Tuesday, January 10. 2006
In a Ruined Country: Samuels on Arafat and Palestine David Brooks selected the above-named essay about how Arafat destroyed Palestine as one of the best of 2005. It is now briefly available here at The Atlantic online. A couple of quotes: "In a largely traditional society Arafat stood out because he was self-made, the symbolic incarnation of a people that owed its continued existence to him. Decades before he began to show his age in public, his lips trembling, his hands shaking, his belly distended—even then he was known as the Old Man. His speeches were laundry lists of slogans and exhortatory phrases such as "Ya jabal ma yahzak reeh" ("O mountain, the wind cannot shake you!") and "Li-l-Quds rayyihin, shuhada bi-l-malayyin" ("To Jerusalem we march, martyrs by the millions") interspersed with Koranic verses. The symbolic leader of the Palestinian nation spoke with a pronounced Egyptian accent. His lips flapped when he spoke. To some, the combination was irredeemably comic. He distinguished himself within the Palestinian national movement by his boundless energy for the cause, alqadhiya, which might also be translated as "the case," a term appropriate to a proceeding in a courtroom. One of the peculiarities of the nation that Arafat created was that it was founded on a festering grievance rather than any positive imagination of the future; the worse things were in the present, the stronger the Palestinian case became. For the diplomats of the European Union, whose dream of creating a new kind of political organization that would rival the United States for global influence was burdened by the historical guilt of colonialism and the Holocaust, the image of the Jew as oppressor that Arafat offered the world was both novel and liberating; the State of Israel would become the Other of a utopian new world order that would be cleansed of destructive national, religious, and particularistic passions." and: "The amounts of money stolen from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle are so staggeringly large that they may exceed one half of the total of $7 billion in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. The biggest thief was Arafat himself. The International Monetary Fund has conservatively estimated that from 1995 to 2000 Arafat diverted $900 million from Palestinian Authority coffers, an amount that did not include the money that he and his family siphoned off through such secondary means as no-bid contracts, kickbacks, and rake-offs. A secret report prepared by an official Palestinian Authority committee headed by Arafat's cousin concluded that in 1996 alone, $326 million, or 43 percent of the state budget, had been embezzled, and that another $94 million, or 12.5 percent of the budget, went to the president's office, where it was spent at Arafat's personal discretion."
ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS By Lt.Col. (ret.) Dave Grossman, Army Ranger, psychology professor, author of "On Killing" and the upcoming "On Combat".
"Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?" - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997.
Continue reading " A Re-posting: On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs"
A Pattern of Suicidality from the NYT (and the Left in general) This time, about Avian Flu. A quote from an excellent and well-researched piece by Miller at TCS: "It is not surprising, therefore, that commentaries about avian flu often miss the mark. For example, a New York Times editorial, “The Flu Moat,” decried wealthy countries’ “me, first” attitude toward a possible pandemic of H5N1 avian flu, because “[t]he best hope of stopping a pandemic, or at least buying time to respond, is to improve surveillance and health practices in East Africa and Asia, where one would probably begin.” "
Great idea. Let's get the US and the UN to reconstruct Asian civilization from the ground up, before we worry about the bird flu! No doubt our tender concern would be welcomed with open arms. The NYT, echoing the societal-suicide themes of the Left, feels compelled to adopt a passive stance towards threats of all sorts. The Left wanted to stay out of WW2 until Germany invaded their precious totalitarian Russia. It was "Better Red than Dead" and "Ban the Bomb" during the Cold War. With crime, it was "root causes" not enforcement. With terror, we get the "root causes" thing again - good idea - let's offer Al Zarquawi free therapy. Do I hear "Better Islamic than Dead" yet? And guns in the house? Forget it - "guns go boom." With immigration, it's "don't enforce the law." With Al Quaida wiretaps, it's "Let's stop wiretapping terrorists." I could go on and on. And it always turns out to be wrong. Perhaps Americans should all just do a Jim Jones deal, or march cheerfully into the gas chamber? What is this remarkably consistent pattern of self-destructive passivity in the face of danger all about? People used to talk about "liberal guilt" (the psychotically grandiose and/or solipsistic notion that everything is ultimately our fault), and maybe it is that for some people. More commonly today, people talk about "liberal anger": an anger coming from God knows where which is self-directed. Some shrinks think it comes from a "fraidy cat" mentality. Our Maggie's Farm Analyst generously opines that it is about "denial." Others, like Horowitz (who ought to know) assert that the Left contains an anarchistic impulse, deriving from the fantasy that The Revolution will be more quickly born out of chaos than by the stepwise stealthy method that has been going on since the 1930s. My feeling is that a society that doesn't have the confidence or the will to confront and address dangers to its well-being and traditions doesn't deserve to survive. But we do. I am in favor of walls, moats, guns - whatever it takes.
