YARRRR VOTE FOR ME

There are a lot of different candidates running for various offices across America this year. Come November each state will be able to choose from many men and women that hold a variety of positions on topics, and almost all of them when elected will proceed to loot the public for various personal projects and personal gain.

But only one of them is openly campaigning as a pirate. In Iowa James Hill is running for congress in the first district, setting himself apart by taking no money from anyone, and and calling for people to chain whip him if he ever rides in a limo.

What you see is what you get. I am the only drunken Pirate seeking office in this great nation. What a sad testimonial to our political system when a degenerate like me, feels like the most honest candidate on the ballot.

James Hill is open about his failings and questionable history, he makes no bones about being a moral and trustworthy man - except with the public's trust and money.

I would have your wife right in front of you. I would smoke the last of your glaucoma medication. Then I will surely drink your liquor cabinet dry. However, know this my friend. I will never break an oath to uphold the public trust. My affidavit will be signed in my own blood. A Pirates crimson mark, with real binding effects into my after life.

At the very least he's an entertaining difference from the usual parade of stuffed shirts, lawyers, and poseurs that run for public office. He holds a variety of populist positions on things and while I doubt he has even a shred of a chance of winning, I'd be tempted to vote for him just on general principle that he can't be any worse than the bums we usually have in office.

Incidentally, the picture shown here is one of Captain Jack's Pirate Hats (the buccaneer), hand-made pirate gear.

Fun

BEST DRIVING

"California is a massive automotive proving ground."

Forbes Magazine is fond of best of lists, they do such lists about nearly every topic. In fact, I've found a few good blogs to use here from their "best blogs" lists, although I disagree that their choices are necessarily best.

The most recent best of list that Forbes put out is part of their World's Best Driving Roads. Like all best of- lists, they please no one, even the person who compiled them. But Forbes tried to avoid mere opinion and focus on science:

But the roads we have showcased as the world's finest are not based on our opinions; they are based upon the opinions of experts, including automotive executives and chief engineers. We asked for their opinions with no qualifications, allowing them to call certain roads their favorites for any reasons they chose.

To get the list and see the roads, you can see a brief slide show, but you'll have to buy their magazine to get the real story. Autoblog, however, picked up the story and had this to say:

So who was chosen to give away their favorite drives? Some pretty big names of the motoring world. People like Danica Patrick, Chrysler's Tom LaSorda, John Walton of Aston Martin, Skip Barber and Bob Lutz, just to name a few.

No surprise to us west-coasters, but many of the roads highlighted are found in the Golden State. Some focus around the Pacific coastline, while others are further inland. Accompanying the article is a photo gallery that provides maps of the selected stretches of tarmac, all of which will bestow the consummate gearhead with the one thing that makes our lives that much more complete; speed, twists and that soothing shot of adrenalin that seems to make everything right in our world.

Then, they solicited their commenters, who eagerly replied with their selections:

I haven't visited most of these locations (only 1 of 10, I think), I can't speak to their greatness.

However, I can't recommend the Hana Highway and Maui enough. Beautiful scenery. Great towns to stop in and savor some exotic flavor. Have I mentioned the crazy, blind, 1 lane turns yet?
-by Swat Lax


Honestly, you really can't appreciate what a car has to offer until your drive it in California on the beautiful roads that wind past the coast or carve through the mountains. Everytime I visit CA, I keep pushing for the sportiest upgrade available.

Appalachia has some awesome roads too, but California is in a whole other league.

There is a pretty sweet stretch of two-lane that winds through the canyons of Kauai (Hawaii), but that is not as accessible to most drivers.

But like I was saying, and Damon you know this, California is a massive automotive proving ground.
-by Randall Halcomb


Some lameness:

LaSorda likes 17 Mile Drive because there are plenty of places to stop. Because that's what you want to do on a great driving road: stop.

Welburn likes the PA Turnpike?! Not quite a two-laner. Maybe it's got some curves. But a turnpike as best road?

Car & Driver used to have a "ten best roads" every few years. I compiled a list from that a while back. Much more informative than this article. I drove a couple that made the list multiple times, WV16 and OH26, in an RX-8 last summer. Total blast. It might not be the most cosmopolitan part of the country, but West Virginia and the neighboring part of Ohio is hard to beat for roads.

My RX-8 review based on that drive
-by Michael Karesh


Not the best nationwide, I'm sure, but if you're in the area, River Road from Morrisville, PA, through New Hope, and on until you reach near Easton, PA. Gorgeous views of the Delaware River, good little S-turns, and a serious series of side roads to venture off into. There are a few towns where you'd be a complete a-hole not to slow down to the recommended 20 mph, but more the most part, you can keep it to a nice 50 and still have some fun. At its best by far in late October. Just don't get stuck behind a slowpoke.
-by dave


I guess to be really great you have to have spectacular scenery, too, but I'll take my fun roads where I find them, so:

There's this really nice stretch east of Bloomington, IN that I know of, where there is just a yellow sign at each end with a squiggly arrow and the words "Next 15 miles"....

And there is this stretch of US27 in Kentucky and Tennessee that is pretty amazing...and there is US50 through the Wayne Natl Forest in IN...and Route 66 between Flagstaff and the Colorado River, where it winds way up to this crazy little mining town where the burros run free and around each blind corner you are liable to meet a 40'RV or a yahoo in a pickup who may or may not be in your "lane"...

Heck, there's pretty great places to drive just about everywhere...except South Texas, which is one of the many reasons I'm leaving and never looking back!
-by mike


I had the opportunity as a kid (13~ years old) to ride down the Pacific coast through Monterey and what not, VERY beautiful. To be honest I have to agree with the article that not much on the East coast could rival that. I did get to check out Deals Gap / Tail of the Dragon earlier this year though when I was making the trek home with my Lotus Elise and it was pretty damn fun. I met up with two friends (other Elise owners) in Atlanta and we headed up to Deals Gap. I had never been before but they were pretty familiar with the area so I was able to follow them and rely on their experience.

It's not the prettiest area (looks a lot like Kentucky, where I'm from) but it is easily one of the BEST roads in the US. The curves are all pretty tight, most are banked to allow for full throttle / gut dropping turns, plenty of visible (non blind) curves and not enough straight areas to put you into a turn too fast. Deals Gap is a road that truly excites when you have a car that can hold its momentum through a curve. We were there on a Friday morning before most of the visitors had showed up, I think that helped in allowing us some runs with little to no interuptions.

You can see some photos from our trip there at my Elise blog...
-by Lotus Elise


I'm with Roy, how did the blue ridge parkway, and its side roads (such as the dragon) not make this list?

Granted this is one of the ones that will go onto the list of motorcycle clogged roads: http://www.tailofthedragon.com/

there are many roads up in the northern US rockies also that warrant mention: US12 from Missoula, MT to Kooskia, ID; US16 in Wyoming as it crosses the Bighorn Range west of Buffalo, WY (crests at 10k feet... some cars run out of breath up there); US287 from Dubois into Grand Teton Nat'l Park is pretty spectacular as well, with views of 14000 foot peaks (both the Tetons and Wind River Ranges)

there are many others, too many to list out there... (though some were better before Montana reinstated speed limits)

and who can forget pikes peak??
-by Tim UF

So... where's your favorite driving road?

Travel

911, REMEMBERED

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done"
-Charles Dickens (Tale of Two Cities)

Hurricane Katrina hit the United States about five years ago, and the devastation was incredible, especially to New Orleans, but to several states across the Gulf of Mexico. Homes were demolished, businesses lost, lives taken, and landscape forever changed. Although the hurricane was not the most deadly to hit the United States, the damage and shock was compounded by the flooding, particularly in New Orleans, much of which is actually below sea level.

