Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University:
In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you that we have it...
Yeah. I guess he's right...
They must have been drug dealers...
I'm hoping something good comes of Live Earth, Al Gore's global revival meeting concert extravaganza.
If it turns out that this is the fitful twitching of the '60s before it shuffles off this mortal coil into the vale of complete irrelevancy, then it will have done a great service.
While cruising the blogosphere this morning (Interesting aside: My automatic spellcheck in Firefox just flagged "blogosphere." Ok. Added to the dictionary...), I'm finding lots of amusing stuff about Live Earth, including one piece in which Reverend Al invokes the prophet Bob:
The Live Earth concerts, which start this Saturday, July 7, are also one last chance for Baby Boomers to relive the “flower power” activism of the ’60s. In a recent interview in Rolling Stone, former Vice President Al Gore invoked music icon Bob Dylan to promote the importance of these concerts. Citing Dylan’s ‘60 anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’”. Gore rambled: “What’s the old Bob Dylan line? ‘Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call/Rattle your windows’ - what’s the rest of it? - ‘for the times they are a-changin’.”
But there’s just one problem with invoking Dylan to hype the global warming scare. And that is that Dylan himself has expressed skepticism — to the same magazine — to the notion that global warming is a catastrophe. When he was asked by Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner in the magazine’s 40th anniversary issue if he worried about global warming, Dylan replied with an unexpected rejoinder. He asked Wenner, “Where’s the global warming? It’s freezing here.” Wenner, who has blanketed Rolling Stone and his other magazine Men’s Journal with doom-and gloom climate change stories (that often bash CEI), quickly moved on to other topics after he received his comeuppance.
Yet Dylan’s latest statement may signal that in the global warming debate, the times are changing. Even independent-minded celebrities are now questioning the establishment media orthodoxy that the debate over global warming and its effects are all but over. In a phrase familiar to those who study pop culture, it appears that the global warming scare may have “jumped the shark.”
(emphasis mine)
I love Dylan. Dylan can say stuff like that, and Jann Wenner, grinding his teeth, has to print it because it's Bob Dylan. Bob is a walking, living, breathing hypocrisy barometer. Needless to say, Bob is not hanging out with Reverend Al today.
Here's hoping that this is the high water mark of Reverend Al's Apocalyse Now. Half filled arenas and stadiums featuring musicians, actors and politicians howling out in mass hysteria the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Tulip Bubble of 1637. But this isn't an economic phenomenon so much as an attempt to create a religion with all its attendant dogma out of whole cloth, slyly co-opting junk science and false reason to achieve it's aims.
Well, Al, let's throw a little Bob back to you, shall we?
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
That's one thing from the 60's that'll never lose relevancy...
(via Malkin and cross posted at Daily Pundit)
Last week, I posted on Tony Blair's little tirade against a free press. Now comes this sharp column in The Times by Simon Jenkins:
At first I honestly thought Tony Blair’s “poor diddums” speech last week was farewell satire. He could not really think himself the most persecuted politician since Carlyle declared the supremacy of the “fourth estate” back in the 1840s. Besides, how could the master of spin admit that he had botched his entire modus operandi? He called journalists “feral beasts” who hunted in packs and spread cynicism wherever they went.
What a perfect description of Blair’s office for the past 15 years. Yet the man seemed close to tears. So plaintive was his cry that a stage army of sycophantic columnists leapt forward to hug him and say how right he was. I recall no such media mea culpa when John Major made the same, and more merited, speech on retirement.
And you damn sure didn't hear that sort of crap from Margaret Thatcher.
Regardless, the fact remains that whether the press is biased or not is not the point; only that there is a free and independent press. Hell, up until quite recently, historically, the press has been extremely biased, mostly due to the fact that newspapers were the organs of political parties and various interests.
There is a fantasy that British newspapers were once pillars of journalistic independence and are now polluted by sensationalism, commercialism and venal proprietors. This is rubbish. Until the 20th century, indeed through to the second world war, most papers were owned, produced and written by and for political parties.
The Times was usually in the pocket of the government. The Westminster Gazette, founded by Newnes for the Liberals, was duly described by Rosebery as “a pioneer of clean popular literature”. The Express and the Mail under Beaverbrook and Rothermere pretended to run politics, their bluff occasionally called by Lloyd George and Baldwin. The office song of Labour’s Daily Herald was “We want no party, creed or bias; we want a peerage for Elias” (their chairman). As for Blair dredging up Baldwin’s “power without responsibility” quote, surely that was a cliché too far.
Newspaper editorials (and their promiscuous siblings, columns) are probably more independent than ever in history. This is partly because there are so many of them and partly because the companies for which they write are far more concerned with keeping their papers afloat. The 1985 Wapping revolution gave Fleet Street a decade of soaring profits, which it saw evaporate in a blizzard of price-cutting, freesheets and internet competition. Even so, more papers are being read on the streets of London than for half a century. More front pages are scanned, thanks to the internet, than ever before. More opinion is being formed, debated and regurgitated, to the point that arguments not worth a pint in a pub can circle the earth through the blogosphere.
Much the same could be said about the press in the United States. My problem with the press is not that it's biased. That's fine by me. What bothers me is the press insisting that it's not biased, when it clearly is. They should stop pretending otherwise and get on with it. After all, it's how the distribution of information is trending anyway.
(tip 'o' the hat: Chris)
Just when I've pretty much given up on the British, the Queen confers a knighthood on Salman Rushdie. This, of course, causes much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Muslim world. The Iranians are huffing and the Pakistanis are puffing, and Muslims everywhere are acting like their knickers are on fire.
I'd like to take this opportunity to extend some heartfelt thanks to Her Royal Highness for so honoring a good man, and at the same time, spitting in the eye of his oppressors.
