the cosmic ray effect clarified in the article above.

It's Called Leadership

"The last line says it all. The commander stands with his men. This is something almost unknown within Washington. It's called leadership."

Churchill's Battle Of Britain Hastings

"What I would like to draw your attention to is the level of CO2 levels, as preserved in prehistoric air bubbles, from very high quality ice core records from Antarctica. When researchers first looked at the results from these cores they observed a repeating correlation between CO2 and temperature through several glacial/interglacial cycles. However, when they began to look at higher resolution cycles they say something different. They observed that temperature would go up first, with CO2 coming up later. This correlation indicates that as one might expect as temperatures warm biological productivity increases resulting in more CO2 in the atmosphere. The lag between CO2 and rising or falling CO2 levels is something like 800 years.

I teach a general climate change course. To get the significance of this correlation over to the students I use the following analogy. I tell the students that based on these records if you believe that climate is being driven by CO2 then they probably would have no difficulty in accepting the idea that Winston Churchill was instrumental in the defeat of King Herold by Duke William of Orange at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. If you can believe that this historical temporal incongruity could be feasible then you can have no problem believing that CO2 is what's driving Earth's climate system.

In conclusion, the geologic record clearly shows us that there really is little correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Although CO2 can have a minor influence on global temperature the effect is minimal and short lived as this cycle sits on top of the much larger water cycle, which is what truly controls global temperatures. The water cycle is in turn primarily influenced by natural celestial cycles and trends." [ This article especially rocks for the technically minded. It's chock full of data and charts. You really need to go read the whole thing now. -ed. ]

Boundless Contempt ...

"In retribution for this action, the unnamed couple probably will be dragged into court soon and face the prospect of hiring a lawyer, enduring hostile questioning and paying huge legal bills. The same fate could await other as-yet-unnamed passengers on the US Airways flight who came forward as witnesses.

The imams’ attempt to bully ordinary passengers marks an alarming new front in the war on airline security." [ ... is what I have for the scum lawyers that are enabling this. I'll be very surprised if it's not the ACLU. And you don't want to know what I think of the imams. -ed. ]

The Real Terror(s)

"Say what? If this report is true, it means the Iranians are virtually admitting they are infiltrating inside Iraq. Otherwise, why the trial? Will this come up in the Congress today? Would you like to bet? Perhaps we should administer basic information tests to our representatives. But the results might be terrifying." [ Have I made it clear yet that I can never be elected to any public office? And am smart enough not to try? ;) -ed. ]

All Solved (Updated With Gandhi's Wisdom)

"In step 3, we buy the world a puppy." [ And all us warmongers somehow never thought of this! Shows you just how little we know, eh? -ed. ]

UPDATE: Sorry about that brain fart. Fred Thompson has reminded me why:

"And that’s a pretty good question. At what point is it okay to fight dictators like Saddam or the al Qaeda terrorists who want to take his place?

It turns out that the answer, according to Gandhi, is NEVER. During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”

The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi’s way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won’t cut it in this country. When American’s think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein." [ But look on the bright side. If Hitler had won, there wouldn't have been this continuing desperate need to keep stuffing Eugenics down the Memory Hole. Eugenics? What Eugenics? -ed. ]

Read. The. Whole. Thing.

"“Of course, your next round against Hezbollah may involve the Syrians and the Iranians against you. The Iranians declared that they will not allow Hezbollah to be defeated no matter what and may launch their missiles against you. So will the Syrians. What will Israel do? It is unlikely that Israel will accept its destruction and may use their nuclear arsenal if the West will not come to their help. Perhaps our book of Revelation is not so wrong in describing that the end of the world would start at Armageddon, which we know as Har-Megiddo in Israel. The book of Revelations describe the last battle would be fought at Armageddon between the “Forces of good and the forces of evil.”

“And who would you call the forces of good ‘Israel or Islam?’ I asked looking him straight in the eyes. He gave me a startled look. “If I were a Moslem, I would have no problem to name the forces of good and it wouldn’t be Israel. As a Christian, I would probably name Israel, but as a Christian Arab I would prefer not to answer.”

We looked at each other. His answer made it clear where the Israeli Arabs stood, whether they were Moslems or Christians. And why should I be surprised? After all the Israeli Arabs call the establishment of the State of Israel their nakbah (disaster).