Indian Lore
It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.
A week later he called the National Weather Service again.
"Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied,
"It's going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."
The religion of peace: LGF Gender imbalance in India due to aborting girls: RTLC Germans advise US on Gitmo morality! RWN Short skirts and work: Ace Neo looks at "nukular" A new book about the Dust Bowl: CSM Good point: NYT claims their sources of leaked info are sacred, but the national security of the US isn't. There's got to be a word for that. Dhimmitude or something? Am. Future Bird Flu: This flu in Turkey isn't the one we're worried about. Still no human to human transmission. But this one will impact poultry farmers, and surely bird hunters, in time. Norm finds another liberal heretic. Bellows Falls or Pottersville. What kind of country do people believe is worth defending? Paul M in WS
"Reduction to the absurd," or "reduction to the impossible." This handy fallacious technique of disputation can be effective in making any logical argument appear ridiculous, when it may not be, by stretching it to an extreme which goes far beyond the body or intent or scope of the argument. It was a favorite bugaboo of Aristotle, and, in mathematics, Euclid was fond of its usefulness in that realm in which abstract consistency is expected, but unattainable thus far. It works well as a basis for satire, too and, like all fallacies, it works wonders with impressionable and uneducated juries in places like Alabama and Indiana: just try telling them that they have been subjected to a "reductio ad absurdum" argument and see how far that gets you. Example: A. The Civil War was wrong. The Federal government does not have the power to enforce, with arms, a union which was entered into voluntarily and which ought to be able to be undone voluntarily. B. Oh, so you want to see slavery re-instituted in the US, you racist pig? Example: A. I believe that access to abortion should be decided by states or localities, and not imposed by an unelected Supreme Court on a whim with no legislative or voter input. B. Oh, so you want thousands of 15 year-old innocent boy-crazy girls bleeding to death in back alleys from coat-hanger abortions? Example: A. The federal government ought to be able to wiretap Al Quaida phone and internet communications with people in America. B. Oh, so it's OK with you for anonymous fed spooks to listen to your conversation with your wife saying "Dick, I know you're there at the Springfield Holiday Inn with that homewrecker bitch Sandy, but if you aren't home in 20 minutes I will cut your tiny balls off the next time you fall asleep in front of the TV and chop them up and serve them to you for breakfast in your scrambled eggs, you lousy bum." Example: A. In America, citizens have the right to bear arms. B. Oh, so it's OK with you for hundreds of innocent kids to be killed each year with unregistered handguns? Example: A. Everyone in a free country ought to be able to live according to their own religious beliefs. B. Oh, so it's OK for Wicca witches to dig up bodies to cut out gall bladders for ingredients for their magic potions? See how easy it is? You can do this with any argument. It's a piece of cake to do, and it makes an impression. After a reductio ad absurdum has been dealt to you, it can be hard to scramble back to reason, because you have been put on the defensive and made to look ridiculous. A favorite of talk-show hosts, because it is quick and easy. As you can see, it is a close relative to the "Slippery Slope Fallacy," which we will address later on. (Sorry if comments were blocked to this piece. Can't figure out how that occurred.)
Monday, January 9. 2006
 JFK
I see Mr. Kelly fantasizing about what might have happened in the wake of the JFK assassination, if info about Cuba's possible involvement had come out. (Pres. Goldwater) A President Goldwater would have been fine with me. Dylan, after all, thought he was great. I have often fantasized about what would have happened if Kennedy had survived. The country would be in much better shape today without Lyndon Johnson. JFK was a natural conservative, a tax-reducer, pro civil rights and confident about America's role in the world. A damn shame. (Are you old enough to remember this scene in the photo? I am. Robert Frost read a poem..."The Land was ours before we were the land's...")