Having said that, I now have to wrap my brain around the rest of the list, which includes Joe Cocker and Barry Humpries, better known as Dame Edna. I'm also scratching my head over CNN's Christiane Amanpour becoming a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. What's up with that?
The Birthday List is always full of things that make you go, "Huh?" But this year marks the first time I can remember it causing a great international kerfuffle.
Huzzah!
UPDATE & CORRECTION:
In the comments, I have been corrected by my Mother. Queen Elizabeth II is addressed as "Her Majesty," not "Her Royal Highness." The latter term is used to refer to a royal personage of lesser rank.
I should note that Mom is quite the Anglophile, and is well versed in these things.
While I've always appreciated the support Tony Blair gave our country after 9/11 and during our ongoing struggle against Islamofascism, what he has done to Great Britain in the course of the New Labor revolution has been pathetic.
I never bought into the whole "Cool Britannia" crap that's been slung about for the last umpteen years as Blair and his cohorts have systematically dismantled a once great nation and thrown it upon the pyre of political correctness. Watching England devolve into Orwell's nightmare has been a shame to behold; a Big Brother society intruding brutally on everyday life, leaving the populace as sheep in a vast pen, surrounded by dogs nipping at their hindquarters.
Where Pink Floyd visionaries or what?
And it continues apace. Courtesy of Chris, comes this article in the Telegraph of Blair's parthian shot towards the concept of a free press and unregulated internet in the UK:
Tony Blair hinted today at new restrictions on internet journalism, saying online news coverage had become "more pernicious and less balanced" than traditional political reporting.
In a farewell lecture on public life, he said that much of the British media behaved like a "feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits".
But he had particularly harsh words for non-traditional media outlets, particularly the internet.
"It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon," he said.
"New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.
"In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five."
Well, ok. The press is a "feral beast" in a free society. The press is particularly nasty in the UK. What else is new? The media has always been biased; it's what they do. The idea of a non-advocating media in a free society is ridiculous.
Blair and his successors will use this to once again sink another blade into Britannia's expiring body, until all that is left is a rotting corpse for the carrion to feed upon.
And the British? Well, they'll just keep smiling for the cameras.
So, now I'm going to piss my brother off.
I can't stand Ron Paul.
I think the man is a certified whackjob. So does Roger L. Simon.
Of course, psychological sophistication isn't a hallmark of Paul supporters. Ideological purity is. More than most groups, they live deep in the world of theory, typing away on their computers with very little connection to the real world. In that way they are somewhat like their candidate - a man who, I confess, was not on my radar screen until recently - who seems to suffer from a kind of cognitive dissonance. When you listen to him answer questions at the debates, he never appears to answer directly. And I don't mean that he spins in the way nearly all politicians do. He seems so lost in ideology he doesn't quite comprehend. Can you imagine this man actually being elected and telling the G8 he wants to go back on the gold standard? I guess his supporters would applaud.
And in the comments to this post the Paulbots emerge to prove Simon's point. Predictably and right on schedule.
Every time I hear Ron Paul speak, I cringe and grind my teeth. The man is so thoroughly out of touch with reality. That is, the real world around him and how it operates. He's many things, but he's not a Republican. Hell, I can't really see how he's a libertarian, for that matter. He's as much a Republican as Lyndon LaRouche was a Democrat. Or as much of a Republican as David Duke. Ron Paul strikes me as being in that league: A fringe loser of a charlatan surrounded by sycophantic fanatics who have nothing better to do than run up internet polls to satisfy their maniacal egos. As one Paulbot commenter states:
Remember the Ron Paul momentum is only a month or so old. MSM lags several weeks behind. He is not listed in polls and the phone polls do not include cell phone users. I am a former liberal who is supporting him. The fight will continue and increase and God willing the American people will come out on top when the dust settles. When the naysayers see the supporters in the streets (we are willing to fight) many will join him. It comes down to a battle of the republic versus the nwo. where will you be counted? You must decide where you stand idealogcally and choose sides. The time is now. You might think we are crazy, but thats what the English thought of our forefathers.
(emphasis mine)
How's that for letting your Brownshirt/Jackboot freak flag fly? You don't like what we're trying to do, we're gonna take to the streets! The pusch will not be televised... Setting aside the fact that the English didn't consider our forefathers crazy, just English, the amount of disconnect to reality illustrated in this comment is mind boggling.
Let's get it out there: Ron Paul is a Truther (a 9/11 denialist), and I find those types despicable in their idiocy. He's completely out of touch on the war in Iraq in particular and the war on terror in general. Areas that I might agree with him (taxes, border security, privacy) are negated by the fact that he's completely out there on aforementioned issues. I don't like his style and I certainly don't like that vast majority of his lame supporters. Paul does not belong on the dais with the other Republican candidates. If he wants to run for President, let him run as an independent. He's going to do that anyway, sooner rather than later.
Last week, I posted on my displeasure upon hearing of Paris Hilton being released from jail for unspecified "medical reasons."
In the interim, as you know, she was dragged screaming and crying from a courthouse back to jail after a judge ruled that the LA County Sheriff had no call to release her in the first place.
Oh, and how I laughed. I turned the schadenfreude up to 11. I really enjoyed seeing the clueless, elitist child of privilege go down in flames to be left smoldering in a jail cell.
I really wanted to post something about it at the time, but something began to bother me about the whole thing. Not so much the whole Paris-goes-to-jail part of it - she got what she deserved -, but how this society reacted to it. When you took a deep breath and looked at it, it was sort of how I imagine the behavior of the crowds at a Roman arena featuring the latest gladiatorial spectacle. So, I decided to leave it alone, pull back and move away from viewing this human train wreck.