Is there a way to avoid the “Armageddon”?

“I think there are two ways to avoid it. One can be a major war which the West can win. As in World War Two, had the West attacked the Germans in 1936 the war would have lasted not more than a month with very few casualties. Their procrastination resulted in World War II with all its consequences. Eventually, the West will have to tackle the Iranians, it is better that they do it now to avert a world catastrophe later. With Iran defeated the Islamic onslaught will lose its base, and it may be the turning point in history to defeat the menace of extreme Islam. The majority of the Moslems don’t want this confrontation anyway.”

“You are painting a rather dark picture. When do you think we will have the next round against Hezbollah?” I asked. “I think they will attack again as soon as they are fully re-equipped and I think it will be during the summer, while Israel is still in a military and political turmoil.”

For a while, we sat in silence. He finished his second cup of coffee and got up. “I know what I am going to do. I am going to Canada to join my brother. This country is becoming much too dangerous for Christians as well,” he said. He thanked me for the coffee and we shook hands.

“You said there are two ways to avoid Armageddon?” I remembered to ask him." [ Wow. This one is truly "label" rich. Read it to find out about the second way... -ed. ]

Not Even 22 Rats For Dinner

"Rate of Inflation, 1,740%. Unemployment, 80%. HIV infection rate, 33%. Life expectancy, 34. Motto: “Unity, Freedom, Work.” National anthem: Kalibusiswe Ilizwe leZimbabwe “Blessed be the land of Zimbabwe”"

No. 22: Hot Rails To Hell

See another clip and purchase via a post on Michelle's site...

Keeping The Goose Warm...

"And although The Times' report avoids firmly answering the question "why?," the reason for this much-improved health isn't hard to find given that these health gains have been greatest in the industrialized world and that they started within the past two centuries.

The answer, in a word, is "capitalism."

Capitalism produces so much food that we are never malnourished; it produces ample clothing and sturdy homes to protect us from the elements; it produces the soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and detergents that we use every day to cleanse our bodies and living spaces of bacteria and other dirt. And by continually substituting machines for human labor, capitalism progressively makes our work less backbreaking and less perilous.

These gains are significant and real. And they are continuing; no one knows where, or even if, they will stop.

Those of us who recognize these important benefits of capitalism -- those of us who understand that capitalism's true greatness lies not (as many critics insinuate) in producing oceans of pointless trinkets and baubles but in making the lives of ordinary people richer and fuller and longer -- are reluctant to yield power to governments to tackle global warming. We worry that this power will kill the goose that's laying this golden egg". [ ... We'll need it to be good and warm for next Ice Age... -ed. ]

Speer's Phony Holocaust Denial: A Measuring Stick Of The Credulous

"Now it appears that Speer was more calculating even than most thought. The letter makes clear that Speer knew exactly what the Nazis would do to the Jews, and cared so little that he helped them work prisoners to death. Essentially, Speer lived a lie for the last half of his life, aided and abetted by a credulous West that for some reason wanted to believe his strange protestations of innocence."

And I'm Not A Republican

"“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Biologists, too, have gotten into the act. In January, Paul Reiter, an active skeptic of global warming’s effects and director of the insects and infectious diseases unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, faulted Mr. Gore for his portrayal of global warming as spreading malaria.

“For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims,” Dr. Reiter wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.”" [ Go see the other view. -ed. ]

Mo's Turf

"It has long been thus: welcome to this outpost of Islamic civilisation, a colony where the stridency of the faithful collides with vogues that were once confined to the underclass of non-Muslim British society. Muhammad is not just the newest, and the final of, God's prophets; Muhammad is the newest, and the final of, the bling-bling superstars. Since the Rushdie Affair, and more recently the Cartoon jihad, even the most irreligious of the street-savvy Muslim rude-boys have come to know of the new universal limits: nobody disses Mo, the Final Gangster of all time and a Mercy to all the worlds.

Such are the strong sensibilities of those Muslims who are deprived of all high culture, and have only a very nominal sense of their own religious background. If you drew Muhammad sporting gold jewellery, a tailor-made condom hat, a goatee, wraparound orange shades, and tell him to strike a pose, they will not be amused. They will not giggle at how "hard" the prophet is. And, to paraphrase from the movie Pulp Fiction, they will go jahiliyya on your ass. Mo's turf is the entire planet, and his homeboys, which range from imams to the most ridiculous of their underclass congregants, are busy trying to strut their stuff on it.

