Friday, July 15. 2005
Thank You, Charles Krauthammer: The fact that native-born Muslim Europeans are committing terrorist acts in their own countries shows that this Islamist malignancy long predates Iraq, long predates Afghanistan and long predates Sept. 11, 2001. What Europe had incubated is an enemy within, a threat that for decades Europe simply refused to face.
Reand entire.
Master-Monster Arrested A Brit school-teacher who fled to Egypt, details here - thanks Instapundit, but Glenn - when do you work? I'd like to see Egypt join the India-Australia-UK-USA Anglosphere...why not? And I stand by our statement: The Brits, our friends and cousins, harbor terrorists. Listening to: Recondita Armonia, (Tosca), Franco Corelli. Beautiful afternoon. Time to weed the tomatoes.
 I'm Part Indian - Give Me Stuff
Dancing the $ Hula: PC racial politics goes berserk. McNicoll at Town Hall: I’ve been talking to some buddies from high school, and we’re thinking of getting together and forming an Indian tribe. Though most of us have a little Indian blood, we’re not Indians per se. We don’t live together … most of them are still in Louisiana, and I’m 1,200 miles away here in Washington. We don’t share a culture in any real sense. But if Sen. Daniel Akaka’s Native Hawaiian Recognition Act (s. 147) becomes law, we’re going to take our shot.
Go for it! I am in! Waiting for my monthly check from the Indian Nation. And listening to Mr. Charlie by Lightnin' Hopkins, waitin' on the mailman. "Mistah Charlie, your rolling mill is burnin down, and there ain't no water 'round."
Ed Koch speaks out I just happened to quote Ed last night: "If you agree with me on 12 out of 14 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 14 out of 14 issues, go see a psychiatrist." To him, as to many of us, Jihad is about a war of civilizations: The various terrorist organizations are overwhelmingly Muslim. I believe they are supported by millions of Muslims around the world who are bent on destroying both Western civilization and those Muslims, Christians and Jews who believe in the Western values of democracy and tolerance.
At RCP, read entire.
Good Ol' Lefty Norm bashes the terror apologists, here.Martini-Henry Rifles: you can buy one here. Either long- or short-lever. When facing the Mahdi army in the Sudan, you would have wanted the long lever. We know a little bit about firearms, on Maggie's. Not much - just enough to hunt, and to handle any little problems that might come up. It is Bird Dog's rule: Firearms in the house, or you cannot write for Maggie's. Sorta basic, I guess. Ahhh, the scent of cordite in the mornin'. Online Hymnals, with midi-file music: there are two I use, here and here. I hate the sound of that computer music, but they are good for tracking down hymns. Doyle Brunson brings his skills from Vegas to Wall Street, and there's a problem: The 700 million dollar bluff. Darn. Wall Street isn't what it used to be in the good old days. Can't stand the New York Times anymore? Try the New York Sun, online, and also daily delivery in NYC and suburbs. Healthy mitochondria, and aging. Take good care of your little mitochondria. They depend on you - they are your responsibility, and your tiny friends, like pets, living inside of you. The Rove silliness: Rove got Plame's name from Novak. And she was not an undercover agent, just a regular CIA employee. This non-story will slowly go away, and such as Daniel Schorr's trademark PMS hysterical rants will speed that process along. My Way News. Poor Dan needs estrogen replacement therapy - or maybe testosterone replacement therapy...not sure which. (Sorry, Editor - I did promise never to get personal, but come on! This pompous bozo weenie schmuck deserves it. Woops - I did it again. Please forgive me.) The Plastic Reindeer Rule for religious displays on govt property, in The Economist Summary of European editorials on terror, in The Week
An Excellent, professional Blog Environmental Economics Sample from recent piece on dam removal: There are benefits and costs to leaving a dam in place, and there are benefits and costs to removing a dam. Can cost/benefit analysis help us weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives? I think so (as do many others).