And wouldn't you know it? Christopher Hitchens lays it out in no uncertain terms in Slate:
And now here I go, clearing my throat as above before deciding to do something I would have never believed I would do, and choosing to write about Paris Hilton. Choosing to write about her, furthermore, not just as if she were some metaphor or signifier, but as a subject in herself. At some point toward the middle of last Friday, it seemed to me, one was being made a spectator to a small but important injustice. Those gloating and jeering headlines, showing a tearful child being hauled back to jail, had the effect of making me feel sick. So, you finally got the kid to weep on camera? Are you happy now?
I don't mind admitting that I, too, have watched Hilton undergoing the sexual act. I phrase it as crudely as that because it was one of the least erotic such sequences I have ever seen. She seemed to know what was expected of her and to manifest some hard-won expertise, but I could almost have believed that she was drugged. At no point did her facial expression match even the simulacrum of lovemaking. (Kingsley Amis, a genius in these matters and certainly no Puritan, once captured the combined experience of the sordid and the illicit by saying that, even as he wanted a certain spectacle to go on, he also wanted it to stop.)
(emphasis mine)
As he goes on, Hitch points out that, by our collective reaction, we emulate the puritanical fanatics that used to brand adulterers and burn witches:
Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.
There are some parts of this essay that I take issue with. I find Sarah Silverman funny as hell. Her burning of Paris was simply true to type. After all, this is the woman who did Jesus Is Magic. It's interesting that at the end of her Paris bit, Silverman does look somewhat uncomfortable, and says, "Why do I feel dirty?" Well, I guess that's a question many of us should be asking.
Hitchens wraps this up by drawing an interesting parallel to Hilton's situation and the Scooter Libby ordeal. Overall, worth reading and remembering.
And revel in the irony, would you, of an avowed atheist showing the way to "Christian" charity.
Via Hot Air comes this video of Dennis Miller taking a fillet knife to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
It is a joy to watch. When Miller is in top form, he's unbeatable. He reduces Reid to so much hamburger that he then feeds to a pack of wild dogs. Truer words were never spoken.
Hell was let loose on the campus of Virginia Tech University, a few hours southwest of me in Blacksburg, Virginia.
At least 29 confirmed dead, with the count expected to rise. The shooter is dead. There’s a lot of confusion on the news right now as to exactly what happened.
In our neck of the woods, around Charlottesville, we always make cracks about the Hokies down at Tech. Not today. My heart and thoughts go out to the dead and wounded and their families. Keep them in your thoughts as well.
Saddam is found guilty of crimes against humanity, and will be hanged like low horse thief. Hanging is too good for him.
They should hand him over to the women.
Predictably, those wallowing in the fever swamps of the left "question the timing" and...well, it's all America's fault!
Mark Steyn tackles nukes and global warming - or cooling? - and still manages to retain his sense of humor. Bonus points for Martin Amis melting eyes reference!
There's something about Mary. Hit the links for your fix... I'm updating this as I surf...
Wretchard at The Belmont Club slides down the rabbit hole.
Spook86 at In From The Cold explains Why Secrets Matter and lets us have some inside scoop.
Ace knows the script of this movie: Push Back Mountain.
John Kerry finds nuance. He flips! He flops! He's for it and against it!
So I'm glad she told the truth but she's going to obviously -- if she did it, if she did it, suffer the consequences of breaking the law.
Captain Ed points down the paths the Mary didn't follow...
In fact, McCarthy had several options, none of which it appears she used. First, as Kerr mentions, she had the option of raising her concerns with senior CIA officials, up to Porter Goss. She could have then gone to the State Department to discuss it with their intelligence liaisons, especially since the information she revealed had the potential to damage relations with key allies -- which it did when she released it to the press. McCarthy could have gone to the White House as well. Perhaps she considered that a waste of time, but without having attempted it, she wouldn't have any idea whether the White House would have addressed her concerns.
At the end of all those options, if she still couldn't get her concerns addressed, she could have gone to the ranking members of the two Congressional committees on intelligence or the Armed Services committees. Congress has oversight responsibilities for intelligence and the military, and both houses of the legislature had been publicly bristling over the way the administration had supposedly sidelined them. The Democrats would have been especially receptive to McCarthy's entreaties -- especially given her financial support of John Kerry. The issue could then have been hashed out with the administration and the CIA behind closed doors.
But instead, McCarthy decided to leak it to the press, rather than attempt to solve the problem she perceived.
Roger L. Simon offers an astute observation on "the public's right to know."
It's hard to imagine how you can have an effective intelligence service if members of that service leak to the press. The level of trust necessary for intelligence work would simply disappear in several directions, internal and external, simultaneously. At the same time what was and is reported in the press from those leaks is suspect, not only to due to the possible bias of the leaker but also obviously the possible bias of the reporter (and his editor, publisher, etc.). Nothing can be fully authenticated because the intelligence agency which has been compromised can and should not talk in its own defense. The agency is at a natural disadvantage because of the secret nature of its work. The rationale for this dance is that the public is informed- but is it? Do we really know anything, anything that we can fully believe anyway? I doubt it.
Well, it's been an interesting few days following the Mary McCarthy story. No need for me to elaborate, because there's some fine blogging out there about it. Great roundups and analysis at Flopping Aces.
This is a story that's going to get more interesting. Look for some more firings and lot of discreet retirements. Watching the MSM twist and turn like a bullfighter on a meth binge is going to be amusing.
Should the press pay a price for this? Only in that they have to live with the consequences of their actions. The press are doing their job, but when they traffic in stolen goods, then they should not be surprised when authority comes slamming down on their sources. Nor should they be surprised when they are subpoenaed to testify at their trials.