And many are succeeding."

Superior Fashion

"But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others."

Of Swindles And Designated Hitters

"As Polanyi has written, this is the perennial trick of the left: to deny the traditional moral order that is "set in the stars" and to replace it with an unhinged moral impulse that rampages through postmodernity like a wildfire. We see it in the appropriately named "environmental movement," which replaces the moral order of the heavens with the fanciful imperatives of the earth, another way of destroying the possibility of man. (I hope everyone watched this documentary, which has Petey's Good Denkeeping Seal of Approval).




"Private property is public theft." "To each according to his needs." "Living wage." "Income gap." "Poverty causes crime." "Israel causes terror." "Dissent on global warming is Holocaust denial." "A baby is distinct from a woman's body only if she doesn't want to kill it." "Homosexuality is no different from heterosexuality." "Group rights." "Diversity." "Racial quotas." "Moral relativism." "The designated hitter." Each of these luciferian ideas in one way or another denies the human blueprint and overturns the order of the cosmos, especially that last one. "American" League my a**."

Today's Stopped (Nuclear) Clock Watch

"MOSCOW - The state-run Russian company building Iran's first nuclear power plant said Monday that the reactor's launch will be postponed because of Iranian payment delays.

Russian media reports, meanwhile, indicated that the Kremlin was growing tired of Iran's nuclear defiance in the face of U.N. Security Council sanctions, with three agencies citing an unidentified official warning Iran to cooperate and stop playing "anti-American games.""

The UPI's Pamela Hess ...

... sets the record straight about what real evil is. Wow. Listen to the story about the boy at the door. But how long can she be a real human being like this and continue to work for the MSM? When she gets canned, I'll support her blog with donations just as I do Totten and Yon if she keeps this up though...

On The Necessity Of Banning Dihydrogen Monoxide

Shirley, You Must Be Joking ...

"So what makes the Indian government so sure that Gen Musharraf will keep his end of bargains that he is only half-making?" [ ... when you argue that we should take negotiations with totalitarians -- not to speak of totaliterrorists -- seriously? -ed. ]

Did Someone Shout Quagmire?

"Eight years has changed nothing. The ethnic Albanians still want their own nation in Kosovo, and the Serbians refuse to part with it. Another eight years will probably produce the same result. Neither side will give an inch on the main issue, which is independence for Kosovo. Both sides remain absolutely committed to the outcome they desire and will not negotiate away their demands.

Imagine if the UN existed in 1860, and blue-helmeted soldiers occupied the Mason-Dixon line after the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, or perhaps after First Manassas. Would either the South or the North conceded on their demands? How long would it have been before either Lincoln allowed the South to secede, or for Jefferson Davis to concede sovereignty back to Washington DC? And that conflict was neither ethnic nor religious in nature, and the history of our nation only went back four score and four years, at that point -- not centuries filled with conflict between the two sides, as in Kosovo and the Balkans in general."

Today's MSM Crusades Update

"“Just how deaf has the Washington press corps become? Princeton’s world famous scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, gave a landmark speech Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner. Warning that the 14-century-long struggle between Christianity and Islam is entering a new phase, in which radical Islamists have found a sense of identity and purpose, while we are losing our own to self-denigration and self-abasement, Lewis cited as one example the Pope apologizing last year for the crusades. Lewis urged us to have a little sense of proportion, and went on to say — and it was an illuminating line — ‘The crusade was a late, limited and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad.’

(Repeat: ‘unsuccessful’ was what Lewis said).

But that’s not how Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King Jr. described it. On the Journal’s Washington Wire blog site, under the absurdly misleading headline ‘Bernard Lewis Applauds the Crusades,’ King misquoted Lewis as having described the crusades as ‘a late, limited and successful imitation of the jihad.’" [ If I was his editor he'd be on the street and that would have never made it into ink. But sadly, this kind of malpractice has become pretty much the (unaccountable) norm for the MSM. By the way, I heard him with my own ears as I broke my 15 minutes of TV a week rule to watch him on C-SPAN -- and was not disappointed... -ed. ]

Afghanistan: The "Good" War?

"CAIRO, Egypt - Islamic militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria unless the two European nations break ranks with the U.S. and withdraw their personnel from Afghanistan, according to a Web statement.