When old, inadequate levees were hit by the storm surge (the rising level of water pushed by incredibly high winds over the past days), they were chewed out from underneath then crumbled under the weight and pressure. Inadequate emergency preparation in the city combined with slow response and poor organization by FEMA, and the result was very difficult, even lethal for New Orleans residents. Many have never returned. All in all, Hurricane Katrina cost at least $200,000,000,000 in damage over 900,000 square miles, displacing millions.

All of this is old news, right? You've read this a thousand times, seen the endless news coverage, watched the specials, and on TV there are year-anniversary specials on every week. So why talk about it again?

One of the reasons is a reminder of the people who suffered, the area is still struggling to rebuild. Another is a memorial of the people who died, to honor their lives taken in a storm. And yet another reason is to be a nudge so that the people in charge might do a better job next time, to remember and to respond better to the emergency. Mayor Nagin of New Orleans and Governor Blanco, not to mention their legislators, can use the reminder to do a better job in the next storm. FEMA can use a nudge to set up their emergency response better.

Yet it has been 5 years since the terrorist attacks on the eleventh of September, 2001, and how many retrospectives have there been on television? How many memorial shows, how many specials about 9/11? You can count them on one hand, whereas Katrina has had ten times as many or more. It's as if the media understands the importance of emphasizing and focusing on the latter, while the former they'd just as soon forget.

Putting aside politics and the reason why this is true, this blog is one of thousands of others that have been assigned a single victim of the tragic events on 9/11 to memorialize and remember. One person who was cruelly, brutally murdered by hate-filled, death-worshipping Islamofascists.

The name I have been given is Emilio Ortiz, a man who went by Peter, and he'll be on my sidebar for the time being. On the 11th of next month, I'll do a closer look at this victim of terrorism.

But for now I want to explain why it is important we remember 9/11. Many people even on the right scoff at the repeated reminders of these events, saying by doing so we are being terrorized, that the terrorists win. That it wasn't that huge an event in the big picture, that it was isolated, and that you are acting like a craven wimp for remembering the day.

What motivates this can be a variety of things, not the least of which is actual fear and a desire to ignore it because of the emotions and concerns it brings up that many would just rather not face. But they are right, in a sense. While this was a shocking event and it is a great, sad, and horrifying tragedy for the people and families directly involved, it was not as big a catastrophe as has hit America in the past. The Galveston flood, for instance, had two to three times as many casualties. While the events were spectacular and memorable, in terms of loss and life, they really weren't that immense.

But the reason for memory isn't about loss of life. When Pearl Harbor was struck, just over 2,000 people died - fewer than on 9/11 - and most of them were military in a military strike. But when this happened, the nation was shocked and galvanized into war, led by a strong, visionary president, and reminded by Pearl Harbor of why they were fighting and sacrificing.

World War Two lasted from December 1941 until August of 1945. During that time, the people of the United States went without many things we consider necessities, let alone luxuries. Things like nylon stockings for women, beef, gasoline enough to do more than drive to work a couple times a week, sugar, butter, cheese, even tires for your car. People were constantly reminded by posters of the fight and the reason for it, were shown in movies what was happening, what had happened, and reminded of Pearl Harbor. Hollywood was a willing and ready supporter once Hitler had invaded Russia, and pitched in with their own war effort with film after film.

What do we have today? The president, while visionary and having strength at the beginning of this war on terror, called for everyone to go about their business as if nothing had happened. To ignore the terrorist strike, to go shopping, to not be afraid. And in the process, people are forgetting what happened, why we fight, and what the importance of this is. Hollywood, driven by an agenda to eliminate the presidency and get their favorite guys back in power, is disinclined to put out movies that even show Arabs or Muslims as bad guys in any context, let alone history.

When a movie about the events on Flight 93 came out, it was controversial, too soon! Cried many, it was propaganda! Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (avoiding 9/11) is not about the terrorist strike, not about the need to fight evil, the terrorists are barely portrayed in any sense. The movie instead focuses on the lives of the firefighters, how the country came together, how we responded so well. That's great, but contrast it with this from The Lost Patriots of Hollywood Michelle Malkin:

During World War II, Tinseltown roused the country’s fighting spirit instead of trying to stifle it. In February 1941, the entertainment industry convened an extraordinary Academy Awards ceremony. The president of the Motion Picture Association, independent movie mogul and World War I pilot and intelligence officer Walter Wanger, went out of his way to use the Academy Award ceremony to support the war effort. Wanger invited President Roosevelt to address the crowd.

This was before Pearl Harbor. To date, we've seen a grand total of zero films about the heroes of the War on Terror, zero films about the terrorists and their hate of the US, zero films about the war in Iraq - unless you count the outrageous lies and distortion of Fahrenheit 911. We've seen zero films about the 38,000 Bronze Stars, 11,700 Purple Hearts and 195 Silver Stars so far in this struggle, heroes all. Where's the movie about Pat Tillman, about the evil of Saddam Hussein ala Schindler's List? Where are the movies showing the heroism, sacrifice, and efforts of the soldiers of the coalition fighting terrorism? We've seen no posters reminding us of the battle, no public service announcements, and few speeches by the president. Even Time Magazine asks Where Are the War Movies?

Why does it matter? The same reason Pearl Harbor mattered and is so much a part of our consciousness that recently Michael Bay put out a woeful reenactment of the events in a summer blockbuster. Because it's a constant reminder of why we are in this war, of why it's important to fight, of why we must keep the effort up to do the job, a memorial to the people who died, and a back-stiffener to prevent any more from dying. Because it was such a key event in our history that we should remember it and what it meant.

In WW2, people put up with rationing, family members gone at war for years at a time with few if any letters, news reports weeks old and an enemy so strong nobody was sure if we'd win for much of the war. Today, if we have to wait in line a bit longer at the airport or not bring fingernail clippers on a plane we throw a fit. The American people now aren't any weaker or more cretinous than in 1944. We just aren't being reminded of why we put up with this. We aren't part of the fight, feeling like part of the struggle when we sacrifice rather than being put upon by a government that doesn't seem to know what it's doing.

We can't make Hollywood figure out that a movie portraying Americans fighting terrorism would be a huge hit, we can't make TV news put out retrospectives on terrorism and 9/11 at least as often as Hurricane Katrina, we can't make the Bush administration or the Pentagon put out a bigger effort at reminding people of the war, of telling us what we're fighting for. What we can do is remember, each of us, and honor those heroes and the dead.

Remember 9/11. Remember the heroes.

*UPDATE: If you want to sign up to be one of the blogs commemorating the men and women murdered on 9/11 by terrorists, the 2996 project is where to turn.

Essays, 9-11

Quote of the day

"The greatest concentration of wealth in America is not with big corporations or with private citizens. It is in Washington, D.C. and the people that have it take it through the force of law."
-Rush Limbaugh

Quotes

HEAP BIG LIAR

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Ward Churchill has been dismissed from his job, and rightly so. He was a fraud, an inventor of events, a liar about his past and heritage, and a plagiarist who repeatedly and shamelessly copied from other writers for his dissertations and professional writings. The man was an embarrassment to Colorado University, one that they reluctantly let go despite his blatant violation of not only their but academia's policies in general.

The fact that he's a screaming moonbat nutcase is his own prerogative; all it did was serve to bring to light these other facts about his woeful past and blatant lack of qualification for the job. Colorado University fought long and hard to find a way to retain this man, and finally had to let him go. But why try to keep such a poor choice in a position he does not deserve? Why did CU have such a hard time with this decision?