And if Mary McCarthy has done but a fraction of what is claimed she should go on trial, and if she is convicted, she should serve hard time. As Dana Priest stated in an interview yesterday:
Well, actually, the media is not breaking the law by publishing classified information. That’s still a safeguard we have in the law. The person/s who turn it over are breaking the law, technically.
But the courts and the body politic have always looked at this as the cost of democracy and that is one huge reason why reporters have not be pursued previously. It’s the trade off for having a free press. The alternative is prior censorship and government control of the media, a la Israel, China, Iran, etc.
I love that weasel word, "technically." The press knows that what was done was, at heart, illegal. And another "trade off" is that sources sometimes get burned and go down hard.
Jeff Goldstein over at protein wisdom nails the whole Iranian nuke thang with space to spare.
Of course, Ahmadinejad being a Persian Brown Person™ and all, we need not take him at his word. Because you know how those people are—all bark and no bite. Besides, the threat from al Qaeda has been consistently overblown by the current fear-mongering administration; in fact, statistically, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning or attacked by a hammerhead shark than you do dying in a terrorist attack.
Unless of course you happened to be at the top of one of those Towers nearly 5 years ago. Or working below deck on the USS Cole. Or, evidently, if you live near a port that the UAE was hoping to use the free market to manage. Then the calculus changes a bit.
It gets better. Check it out.
One of the problems I've had with Andrew Sullivan of late (and certainly not the only problem...) is the shrillness of his stance on torture and it's use by the United States in the GWOT. Besides never quite getting around to defining what he believes constitutes torture, let alone coercive interrogation, Sullivan presents those he accuses of practicing or condoning torture within the Executive branch as immoral beasts, not to be excused for their actions.
I want to be very clear. I despise the use of torture, but I acknowledge that it might sometimes be necessary within the context of the greater good. Standing on moral principal is far too high a price to pay when considering the destruction of an entire population center.
The problem is in articulating a balance, which Sullivan seems incapable of doing.
Micheal Ignatieff, however, approaches the issue in a way in which I respect and agree with, up to a point. Where he stands on one side of the fence, I will be facing him on the other. But we can still see eye to eye and discuss this like civilized human beings.
Ignatieff writes a very lucid essay in the latest Prospect laying out the difficulties of this very complex issue.
My views fall into line with the following passage:
Both Elshtain and Posner have argued against the moral perfectionism that elides the distinction between coercion and torture, and have stressed the cruel, if regrettable, necessity of using coercive methods on a small category of terrorists who may have information vital to saving the lives of innocent people. Posner justifies coercive interrogation on utilitarian grounds: saving the lives of many counts more, in moral terms, than abusing the body and dignity of a single individual. Elshtain justifies coercive interrogation using a complex moral calculus of "dirty hands": good consequences cannot justify bad acts, but bad acts are sometimes tragically necessary. The acts remain bad, and the person must accept the moral opprobrium and not seek to excuse the inexcusable with the justifications of necessity.
The bolded portion sort of sums it up for me.
Further on comes this bit which strikes at the heart of the matter: What if torture works? Sullivan and others argue, ad nauseum, that torture is not an effective means of obtaining information. Ignatieff asks, then why is it used so much?
Does an outright ban on torture and coercive interrogation meet the test of realism? Would an absolute ban on torture and coercive interrogation using stress and duress so diminish the effectiveness of our intelligence-gathering that it would diminish public safety? It is often said—and I argued so myself—that neither coercive interrogation nor torture is necessary, since entirely lawful interrogation can secure just as effective results. There must be some truth to this. Israeli interrogators have given interviews assuring the Israeli public that physical duress is unnecessary. But we are grasping at straws if we think this is the entire truth. As Posner and others have tartly pointed out, if torture and coercion are both as useless as critics pretend, why are they used so much? While some abuse and outright torture can be attributed to individual sadism, poor supervision and so on, it must be the case that other acts of torture occur because interrogators believe, in good faith, that torture is the only way to extract information in a timely fashion. It must also be the case that if experienced interrogators come to this conclusion, they do so on the basis of experience. The argument that torture and coercion do not work is contradicted by the dire frequency with which both practices occur. I submit that we would not be "waterboarding" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—immersing him in water until he experiences the torment of nearly drowning—if our intelligence operatives did not believe it was necessary to crack open the al Qaeda network that he commanded. Indeed, Mark Bowden points to a Time report in March 2003 that Sheikh Mohammed had "given US interrogators the names and descriptions of about a dozen key al Qaeda operatives believed to be plotting terrorist attacks." We must at least entertain the possibility that the operatives working on Sheikh Mohammed in our name are engaging not in gratuitous sadism but in the genuine belief that this form of torture—and it does qualify as such—makes all the difference.
If they are right, then those who support an absolute ban on torture had better be honest enough to admit that moral prohibition comes at a price.
Much of Ignatief's conclusion has to do with the price to be paid, and it's where our paths diverge.
We cannot torture, in other words, because of who we are. This is the best I can do, but those of us who believe this had better admit that many of our fellow citizens are bound to disagree. It is in the nature of democracy itself that fellow citizens will define their identity in ways that privilege security over liberty and thus reluctantly endorse torture in their name. If we are against torture, we are committed to arguing with our fellow citizens, not treating those who defend torture as moral monsters. Those of us who oppose torture should also be honest enough to admit that we may have to pay a price for our own convictions. Ex ante, of course, I cannot tell how high this price might be. Ex post—following another terrorist attack that might have been prevented through the exercise of coercive interrogation—the price of my scruple might simply seem too high. This is a risk I am prepared to take, but frankly, a majority of fellow citizens is unlikely to concur.
