Emulation, The Sincerest Form Of Holocaust

clipped from www.frontpagemagazine.com In his speeches, most especially the one at Columbia University, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats two myths about the Holocaust. The first every reasonable person knows is a total lie: namely that the Holocaust did not occur. The second myth, however, is one that escapes critical attention for the most part, because many people are not aware of its falsity. The myth is that the Palestinian people and their leadership had absolutely nothing to do with the Holocaust. The conclusion that is supposed to follow from this “fact” is that the establishment of Israel in the wake of the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people was unfair to the Palestinians. The truth is that the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler’s Holocaust. The Palestinian leader at the time was Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufit of Jerusalem. Shortly after Hitler came to power, the Grand Mufti decided to emulate him.

Fauxtographic History

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com The ghost of Stalin is alive and well in modern day Europe. The British Culture Secretary, James Purnell, is being criticized after it emerged that his image had been digitally inserted in a group photograph a short time after he had railed against news media for fauxtography. Media control and deception are a time-honored tradition of the Left. The Commissar Vanishes maintains a virtual museum of Bolshevik-era airbrushing. Nice to know that in a world of cheap change, some things remain the same. The Burmese socialist regime should know.

Technically Morons

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The unworkability of FISA in its present form was dramatically highlighted in Congressional testimony yesterday: U.S. authorities racing to find three kidnapped American soldiers in Iraq last May labored for nearly 10 hours to get legal authority for wiretaps to help in the hunt, an intelligence official told Congress on Thursday. But wait! The surveillance was on terrorists in Iraq. So why was authorization needed first by the Attorney General, and then by a FISA judge? McConnell told the committee last week that an outdated provision in the eavesdropping law made the approval necessary because the targeted foreign communications were carried in part on a wire inside the United States. "We are extending Fourth Amendment (constitutional) rights to a terrorist foreigner ... who's captured U.S. soldiers," he said, arguing that this was unnecessary and burdensome. This infuriating state of affairs will continue if the Democrats get their way.

Shy Al

clipped from www.tcsdaily.com Gore's reluctance to go toe-to-toe with global warming skeptics may have something to do with the - from the standpoint of climate change alarmists - unfortunate outcome of a global warming debate in New York last March. In the debate, a team of global warming skeptics composed of MIT scientist Richard Lindzen, University of London emeritus professor of biogeology Philip Stott, and physician-turned novelist/filmmaker Michael Crichton handily defeated a team of climate alarmists headed by NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt. Before the start of the nearly two-hour debate, the audience of several thousand polled 57.3 percent to 29.9 percent in favor of the proposition that global warming is a "crisis." At the end of the debate, the numbers had changed dramatically, with 46.2 percent favoring the skeptical point of view and 42.2 percent siding with the alarmists.

Howler Update

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Now, I will say that Rush should have mentioned that some real soldiers oppose the surge strategy in Iraq, and some oppose the deployment altogether. However, the media seems to fixate on Jesse MacBeths and Scott Beauchamps, who served but lied about their experiences, and then never give the refutations anything close to the same coverage they gave the lies. Jesse MacBeth had served as the Left's poster boy for several months, but his guilty plea has not made much of a splash in the Leftosphere -- certainly not the fanfare his fantasies received. That's the context of Rush's remarks. That's the context that his critics seem to ignore. Even if Rush had said what they claimed he said, they also managed to avoid asking why they felt so outraged over it when most of them defended MoveOn's slanderous accusations of treason against an American Army officer. It's on a par with last week's howler about how George Bush didn't know Nelson Mandela was still alive.

Hookah Madness

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Mark Steyn notes an appalling development in politically-correct Vancouver: Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus, no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and all that. But this is an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims can. It's true; Muslim hookah-smokers have been exempted from a new anti-smoking ordinance in Vancouver. It seems that Muslims really, really need to smoke. A new motto for the Vancouver city council: Not just mad; stark, raving mad!

As in stark and raving.

A Despondent Sea Of Good Muslims

clipped from www.ocnus.net My parents, too, say the same.  Barbaric Muslims are stronger than us, more stupid and ignorant, but stronger, you know." Come to our isles and the same stark contrast emerges.  British Asians of Indian background (including Muslims from India) are top of the league tables in schools, universities, business and the professions. They are mentally agile, inquisitive, and encouraged to strive by their families.  With some individual exceptions, British Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds languish at the bottom of all indicator tables.  It is heartbreaking. In the past decade, there has been a sharp increase in British Muslims entering higher and further education, but even this good news has a depressing undertow.  In nearly all universities in this country, including the elite establishments, there are cells of well organised Muslim obscurantists who entice or bully fellow Muslim scholars seeking to liberate their minds.