“Germany will face more threats and dangers if it doesn’t withdraw its troops from Afghanistan,” an unidentified speaker said in a video statement posted Saturday on an Islamic Web site used by al-Qaida-linked militants." [ One, not that the Eurabians have committed more than a relative handful of troops to the "good war" in Afghanistan to get Osama anyway. Two, the timing is interesting as it occurs just as W's patience appears to have run out with Musharraf and the U.S. appears to be increasingly going after Osama in Pakistan (Waziristan) directly itself. Hmm. What if I said I wasn't shocked? -ed. ]

Husseini's Brother Also Lives

"OK, now back to our Bushitler theme. This very fancy banner, featuring Juan and Eva Peron, fluttered over an anti-Bushitler rally in Buenos Aires:

Now here is the historical irony: Peron actually was a fascist. During World War II, he openly admired and supported Adolf Hitler. Now, at left-wing rallies in Latin America, they wave Peron banners, cheer Hugh Chavez, and draw Hitler mustaches on President Bush. The convergence of the far left and the far right is complete, and they don't make any more sense together than they did separately."

Your Son Lives

""Heredity" means simply the transmission of similarity from ancestors to their descendents. In this sense, the invisibly divinely created archetypes are the "ancestors" of the visible species of animals. And the invisible archetype of man, the divine being itself, is the "ancestor" of the human being. The sickness which arose as a tragic consequence of the Fall was a change in the direction in the mirroring process of heredity; it changed from being vertical to become horizontal. --Valentin Tomberg

***

This brings out a very important -- and perhaps dangerously politically incorrect -- psychological point, that there is something central to fathers and to fatherhood in arresting the intergenerational transmission of mind parasites. Frankly, this is common sense, but it is certainly confirmed if we examine the anthropological and sociological evidence.

Put it this way: in the absence of a strong, vertically oriented father figure, a boy is very likely to remain a more or less horizontal animal. He will be male -- a biological entity under the influence of his horizontal genetic and cultural programming -- but not a man -- which is the first vertical category introduced into human culture. Indeed, it is the foundation of human culture.

***

Perhaps someone will relink to that study from about a week ago, documenting how the father's church attendance varies directly with the child's, much more so than the mother's, which has almost no effect. (Here it is -- TW: Smoov.) In light of today's discussion, this makes perfect sense. As in the parable of the nobleman's son, somehow the vertical resoration of the father has a direct effect on the child.

***

To be honest, the greatest anxiety in my life is that I will not be around long enough to accomplish this for my son. (If only we could purchase a vertical life insurance policy and know that our children would be spiritually "taken care of" in our absence.) I would like to provide Future Leader with plenty of opportunities to experience me as a mere vertical deputy of the real father, so that he can make the naturally supernatural transition from horizontal heredity to vertical heredity. Truly, that is when your mission as a father has been accomplished -- when you may "go your way," knowing that "your son lives.""

The Consistent Doctrine

"NEW YORK-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali is untrammeled and unrepentant: "I am supposed to apologize for saying the prophet is a pervert and a tyrant," she declares. "But that is apologizing for the truth."

Statements such as these have brought Ms. Hirsi Ali to world-wide attention. Though she recently left her adopted country, Holland--where her friend and intellectual collaborator Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004--she is still accompanied by armed guards wherever she travels.

Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Mogadishu--into, as she puts it, "the Islamic civilization, as far as you can call it a civilization." In 1992, at age 22, her family gave her hand to a distant relative; had the marriage ensued, she says, it would have been "an arranged rape." But as she was shipped to the appointment via Europe, she fled, obtaining asylum in Holland. There, "through observation, through experience, through reading," she acquainted herself with a different world. "The culture that I came to and I live in now is not perfect," Ms. Hirsi Ali says. "But this culture, the West, the product of the Enlightenment, is the best humanity has ever achieved."

***

At his sentencing, Mohammed Buyeri said he would have killed his own brother, had he made "Submission" or otherwise insulted the One True Faith. "And why?" Ms. Hirsi Ali asks. "Because he said his god ordered him to do it. . . . We need to see," she continues, "that this isn't something that's caused by special offense, the right, Jews, poverty. It's religion."