(emphasis is mine)
And the fact that they are unlikely to concur does not make them moral monsters. The risk that Ignatieff is willing to take is not one that I'm willing to take on.
(tip 'o' the hat: Real Clear Politics)
So exactly what happens when France collapses under the weight of all it's pipe dreams of socialist utopia?
In today's WaPo, there's an article on where France is heading. The French look as if they are determined to commit national suicide. That would be fine if not for the rest of Europe. I have little sympathy for the Euro cradle-to-grave socialist model. If you give the people what the French have all their lives, then don't be suprised when they get pissed off when you have to take it away from them because it just doesn't work. When France reaches critical mass, that pressure is going to have to be directed somewhere, probably inward for a period of burning. Then it's going to be directed outward.
Another European war? Think that's farfetched? Just look at the slaughter in the Balkins back in the '90s.
I was glad to come home to the news that 3 hostages had been rescued by US and British forces in Iraq. It's always great to get that sort of news.
But then I linked to the statement released on behalf of Christian Peacemaker Teams. It was pretty predictable. I don't agree with them, but that's ok. Then I got to this bit:
We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.
Well, I guess I expected that. It just descends from there. Given what I had read about this group, I wasn't too suprised. Then I get to the end of the statement and realise that these so-called Christians haven't even bothered to thank the brave men and women who effected the release of their people. Not one stinking word of thanks to the men who risked their lives to rescue these hostages.
After all, in their minds it's the fault of their rescuers that they were kidnapped in the first place. It's the soldier's fault that Tom Fox was brutally tortured, beaten and shot. These petty farking assholes have the gall to call themselves Christians?
Not a single word of thanks to the ones who saved their damned lives.
Disgusting.
Slobodan Milosevic dies in his cell in The Hague.
May he rot in hell.
Some of the 3000 corpses from the Srebrnica genocide awaiting DNA testing for identification. Tuzla, Bosnia. September 2003.
From Borut Peterlin, photographer.
UPDATE: David Gilles, at Daily Pundit, makes the very good point that Milosevic's "trial" in The Hague was a perfect example of why the United States was wise to not join the ICC. The trial was a farce of justice, making Saddam's trial in Iraq seem a model of efficiency by comparison.
UPDATE 2: It's going to be interesting to see the reaction in Serbia to Milosevic's death. It should tell us a lot about where Serbia is today. My prediction; Lots of mourning and rending of garments by Serbian nationalists. His body gets shipped to Russia to be buried in exile until "Serbia is free once more," or some such crap like that. Because the War Crimes Tribunal has no concept of fair and speedy justice, Serbia has itself an uber-martyr. If it so chooses.
Dubai Ports deal is fizzing and popping. The White House is going to spin this every which way but loose, but, in the end, they're going to be gasping for breath due to the sucking chest wound incurred in this very bad move. I would say that Bush has shown his vaunted political capital to be pretty much tapped out. It's gonna be an interesting couple of years...
George Bush shows good form and connects for a little cricket diplomacy in Pakistan, during what seems, by all accounts, to have been an outstanding trip to South Asia. This is what I like about Bush; the man will roll up his sleeves and go out there onto a cricket pitch, face a bowler and take one in the shoulder, but get a couple of hits. And all the while, treating like baseball, and being honest about the fact that baseball is where his heart is.
Look, I've had my problems with Bush of late, but when I see an article like this, it's hard not to like him.
(tip 'o' the hat: Instapundit)
Mark Steyn, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, provides an illustration of one of the symptoms of the continuing withering of the West in the face of the Dar al Islam:
It's not surprising when you're as heavily invested as the European establishment is in an absurd equivalence between a nuclear madman who thinks he's the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam and the fellows building the Israeli security fence that you lose all sense of proportion when it comes to your own backyard, too. "Radical young Jewish men" are no threat to "Arab-run groceries." But radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond. If you don't care for the Yids, big deal; look out for yourself. The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.
Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:
"We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law."
Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media.
These are the cold, hard facts, and they cannot be ignored. The West is under attack from without and within. You think I'm paranoid? Pay attention, people. It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse. A lot worse.
The I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-in-perfect-harmonee crowd have always spoken favorably of one-worldism. From the op-ed pages of Jutland newspapers to les banlieues of Paris, the Pan-Islamists are getting on with it.
Read it all. This is why I tend not to be optimistic about the future interaction of the West and East.
(tip 'o' the hat: Daily Pundit)
John left a lengthy and well reasoned comment on the Ports post, and made some points I'd like to address in this post.
Overall, I understand the majority of his points, but I started to take issue at the following:
Why would a company (never mind that it's a government owned company)spent about $7 billion dollars to help facilitate the economic collapse of the country they just invested in?
One of the main points I make in the Ports post is that:
So, you see, the UAE goes the way of Islam, and if Islam is acting all crazy and running around breaking stuff and killing people, then it should give you pause.
Let me elaborate on this point. The Islamic view of the world is that it is divided into 2 spheres, the Dar al Harb (the House of War) and the Dar al Islam (the House of Submission). The Dar al Islam, in one sense, comprises those lands under Muslim control. But in another sense, it is a religious concept that transcends the notion of nationality. To be part of the Dar al Islam and Muslim is to be part of the spiritual body of Islam, thus subject to the will of God in spite of tribal or national loyalty. In pre-Reformation Christianity, there was a similar concept comprising of the term "the Body of Christ," which referred to a number of things, including the Eucharist, but also the spiritual body of the Church Militant, or living Christianity as a whole. The Church Militant has a couple of nuances, as well, but in the sense I'm using literally can mean that a member is a soldier of Christ whose primary mission is the conversion and baptism of non-believers. National identity has no place within such a construct.