One of my favorite quotes on Hitler comes from David Warren who pointed out that "Hitler rowed his oars through a sea of good Germans."

We're watching the Muslim version...

When Panic Is Good

clipped from www.ocnus.net "Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing,' he reports.  'No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly.  The Iranians are in a state of total panic.' And that was before September 6.  Since then, it's panic-squared in Tehran.  The mullahs are freaking out in fear.  Why?  Because of the silence in Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr.  Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets.

Meet The New Imam, Same As The Old Imam

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com When the former leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, Fawaz Damra, was linked to funding of terrorists and deported in a very high-profile case, you might have expected that the new imam of the Islamic Center would be more moderate. Think again: Ohio’s largest mosque hires Egyptian hate sheikh to replace deported terror cleric Fawaz Damra. Not mentioned in the Plain Dealer’s report is Ahmed Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rants. According to Blumer, in a 15-second Google search, he came across a particular sermon dated March 7, 2003 where Alzaree offers this encouragement to his followers: “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews.” Agreed upon.

Let's Help Him "Learn" About Them?

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com Ahmadinejad was at his most chilling when asked about the current crackdown on academics, journalists and intellectuals in Iran. He denied there was any generalised persecution, but added that eggheads could not be above the law. Academics “could be involved in an accident”, and so would have to go before the courts, he warned. Or, from time to time, “one may be invited by the police to answer some questions”. Most spookily of all, he smiled and said: “Everyone is under surveillance - the surveillance of almighty God.” ... An Iranian-American journalist asked him to clarify his extraordinary claim on Monday that there were no gay people in Iran, pointing out, “I know a few myself.” “Seriously? I don’t know any,” the president replied, in apparent surprise. “Give me some addresses so we’re able to go to visit them and learn about them.” Given that sodomy is a crime punishable by death in Iran, it was a particular chilling offer.

Priests Are Pikers At Pederasty

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com It’s like an episode of “The Village People Gone Wild,” only with guns and suicide bomb vests: Allegations fly in Fatah-Hamas conflict. The Hamas-Fatah power struggle has descended into the gutter over the past few days, with both parties trading allegations about the involvement of their members in homosexual relations and adultery. The alleged “sex scandals” are said to have occurred in the Gaza Strip, which fell into Hamas’s hands in June. Shortly after the Islamist movement wrested control of the Strip, Hamas officials began talking about “embarrassing” and “damning” documents and films that were seized inside Palestinian Authority security headquarters formerly controlled by Fatah. According to the officials, the Fatah men had been spying on several senior PA officials, some of whom were caught on tape having homosexual intercourse. “Some of them were summoned for questioning and they admitted to having sexual intercourse with boys and adult males,”

Piggery and Mosque

"As Lord Carey put it: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times". It is a time made perilous not only by the absence of moderate voices within Islam but by the even more conspicuous absence of any leadership among Western politicians. It is a failure which will sooner or later lead to what military historians call a "meeting engagement" in which two forces, each possessed of its own momentum, blunder into each other with catastrophic results. A false kind of tolerance has abolished the fence between the piggery and mosque, the adult video store and the cathedral, the flaming match and the stick of dynamite and called it progress. It is no such thing. It is called stupidity. [ Welcome to the Tinfoil Apocalypse. We have violated the Prime Directive in a very big way, all the worse for our dogged admiration of the scenery as we relentlessly cruise the proverbial river in Egypt... -ed. ] "

UPDATE: Wretchard gets a long-lived bump.

Hansen Hysteria (Part 90234)

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Bush’s summit takes place in a climate of hysteria, fueled by unsupportable science fictions. James Hansen, NASA’s chief climatologist, has warned us for at least two years now that if we don’t do something substantial about emissions in ten years, much of Greenland’s ice is “likely” to be shed, raising sea levels “at least six meters” (20 feet) as soon as 2100. Glen MacDonald, a geographer at UCLA, has noted that during much of this period, summer temperatures in the Eurasian arctic were between 4 and 13° F warmer than what he calls “modern.” Greenland’s ice melts only in the summer. The only way that the Arctic could become this warm, MacDonald wrote, is with an “extreme Arctic penetration of warm North Atlantic waters.” There’s only one route that this water can take to get to the Arctic Ocean — by passing between Greenland and Europe. Obviously, Greenland’s ice sheets didn’t collapse into the sea.