A Friday Times-Bashing Fest NYT Changed Hillary Quote - NewsMax: Among the maneuvers cited by the Old Gray Lady was Mrs. Clinton's purported shift to the right on the hot-button issue of immigration. Included in the evidence cited by the Times: Hillary's quote to WABC Radio's John Gambling on Feb. 11, 2003, wherein she proclaimed, "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigration." The only problem is, Mrs. Clinton never spoke those words. Apparently, the Times was offended by what she actually said, which was: "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants" - a quote first reported by NewsMax an hour after Clinton uttered it.
Will someone please check on who is mowing her lawn and weeding her rhodadendrons in exclusive, suburban Chappaqua, NY? Not that she is ever there...because her book deal bought her a nice townhouse in Georgetown. "The Gray Lady's Dishonesty" on the Plame story, at TCS: It's a shame, then, that the paper has gone so far out on a limb in the recent Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame affair in naked pursuit of two paramount objectives, to the exclusion of all others: uncompromisingly defending the inviolability of reportorial privilege and relentlessly excoriating the Bush administration.
There was a star danced,
and under that I was born Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Thursday, July 14. 2005
Every American Every American citizen: 1. Should pay at least some federal taxes
2. Should serve at least two years in the military
3. Should take a loyalty oath at age 18 We are a country. That ought to mean something. That does mean something. It's not a free lunch, and freedom is not free.
There. That is off my chest, and I feel much better now.
Denial of Evil, Nihilism, and the Left, Part 1 We who try to be reasonable are befuddled by why the American and European Left have a reflex to defend the Jihadists, and to oppose combating them. The fact that they do so is amply demonstrated, endlessly, by the Great Horowitz, among others.
My theory is that the Left is nihilistic at heart. For whatever reasons, they have passed criticism and have come to hate their own civilization, which is admittedly imperfect but which, at the same time, cannot be matched anywhere, anytime, in history in its freedom, opportunity, safety, stability, and idealism. (Yale's famous rejection of the Bass donation was a high-water mark of this self-hating trend.) The consequence is an anti-Western bias, but they refuse to offer an alternative, either because they do not have one, or because any offered would be rejected by voters. My belief is that our civilization is a fragile sculpture, a rare and precious thing, and that our Western Civilization is one of the most amazing things that humans have created, with, at its core, the idea that every individual human matters, as a child of God. That’s the core of it all, and it is at the core of Western medical practice and medical ethics too, since Hippocrates. We care for their injured in our hospitals, and they behead their prisoners. That is a big difference, one which relegates them to the barbarian category. “All men are created equal…”
It is not my brief on Maggie’s to get into politics, but I cannot ignore this one. What is behind the Left’s apologizing for Jihadists? Why does England welcome them? Why does the US welcome them? Why France and Germany and Sweden? Why does Canada welcome them? Why welcome your destroyers into your home?
I wrote a piece on Evil several months ago, but it had no political content. Hatred and destructiveness can derive from hundreds of sources, but most of the time social norms and rules prevent us from acting on such impulses. They are very human evils, or sins, if you will. If you live in a culture, or subculture, which endorses them, many will be pleased to follow – see Nazi Germany, the Mafia, the Weathermen, or any number of murderous, sadistic civilizations and cultures and subcultures throughout history - and relieved to be given a sanctioned outlet for such emotions. Humans are natural-born killers, after all, just like chimps, and it takes a heck of a lot of civilization to keep us on the right side of the road.
It’s clear to me from all that I have read that the Jihadists have long identified Jews and Christians as the “other” – sub-humans occupying potentially Islamic space. We do not do the same to them – on the contrary, we in the West bend over backwards to make them welcome and to accommodate their ways. Their denial of our humanity is their evil, even if it is endorsed by their culture and their religion, and their using our generosity and tolerance for their own purposes is evil as well, though they see it as justified by Mohammed. Fooling an Infidel is not a sin, and we "nice" infidels are too eager to be fooled.