A petition is running around that is in support of "Courageous Ward Churchill" which seeks to get him his job back. Why? Well, firing a professor is a dangerous attack on academic freedom, that it puts professors under the sinister control of conservatives:

The actions of the University of Colorado in this case constitute a serious threat to academic freedom. They indicate that public controversy is dangerous and potentially lethal to the careers of those who engage it. They suggest that professors—tenured and untenured alike—serve at the pleasure of politicians and pundits. They call into question standards of scholarship and peer review at Colorado 's flagship institution. They endanger not only those scholars working in that area where historical inquiry, critical social commentary, and political activism intersect—an area that defines the true locus of academic freedom in an open and democratic society—but also those historically disenfranchised "others" who are struggling to have their perspectives and programs represented in, and legitimized by, the academic mainstream. Thus, for a variety of reasons that go well beyond the scholarship and politics of a particular individual, we urge the University of Colorado to reverse its decision to fire Professor Ward Churchill.

The Australian American blog Coalition of the Swilling examines this petition, fisking it carefully and pointing out what isn't said and what is a problem. Some of the things he points out is that the writers of this petition conspicuously avoid talking about the truth. They talk about academic freedom and censorship, but try to minimize the significance of a professor breaking the rules of his job and lying openly and repeatedly about himself and in his work. Some samples:

They indicate that public controversy is dangerous and potentially lethal to the careers of those who engage it.

No, they hopefully show that lying to get your job, and being promoted way over your head or qualifications (only a Masters degree from a school whose name he even misspells on his website), will someday come around and bite you and the racist fools who hired you very publically in the ass; and that can only be a good thing.

They suggest that professors—tenured and untenured alike—serve at the pleasure of politicians and pundits.

No, they suggest that these people should be -gasp- actually qualified.

This petition is signed - admitted on the website - by many of the members of David Horowitz' Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Over 400 professors have signed it, a who's who of familiar radicals to people in academia.

Commenter Jim Paine of Pirate Ballerina has a counter petition up:

While there are a number of petitions supporting everyone's favorite professor, there's only one that calls for his firing: the PirateBallerina "Fire Ward Churchill" Statement of Support.
-by Jim Paine

And over at All Things Conservative, commenters included one of the signatories, Peter Kirstein. Said Dr Kirstein's previous kindly letter to a soldier is included in the article.

You know, I certainly respect people's right to speak--but when someone is a known fraud and says some despicable things about 9/11, we should be condemning him, not supporting him...400 signatures!!??
-by Richard


You misquoted my email to Cadet Kurpiel. I wrote "without AAA". It would be counterintuitive to criticise American bombing of nations WITH AAA. We bomb countries without AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) like the criminal Zionist entity (State of Israel)did in their genocidal war crimes in Iraq.

Also I did NOT initiate the petition to prevent Professor Churchill's dismissal but am merely a signatory.

I appreciate your correcting your errors.

Sincerely and the struggle continues.

I meant Israeli attacks in Lebanon not Iraq. I correct the mistake.
-by Peter N. Kirstein


When you're a deluded, hate-filled freak, it's easy to confuse the United States with the "criminal Zionist entity," and Lebanon with Iraq. As David Duke -- someone who shares the good professor's loathings -- might say, they all look alike.

Some struggle.
-by Nigel Tufnel


Doc, better you should correct your mistake of supporting an academic fraud, racial pretender and despicable America-hating bigot: Ward Churchill.

That you defend him on grounds of academic freedom is particularly offensive and merely contributes to the growing dissatisfaction with Ivory Tower cluelessness which will one day being REAL suppression - regrettably - on the rabidly anti-American campuses of this nation.
-by Anonymous


I'm sorry, when did I miss that Ward was being denied his right to free speech? He is hopefully being fired for being an academic fraud and a plagarist, but the fact that he was being hauled off to one of AshKKKroft's gulags in North Dakota truly is startling news.

Welcome, mind you, but startling, none-the-less.
-by Mr Bingley


It's illuminating to hold your nose and click through to Kirstein's blog. You will see his defense of the odious Churchill is based solely on violation of sacred professorial tenure; not a single response to the many substantiated serious charges against him which were the basis for Churchill's firing.

Apparently in Kirstein's opinion, once tenured a professor is inviolate, no matter what professional misconduct he indulges in.
-by anonymous

Bottom line, you have the right to make an ass of yourself... but not on my dime. You have the right to say what you want, but you can't lie and foment rebellion, plagiarize, and invent "facts" and keep your job as a professor.

*UPDATE: I was off by about 10,000 miles on where Coalition of the Swilling is from.

Academia

HUMOURLESS LEFT

"I wonder if Warren Kinsella thinks it's okay to listen to The Dead Kennedy's or is their name too slanderous."

Granted, a sense of humor and being jolly is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when one describes politicians. But it seems that some are even more humorless than usual. In Canada, there is a satire website called Hezboliberal that had some fun at the expense of liberal politicians in that great nation. With articles such as "MP searches Middle-East for terrorism, finds Israel" the site satirized the attitudes and approach to terrorism that the left takes all too often.

Ezra Levant over at Western Standard blog went to the site and found that their usual content was missing, in it's place an explanation why:

The grown-up answer to a satirical website like that is to laugh it off. But the Liberal party is hurting right now, so it lashed out against the pranksters -- pressuring their internet service provider (ISP) to censor the site.

If you go check Hezboliberal at the time of this writing you'll find the text of the letter sent to their ISP. The letter alleges that this website is both (?) slanderous and libelous, and that they violate copyright and trademark laws. However, the previous content is being mirrored on Western Standard's site so you can check it out if you want. Mr Levant continues:

I'm a defamation lawyer, and there's nothing defamatory about that website that isn't protected by the defence of fair comment (let alone truth, which is an absolute defence). I don't think Mr. Régimbald is a defamation lawyer, because his taxonomy -- calling the website slanderous, which is typically a term of art reserved for spoken defamation -- shows an unfamiliarity with the law. But this is all treating the letter too seriously. It is not a legitimate legal complaint: there is no defamation here. And the claims of copyright and trademark violations are ridiculous, too -- this website is clearly a parody, not an attempt to actually pass itself off as the real Liberal Party.

Ezra gives a bit of legal analysis, then goes on to the main point.

This is not a legal action by the Liberals. This is called bullying -- where the once-mighty "natural governing party", now flailing around in impotence, rage and debt, tries to lash out at some little guys and, worse, their ISP.

I happen to agree with the sentiments of the HezboLiberal pranksters -- I think the Liberal party deserves a shellacking over their pro-terrorist temporizing. But that's not what really makes me mad here, and it's not what makes our magazine come to the aid of the website. What makes me mad is that the Liberals are bullying critics on the internet, and getting away with it.

Neither he nor I are expecting the legacy media who willingly avoided printing the Mohammed cartoons that sparked (delayed, much calculated) Muslim riots last year to report on this or step up to their defense.

Commenters reacted:

Since when has the Left ever had a sense of humour? Their reaction is also very representative; use whatever means to shut down dissenting discourse.

Are they not the same people who invented every possible lie to scare voters away from "Scary Harper" with all the help of MSM? Maybe they should change the name from liberal to libility party.
-by Alain


Bravo, Ezra!

In this country, the liberals in all kinds of institutions--nearly all institutions ARE liberal these days!--talk and talk about reducing the bullying: I'm a teacher, so I should know. And, you know what? The more the lefties talk, the more the bullies bully.

The kids are told, in hushed tones, that not supporting the bullied and not standing up to the bully makes one an enabler.

Then see what the Liberals do when someone decides not to enable. But, of course, the Liberal Party IS the bully, so what else would one expect? As always, adult toddlers!

Thanks, WS, for what you're doing here: supporting the bullied and taking on the bully. A+!
-by lookout


The "Youth for Volpe" site was hilarious. The HezboLiberal folks don't quite measure up, but they have potential. I agree, Ez, that the "lawyer" who wrote that letter ain't to bright. I don't have a law degree (just a good command of the English language) and that "slanderous and libelous" comment struck me as a sure sign of someone who does not know what he is talking about.