***

That partly explains why Ms. Hirsi Ali's new autobiography, "Infidel," is already a best seller. It may also have something to do with the way she scrambles our expectations. In person, she is modest, graceful, enthralling. Intellectually, she is fierce, even predatory: "We know exactly what it is about but we don't have the guts to say it out loud," she says. "We are too weak to take up our role. The West is falling apart. The open society is coming undone."

Many liberals loathe her for disrupting an imagined "diversity" consensus: It is absurd, she argues, to pretend that cultures are all equal, or all equally desirable. But conservatives, and others, might be reasonably unnerved by her dim view of religion. She does not believe that Islam has been "hijacked" by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: "Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous."

The Muslim faith has many variations, but Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the unities are of greater significance. "Islam has a very consistent doctrine," she says, "and I define Islam as I was taught to define it: submission to the will of Allah. His will is written in the Quran, and in the hadith and Sunna. What we are all taught is that when you want to make a distinction between right and wrong, you follow the prophet. Muhammad is the model guide for every Muslim through time, throughout history."

This supposition justifies, in her view, a withering critique of Islam's most holy human messenger. "You start by scrutinizing the morality of the prophet," and then ask: "Are you prepared to follow the morality of the prophet in a society such as this one?" She draws a connection between Mohammed's taking of child brides and modern sexual oppressions--what she calls "this imprisonment of women." She decries the murder of adulteresses and rape victims, the wearing of the veil, arranged marriages, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other contraventions of "the most basic freedoms."

These sufferings, she maintains, are traceable to theological imperatives. "People say it is a bad strategy," Ms. Hirsi Ali says forcefully. "I think it is the best strategy. . . . Muslims must choose to follow their rational capacities as humans and to follow reason instead of Quranic commands. At that point Islam will be reformed."

This worldview has led certain critics to dismiss Ms. Hirsi Ali as a secular extremist. "I have my ideas and my views," she says, "and I want to argue them. It is our obligation to look at things critically." As to the charges that she is an "Enlightenment fundamentalist," she points out, rightly, that people who live in democratic societies are not supposed to settle their disagreements by killing one another.

And yet contemporary democracies, she says, accommodate the incitement of such behavior: "The multiculturalism theology, like all theologies, is cruel, is wrongheaded, and is unarguable because it is an utter dogmatism. . . . Minorities are exempted from the obligations of the rest of society, so they don't improve. . . . With this theory you limit them, you freeze their culture, you keep them in place."

The most grievous failing of the West is self-congratulatory passivity: We face "an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it." She believes a more drastic reaction is required: "It's easy," she says, "to weigh liberties against the damage that can be done to society and decide to deny liberties. As it should be. A free society should be prepared to recognize the patterns in front of it, and do something about them."

She says the West must begin to think long term about its relationship with Islam--because the Islamists are. Ms. Hirsi Ali notes Muslim birth rates are vastly outstripping those elsewhere (particularly in Western Europe) and believes this is a conscious attempt to extend the faith. Muslims, she says, treat women as "these baby-machines, these son-factories. . . . We need to compete with this," she goes on. "It is a totalitarian method. The Nazis tried it using women as incubators, literally to give birth to soldiers. Islam is now doing it. . . . It is a very effective and very frightening way of dealing with human beings.""

Spain: Finally Enough With Appeasing Terrorists?

"The rally is organized by the conservative Popular Party, now in opposition, and follow 65 smaller demonstrations across the country's cities yesterday evening. They're all against Zapatero's decision to allow one of ETA's biggest killers, Iñaki de Juana Chaos, to serve his reduced sentence at home after being in a hunger strike for about 100 days demanding his release. Of course the term 'hunger strike' is an euphemism: during the last weeks he was in a Madrid hospital with a more than lax regime for visits and his girlfriend staying with him. The police officers custodying him have publicly complained they were ordered not to search her, so who knows how many power-bars or other food she sneaked in. Anyway, Zapatero took the measure for 'humanitarian reasons' alleging he was in a very bad physical state, though it didn't seem an obstacle for him to take long 40-minute showers with his girlfriend (if you know what I mean) until the last day before he was sent home. Or leaving the hospital walking, as he did. Again, it's the police officers who say it, not me.