By the way, the sea level at New York City has been rising about a foot per century. And even the IPCC's latest projection range for rise by 2100 range is 8-19 inches. Take the average any you have 14.5 inches. Even 19 inches is far from a cause for panic...

No Quarter

clipped from neoneocon.com But I would instead paraphrase Ecclesiastes and say there is a time to be polite, and a time to speak the truth. And I am with William Lloyd Garrison, as well, who asserted: With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.” Ahmadejad’s appearance at Columbia, and Bollinger’s fighting words, were the waste of an argument. Our side thinks we won, Ahmadinejad and his supporters think he did, and the Left is only concerned (as usual) with moral perfection on our part. But sometimes, moral behavior requires harsh words—surely the Left, not known for its exquisite politeness, is aware of that fact.

The Boy's Club

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Iranian President Ahmadinejad statement that there are no homosexuals in Iran puzzled many people, and none more than folks who have first-hand familiarity with that country. Thus, the Washington Post reports that, according to Iranian American scholars, "Persian culture has historically included the practice of powerful men who keep young boys for sex but are not considered gay." Moreover, "younger Iranian Americans [say] there is a gay culture in today's Iraq, although it is suppressed by Shiite authorities." According to Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, director of the Persian Sutdies Center of the University Maryland, "he probably meant to say that there are pedophiles in Iran but that the country does not recognize homosexuality as an orientation."

The Climate Of Corruption

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA’s official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being “silenced,” despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim. While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a “constitutional right” to grant interviews. Hansen then began a barrage of public appearances on TV, radio and in lecture halls decrying the politicization of climate science. Turns out he was right. Science was being politicized. By him. For Hansen to secretly receive a large check from Soros, then begin making unsubstantiated claims about administrative influence on climate science is more than suspicious — it’s a clear conflict of interest.

Another Syrian Shocka

clipped from hotair.com FUSES intended for use in a suspected plot to bomb US installations in Germany came from Syria through Turkey, the German interior minister said yesterday. Wolfgang Schaeuble said the three suspects had received an order from Pakistan to act by mid-September. The threat from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad Union, which claimed responsibility for the plot, has not been eliminated, he said. US installations remained a potential target. So three graduates of al Qaeda U are still on the loose. And unsurprisingly, Syria is their Silk Road, a conduit for terrorists entering Iraq and for terror gear to enter Europe.

Columbia Into The Ether

clipped from hotair.com The official website of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has removed a portion of a transcript of his speech yesterday at Columbia University. In the scrubbed section, part of a question and answer period, Ahmadinejad said there are no homosexuals in Iran. In a statement released by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission the organization noted that the comments had been removed from the Persian language version of the site, but left in the English transcription of the speech. Following an inquiry by PageOneQ made to the Iranian embassy, the entire question and answer period has been removed from the site… According to IGLHRC, no Persian language papers have reported on the remarks. I don’t get it. What happened to truth, justice, science, and fairness for all peoples? His denial about gays isn’t the only part that’s been censored, either.

Oil Changes And Gasoline

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com The average American doctor now spends 14 percent of his income on insurance paperwork. A North Carolina doctor we interviewed had to hire four people just to fill out forms. He wishes he could spend that money on caring for patients. Imagine if your car insurance covered oil changes and gasoline. You wouldn't care how much gas you used, and you wouldn't care what it cost. Mechanics would sell you $100 oil changes. Prices would skyrocket. That's how it works in health care. Patients don't ask how much a test or treatment will cost. They ask if their insurance covers it. They don't compare prices from different doctors and hospitals. (Prices do vary.) Why should they? They're not paying. (Although they do in hidden, indirect ways.) In the end, we all pay more because no one seems to pay anything. It's why health insurance is not a good idea for anything but serious illnesses and accidents that could bankrupt you. For the rest, we should pay out of our savings.

"Neocon" Bollinger Wastes A Good Chance?