But it would be interesting to see what they might argue in court. I mean, do they really want to be in the position of trying to explain why they think it reasonable that the Canadian public might take the site seriously? Probably not. Maybe we will find out what they have to say. Or maybe they just drop it. If they have any common sense (or one working legal mind in the party), they'll drop it.
-by Mark Logan


Thanks, Ezra, for that information. I previously wasn't sure whether or not the use of a registered trademark was legitimate grounds for concern, under the law, but now I understand better the degree to which this is a matter of intimidation, not a matter of brand protection.

You know, when I signed up for charter membership for the Western standard about 2.5 years ago, I did so because based on the roster of columnists, I thought it would be a useful read. But I never thought the place of the Western Standard would be so important in the defense of liberty.

Once again, my heartiest thanks to Mr. Levant and the staff and writers at the Western Standard.
-by Vitruvius


I thought we were told it was the conservatives who were stifling speech and taking away our rights. Maybe they need to look in a mirror. Very good column. I sent the site to my friends, they wanted to see it to believe that we were not alone in our fight in the US.
-by Sal


WHO do these Librano$ think they are? Rulers–by Divine Right? If their threats and lawyers weren’t so pathetic they would almost be funny. Ha, ha.

The “tolerant,” “open,” “diverse” lefties show their hand again, which is tyrannical, harbours no dissent, and comes down hard on anyone or any group that crosses them.

In any other situation, this would be called violence. But I guess it’s OK to be abusive towards people and groups the Libs disagree with. That’s called self-defence. If you have absolutely no sense of humour, no integrity, and no scruples about being A-one a**holes, this is just business as usual: Squash any dissension, usually using tax dollars. I guess it’s just beinning to dawn on them that they no longer have access to the bottomless tax-dollar coffers. Too bad guys. Boo hoo. Oh: THAT’s why you’re threatening to sue…you need the money.

Ezra, you've got their number, BIG-TIME!!! LOL
Thanks for standing in the gap again. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. WAY TO KICK ASS, EZRA AND WESTERN STANDARD!!!
-by 'been around the block



Well, I guess it all just demonstrates that the "great minds" of the Conservative party such as tiny Ezra are just as silly, childish and vapid as the Warren Kinsella's of this world and the old rat pack.

Gosh, what an impressively high level of debate from the chorus of like-minders who have never had an original thought of their own.

I would be surprised if it weren't the lowest of the current motley crew of nobodies and political hacks, Pierre Poilievre or Mrs. Poilievre (some call "him" John Baird) who was behind the childish and unfunny stunt. But is was sure to get Ezra's attention, as after all, that's about the only thing he was ever known for on the hill - staging silly stunts to pander to a lazy media.

As for Conservatives being able to take it as well as dish it out? Are you kidding? I can only imagine the bombast and fury that would follow any similar effort to depict current little PM Stevie "infallible" Harper.

You guys are hilarious, but not for the reasons you think.
-by Torywatcher


torywatcher,

sour grapes my man?

rembember the hitler moustaches on Harper by your CBC and the guns in the street ..

It's the Liberals who are scary, not the conservatives.

Let me complete our argument so you don't have to.

R2
R not
R2
R not

There, I guess that covers it.
-by Duke


Living in suburban Windsor (aka the Detroit area), watching Hockey Night In Canada on CBET, and drinking Molson's Golden, I feel a kinship to my southern neighbors (look at the map) - at least the ones who aren't complete lefty moonbats. One year we took some friends who had just immigrated to the US from the USSR to the big Int'l Freedom Festival fireworks show on the Detroit River. Normally, we would have gone to Windsor because Dieppe Park (would that most Canadians knew that little bit of history) is less crowded than downtown Detroit and you get a better view of the pyrotechnics. However, our friends hadn't yet gotten their Green Cards so they couldn't cross the border. When I told him about our normal viewing site, he said he didn't like Canada. "Too much so-shi-a-lism in Canada."

Anyway, in response to the Liberal's thin skin I sent the following email to Mr. Régimbald (who I noticed did not send a bilingual letter):

Dear Monsieur Régimbald,

Please be advised that the parodied use of the Liberal Party of Canada's logo is perfectly legal *north of the border here in the United States no matter what Canadian Copyright and Trademarks laws say.

Please ask your party to advocate removing any jihadis or other Muslim extremists from Canada using any appropriate methods.

I trust you will govern yourself accordingly, eh?

-by Ronnie Schreiber

It does seem that the left politically are less "peace and love" and more "do it my way or I'll rap your knuckles with this ruler" than they used to be. Few smiles are seen, little kindness, but there is a lot of bitterness, anger, frustration, and tooth-gritting rage that sometimes breaks into actual violence. Peace, lefties.

*NOTE: I used an extra U I had lying around in tribute to the Canadian spelling. Apparently the British have a lot of spare U's around they just throw any old where.

Canada, Politics

HIT AND RUN SUV

"Can you imagine, if someone had (God forbid!) driven a car into 14 gay people, how quickly the press would have managed to cover the story?"

CLogging is catching on (Comments-Logging, such as this site does). Michelle Malkin has a story about a driver in San Francisco who ran amuck driving around hitting people and finally ending in front of the Jewish Community Center. Whether by coincidence he ended his rampage there or not, he spent a lot of time hitting people on Bush street as well. This man was a Muslim, of middle eastern origin, and while there's no proof or testimony to the idea of this as some one-man terrorist rampage or it being connected to Jews or President Bush, the coincidences are odd, to say the least.

Another odd detail is the fixation news stories have of referring to SUVs as committing the crimes in question or being responsible for accidents. I have yet to read about a pickup being the one crashing into schoolkids or hitting people, no station wagons or sports cars. But whenever something happens while someone is driving a sports utility vehicle, they almost always refer to the SUV rather than the driver as responsible. Here's how the San Francisco Chronicle puts it:

The SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the rampage ended.
...
Architect Jeremy Warms also saw police pull Popal out of the SUV and sit him down on the curb.
...
Emanule Gowan, 50, said he had been standing on his Steiner Street doorstep around 1 p.m. when an SUV roared by, driving the wrong way down Bush Street, and hit an elderly man in the crosswalk
...
Other witnesses described the SUV as jumping the sidewalk in apparent pursuit of pedestrians.
...
The SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the rampage ended.
...etc

This kind of repetitive use of a type of vehicle is not accidental or coincidental. Typically writers try to avoid using the same word over and over, but apparently there's an exception for the term "SUV."

CBS Channel 5 has the same kind of theme:

An FBI agent on his lunch break was also struck by the suspect's SUV in the vicinity of the Federal Building.
...
Jennifer Sawle, 33, of San Francisco, said she was headed eastbound on California Street when she saw the SUV driving recklessly in the other direction, around 1:15 pm.
...
The SUV "went speeding in reverse on Bush (Street) heading west, weaving in and out of traffic," she said. "The whole right side of his SUV was smashed in."

Michelle Malkin covered the story, then solicited her gazillion readers for more information on the area

Bay Area readers, I have a question: What can you tell us all about the intersections and locations of the vehicular assaults? Is there a large Jewish population in Laurel Heights?

But San Francisco is not really broken up into ethnic blocks like some towns except in Chinatown. Like my home town, San Francisco can change radically block to block from poverty to great wealth.

Her readers gladly responded, with some highlights:

I lived in SF and worked very near the Jewish Community Center there, located at Presidio and California. To say the Presidio (as it's known) is a "Jewish" area is not quite accurate.
-by Kirk K.