Jay Rockefeller may be a leak investigative target. Am Thinker Is Ted Kennedy wearing out? Pittsburgh Post Gazette Rumor mill. Bin Ladin dead? Cap'n Ed Armstrong Williams reviews everything the press got wrong about Katrina The Leipzig School - trend-setting from the former East Germany. The Alito hearings? No news there. Just a formality and chance to grandstand. It's a done deal. Ho hum. We are sending no reporters over there.
Rousseau "Nothing is more depressing than the general fate of men. And yet they feel in themselves a consuming desire to become happy, and it makes them feel at every moment that they were born to be happy. So why are they not?" Jean-Jacques Rousseau From a review of a new book about Rousseau, by Dirda in the WaPo: "Rousseau's contemporary, the arch-conservative Edmund Burke, labeled him "the Socrates of the National Assembly" (that is, of the hated French Revolution). Come the 20th century, this radical thinker had grown into the great beast of all who revere traditional institutions, worship in established churches and either fear or exploit the common man. Yet no one, of whatever political or philosophical persuasion, would deny how deeply Rousseau's sensibility pervades the past 250 years, from the poetry of the Romantics ("One impulse from a vernal wood/May teach you more of man . . . ") to the slogans, pop songs and lifestyles of the 1960s: Drop out, "Let it be," back to Nature, hippies, communes, self-realization. Yet Rousseauian ideals also lie behind our unabated, unassuaged longings to live more humanely in a bureaucratic, technological and often unjust world. Even the staunchest meritocrat or most self-satisfied scion of inherited wealth must find it hard to discount the truth of the discourse on inequality's final ringing lines: "It is manifestly against the Law of Nature . . . that a handful of men wallow in luxury, while the famished multitudes lack the necessities of life." Such thrilling emotional language has always contributed to Rousseau's powerful appeal. Contrary to a widespread misconception, many philosophers have also been superb prose stylists -- just think of Plato, Hume or William James -- but this largely self-educated former valet may be the finest of all. Rousseau actually had to beg his readers to disregard his "beau style" and just pay attention to his ideas. But this is impossible. His sentences are musical and absolutely limpid, at once classically balanced yet intimate, oracular and confessional. One is simply swept along, no matter what the subject." Read entire review.
New Orleans Will it be politically possible to rebuild New Orleans in a rational manner? Kelman at HNN: "The call now for improved levees is predictable. Joe Canizaro of the mayor's commission worries that nobody will return until they "feel safe." He's right. But what if people feel safe yet aren't? Before Katrina, disaster amnesia and denial allowed people to ignore the danger. Past disasters, says engineer Robert Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, were "alarm bells, but New Orleans kept hitting snooze." The city now has to rethink flood control. Like most engineers, Bea is certain that levees can be constructed to withstand a Category 5 storm. "It's just a matter of political will and funding," he says. But the funding isn't pocket change; the project requires billions. No one knows where that money will come from. While President Bush has promised the Feds will pay for levee repairs, he hasn't made the same promise about levee improvements. If the money is found, the political will must be sustained across fifteen years, the time needed to build levees to a Category 5 standard. " Read entire.
Politics and the English Language The above-named essay by Orwell made a big impression on me when I first read it in high school. I cannot say that I follow his rules, but I do aspire to. In this piece in Appellate Advocate, Orwell's basic rules of writing are applied to legal briefs.
 One common failing of good-hearted people is to imagine that everyone else is good-hearted and well-intentioned, if not at least justified in their emotions. We're all entitled to our beloved emotions, right? Since Rousseau changed the rules?