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com If you’re tempted to think that Ahmadinejad’s Columbia appearance discredited him, and that most people around the world saw through his lies and evasions and now have a deeper understanding of Iran’s schemes as a result, think again. The president of Iran had a wonderful chance at Columbia to act as the more educated and civil person, and he used that chance. America needs to recognize that Iran’s hostilities will not falter as long as ours hold so high. A little bit of trust could make them no longer have desire to use the weapons they may or may not have. Unless the west intends on starting a war, it may be beneficial to placate them, otherwise we won’t make any progress whatsoever. Columbia wasted a good chance there. Galen, Connecticut, USA

Holocaust? What Holocaust?

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Just over sixty years ago, in the wake of atomic destruction and the horrors of Holocaust, world leaders united to say “never again.” This week, world leaders are giving a platform to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who has opened the door to both: He calls for the elimination of a nation and pursues the means that would allow him to carry it out. Instead of inviting him to speak at the United Nations and Columbia University, he should be indicted under the Genocide Convention. In prior conflicts, the signs of impending disaster were clear in hindsight. In their wake, we asked how the world’s leaders had ignored and abdicated their responsibility to humanity. Yet, the gathering storm of the Iranian regime's vision of genocide, terror, and nuclear weapons is all too clear today. Far from hiding his intentions, Ahmadinejad held a conference to deny the Holocaust.

One Not So Perfect Day

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Nearly 6 months have passed since I first challenged the inexcusable refusal by DHS and FBI authorities to publicly connect the obviously connectable dots representing an unnerving number of alarming events -- particularly in the wake of the Beslan school massacre. These include: Videotapes confiscated in Afghanistan showing al-Qaeda terrorists training to takeover a school [newly available Video] Spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith‘s declaration of al-Qaeda's "right" to kill 2 million American children An Iraqi national with known terrorist connections caught with a computer disk containing information detailing Department of Education crisis planning for U.S school districts.  Two Saudi men - one wearing a black trench coat despite the Florida heat -- terrifying a busload of Tampa schoolchildren by boarding a school bus Osama bin Laden's promise that the 2004 terrorist attack at Beslan will happen many times over in the United States.

Oh, The Irony

clipped from hotair.com Oh, the irony of an Ivy League president being accused of cultural insensitivity. He should have shown more Middle Eastern style “hospitality” towards Ahmadinejad, it seems. The way Iran does towards, say, gays. “The surprising point of the last night meeting is the behavior of the university president,” state-run radio reported, describing Bollinger’s introduction as “full of insult, which was mostly Zionists’ propaganda against Iran.”…

Betrayal Update

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com "One of the great advantages of going is you can look and get a sense of what the atmosphere is," Kline said. "People are going about their business, the shops are open, they're walking around the street." Kline said the lawmakers were greeted by children who laughed, teased and asked for money. Adults smiled and gave the thumbs up. "Just a sense of normalcy — people getting on with their lives," he said. Like many observers, Kline credits our change of tactics more than the increased number of troops for the success we've seen in recent months. So when John Kline says that he sees "amazing" progress on the ground in Iraq, his words are entitled to considerable weight. Unless, of course, you think that military officers who disagree with MoveOn.org must necessarily be betrayers of their country.

What's A Few Million Dead And Brutalized Gays...

clipped from www.coxandforkum.com

... when you've found a soul mate?

Al Capone Always Wins

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com The principle here is very simple. Ahmadinejad is a thug like Al Capone. Columbia is, whatever else you may think it, a well-regarded institution of higher learning; a place which has generated it's fair share of Nobel Prize winners, etc. When Al Capone speaks at Columbia, Al Capone always wins. Capone can provide no prestige for Columbia that Columbia doesn't already have. But Capone's association with Columbia, however slight, will always benefit Capone. This is why, for example, Presidents shouldn't associate with known criminals, except in a diplomatic capacity. The former confers a legitimacy on the latter. It doesn't do the cause of virtue any good to say "the president of Columbia debated Al Capone". But Al Capone can always claim to his advantage, "I wunze debated the Presdunt of Columbine, you know that fancy school in New York?"