This whole thing went down a block from my apartment and I disagree with Kirk's assessment. Three of the incidents appear to have happened on Bush street, which is a one-way street going west to east. [map of area] To me this looks like a methodical, circuitous expedition ending at the JCC.
-by Chuck

Kirk K. is corrects that Pine St. leads to an area near (though NOT directly to) the SFJCC. But I just saw a map of the incidents (pedestrians hit in SF) and clearly Popal did not take a straight path. It seems like he headed west out Pine St., double-backed on Bush St. (a one-way in the other direction) for a few blocks, then headed north tol California, where he turned westbound until he hit the SFJCC and then came to a stop about three blocks later. This is also based on a witness who saw him turn left from Pine onto Divisadero (southbound to Bush St.) and then saw him go by again westbound a few minutes later. A little confusing, I know but he clearly was driving around the neighborhood.

It is a very interesting question as to why Popal, living in Fremont (very remote from SF), chose to do most of his damage (after already killing someone in Fremont, it must be said) in this neighborhood when he had to drive through 40 miles of heavy freeway traffic and then through several more miles of dense urban traffic in SF to get there.

I was just watching KTVU 10 o’clock news and apparently one of the SF victims was black – in fact the suspect tried to run him down twice.
-by Gary R.

As you know by now, Temple Emanu-El is one of San Francisco's most distinguished synagogues, architecturally and in terms of its populous congregation. fyi, It's also somewhat left-leaning: witness the hejab-wearing woman joining her hands in Christian-like prayer in the image currently on its website. Three of its six rabbis are women, one ofwhom, Sydney Mintz, I believe is lesbian. At a service I attended there three years ago, a fellow worshipper (who otherwise was a stranger to me) let loose a gratuitous, derisive comment about President Bush. All things considered, it makes perfect sense to me that a desperate and poorly-planned jihad-derived rampage (as this one seems to be) or certainly a desperate and better-planned one would aim for Laurel Heights generally and any of these locations specifically. The JCC and Emanu-El are absolutely San Francisco's emblems of liberal, affluent and socially productive Jews.
-by Jeremiah

There's more on her site, I just grabbed some highlights from some of the writers. You'll have to go read Michelle's article to get the whole story.

Anchoress is frustrated and annoyed with the way the legacy media covers events where Arabs and Muslims are concerned:

This is becoming an appalling habit in the press and by politicians. An Islamic fundamentalist shoots Jews in a Synagogue, and it’s some sort of random incident. An Islamic fundamentalist uses his car to kill people in front of a Synagogue, and in what would appear to be a somewhat “Jewish neighborhood” and the press takes a while to cover the story (probably looking for the appropriate “frame,”) until someone in authority can be found to sing out, “ROAD RAGE”! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Road rage! Mayor Newsom sees no problem, here…a “relatively young” person, obviously confused! Yes, that’s the ticket!

A topic Tim Blair has been hitting on for a while now in the context of Australian news coverage. In No-Appearance Gang Still At Large he points out a consistent theme in the news, showing story after story where the news describes the events and a generic depiction of the people... and the police report making it clear they are Arabic and Middle Eastern in appearance. This is a deliberate attempt to avoid mentioning something.

Now, what possible motivation could news organizations have for not mentioning crimes being committed by Muslims and Arabs? Hmm, can't possibly be that this might annoy people at such a group of people and thus remind them of 9/11, terrorism, and become favorable for President Bush could it?

Think I'm crazy? Why do you think they keep repeating the word SUV constantly in news stories, referring to the vehicle as if it is self-driven? Is it because they find the word so very attractive, or because they understand that putting a word and a type into a negative story over and over helps form a perspective on that word or type?

These people report and work with words for a living. Many major legacy media outlets deliberately avoid using the word "terrorist" by policy, not because of fear of lawsuits by said terrorists, but because they want to avoid reminding people that terrorists exist and are a problem.

That's why it's the legacy media. Because people are more and more turning to news sources that don't play these games.

*UPDATE: The driver himself in this Channel 2 San Francisco video clip says "I am a terrorist." Of course, if he said he was a turnip I wouldn't pay him a lot of heed, but given the context it seems compelling at least.

News Media, Crime, San Francisco

Quote of the day

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty."
-Abraham Lincoln

Quotes

THE TRIAL OF HUSSEIN

"Maybe if Saddam had gassed JonBenet Ramsey instead of the Kurds, the media and the people would be interested"

Saddam Hussein is on trial. I know, that's news, because it's not being covered much here in the United States. One almost gets the impression that it's being ignored for some reason or another, hard to guess what that might be.

But the Kurds are paying attention. This stage of the trial is going over Hussein's attempted genocide against the Kurdish people. The defense isn't even trying to say it didn't happen, they are just claiming it wasn't attempted genocide, it was just political. The Kurdistan Regional Government has a report on the trial so far.

A Kurdish woman testified Tuesday in the genocide trial of Saddam Hussein, breaking down in tears as she described how foul smoke billowed across her village in a 1987 poison gas attack and how her male relatives disappeared at a prison camp.

Najiba Khider Ahmed was one of two survivors who took the stand in the second day of Saddam's new trial over the Anfal campaign, a military sweep across northern Iraq in which tens of thousands of Kurds were killed and hundreds of villages leveled.

This isn't the first part of the trial, either. They've already tried Hussein on the killings of 148 Shiites in a 1980s crackdown on the town of Dujail. The verdict for that case will be read in October. And this isn't the last part. They are trying Hussein on several different crimes, with several different trials. Each carries the death penalty.

Ahmed and fellow Anfal survivor Ali Mostafa Hama described the April 16, 1987, bombardment of Sheik Wasan and the nearby village of Basilan, believed to be the first time Saddam's regime used chemical weapons against Iraqi citizens. After the assault, residents were rounded up into prison camps, and most of the men taken away on trucks and later executed, they said.

"I saw eight to 12 jets … There was greenish smoke from the bombs," Hama said. "It was as if there was a rotten apple or garlic smell minutes later. People were vomiting … we were blind and screaming. There was no one to rescue us. Just God."

Hama, wearing a traditional Kurdish headdress, said he saw a newborn baby die during the bombardment. "The infant was trying to smell life, but he breathed in the chemicals and died," he said, speaking in Kurdish with an Arabic translator.

Saddam Hussein. You remember him, right? Here's how Tim Blair introduced this story:

Remember Saddam Hussein? Dark-haired chap, lived in a hole in the ground, killed a bunch of people? No? Had a couple of psychopathic sons, invaded Kuwait, liked firing rifles from balconies? Still nothing? Umm ... George Galloway’s friend? YES! Yes, that’s the guy. Well, seems he’s on trial for one thing or another.

Commenters at Tim Blair had this to say:

You know, you would look at a map in Iraq and it would have a village listed and then underneath it in parenthesis-destroyed.

Damn unlucky people, those Kurds.
-by 91B30


The trial must be going well, since it has been suppressed by the mainstream media. I personally wish for his execution three or four days before our election.
-by Patricia


A couple years ago I was living next door to three young Iraqi guys who had come here to the wonderful land of WOZ to start a better life. Sure enough the topic of Saddam came up sooner or later.

Much to my surprise however, they wanted him dead/out of the picture even more than Bush. As Kurds, they had somewhat of a score to settle...
-by The Wizard of WOZ

Beats me how anybody could ever have believed this man had an interest in chemical weapons.

Mystifies the Left as well.
-by stats


Here’s a good story about abandoned Kurdish villages in our AO.
-91B30


The best portal for all things Kurdish.

It is nothing short of a miracle what they are doing up there. I have so much respect for these people and their unflagging and enduring desire for cultural and religous freedom, democracy and prosperity (both indivdual and collective), I am learning the language that I might better understand this ancient folk and participate in some small way in their future.