Similarly, cold, suspicious and malevolent people tend to imagine that all people are malevolent or purely self-interested. Both are fatally foolish. Everyone who knows anything about themselves knows that we all contain both loving and destructive aspects. Civilized humans in Western civilization try to put a leash on their destructiveness and selfishness, so as to join a civil and humane society based on our remarkable, unique, and precious Judeo-Christian religious ideas about the God-endowed value of individual human existence. We may sometimes fail in this ideal due to emotional weakness, character flaws, or immaturity, but civilized people in the Western world aspire to this sense of community, respect, mutual concern, trust, and sympathy. It's an implicit religious-cultural-social contract, and many if not most of us try our best to live up to that contract, both for respect from others and for self-respect. It means a lot to most of us, and we do, and should, feel rotten and self-contemptuous - guilty - when we break this contract of "conscience and good cheer". Is this approach to the world and to reality worthy of protection with arms? I say "Yes". I say that it is precious, far beyond anything material or comfortable. Our material blessings are just a lucky side-effect of our view of reality, but they can be seductively tranquillizing and sedating. But such an attitude towards life is not universal - it is cultural and even personal. Such attitudes towards life make us suckers and easy prey for the malevolent, the schemers, the predators, the anti-social, the power-seekers and the con artists - The Lords of the Flies who dominate so much of the planet from Sicily to Africa to Venzuela to Gaza to North Korea to our neighborhood insurance scammers and grifters and politicians. I have already written a little on the blog about evil here, and about related subjects here. Humans tend to want to live in fairy tales of their own creation, to inhabit worlds that they spin out of their own hopes and dreams and fears and imaginations - their own fictions - until a harsh reality comes to call. At that moment, we humans can either rise and grow, or succumb and regress deeper into fantasy, and to raise the walls of defense of our fantasy world. Commonly, it is external misfortune or aggression which trigger these challenges to our psychological comfort and waken us from our personal dreams. It is truly painful for everyone to be forced to adjust to disturbing realities. It is the burden of being human. Why do some people seem to want to deny the existence of evil in the world? Because they will have to deal with it, and it's a hassle, or worse. It disrupts a comfortable illusion. And it requires that we confront whatever malevolence we may have in ourselves, too, which is not fun to do. Nevertheless, confronting true external evil is daunting, scary, and complicated, and forces us to locate the required courage and aggression within ourselves - to the point of being willing to die for home and family and country - when we would prefer to be comfortable. In psychiatry, among other things, we deal with fear, both realistic and imaginary (aka "neurotic") fear. To reduce all external danger to the realm of the neurotic is the height of decadance and naivete, as it the opposite. The world contains both lions and imaginary lions. Humans have to be wise enough to discern the difference. The world is full of plenty of people seeking power and domination. That's the way the world is. Maybe they are crazy, or maybe not, but they still exist. Pretending that they do not is to be a modern-day Candide. And to casually dismiss evil or aggressive intentions of others, trusting in their basic humanity, can be suicidal. The Jews who remained in Germany found that out recently, as did people in Stalin's Russia, Serbia, Rwanda, the World Trade Center, the Sudan, and now in the Congo. Humans, especially in groups, can be a highly dangerous, ruthless, murderous species - especially to their fellow man. Is this news? It runs deep in American culture to stand up to evil, and to point it out, and to actively resist it, whether in our own society or in others. That is a fine, strong, and noble societal trait, and I hope we will always remain true to that tradition.
New Stuff for 2006! We will have a Logical Fallacy of the Week (and a Dog of the Week during the Year of the Dog...just a photo, not much more, with special attention to the sporting breeds). Recently added or adding to our Blogroll: Libertarian Leanings, John Leo's Blog, Barone Blog, Bird of Paradise, Brendan Nyhan, Dinocrat, Sensible Mom, Just One Minute, the Political Teen, YARGB, Synthstuff, Wizbang, WILLisms, Shrinkwrapped, and Daily Pundit. Surely more to come. So many fine blogs, so little time.
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
Ann Landers
Sunday, January 8. 2006
Just helping to pass it around Diligent blog readers already are aware of this report from Italy of the arrest of terrorists who were planning a major attack on the US, because Michelle and Powerline highlighted it. And there are two stories here: First, the terrorists. Second, the failure of the MSN to say a word about it. If I were the Sulzberger kid, it would be front page. But "see no evil" prevails, unless it is the Evil Bush. Sure hope wiretaps helped to catch these slimes.
 Book-Based Travel
Travels with Homer. From an extraordinary essay by Halkin titled Sailing to Ithaca: "I first set foot on the island of Ithaca by swimming ashore. This was not how it was done by Odysseus, who was carried from a ship in early dawn by the sailors conveying him on the final leg of his long journey home. “Then they stepped forth on the land,” Homer tells us, “and first they lifted Odysseus out of the hollow ship . . . and laid him down on the sand, still overpowered by sleep.”1 He would have had to be sleeping quite soundly not to awake, for we have just been told that, in beaching, the ship “ran full half her length on the shore in her swift course, at such pace was she driven by the arms of the rowers.” That must have given her a powerful jolt. One cannot beach a modern yacht, which has a keel to give it stability in the water. Ancient Greek ships lacked true keels and so—at least to judge from Homer—they often capsized in rough seas. Nor did ancient Greek harbors have docks or piers. The Greek coast is rugged and its mountains continue down to plunge beneath the water line, making the drop-off too steep to allow for the sinking of pilings in Homer’s time. And while one could always moor or anchor offshore, this made loading and unloading cumbersome. The best harbor was a protected spot with enough sand or gravel for oarsmen to put a ship on." Read the entire wonderful essay.