So we quickly arrive at the religious core of morals and ethics, from whence they derive. The Jihadist believes that war on the West is demanded of him by God. I refuse to get morally relativistic and multicultural about that about that - leave that to the anthropologists. To me that is evil. Why does the Western Left like to ally themselves with this? One might imagine that woman-hating, fascistic, anti-human rights, primitively-capitalistic, oil and opium-dependent, hyper-religious movements would be anathema to them.
Continue reading "The Analyst Speaks: Terrorism and the Left, Part 1"
Alice Miles in the (London) Times Online: And all this risks glamorising the work of four pathetic young men, and recruiting others to their “cause”. The shock of the blasts tore lives apart, yes, but they were not, for most of us, our lives. We are not grieving, as the friends and families of the bereaved grieve. Nothing will ever fill for them the void left by July 7, 2005. Public mourning will not bring them back; public grieving belittles their grief. It is now clear that there is something constructive that the politicians can do. Forget the mourning, and tear into those Muslim ghettos instead. Force them to open up. Make the imams answer. Tell them to let their women speak, as they have been prevented from doing until now. We have done softly, softly. We have pandered to fears about religious hatred. We have listened with utmost sympathy to their concerns. No one should stigmatise any community, the police said yesterday. But those bombers have stigmatised the communities that made them, and we should spare a thought for the devastation wrought on those communities; but then we should insist that they cannot continue in a state of alienation from the rest of society. That is a challenge for them, and for all of us. They, too, must become ordinary.
The Anglosphere is the future of freedom, and India is part of it (thanks to the Brisitsh Empire):Blackwill in The National Interest: Click here: The National Interest | | Publications::Article No bilateral relationship in George W. Bush's first term improved as much as that between the United States and India. The president has noted, "After years of estrangement, India and the United States together surrendered to reality. They recognized an unavoidable fact--they are destined to have a qualitatively different and better relationship than in the past." Some attribute the expansion in relations to the impact of 9/11.
The NEA Convention, from Michelle: We said last week the London terrorists were home grown, and were right, as always. London is Jihad Central, but the Brits are "too nice" to admit it. LGF reviews Brit origins of terror: British-based terrorists have carried out operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Spain, and America. Many governments - Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, French, and American - have protested London’s refusal to shut down its Islamist terrorist infrastructure or extradite wanted operatives. In frustration, Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak publicly denounced Britain for “protecting killers.” One American security group has called for Britain to be listed as a terrorism-sponsoring state.Counterterrorism specialists disdain the British. Roger Cressey calls London “easily the most important jihadist hub in Western Europe.” Steven Simon dismisses the British capital as “the Star Wars bar scene” of Islamic radicals. More brutally, an intelligence official said of last week’s attacks: “The terrorists have come home. It is payback time for ... an irresponsible policy.”
Well that big dumb blond
With her wheel in the gorge
And Turtle, that friend of theirs
With his checks all forged
And his cheeks in a chunk
And his cheese in the cash
They're all gonna be there
At that million dollar bash. Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It's that million dollar bash Well I looked at my watch
I looked at my wrist
I punched myself
In the face with my fist
I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over
To that million dollar bash. Excerpted from Million Dollar Bash, on Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes
Wednesday, July 13. 2005
(From Click here: Paxety Pages) Beach Blanket Burqua: A Movie Review From The Future By: Mahone Abdul Mohammed 
In honor of the tenth anniversary of the takeover of decadent imperialist America and the fall of the West, the Taliban film board has extended the privileges of Islamowood, in lovely California, to include the making of more fun films which reflect proper Islamic values for young persons.
Dear Editor: Your blog is just a bunch of gasbags, and I have a suspicion about from which orifice the gas is emerging. Sincerely, JL in Massachusetts Dear JL: Ouch. I think you might be right. At least we don't do it in elevators. Never blog in elevators. Can you offer any constructive suggestions, or do you suggest that we simply shut down Maggie's Farm and spend our time engaged in more productive, profitable, and worthwhile pursuits? Eagerly, nay, anxiously awaiting your reply, Bird Dog
Re-posted from July 5, 2005 "Bush's Calling" Wilfred McCay has written a remarkable essay in Commentary, "Bush's Calling," which is not mainly about Bush - it's about American character and American religion. It is so good and so rich, I will quote a chunk of it to entice you into reading the whole thing: .....................................