My eternal gratitude to the United States of America and its Allies, and the doughty Peshmerga, who worked, fought and died to establish and sustain the conditions whereby this exemplary flowering of freedom and peace could flourish.

And, yes, I blame Bush.
-by MentalFloss


Maybe if Saddam had gassed JonBenet Ramsey instead of the Kurds, the media and the people would be interested...
-by Chrenkoff

I'll be updating this as I get more information. This trial won't be unnoticed here, at least.

Iraq, Trial of Hussein

DIPLOMACY SPACE

The Bobs from Office Space interview the UN:

BOB SLYDELL
So you say you wear blue helmets and sit in bunkers, observing as people kill each other?

UN PEACEKEEPER
That, that's right. Sometimes we give one side information about the other, if their enemy is Israel.

BOB SLYDELL
But you don't disarm anyone and don't actually have the strength to enforce any sort of peace or treaties?

UN PEACEKEEPER
We keep the peace, we're the last, best hope of mankind to stop the violence

BOB PORTER
Well, then I gotta ask, then how exactly are you keeping peace if you don't, you know, do anything?

UN PEACEKEEPER
Well, uh, uh, uh, because, uh, the flag of the UN stands for peace and our presence reminds them of the world's opinion. We stand for peace.

BOB SLYDELL
You physically stand in their way?

UN PEACEKEEPER
Well, no, the, the, US or UK does the actual fighting, if there is any to be done

BOB SLYDELL
Ah.

BOB PORTER
Then you must physically assist, with weapons, money, food, and so on?

UN PEACEKEEPER
Well...no. Yeah, I mean, sometimes.

BOB SLYDELL
Well, what would you say… you do here?

UN PEACEKEEPER
Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the #$(*&^@! terrorists so the French don't have to!! I have people skills!! I am good at dealing with people!!! Can't you understand that?!? What the hell is wrong with you people?!!!!!!!

BOB SLYDELL
Let's see. You're Kofi...Annan?

He nods.

BOB PORTER
Is that your real name?

KOFI ANNAN
Yeah.

BOB PORTER
Are you in any relation to the Kojo Annan?

KOFI ANNAN
Well, yes, he's my son.

BOB SLYDELL
(laughs) To be honest, I've never seen a scandal like that oil for food one! I just don't think it gets any better, the UN, meant to stand for world peace and opposition to tyrants, founded to prevent another Hitler, is under the table taking bribes from a horrible despot to prevent any real action taken to control him! It's like the UN is full of despots and tyrants and is working completely against it's charter and purpose!

BOB PORTER
I mean you must really love that Hussein guy.

KOFI ANNAN
Yeah. Yeah…he, he, he's pretty, he's pretty good, I guess.

BOB SLYDELL
You're @(#^@($%! right he is.

They laugh.

BOB PORTER
So tell me. What's your favorite dictator?

KOFI ANNAN
Hmm. I, I, I don't know. I mean, I guess, I sorta like 'em all.

The Bobs laugh.

BOB SLYDELL
HA HA! But it must be hard for you, I mean, they can't all bribe the UN as much as Hussein was, can they?

MICHAEL
You, you know, the French and Russians got a piece of the action too.

They stare at him.

BOB PORTER
The next paper looks like a John Bolton.

Bolton enters.

BOB SLYDELL
Aha! All right. We were just talking about you. You must be John Bolton. Uh huh. Terrific. I'm Bob Slydell and this is my associate, Bob Porter.

JOHN BOLTON
Hi, Bob. Bob.

BOB PORTER
Why don't you grab a seat and join us for a minute?

He does so.

BOB SLYDELL
Y'see, what we're trying to do here, we're just trying to get a feel for how people spend their day. So, if you would, would you just walk us through a typical day for you?

JOHN BOLTON
Yeah.

BOB SLYDELL
Great.

JOHN BOLTON
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door, that way Annan can't see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour.

BOB PORTER
Space out?

JOHN BOLTON
Yeah. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I'd probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.

BOB SLYDELL
Uh, Mr Bolton, would you be a good sport and indulge us and tell us a little more?

JOHN BOLTON
Sure. Let me tell you about UN resolutions...

Cut to later.

JOHN BOLTON
The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's just that I just don't care.

BOB PORTER
Don't, don't care?

JOHN BOLTON
It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now, if I work my ass off and the UN writes a few extra resolutions, I don't see any effect on the world. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. The French are on the Security Council. They have veto power!

BOB SLYDELL
I beg your pardon?

JOHN BOLTON
The French

BOB SLYDELL
The French?

JOHN BOLTON
The French, bob. So that means when I try to get something done, I have the French just vetoing it simply because the US wants it done. That's my real motivation - to avoid dealing with the French. That and the Chinese, and the Russians haven't really changed all that much, Bob. The UN treats dictators and thugs the same as democracies, they put Sudan on the human rights comittee, that's just not going to get anything useful done.

BOB SLYDELL
Bear with me for a minute.

JOHN BOLTON
Ok.

BOB SLYDELL
Believe me, this is hypothetical. But what if the UN was restructured to recognize the difference between dictatorships and democracies, between an Idi Amin and a John Howard? Would that make it any more effective?

JOHN BOLTON
I don't know. I guess. Listen, I'm gonna go. It's been really nice talking to both of you guys.

He shakes their hands.

BOB SLYDELL
Absolutely. It's all on this side of the table, trust me.

*UPDATE: Changed first picture. If someone could photoshop a few shots of the Bobs and Kofi, etc, I'd be eternally grateful, I just don't have the time to GIMP one up.
**UPDATE: Fixed a reference to Peter from the original script to John Bolton and Tom to UN Peacekeepers :)
***UPDATE: Thanks to Bo for his photoshop work with Kofi Annan in the picture with the Bobs!

Fun UN

Songs I Like - Jack and Jill (Louis Jordan)

"Once a lion escaped from the circus train, he strayed in Jack and Jill's domain,
just then they got in a towerin' rage, the lion took one look and jumped back in his cage."

Louis Jordan is the best, most famous singer and songwriter you may have never heard of. He was a black entertainer in the early 20th century, the first major black movie star (in early black cinema), and the writer of almost 50 hit songs. His music gets covered occasionally by other people, such as Jump, Jive, and Wail recently a hit for the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. In 1949 he re-released an earlier hit Jack and Jill as Pettin' and Pokin' as part of a movie Five Guys Named Moe (also a song, his 1943 #3 hit). This time instead of just Louis Jordan it was a band singing, with a chorus and various interjections.

I prefer the original version, with Louis Jordan at his fast-talking best, ripping out lyrics with clarity and crisp perfection that was a signature style for him. Louis Jordan's songs were often hilarious and sometimes a bit risque, for the time. He is credited with popularizing the term "chick" to refer to women, and while he wrote almost everything he sang, he did not earn much on these songs. If you've never heard any Louis Jordan, get some and listen - his works are instant classics you'll be humming and smiling at immediately.

Anyone who has watched Cops or been a police officer is familiar with the situation Jordan satirizes here, a couple that seems to constantly be fighting and tearing the place up but are totally in love and alternate raging battles with loving caresses. I picked this out of a good 20 possible songs I like of his, imagine the words sung clearly at about three words a second.

I'm gonna tell you a story about Jack and Jill,
and I don't mean the couple that went up the hill,
I mean a couple of lovers that live next door,
they're always battlin'
and I'm just tryin' to keep score.

They keep a pettin' and pokin' and jabbin' and jokin'
and coolin' and crackin' and wooin' and whackin'
and neckin' and knockin' and and singin' and sockin'
squawkin' and squeezin' burnin' and freezin'.

He holds her hand for as long as he's able,
but when he let's go she bops him with the table.
A pattin' and a pinchin'
and clobberin' and clinchin'
they enjoying themselves, having a good time.