Further thoughts from Auster on the Steyn Piece: "We need to face the possibility that the left-liberal citizens of the West really do hate our civilization and really do desire that it come to an end. True, they may not be completely consistent (and certainly not consciously explicit) about this, since they still want their material comforts and familiar way of life to continue, for the time being. Nevertheless, civilizational surrender and suicide is the true end toward which Western liberals are moving. That chilling thought came to me as I was reading over the last paragraph of my critique of Mark Steyn’s New Criterion article, in which he stated as a conclusive fact that much of the West is going to disappear and be taken over by Islam in our life times..." It's remarkable to me that was the first time that the ever-thoughtful Auster entertained such an idea. Read entire here.
Saturday, January 7. 2006
Sexual Harrassment in the Workplace: How To's and How Not To's Quick video download: harrasment.wmv
Proof? So what? Now that we have proof that Saddam was supporting and protecting terror, will there be a change in tone from the defeat-America crowd? No. Because the whole thing is about partisan attack, and nothing more.
Most Senate Dems took Abramoff cash. Is this whole Abramoff thing a real story? I can't find the story in it yet. Politicans accept campaign donations from a sleazeball? That's a story? A real story would be a politican not accepting $ from sleazeballs, but that guy or gal would be a goo goo schlemiel loser, wouldn't he? "F-ing Welsh." Tony Blair said it, and now police investigating it as a possible hate crime. Protein. "F-ing crazy Brits." I said that. Arrest me. (Reductio ad absurdum) Cat evolution finally understood, via mitochondrial DNA. Two things pain me about this article: 1. The great cats of the world are essentially extinct, or on the verge of it. 2. House cats are not close to extinction, sad to say - it would be a far more perfect world without those damn things. How Alito might alter the balance of the Court. CSM 2005 was second warmest year since the 1890s. Reason unknown. Book of Daniel is an unholy mess. WaPo New Orleans refugees raise crime rates in Houston. City Journal Chavez' antisemitism. Tangled Web Duke Cunningham wore a wire for a while. I see sleepless nights in DC. Wizbang Zawahiri: US troop reductions in Iraq prove insurgent victory. BKP Hey, NYT, check this graph. Mine deaths rose during Clinton, declining now. Not that a Pres. has anything to do with such things anyway. Poor and Stupid Palestinians have begun fighting eachother instead of Israel. Gates
Friday, January 6. 2006
The Mark Steyn Piece - Responses Blogs and talk shows have been all over Steyn's provocative piece in the WSJ this week, which we noted here. It's rare for a columnist to create such a stir. Here are a few reactions I felt were interesting: A quote from Smith at American Thinker: As I read Steyn’s words, I recalled the conclusion of agnostic Charles Murray in his book Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Science 800 BC to 1950. In the last chapter Murray discusses the role of transcendental goods in creating an environment for human accomplishment, the declining rate of accomplishment over the last 150 years when compared to population growth and the apparent lack of great art, music and literature in the 20th Century. Confucianism and Aristotelianism along with the great religions in the world were for grownups, requiring mature contemplation of truth, beauty, and the good. Cultures in which the creative elite are not engaged in that kind of mature contemplation don’t produce great art. Steyn demonstrates that in Europe’s case, a culture that dwells only upon the here and now can’t seem to produce much of anything, much less works of art, music and literature to transcend the ages. Writing solely of future artistic and scientific accomplishment, Murray is far more optimistic. He likens the period from the Enlightenment to the end of the 20th century as a sort of adolescence of the human race from which the elite will soon emerge with the adult realization that their parents were smarter than they ever thought they were.