Counting Coup This Karl Rove story seems to me to be nothing more than the Dem's anger-driven desire to take a Bush scalp. It's a tempest in a teapot, but a wholesome outlet for the press and the resentful who have not recovered from the election. Funny how mad they can be at Bush, but not at Al Zarquawi. Hmmmm. Hey, Dr. Bliss, explain this to us.
The Population Bust The world has come a long way from the "population bomb" that we have been warned about for 50 years. We have already begun to see the effects of population declines in Europe, but the entire world is facing dramatic demographic changes, for better or worse. The subject deserves more attention. Krikorian at Claremont Inst: Although the birthrate decline has begun to have significant effects in the U.S., it is in Europe and East Asia that the consequences will be most dramatic. In demographic terms, a "total fertility rate" (TFR) of 2.1 is necessary to keep a population from declining—the average woman needs to have two children (plus the 0.1 for girls who die before reaching reproductive age) to replace herself and the father. The TFR in the U.S. is just a hair below that benchmark, having bounced back from its nadir in the 1970s. But in every other developed nation it is lower, and falling: Ireland, 1.9; Australia, 1.7; Canada, 1.5; Germany, 1.35; Japan, 1.32; Italy, 1.23; Spain, 1.15. Birthrates this low are unprecedented in peacetime societies. As Wattenberg writes, "never have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly." Not only is this causing an increase in the median age of these populations, as in the U.S., but many of these countries will soon see declines in total population. By the middle of this century, we could find a Europe home to 100 million fewer people than today, and a Japan shrinking by one-fourth. Despite their huge and growing populations, the most rapid birthrate declines (and thus the most rapid rates of population aging) are taking place in the Third World. The total fertility rate in less-developed countries as a whole, as defined by the U.N., has fallen by half since the 1960s, to 2.9 children per woman, a much faster drop than anything experienced in the developed world. This is happening almost everywhere: China and India, Mexico and South Africa, Iran and Egypt. Population "momentum" will cause continued increases in these countries for a time, as large numbers of girls have babies, albeit fewer than their mothers, and the Third World will potentially add another 2.5 billion people before population growth stops. This is still a very large increase, but it will come to an end in the foreseeable future (in some countries surprisingly soon). After that, their populations will also start to fall. Read entire.
 Emily, Franklin, and Coriolis
Storm Track is watching Emily and Franklin. And there is also the NOAA site, which you are paying for. As these lows, deriving from the north African coast, move north of the equator, the air surrounding them begins to spin, due to the coriolis effect of the earth's rotation - counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, clockwise in the southern hemisphere, and not at all near the equator. Contrary to the old-wive's tale, the coriolis effect does NOT determine the direction of rotation of water down the toilet.
A Problem with this Religion I am not a scholar of Islam, and I have too many things to keep up with to become one. I can't even understand Christianity quite yet. However, there is a problem with Islam: From Pejmanesque: A year earlier a whole lot of German and French tourists were blown up outside the synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. A few months later a Spanish restaurant and a Jewish community centre were blown up in Morocco. The chap who did it had been trained by bin Laden in Afghanistan. The radicals have blown up Shia mosques in Pakistan, before, after and during Iraq. They have blown up Iraqi Shias for being apostates. Closer to home, in spring 2003, two boys, one from Derby and one from Hounslow, travelled all the way to Gaza and then to Israel so they could blow the arms off a French waitress in an English bar in Tel Aviv.
From LGF: The Islamic murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh boasted of the killing today in court, praised Allah and Mohammed, told Van Gogh’s mother he had no sympathy for her, and said if he ever gets free he’ll do it again. (Hat tip: LawHawk.)