Islam, by it's nature, is a militant and evangelical religion. It's primary purpose is to bring the world of the infidel - The Dar al Harb - into the fold of the Dar al Islam. In essence, to do whatever is necessary to make the infidel submit to the will of God.
If you are a militant Islamist, you will do anything and pay any price in blood and treasure in order to bring down your enemy. If you are able to penetrate an organization such as DPW, it doesn't matter what the company as a whole is trying to do or whether it is trying to protect a $7 billion dollar investment. That's not the point. The point is that all it takes is a few people within the organization to do what needs to be done.
John continues:
It's different this time, though, cause it's national security, right? Well, you're not going to convince me that cartoon protests are going to mean an attack through our ports down the line. To me, the two incidents are seperate, and I think the UAE is going to try and protect it's investment as much as possible, no matter what their religion might suggest.
I will agree that the cartoon protests have nothing to do with the DPW acquisition. Neither does the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara, Iraq. But, the bombing and protests are a symptom of the direction that that Islam seems to be going, towards the rampant militancy of a minority of believers within the fold of the rest of the Dar al Islam, who look on with indifference, cowed fear, or outright sympathy to the ends to be achieved by the militants. I commented elsewhere that, "In an age where the modern Diogenes would vainly search for one "moderate" Muslim, turning over the port operations of our nation to a tribal entity within the Dar al Islam is simple madness." I truly feel that moderation within has been subsumed by fear of reprisal. I think that John is correct that DPW would, of course, try to protect its investment. I just don't think that will matter.
Yes, anti-Americanism is real, but not allowing the port sale isn't going to make one bit of difference in the eyes of the average Muslim. And that's the difference. We're dealing with western educated, pro-capitalist muslims who have American business men running their compnay to get the most out of a relationship with the US, no more, no less.
(my emphasis)
Remember that Islam involves total submission before God, and where one is educated or how one views economics is very secondary to that principle. The Arab world, from whence sprang Islam, has a long history of playing the ends against the middle to strike an ofttimes uncomfortable balance. We, in the west, cannot take for granted that surface sympathies for our system and way of life can survive the flood of radical Islam. The UAE is in one of the most unstable parts of the world imaginable. It straddles the Musandam Peninsula on the Strait of Hormuz across from Iran. That's a pretty dangerous and high pressure piece of real estate the Emirates occupy. It is a transit point in the ongoing smuggling operation for Iran to obtain nuclear technology and spare parts for its armed forces. We're talking about people who have made a fine art of getting things including people, into places where those things should not be. They are at the constantly changing and evolving whims of a religion that gets more apocalyptically militant as each day passes. Reflect on the meaning of Dar al Harb. We infidels reside in the House of War, where the ongoing struggle to bring us to heel before Allah is being played out as we speak. I firmly believe that giving over control of US ports to a government of Wahhabi Sunni tribal sheiks (Remember, that's what the government of the UAE is, after all...) is a very bad idea.
UPDATE: Via Little Green Footballs comes this fascinating article: Dubai Ports - Strategic Implications. Check it.
You know the boat is getting rocked when Bill Bennett and Alan Dershowitz decide to tag team the collapse of the American press on the Cartoon Wars issue in today's Washington Post op-ed section.
We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities. To our knowledge, only three print newspapers have followed their true calling: the Austin American-Statesman, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Sun. What have they done? They simply printed cartoons that were at the center of widespread turmoil among Muslims over depictions of the prophet Muhammad. These papers did their duty.
They proceed to light into those papers that did not do their duty.
So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.
And they conclude with this:
When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press -- an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms -- would be among the first to surrender.
Read the whole thing. It's a very good summary of how craven the American press establishment has been on this whole issue.
Well. The whole ports thing has become a monster. And, as with most monsters, it's time to kill the damn thing and step back and clean up the broken stuff.
It need not have been this way.
The Bush administration played this one badly. In the recent real world of Muslims Acting Badly, the idea of turning over port operations to a country populated with same is a combination of tone-deafness and rank stupidity.
I agree that the sale of a British company, P&O, to a UAE company, Dubai World Ports, won't make a whit of difference in our already dismal port security situation. I've read some unseemly things about Dubai's business practices and their habit of hitting their overseas employees up for contributions to Islamic "charities," but that's par for the course for multinationals.
But that's not the point. We live in a world where a vocal and very well armed and motivated minority of Muslims wish to see us in the west dead. That is a cold, hard fact. Another cold, hard fact is that the rest of the Dar al Islam isn't doing a whole hell of a lot to prevent that minority from doing whatever it wants to do. You don't turn over your nation's port operations to folks like that. You just don't.
Well, you say, what about the British and Chinese running our ports? Why do you hold an Arab company to a different standard? As far as the Brits are concerned, when their people start flying planes into tall buildings and dancing with joy in the streets when those buildings come crashing down, get back to me. Yes, I know the shoe bomber is British, but in a great sense, he isn't. Once he became Muslim, he pretty much ceased being British, in my view. In Islam, there is no nation, only the Dar al Islam. Religion trumps national identity. You can see this in the reaction of American Muslims in regards to the Cartoon Wars. They're more than willing to put limits on the Constitutional guarantees to free speech in order to accommodate their religious feelings. And this is over some damn cartoons. So, you see, the UAE goes the way of Islam, and if Islam is acting all crazy and running around breaking stuff and killing people, then it should give you pause.
As for the Chinese? I'm not real wild about them having the run of port terminals, either.