Many people, not only from the PP, view this as the last straw, as a measure in favor of a terrorist who just said he doesn't feel any remorse for killing and who belonged to a terrorist organization that just killed 2 inocent people in the Barajas airport bombing late last year. Even though Zapatero said then that he would stop negotiating with ETA, the truth is that soon after he has declared his intention to keep doing so. That's probably why today's protest is probably even bigger than the several million-man marches in recent months. Madrid public regional TV says it's 2.2 million, but Madrid regional government is PP so they're probably stretching the figures a little. In any event, it's another impressive gathering." [ This is great to see but I'm frankly not optimistic about Eurabia in general. I have said before that we will need to greatly increase U.S. immigration quotas to absorb the refugees with the sense to escape (probably a fair number of them in this crowd!) when the final straws start falling with the Islamists. How long? Did you know that in many major Eurabian cities like Paris the Muslim teens are nearly equal in numbers with the natives. Already. -ed. ]

Hypocrisy Eurabian Style

"'Cause the Europeans are, you know, more progressive than we are."

All Cleared Up Now

"In the question and answer session, it apparently became even more difficult for Carter to sustain his "good will" towards Jews. Asked how he felt about the 14 members of the Carter Center advisory board who resigned in protest over his book, Carter noted, "they all happen to be Jewish Americans, I understand the tremendous pressures on them." In other words, these scholars like Kenneth Stein criticized his book for "egregious errors and polemical conclusions," they weren't offering their good faith assessment, they were succumbing to pressure from their tribesmen. I'm glad he cleared that up."

That Bad?

"The analogy I use is like my car’s not running very well, so I’m going to ignore the engine which is the sun and I’m going to ignore the transmission which is the water vapour and I’m going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel which is the human produced CO2. The science is that bad."

The Non-Smoking Animal-Loving Vegetarian Artist Surely Loves Thermopylae...

"I have no idea whether 300 is a good movie, but Steven's review is an entertaining example of how all events, including those which happened nearly 500 years BC, must be judged according to prisms of contemporary political correctness. Miller had to remember, for example, "that we're in the middle of an actual war". Did he not realize his duty to denounce it? But what if Miller had made a movie about the fight against Hitler? Would it have been necessary to remind the audience that Hitler was a nonsmoking, animal-loving, vegetarian artist? Or had he remade Zulu to include some white faces among Prince Dabulamanzi's impis?

The most interesting thing about those who habitually denounce ethnocentricity and cultural blindness is that they are not without such sentiments themselves, the difference being that their cultural point of view is rooted in the mid-20th century, rather than say, ancient Lacedaemonia.

Now I'm truly surprised that nobody 'gets' the background of 300. Everybody knows it deals with what happened to Hercules after his epic battle with Maciste on his way to a rematch with Conan."

100 Bars Here, Another Rod There...

"Mr Mukeba said Mr Lumu was suspected of "orchestrating illicit contracts to produce and sell uranium" but he did not name the alleged buyers.

Le Phare newspaper reported that about 100 bars of uranium had disappeared from the small experimental reactor, the oldest nuclear facility in Africa. The uranium produced by the reactor in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, is enriched but not to weapons grade, although it could be used in a "dirty bomb" to spread radiation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and foreign governments have expressed concern about lax security at the plant, which the US has tried to get closed for a number of years. Two years ago the Congolese government denied reports that uranium was shipped to Iran.

In 2000, Newsweek reported that a Kenyan middleman attempted to sell Congolese uranium to Saddam Hussein but the Iraqi leader was under too much international scrutiny to buy it.

The IAEA has criticised standards at the site, which is often left unguarded and is protected only by a low fence and rickety gate. Although the reactor has been on standby for nine years, there are 98 bars of enriched uranium stored at the site, submerged in a pool underneath a padlocked metal grate or in the reactor.

Two uranium rods disappeared from the facility in the late 1970s, one of which is believed to have been found in 1998 on its way to the Middle East via the mafia. The other was never recovered." [ Isn't that special? -ed. ]

The Drama Of "News"

"Perhaps the greatest production of the BBC has been the long running drama of itself playing a news organization.

As for myself, I will continue to read the BBC -- and Xinhua -- remembering for my own benefit that in their newsroom hangs a portrait of Bush as Hitler. Seig Heil."

The Scare Dynamic

"With no countervailing force, we get the build-up of a scare dynamic which then dominates public policy, even (or especially) where the scientific foundation is hopelessly flawed.