Hitch on Steyn -- A Relatively Short Must Read

"8. We should, of course, be scrupulous on principle about stirring up interethnic tensions. But we should remind those states that are less scrupulous—Iran, Pakistan, and Syria swiftly come to mind—that we know that they, too, have restless minorities and that they should not make trouble in Afghanistan, Lebanon, or Iraq without bearing this in mind. Some years ago, the Pakistani government announced that it would break the international embargo on the unrecognized and illegal Turkish separatist state in Cyprus and would appoint an ambassador to it, out of “Islamic solidarity.” Cyprus is a small democracy with no armed forces to speak of, but its then–foreign minister told me the following story. He sought a meeting with the Pakistani authorities and told them privately that if they recognized the breakaway Turkish colony, his government would immediately supply funds and arms to one of the secessionist movements—such as the Baluchis—within Pakistan itself. Pakistan never appointed an ambassador to Turkish Cyprus.

When I read Sam Harris’s irresponsible remark that only fascists seemed to have the right line, I murmured to myself: “Not while I’m alive, they won’t.” Nor do I wish to concede that Serbo-fascist ethnic cleansing can appear more rational in retrospect than it did at the time. The Islamist threat itself may be crude, but this is an intricate cultural and political challenge that will absorb all of our energies for the rest of our lives: we are all responsible for doing our utmost as citizens as well as for demanding more imagination from our leaders."

The Acceptable Alternative

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises. At the end of his address President Ahmadinejad answered the students' questions on such issues as Israel, Palestine, Iran's nuclear program, the status of women in Iran and a number of other matters. This is, by the way, their entire report. They never mention Bollinger by name. Nor do the Iranian people ever hear that Bollinger called him a "petty and cruel dictator". What they have heard is that Americans gave him a standing ovation, that they repeatedly applauded his approach to "international crises", and that he participated in a Q&A session. If Bollinger finds alternative points of view so appealing, then I assume that the ROTC will be invited back to Columbia's campus forthwith. If the American military can't gain access to engage students for the defense of our nation, then Bollinger and the Columbia administration has made clear which alternatives it finds acceptable

Free Speech And Suicide

clipped from www.newcriterion.com The spectacle of these left-wing academics repudiating men like Larry Summers and Donald Rumsfeld even as they abase themselves scrambling to find excuses for welcoming a fanatic like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the halls of a great American University is disgusting. I think again of Bagehot's observation that "History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it." Are we really willing to let ourselves--our ideals, our way of life--be carelessly traduced by a rancid leftism so enfeebled that it can no longer distinguish between free speech and suicide? We are even now in the process of answering that question. How we answer it will determine a lot more than the issue of who gets to speak on American college campuses.

Next

clipped from www.rogerlsimon.com Who is next in the Psychotic Madman lecture series, OJ?

"Conflict Resolution"

clipped from pajamasmedia.com So it turns out that Columbia University would have been delighted to have the Fuhrer on campus and “answer questions” from students and faculty. This is part of an old pattern, to which I’ve called attention in the past: there is a certain kind of intellectual who likes to talk to tyrants, flattering himself in believing that his brilliance will have an effect, and secretly hoping he will thereby acquire real political power. We see it all the time, from journalists conducting “interviews” with the likes of Mussolini, Hitler, Saddam, and Khomeini, to members of Congress holding “meaningful discussions” with the Assads, to “conflict resolution experts” from universities and think tanks organizing the political equivalent of T-groups with foreign leaders and their satraps who are meanwhile organizing our destruction. President Bollinger is nothing new, even for Columbia University, which hosted Italian fascists in the twenties while closing its stages to the anti-fascists.

Rope-The-Dupes

clipped from pajamasmedia.com PJM’s Ardeshir Arian reports the following from inside Iran regarding Ahmadinejad’s speech today: 1) VOA Television nightly services on HotBird and TeleStar 12 satellites were disrupted in Tehran for about 20 minutes, as soon as he was to be introduced at Columbia university’s podium. Iranian citizens did not hear the criticism of Ahmadinejad by Columbia President Bollinger. The way the Islamic Republic does this is to scramble the signals of these satellites locally, using stationary and mobile microwave dishes. 2) It has been rumored from inside Iran that one of the conditions for Iranian-American Haleh Esfandiari’s release from Evin Prison was for Ahmadinejad to give his speech at Columbia University and to visit Ground Zero. Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia was canceled last year.

Part 11's Finale

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com In his plea to the Yale Political Union not to host a Commuist Party functionary in 1963, Williiam Buckley observed of those such as Ahmadinejad: Fight him, fight the tyrants everywhere, but do not ask them to your quarters, merely to spit on them, and do not ask them to your quarters if you cannot spit on them. To do the one is to ambush a human being as one migjht a rabid dog; to do the other is to ambush oneself, to force onself, in disregard of those who have died trying to make the point, to break faith with humanity. In inviting Ahmadinejad to its quarters as an honored guest, today Columbia broke faith with America and, in Buckley's terms, with humanity.