George Bush has a history of cozying up to the Arabian peninsula, and that scares a fair number of people. He goes around saying that Islam is a religion of peace, when all evidence worldwide points to the contrary. The United States is hated by and blamed for every bad thing that happens in the Dar al Islam, whether we had anything to do with it or not. Muslims killing Muslims? Our fault. Muslims blow off the golden dome of the 12th Imam's mosque in Samara? Well, it's time to make some US and Israeli flags and burn them.
Does our government think we don't watch or read the news? Did they really think we were going to be comfortable with this port deal?
Vice President Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter.
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
The Vice President's human hunting coach, Jack Bauer, when reached for comment, stated, "Accident? Yeah. Right. Whatever. But, I'll tell you this; you don't f&%k with Dick Cheney. Ever."
Let's see... A cartoon whose intention was to show the true face of radical Islam has actually... Well... Shown the face of radical Islam.
Roger that.
You know, I remember back in the day when Piss Christ was all the rage, so to speak. I recall the Catholics getting all riled up about it. I don't, however, recall them torching embassies, burning flags and issuing fatwas by the truckload. Must be a culture thing...
On the plus side, it's refreshing to see a flag other than the United States' get torched and trampled. Nice to know that, for now, the Danish are more hated and reviled by the Muslim world than Americans.
Think the Eurabians will learn anything from this?
Nah...
So, a few weeks back I was all hot about the government trying to subpoena search records from Google. Google was up there in righteous glory, defending themselves - rightly, in my view - against a serious encroachment of Internet privacy. I was firing off emails to my Senators and Congresscritter and frothing in high dudgeon over this government trampling of Liberty, and...
...then Google blew it. Completely.
Google is allowing the Chinese government set the criteria for Google searches in China.
Check this out:
In the Chinese version, you get shiny happy people. In the American version, you get tanks.
Well, let's try this one out:
Google image search for "hong kong protests", American style.
Google image search for "hong kong protests", Chinese style.
In the Chinese version, you get one single photo in context, and that one is from the China News Daily, an official organ of the state. In the American version... Well. You get the picture. So to speak.
Now, I'm still on Google's side as far as Google v. Oppressive US Government is concerned, but...
Google has completely blown it's credibility on this matter. It's protests seem very shrill now, and more than a bit hypocritical. They're now flipping and flopping like a soon to be gutted fish trying to defend the indefensible. And having Bill Gates defend you in this is probably something I'd be shying away from, given Gates history in this sort of thing.
Well, there's always Teoma...
UPDATE: Via Instapundit, comes this nugget: PAUL BOUTIN discovers that the Chinese Google filter only works if you can spell.
Hmmm. Well, isn't that interesting. If the Internet can find a way around the rules, it will...
I've been keeping pretty quiet about the whole NSA kerfuffle. My initial instinct is that the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion by people who have absolutely no clue as to what is really going on.
I found this article by Richard Posner in The New Republic (registration required) that puts it in perspective, in my view.
Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. We live in a very fluid environment where the flow of information has far outpaced the human ability for analysis.
So the problem with FISA is that the surveillance it authorizes is unusable to discover who is a terrorist, as distinct from eavesdropping on known terrorists--yet the former is the more urgent task. Even to conduct FISA-compliant surveillance of non-U.S. persons, you have to know beforehand whether they are agents of a terrorist group, when what you really want to know is who those agents are.
FISA's limitations are borrowed from law enforcement. When crimes are committed, there are usually suspects, and electronic surveillance can be used to nail them. In counterterrorist intelligence, you don't know whom to suspect--you need surveillance to find out. The recent leaks from within the FBI, expressing skepticism about the NSA program, reflect the FBI's continuing inability to internalize intelligence values. Criminal investigations are narrowly focused and usually fruitful. Intelligence is a search for the needle in the haystack. FBI agents don't like being asked to chase down clues gleaned from the NSA's interceptions, because 99 out of 100 (maybe even a higher percentage) turn out to lead nowhere. The agents think there are better uses of their time. Maybe so. But maybe we simply don't have enough intelligence officers working on domestic threats.
Liberty is not an absolute state of being. There is always a trade off between the competing interests of freedom and security. It's always been thus in the United States, and has always reflected a constant struggle between our three branches of government. There is ebb and flow, and usually a balance is reached. This ebb and flow is difficult to see unless you are willing to detach yourself from the here and now and look back to history's example.
Bottom line, for me? In wartime (and make no mistake: We are at war...), the Executive is to be given a certain amount of leeway - as well as the benefit of the doubt - in conducted operations vital to the security of the nation. Another important point that Posner makes should be drummed into the head of every citizen until it's part of the their being:
I have no way of knowing how successful the NSA program has been or will be, though, in general, intelligence successes are underreported, while intelligence failures are fully reported.
This is the reality of the spy business. It's frustrating for a populace that thrives on openness and transparency. Intelligence does not follow the same rules and cannot in order to produce meaningful results.
I'm willing to surrender a bit of Liberty in the cause of security. How much Liberty, you ask? Well, it's sort of like the old pornography thing: I'll know it when I see it. It's an individual thing. Some will tolerate no loss of Liberty while others are willing to surrender all in the name of security. I pretty secure in the knowledge that it all balances out in the end.
It would appear that the United States Navy is still doing what it was originally sent across the oceans to do; stop pirates.
Around 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson sent his country's infant Navy to the Mediterranean Sea to combat the Barbary pirates, thus establishing the United States as a nascent world and sea power. It provided the Navy with a humbling post colonial defeat and one of it's finest victories. The United States Marine Corps (all seven of them...) advanced on the shores of Tripoli and legends were born.
Now, the USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) carries on this fine tradition by capturing pirates off the Somali coast.
USS Winston S. Churchill trails the pirates.