In the fullness of time, the scare will dissipate – scares always do – leaving a trail of wreckage behind it. Looking back, we will view the claims of pending Armageddon with amused puzzlement, wondering how people could have been so stupid as to have accepted such crazy alarums.

By then, of course, we will all have moved on to yet another scare, and another, each of which will have seemed every bit as plausible and rational as did global warming at the time. But each time we will have forgotten how easily we were gulled by that which we now deride, and each time mankind emerges the poorer." [ And don't forget that China is set to pass the U.S. as the largest greenhouse producer this year or next. Or that the meat industry is currently the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses. ... Crickets chirping... -ed. ]

Hatreds Of Lost Utopias

"His name is Peter Tatchell and he asks the right question: how come the Left doesn’t support the Iranians’ desire to be free? I think the answer is pretty obvious: because the Left has made the United States, Israel, and George Bush their prime enemies, and they defend all the tyrants who threaten these enemies.

To put it differently: they never forgave us for bringing down the Soviet Empire. We destroyed their utopian dreams."

The People Who Must Choose For Themselves

Irshad Again...

"“Moderate Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam but they deny that religion has anything to do with it," she says. "Reform-minded Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam and acknowledge that our religion is used to inspire it.""

Warren On Robert's Anglosphere

"His main point is that the Anglosphere determined the course of history through the twentieth century by standing united against Prussian militarism in the First World War, Fascism in the Second, and Communism in the Cold War. In each case, the Anglosphere stood nearly alone, with no reliable allies elsewhere in the world, only clients and dependents. As we pass into the 21st century, we face a fourth great test, against what has been called “Islamofascism”. Will the Anglosphere again stand united, in defence of the West?

Roberts takes this as an open question. He is distressed by demographics, and by “multiculturalism”. Massive immigration of Muslims and others from dysfunctional Third-World states is transforming our societies, especially in leading urban centres, and meanwhile our educational systems have “progressed” to reflect a demented cultural relativism, in which our own English-speaking heritage is disowned, barbarous ideas are substituted piecemeal, and a void is created into which all kinds of horrors may be sucked.

We are no longer assimilating immigrants, and winning them over to our language and outlook; we are instead surrendering everything we stand for.

Yet the Anglosphere is still there, as evidence the British and Australian allies the Americans found when something had to be done about Iraq. Canadian troops in Afghanistan represent at least a tip of the hat to our own best national traditions, in which we were always rather proudly first in the trenches, and first up the hill.

Nor, of course, is systematic unhelpfulness from our nominal allies in Continental Europe something new. We have a history of having to protect them from each other, or liberate them, again and again, while they mutter about the distastefulness of “Anglo-Americanism”. But someone has to play adult in the planetary kindergarten.

You must know history, to see a way forward; you must ask the “What if?” questions. Without a strong, essentially united Anglosphere, the world would be a much nastier place, even than it is today. It is time we English-speakers got our act together. Again. And I think, time we started inviting India to the show, for it is emerging as another English-speaking centre on the scale of a new America."

A Barbarism Of Their Own Making

"In America, my husband was proud that I was a natural-born rebel and free thinker. In Afghanistan, my criticism of the treatment of women and of the poor rendered him suspect, vulnerable. He mocked my horrified reactions. But I knew what my eyes and ears told me. I saw how poor women in chadaris were forced to sit at the back of the bus and had to keep yielding their place on line in the bazaar to any man.

I saw how polygamous, arranged marriages and child brides led to chronic female suffering and to rivalry between co-wives and half-brothers; how the subordination and sequestration of women led to a profound estrangement between the sexes — one that led to wife-beating, marital rape and to a rampant but hotly denied male “prison”-like homosexuality and pederasty; how frustrated, neglected and uneducated women tormented their daughter-in-laws and female servants; how women were not allowed to pray in mosques or visit male doctors (their husbands described the symptoms in their absence).

Individual Afghans were enchantingly courteous — but the Afghanistan I knew was a bastion of illiteracy, poverty, treachery and preventable diseases. It was also a police state, a feudal monarchy and a theocracy, rank with fear and paranoia. Afghanistan had never been colonised. My relatives said: “Not even the British could occupy us.” Thus I was forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism was of their own making and could not be attributed to Western imperialism.

Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil. Long before al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nicholas Berg in Iraq, I understood that it was dangerous for a Westerner, especially a woman, to live in a Muslim country. In retrospect, I believe my so-called Western feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of Eastern countries.

Nevertheless, Western intellectual-ideologues, including feminists, have demonised me as a reactionary and racist “Islamophobe” for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West. I have been heckled, menaced, never-invited, or disinvited for such heretical ideas — and for denouncing the epidemic of Muslim-on-Muslim violence for which tiny Israel is routinely, unbelievably scapegoated."

On Fairness

"I'm sorry to be redundant about this, but I don't think people fully appreciate the logic. Meat eating is either the number one cause of GW or it is not. If it is the number one cause, then why are the GW people not talking about it? Even the skeptics are not focusing on meat as they should be. I think meat may be the Achilles Heel of GW, as it puts the lie to them. The skeptics should be pressing it. I think the logic is being blurred for several reasons. One is that lot of people think we should conserve (we should), and end our dependence on foreign oil (we should). This does not mean that CO2 is being released in sufficient quantities to cause climate change, though. People rationalize going along with the GW scare because we need to conserve, and they forget that conservation of oil is a different issue. (I think it's right to conserve oil and reduce dependency, but I think fudging the issue is manipulative.)

Another reason is that even the believers have a natural resistence to giving up meat, and they fear it will damage their movement. They want to keep it quiet, and for some strange reason, their opponents go along with keeping it quiet, probably because they think the less said about it the better. Big mistake IMO, especially if meat is in fact the Achilles Heel of the environmentalists. The American people are used to being scolded about oil, but if they're asked to give up meat, they'll begin to wise up, and start asking basic questions. It's this "leave well enough alone" mindset which prevents people from getting to the truth.

Finally, there's a natural inclination to think of oil as the culprit, not just because Big Oil is so widely demonized, but because we've all been conditioned from childhood to think of smokestacks and tailpipes as pouring out evil, filthy pollution. Never mind that we emit carbons and that they're organic. Oil companies are "bad." Farmers are "good."

Thus, it is counterintuitive to see meat as the problem. Frankly, I don't think man's oil consumption or meat consumption emits enough carbon to change the climate. But I believe in being fair."

In Which Brian Williams Gets Honorable Mention...

"If their morale could be bottled, it would probably sell like crack, then be outlawed."

Letter From The "French Educated Intellectual" Memory Hole

"Dear Excellency and Friend:

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

Immediately after the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, writes Kissinger, Sirik Matak was shot in the stomach and left to die over the course of three days from his untreated wounds." [ If you don't know who the "French Educated Intellectual" was then how much grasp of history do you really have? -ed. ]

The Messiah Pariah

"Think about that one for a moment. Again, as we were discussing the other day, the deeper the cause, the deeper the effect. The cause of this messiah was so deep that its shattering effects continue to be felt today -- again, even if you only look at it in purely Bionian terms, let alone religious ones; for if truth is catastrophic, then Truth must be the biggest catastrophe of them all, shattering every man-made idol with which it comes into contact.

Understood in Bion's sense, it is not the least bit of hyperbole to say that the United States is the "messiah among nations." With this understanding in mind, it is entirely predictable that the Establishment -- e.g., the UN or the international left -- would react to us the way they do. The truly messianic liberal principles embodied in our founding documents absolutely shatter the leftist agenda into into so many bits of totoiletarian fasces."

Iranian Cracks?

"One respected analyst with sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard says Gen. Ali Reza Asgari has defected and is now in a European country with his entire family, where he is cooperating with the U.S.

Other reports have suggested that the general may have been kidnapped by the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. A spokesperson at the CIA declined to comment on the reported defection.

"This is a fatal blow to Iranian intelligence," said the source, explaining that Asgari knows sensitive information about Iran's nuclear and military projects. Iran called tens of its Revolutionary Guard agents working at embassies and cultural centers in Arab and European countries back to Tehran out of fear that Asgari might disclose secret information about their identities, according to the analyst."

Suicide Shock Watch

"A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after falling out of a window, and some media alleged Monday that he might have been killed for his critical reporting. [ This is just shocking that such a thing could happen. In *Russia* no less! -ed. ]

Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment building in Moscow, officials said. His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall." [ Vladimir practices a different kind of suicide attack ... that of his enemies. But no less effective. -ed. ]