From American Thinker: A decisive answer has now come from an authoritative source, a certain Dr. Hani Al-Siba' i, who runs an Islamic studies center right in London. This gentleman explained the bombers' religious basis in no uncertain terms:
"The term 'civilians' does not exist in Islamic religious law. ... There is no such term as 'civilians' in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb or not ..." [Dar Al-Harb is the House of War, where Islam is not dominant and infidels may be slaughtered - ed.].
The Two Americas -Definitely: the taxpayers, and those who do not. This is a dangerous and insidious thing. Every American should pay some dues to be a member of the club. Balloon Juice. Live 8 Failed to eliminate African Poverty- Disappointing. Intell. Cons. FEC may spare blogs. - We are grateful, if it is true. Instap. Buchwald- Jesus is my Wingman. Dems try to figger out what they stand for, via Ankle-Biter The latest on protecting the 9-11 Memorial: Click here: Berstein's Plan B 9 11 Families for a Safe & Strong America . Fire's latest college speech code -Rhodes College. Medicaid and the Middle Class in the NYT
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Tuesday, July 12. 2005
 The Un-Terrorists
(Note: photo at right was a consequence of Moslem unterrorists who are longing for sensitivity and understanding.) On July 7, Gwynnie wrote Maggie that, “The Reuters ‘News’ Service still can’t bring itself to use the term ‘terrorism’. Maybe it would like to refer to the bombings in London as caused by ‘insurgents’”. The mayor, “Red” Ken Livingston, once referred to the murdering IRA terrorists as “freedom fighters”! Now, in the BBC’s fantasy world, they have intentionally stopped using the term “terrorist” so it won’t be applying “value judgments”. Here it is: BBC edits out the word terrorist, By Tom Leonard (Filed: 12/07/2005) The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers". The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments". Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say. http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/12/nbbc12.xml Mr. Free Market, a British blogger had this to say, “Quite right … as the perpetrators are not terrorists, they are murdering pondlife scum. This however does seem to have stopped the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation (an organisation that through its collective liberal lefty glasses, sees terrorists as freedom fighters) & to think my taxes go to pay for these numpties. This country has gone to the dogs - & I should apologise to dogs at this point because some canines lead useful lives, unlike the staff at the BBC.” http://www.fmft.net/ Gwynnie adds, yeah, and don’t call Hitler a “Nazi”; it would be a barrier to understanding. Gwynnie is only a corgi, but she doesn’t care if we understand Osama; she thinks we should kill him now, and the Waziristan warlords who are protecting him. Maybe someone, someday, might do a high school paper to try to “understand him”. Who cares? What’s to understand, anyway? He is a rich Saudi who hates us enough to want to kill us, all of us. Understand that, not him! Comment from Editor: I can only come to one conclusion - these people at the BEEB would like to see western civilization collapse. But something tells me that they might not enjoy the consequences. Thank God England didn't have these "no value judgement" folks on board during WW2 - they'd be speaking German now.
Exactly what we are afraid of: In Dalston market in north-east London on Thursday, "Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist, was in a pugnacious mood. "We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God." Piece on Jihad Watch Hey, England! Stop the invasion! If such people arrived on landing-craft with AK-47s, you'd kill them. But instead, these invaders walk right in. Wake up. It's a Trojan Horse. Auster agrees, with a vengeance, here.
Scotland Yard will have an ID, maybe an arrest, and other info at noon, EST.
Sorry for frightening everyone with that Jihad Watch post yesterday. What are the odds that it is accurate? It worries me, too, very much. Shades of the Apocalypse piece today. Bainbridge has his SCOTUS predictions. Sounds right to me. Hawkins lists the myths about Iraq. Too bad the MSM doesn't read Hawkins, or won't admit to these truths. And his Conservative Grapevine is going to put me out of business, unless I diversify a bit more. Evangelicals go green. Makes sense to me, as long as they don't buy the junk science the other greenies do. Never trust a scientific piece written by someone who hasn't at the very least taken statistics, calculus, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and physics in a decent college.
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