Pirate dhow after boarding by crewmembers from USS Winston S. Churchill.
Huzzah!Denevan, take a deep breath...
That's right. Bono and Bill Gates. And the world at their feet. You call me paranoid? The Irish Jesus and The Spawn of Satan themselves. Coincidence? I think not...
A smash of glass and a rumble of boots
An electric train and a ripped up 'phone booth
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat
Lights going out and a kick in the balls
That's Entertainment
Paul Weller - The Jam
Tim Blair has the goods on what happens when the yobs get drunk (Do they do anything else?) and go to war over the beaches in Sydney, Australia. The clash of cultures has quieted down to a tolerable level in France (just the normal level of car torchings per night...) and moved to Australia for the "summer." The ugliness is spreading like a virus. Check Blair's post for the background. From this picture, I'd have to say it's tough to say who's having assimilation problems... Neither of these groups - Muslim immigrants and drunken yobs - seem to be a part of Western civilization.
Few things irritate me more that the Intelligent Design movement. I'm forever arguing that it's not science because they do no science. Here's an article from the New York Times that elaborates on this. The following is very telling:
The only university where intelligent design has gained a major institutional foothold is a seminary. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., created a Center for Science and Theology for William A. Dembski, a leading proponent of intelligent design, after he left Baylor, a Baptist university in Texas, amid protests by faculty members opposed to teaching it.
Intelligent design and Mr. Dembski, a philosopher and mathematician, should have been a good fit for Baylor, which says its mission is "advancing the frontiers of knowledge while cultivating a Christian world view." But Baylor, like many evangelical universities, has many scholars who see no contradiction in believing in God and evolution.
Derek Davis, director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, said: "I teach at the largest Baptist university in the world. I'm a religious person. And my basic perspective is intelligent design doesn't belong in science class."
Mr. Davis noted that the advocates of intelligent design claim they are not talking about God or religion. "But they are, and everybody knows they are," Mr. Davis said. "I just think we ought to quit playing games. It's a religious worldview that's being advanced."
And that's the irritating part. ID's proponents think that the rest of us out here in the world are idiots who can't see beyond their games. Hey, show me some science, pal. Some real frickin' science; you know, like the "scientific method" and all that. You can't rest on the "gaps in the evolutionary record" bullshit. You can't put forward a theory based on pointing out supposed fallacies in another theory. You have to support your own theory. If there's no science forthcoming, then how on earth can you teach it in a science class? You want to teach it, then put it in a comparative religion class or something. Just keep it out of the science classroom.
In an arrogant, blathering OpEd in the Washington Post today, John Edwards once again proves why he never was worthy to be Vice President. We came very close to having this idiot in office.
He starts off thusly:
I was wrong.
Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.
Once again, the Democrats are doing what they do so well, and that is staying on message, even if the message is a lie. No matter. The idea is to Get Bush, even at the cost of the troops in Iraq.
It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.
Bullshit, John. Your Iraq vote was the only principled vote you ever cast in the Senate and it was based on what was known at the time, not only in this country, but other countries like France, Germany, Russia and China; obvious lackeys of American Imperialism, I'm sure. Everyone was on the same page, John, and you know it. By saying otherwise, like many of those in your party, you are flat out lying.
No WMDs, huh? So what the hell is this? I guess Saddam was using 1.7 metric tons of enriched uranium to heat his prisons, right? Or how about this? Nope. Absolutely no reason to believe that Saddam was WMD free. Look, if you go around invading countries, using poison gas, importing uranium and the means to enrich it, don't you think it's reasonable to assume that you have someone out there who's - at the very least - running with scissors?
Anyway, the rest of Edward's screed is the usual litany of Bush Lied!, We've Lost Our Global Goodwill (sob), Democracy In Iraq Is Not Worth The Price And It's Not Really Our Kind Of Democracy Anyway So Let's "Redeploy" The Troops Home! Oh, And Don't Forget HALIBURTON! His recommendations consist of training Iraqis to take charge of their own defense and such. You know. Things we're already doing without the esteemed former senator's assistance.
The Bush Administration has plenty to answer for in the conduct of this war, but it is a war that is being won as each day progresses. John Edwards lies in the service of rewriting history for his political advancement are what I've come to expect from his party.
"Youths" are still disaffected and burning cars and other stuff in France. I have to say, those kids have staying power. Two weeks of burning stuff at night would take a lot out of me, that's for sure. It helps to have a government that has proven to be completely ineffectual in this situation.
And - check this out! - the Socialists think the government is being too harsh on the rioters! Their solution: More welfare and a public jobs program! That's consistent, at least. Let's offer jobs to "youths" who have never seen their parents and grandparents work a day in their lives and wouldn't know a job if it jabbed them in the ass. If you create a culture of dependency...
I think the French, in the long term, had better invest in marshmallow futures.
1 cradle to grave welfare state.
1 very liberal imigration policy that does not encourage assimilation.
1 minority religious group in your midst that is actively and violently hostile to your culture. You know. Muslims. The word the press has a real tough time using to describe various dissafected unemployed youths...600 900 (steadily marching on towards that grim milestone of 1000 vehicles!) or more assorted cars, busses and the odd woman on crutches.
Lots of flamable liquids.
Stir up the ingredients. Pour into the streets of the Paris suburbs.
Add more vehicles as needed. Serves up a nice little civil war for millions!
Kofi Annan has an OpEd in today's Washington Post which seeks to reassure people like me that the UN has absolutely no designs on control of the Internet. Besides being a masterful piece of bureaucratic doublespeak, it leaves me trying to figure out what the hell he's trying to say.
On the one hand, we have:
One mistaken notion is that the United Nations wants to "take over," police or ot