Auster put some time into a serious rebuttal of Steyn, in a series of comments. One quote: First, notice that Steyn is no longer making Western decadence, statism, PC, and lack of confidence the source of the crisis. Now he’s saying that Muslims themselves, opposed to the modern world, and expanding rapidly both in their home countries and in the West (“the fastest-breeding group on the planet”) are enough to destroy our civilization. And he's saying that there’s nothing we can do about this, unless he means to suggest that the only way we can survive the Muslim challenge is not by merely restoring a healthy native fertility level, but by surpassing the Muslims’ extremely high fertility rate and becoming the “fastest-breeding” group on the planet ourselves. Since the idea of Westerners breeding like Muslims is absurd, Steyn’s argument comes down, once again, to pure defeatism. YARGB, reacting to the Auster piece, asks: "do we have a right to expect more from writers like Steyn, by way of specific ideas about how Europe can save itself from welfarism and economic and demographic decline? Is it good enough to write despairing articles saying it's time to write-off Europe? Do we not owe Europeans, not only recognition of their great problems, but also a spirit of willingness to help them save themselves, if they emerge from present crises willing to throw off the current elites and the insanity of the bureaucratic monoliths they are presently building? Finally, can we North Americans hope to maintain our culture without the trans-Atlantic ties that have always been integral to who we are?"
And, finally, in a Letter to the Europeans by Hanson: The world is becoming a more dangerous place, despite your new protocols of childlessness, pacifism, socialism, and hedonism. Islamic radicalism, an ascendant Communist China, a growing new collectivism in Latin America, perhaps a neo-czarist Russia as well, in addition to the famine and savagery in Africa, all that and more threaten the promise of the West. So criticize us for our sins; lend us your advice; impart to America the wealth of your greater experience — but as a partner and an equal in a war, not as an inferior or envious neutral on the sidelines. History is unforgiving. None of us receives exemption simply by reason of the fumes of past glory.
Fascism, Islamism, and Anti-semitism Loconte in Weekly Standard. A quote: "Hardly anything has infuriated certain critics of the Bush Administration more than the president's vocabulary to describe the war on terrorism. Bush warns of an "axis of evil," in which rogue nations collude with Muslim extremists to acquire nuclear weapons. He regards Osama bin Laden and his cadre of suicide bombers as "evildoers." He compares the theology of radical Islam to that of European fascism and "all the murderous ideologies" of the twentieth century. Intellectuals and others reject this talk as sophomoric and supremely arrogant-just another manifestation of Bush's cowboy diplomacy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration, voices a typical note of contempt: "We have increasingly embraced at the highest official level what I think can fairly be called a paranoiac view of the world." Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that these same critics remain mostly mute over the stunning remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Two weeks ago the Iranian president shocked Western leaders when he claimed that the Holocaust was "a myth" created by Jews and "Zionist historians." This followed a previous slander against Israel as "a tumor" to be "wiped off the map"--or, at best, relocated to Europe. "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury," Ahmadinejad told the Organization of the Islamic Conference. His anti-Semitic tirade comes as the Iranian leader continues to defy the United Nations to pursue a nuclear weapons program. "I thought, my God, he's a Nazi," a German resident told Knight Ridder. "I couldn't believe that again the world was faced with a Nazi as a head of state. It's beyond comprehension." "
Two views of the miner story - we goofed vs. we were perfect: Pressthink Moslems sacked Rome in 846. Did not know that. Jihad has a long history. Dems and leftists reveal their contempt for democracy, according to Hitchins. Gaza seeks to encourage tourism. Think again. Travelwire. Academic physicians complain of focus on income instead of research. Chronicle of H.E.
Our Brit blogger cousin Mr. Free Market posted this photo of his non-local non-fox hunt with non-horses and non-foxes in front of the non-local non-pub on non-New Year's Day. God Save the Queen. Good old civil disobedience, in the tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Bravo, Brits. 
Schwartzenegger bends to the will of the people. No-one could have made a better or more earnest effort to bring Calif. into reality, but even he was not strong enough. Too bad for Calif. Only a bit of psychiatric medication in the drinking water, and a double-dose of American Spirit, could solve their insane mess. You will not believe what this Vermont liberal judge did. Ex-Donk. I guess with the years of the Supreme Court making things up, other judges think they are above the laws too. Oh, there really is a relationship between demand and price? Booze at Cafe Hayek Is a war between Israel and Iran getting closer? Very possibly. Front Page. Not a pleasant thought when one considers all of the innocent Iranians. Crime in Nice Canada. Worse than the US. Go figure. Small dead animals. A look at the Florida Constitution at their court's decision yesterday to reject Charter Schools. Crescat Sententia More on Lynn Swann at the PA gov. race. Plus the interview with Hannity. Pol Teen "Feelings." NE Repub has the money quote from the Letterman thing.
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