Now Rev'rend Green thought he'd call one day,
on those nice newly-weds across the way,
but just as the pastor knocked on the door,
a straight right connected him and he hit the floor.

They were pittin' and poppin'
they were bangin' and boppin' coolin' and kissin'
they were hittin' and missin'
groovin' and grievin' and lovin' and leavin'
kickin' and cracklin' and ticklin' and and tacklin'
They were havin' a time

Once a lion escaped from the circus train,
he strayed in Jack and Jill's domain,
just then they got in a towerin' rage,
the lion took one look and jumped back in his cage.

Swattin' and swingin' and plottin' and playin',
stompin' and stampin' and groovin' and grabbin',
they kept dancin' and duckin', trippin' and truckin',
plottin' and pleadin' and bangin' and bleedin'.

Well ma Momma said, I'll go right in there and fetch her,
bit lord Momma came out ridin' on a stretcher,
feintin' and foldin' hittin' and holdin',
they were in love, havin' a good time.

Ain't love grand?

Music

Quote of the day

"Jesus' statement was that He had the truth, and I think Jesus had tremendous credibility."
-Greg Koukl

Quotes

DE PLAME! DE PLAME!

"I think it's just Special Prosecutor status, becoming a Special Prosecutor is like being given the One Ring. You end up like Gollum."

I know, that title is lame, but everyone has taken every other possible twist on Valerie Plame. In the recent book Hubris by Michael Issikov and David Corn, it is revealed that the "high ranking official" who leaked the non-secret identity of Vanity Fair-posing Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage. If you're like me the name is vaguely familiar but you don't know the guy very well.

Richard Armitage was at the time Colin Powell's chief deputy at the State Department who retired the day after Colin Powell retired. He was regarded as a "moderate" at the State Department, like Colin Powell, and was a lifetime friend of Powell's. He has not returned to public life, and in May of 2006, Armitage was elected to the board of directors of the ConocoPhillips oil company.

At the Captains Quarters, Captain Ed examines the book, and excerpts a key passage. He points out that there's a problem with Fitzgerald's actions if this is true - and it seems to be - since many of the actions taken by the Special Prosecutor seem to be acting as if he didn't know this to be true, and he must have by January of the year this investigation began.

As usual, Tom MaGuire at Just One Minute Typepad has this covered better than any - he called it months ago, said it was Armitage. But it was at Ace of Spades HQ that I caught the best comments, following this by Ace:

I'm trying to find the Fitzgerald quote where he claims to be investigating an alleged "politically-motivated conspiracy" to punish Plame. Now, that is not a crime. There is no law on the books against such a "conspiracy." The relevant statutes were the Espionage act and IIPA and such.

Whether there was a "conspiracy" to out someone who'd already been outed is not the domain of a prosecutor, as it is simply not a crime. It is an interesting question, and one worth digging into-- but by a reporter, not a prosecutor with subpoena power, as it is, again simply not a crime.

And Fitzgerald knew that from the beginning.

Fitzgerald had to postulate a non-crime in order to have the pretext to continue an "investigation" into what he already knew was NOT a crime, and, furthermore, in a "case" in which he already knew the culprit committing the non-crime.

Ace quotes from the Newsweek article on this, which confirms the book's account, and I recommend reading if you're interested in this battle.

And the Commenters, well, commented:

It should be fun to watch the left walk away from this one. I am sure they will have either a rationale for how Plame isn't that important afterall or more likely the fact that Republicans draw breath is proof enough of evil and that Bush is still responsible somehow.

Either way once again 'the reality based community' will demonstrate they don't know the meaning of the word reality.

[later Drew recalled this post and said this]

Byron York at NRO quotes David Corn writing:

"Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime….

Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling—and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson."

I guess being a liberal means never being wrong or having to say you're sorry.

Liberals really do live in their own little world where they are the defenders of all that is true and good and anyone an inch to the right of Ted Kennedy must be defeated by any means necessary.
-by Drew


This is our State Dept. at work. The real story is the CIA running an op against the elected government of the US.
The media hyped this, even though half of them knew it was Armitage all along, because they wanted Kerry to win the election. Fitz is an idiot.

Armitage is a scumbag.
-by Stormy70


Uh I don't think Fitzgerald is beyond reproach. Just before indicting former governor Ryan in Illinois, the news broke that a guy they'd been hounding for some time and had actually indicted, turned out to not be the least bit guilty. Apparently there was a lot of exculpatory evidence that Fitz and crew refused to consider.

Finally a last piece of evidence emerged and they had to drop the indictment. If the guy hadn't been rich he would already have been railroaded to prison and been someone's bitch.

Fitzgerald has a reputation of overcharging on little or no evidence. Andy McCarthy has his lips around Fitz in my opinion. Go look at the Just One Minute archives. There are JOM people who post here regularly who probably remember more about this case than I.

Here's a link to Clarice Feldman's piece entitled,
The Potemkin Prosecution (Part One), at The America Thinker where she discusses Fitz's "Pattern of Careless Prosecution" while examining his prosecution history.
-by Laddy


There can be no doubt, in the Plame case, Fitzgerald has done some rather careless prosecution. His press releases and false leaks were total BS on his part.

But he's done none of that in Chicago. Like I said he's been doing a bang-up job over here. And there were no leaks or anything in the Ryan case.

I think it's just Special Prosecutor status, becoming a Special Prosecutor is like being given the One Ring. You end up like Gollum.

Then again..'Eliot Ness with a law degree' is exactly is exactly why he was appointed here, and it's exactly what we need here.

This is Chicago. Follow the evidence, or pick any politcian at random and prosecute him, doesn't really matter which. They're all corrupt.
-by entropy


The lefty blogs are a lot of fun today. Contrast this:

"But that leaves a big question mark…still…as to who was the source for Novak of the information that Valerie Plame Wilson was covert."
Christy Hardin Smith

with this:

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on "Crossfire." "There is no great crime here."

"They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators," Novak said.
Bob Novak in CNN almost 3 years ago.

They will never admit they are wrong as long as there is one grassy knoll left in the world.
-by Jackstraw


Hardin is pathetic. She's invest so much into this and just looks like an idiot. Which begs the question? How much more embarrassment and idiocy are they willing to endure carrying lying Joe Wilson's water?

Also, Fitzgerald dismissed one of his indictments earlier this year...it was a man he HAD ARRESTED - high profile arrest, the man resigned his post of his company and was smeared and it took Fitzgerald months to find he had actually indicted and ARRESTED the actual VICTIM of the crime.

Frank Cowles, Jr., look it up
-by topsecretk9

don't think anyone's integrity is "above reproach." Self-interest is a powerful agent of self-delusion.

I think you're overlooking another explanation that Thomas Sowell came up with in his book "The Annointed" in which he details the lefts' arrogance about their belief system. When you presuppose all those who disagree with you are evil while all those who agree with you are supernaturally good, there can be nothing wrong with any tactic, no matter how under handed, that furthers your beliefs and harms/defeats your adversaries'.

Consider for instance one of your previous posts where the kidnapped Fox newsmen "had it coming" according to the left. All of the lefts politics (including Moore's propaganda movies) are of a piece. Call it the unified theory of moonbattory and credit Thomas Sowell.
-by pendelton

"When you presuppose all those who disagree with you are evil while all those who agree with you are supernaturally good, there can be nothing wrong with any tactic, no matter how under handed, that furthers your beliefs and harms/defeats your adversaries'."

Sounds like Islam to me.

Just saying...
-by Purple Avenger

Something basically wrong happens to Special Prosecutors. I wonder if it isn't frustration with dealing with politicians at the highest levels and a driving need to accomplish something given the high profile.