Part 1 Of Part 11

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Hugh Hewitt limns the outline of President Bollinger's fantasy world in his speech preceding Ahmadinejad's address at Columbia's distinguished lecture series. He also takes the measure of Dean Coatsworth's pathetic examination of Ahmadinejad following the address. Hugh writes: President Bollinger suggested that Ahmadinejad's speech to the Council on Foreign relations last year led to Ahmadienjad's party losing local elections, thus indulging the twin absurdities that Iranian elections are free and that open and sustained debate occurs over the airwaves which can use Ahmadinejad's speeches against him to win elections. "May this do that and more," intoned Bollinger. Talk about cluelessness combined with epic self-importance. President Bollinger was actually suggesting that by hosting the fanatic he and Columbia are somehow involved in helping take down the despotic regime.

Who Do You Love?

clipped from instapundit.com Plus this criticism: "The issue we see with Columbia is deeper than freedom of speech but rather the inconsistency with which university faculties choose to support it. If men like Richard Bulliet and Lee Bollinger, and women like Lisa Marie Anderson cared about freedom of speech, they might want to enable those who don't have it, rather than celebrate the men who have taken it away."

Don't You Think?

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com But most fundamentally, beneath all of these factors, is the fact that Iran's leaders want war and have been pursuing it, pushed forward by an insane confidence that they will win. If you don't believe me, read some of the latest rants from speeches by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who calls on the world to unite against the allegedly declining powers of the West, whose days are "now coming to an end." Ahmadinejad calls for a conflict that will "transcend the boundaries of the Muslim world" and seek "to establish the rule of the Hidden Imam"--a kind of Shiite Muslim messiah--whose return is "imminent." In short, Ahmadinejad is seeking to initiate a world war in order to achieve global Muslim dominion, so that he can bring about the coming of the messiah. Clearly, he's a man who can be reasoned with, don't you think? If Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, were unhappy with Ahmadinejad's bluster and aggression, he would already have ousted him.

Seething For A Cleaning?

clipped from www.post-gazette.com Jane's Defence Weekly is reporting in its Sept. 29 issue that the blast occurred while the Syrians and Iranians were attempting to put a chemical warhead on a Scud C missile. Most of the injuries were caused by the dispersion of nerve and mustard gas. Could it be that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad isn't as devoted to peace as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, seem to think he is? The assassination Wednesday of Antoine Ghanem, an anti-Syrian member of the Lebanese parliament, suggests Mr. Assad thinks it's easier to get what he wants by force than by "dialogue." Mr. Ghanem is the fourth anti-Syrian member of parliament to be murdered since December 2005. But privately, Syrian generals are seething. And this puts Mr. Assad between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't retaliate, he risks unemployment, or worse. But the ease with which Israel conducted the raid suggests that if Syria attacks Israel, Syria will get its clock cleaned.

Welcome To Iran: Insanity On Stilts Edition

"An Iranian government-sponsored body set up to probe the veracity of the Holocaust has challenged Europe to hand over documents about the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II.

Mohammad Ali Ramin, the head of the "World Holocaust Foundation" created after Iran's controversial Holocaust conference last year, said Austria, Germany and Poland in particular should supply documents.

"They should hand over the proof for the dossier on the organized massacre of Jews in Europe during World War II to the independent international fact-finding committee affiliated to this foundation," the IRNA state news agency quoted him as saying on Tuesday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the creation of the foundation after inviting a number of controversial revisionist Holocaust researchers to a conference in Tehran in December that caused an international outcry.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the scale of the Holocaust, described the mass killing of six million Jews in World War II as a "myth" and also called for Israel to be "wiped from the map"."

They Wanted To Defeat Him

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Here's John Coatsworth, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, (video after Read More) defending the decision to invite the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by declaring he would invite Hitler to speak if the Fuhrer were visiting at the "League of Nations" in New York and were willing to answer questions. Note to Coatsworth: Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill envisioned the United Nations in 1942 as an alliance to fight tyranny -- specifically Adolph Hitler. Had Hitler been been in New York to speak in 1942 they would have hanged him. But then, neither Roosevelt nor Churchill "wanted to understand Hitler". They wanted to defeat him.