Plame

NAGIN AGAIN

"Frankly, New Orleans was a damp dump before Katrina and I wonder why anybody in their right mind would want to rebuild such a thing."

Over at Whizbang, blogger Paul took a stab at defending New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's remarks recently about New York City's rebuilding after 9/11 (technically he claims not to be doing so, but the article is in fact a defense of his remarks):

"You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Many have considered this an attack on former New York City mayor Giuliani, although he was never mentioned and is no longer the mayor of that city. To put the comment by mayor Nagin in context, here's more of the story:

On a tour of the decimated Ninth Ward, Nagin tells Pitts the city has removed most of the debris from public property and it’s mainly private land that’s still affected – areas that can’t be cleaned without the owners' permission. But when Pitts points to flood-damaged cars in the street and a house washed partially into the street, the mayor shoots back. "That’s alright. You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Nagin is confident New Orleans will be whole again and will even be able to withstand another hurricane of Katrina strength, pointing out that taller and stronger levees are being built. It will take time.

"We’re into a five-to-seven-year build cycle … . At the end of the day, I see the city being totally rebuilt. I see us eliminating blight, still being culturally unique," Nagin says.

However, even the city council sees some problems with progress so far:

"Should things have happened quicker? Yes. But everyone has their own style of leadership, and right now our political leader, our political father is Ray Nagin," says Oliver Thomas, New Orleans City Council president.

"So for the next four years, we’re going to sink or swim with him," Thomas tells Pitts.

Paul compared the events of Hurricane Katrina with the events on 9/11 and the responses of each mayor to the crises, and comes to the conclusion that people are criticizing Nagin for not magically rebuilding the city in a year. Personally I've not seen or heard such comments, but perhaps Paul has met them somewhere.

He compares speeches made by Giuliani and Nagin, claiming Nagin didn't have access to a microphone, which doesn't exactly match my memories of his comments constantly complaining that President Bush didn't do his job and everyone, everywhere - especially President Bush personally - were to blame rather than him for this catastrophe.

Paul is right, the two events were too dissimilar to draw comparisons between. Then he defends Nagin for doing just that. Lorie Byrd has a decent rebuttal to the points made, pointing out the courage and leadership Giuliani provided in a critical point, although she relies too much on defending Giuliani which is odd since Nagin never mentioned the man.

Commenters responded to Paul's article:

I’m not defending Nagin in any way.

Could've fooled me.

Paul,

I think most are upset that Nagin called the site of the WTC "just a hole in the ground". I am sure he would get upset if someone called NOLA "just a swamp".

I know better then to expect NOLA to be rebuilt in 12 months. Perhaps you should tell Nagin that. He seems to expect the federal government to go in, wave a magic wand and *presto*-it is all cleaned up and totally rebuilt.

From the get-go he has lobbed race cards and excuses. He was all bent out of shape about Mexican workers coming for the reconstruction jobs and the "Hispanification of New Orleans". He has constantly stated that everything concerning the reconstruction of NOLA is race based-from his "chocolate city" remarks to his recent "blame whitey" remarks because NOLA isn't completely rebuilt by now. It is Nagin who has the unrealistic expectations, not us.

Now...

Only a fool will think that NOLA will ever be the same as it was a year ago. The harsh reality is that the New Orleans you and I knew is dead. Even if it is rebuilt it will never be the same.

It is the people (both good and bad) that make a city what it is and most of the people who evacuated are not going to go back there. Some are traumatized and coould not handle living with the memories, some have had enough of hurricanes and do not want to live within 500 miles of the coast anymore, some simply do not want to live below sea level knowing what can happen, some for finacial reasons, some because they have cut their losses and started a new life where they are now.

Sure, new people will move there for the opprotunities presented and if I were to place a wager NOLA in ten years will not be a "chocloate city", it will be a "flan city" where spanish will be heard more then french.
-by Nahanni


When you look at sheer amount of material and infrastructure destroyed, New Orleans wins hands down. On that point, nobody can disagree. Nagin just has a bad habit and good history of saying stupid/inappropriate things to make his points.

And I think the thing for everybody to think about is that things like big buildings in large cities, or even major portions of cities themselves, don't sprout up in no time. I'd say that both the WTC site and New Orleans will be rebuilt/repaired/revamped in the natural time it takes to do so for each. To the ADD-riddled Americans that may read this:these tasks won't be wrapped up in a nifty little package like you see on a TV show.
According to this site, the WTC planning by the city began in 1962, and the first tower was opened in 1970, and the other in 1972. That's 10 years from initial city engagement to final fruition. Keep that in mind everybody!!! New Orleans will be an even bigger endeavor.
-by Tony


"In New Orleans, the Corps of Engineers destroyed an entire city."

Statements like that make the entire rest of your posting, which by the way I tend to agree with, a worthless bunch of crap. The Army Corps of Engineers didn't destroy anything, Katrina did!

You can never appear rational, when you start off sounding irrational.
-by USMC Pilot

[Paul responded that the Army Corps of Engineers took the blame for the levees not being built to withstand the flood surge, but the fact is, Katrina created the flood surge, and without it no such tragedy would have occurred. Further, since the state had been warned for years these levees would not hold up to such an event and did nothing I think it's a bit disingenuous to blame men who built something you did not take the trouble to shore up in your own state]

I think you missed the point of Nagin's comments AND the people who are criticizing him for them, Paul.

Nagin was making claims about how much had been accomplished, and a reporter pointed at a visible piece of evidence that refuted the claim, whereupon Nagin attacked the NYC effort for no [explative deleted] reason whatsoever.

Nagin's criticizing the REBUILDING by dismissively and vitriolically calling Ground Zero "a hole in the ground" (which it is, but no need to be an [explative deleted] about it) and trying to use that to defend his own incompetence.

He's not talking about the cleanup of GZ. He himself compaired REBUILDING to CLEANUP. It was a false comparison from the start, and more evidence that Chocolate Cityboy doesn't know his ass from his elbow. You're compounding the false comparison and taking it further out to left field.

Nagin wasn't properly comparing cleanup to cleanup. He was incorrectly trying to use the lack of rebuilding the GZ site to defend the lack of cleanup...not rebuilding, but clearing of debris, in New Orleans.
-by JimK


As a MAYOR OF A CITY you are suppose to know every
nook and cranny of your city, further if you have 3 to 7 days to prepare your city for a disaster
and you don t get your ducks in a row until it was to late you don t deserve to throw stones at
someone else to save your hide.

Living in here in south Florida we have seen our share of storms, and when a storm approachs we make sure that the elderly, homeless people are evacuated from the keys and low lying areas.

The best example is the free shuttle service for all the keys.

Those in hospitals are flown to other parts of the state.
This was a complete break down from Mayor to Gov.
-by ama055131


The difference in scale between hurricane damage and terrorist attacks is not the point. The events were very different in nature, but they both tested two mayors of important cities. Hurricane Katrina did not attack New Orleans. It was a storm. New York was attacked. In fact, all of the US was the target. No one knew if that was it or if more waves of attacks were coming. Rudy helped New York and the rest of the country weather the attacks and recover. Who was inspired by Nagin? Who drew courage from him? Who learned leadership from him? Nagin is a corrupt, incompetant fool. What he says is not important.
-by eman


"If you placed all the cars destroyed in New Orleans end to end they would reach from the broken 17th street canal floodwall all the way to New York’s ground zero."

...the only reason there were enough destroyed cars to stretch from NO to NYC is because Nagin didn't get the people to use them to evacuate themselves from the city...now he gets a break because it is a bigger job to clean them up?
-by lurking

DoctorJ said it: There's no comparison. It's apples and oranges, squid and Pontiacs.

I gotta second this.

However, the big difference to me was, New York got hit out of the blue and Giuliani got down to business. He didn't whine and complain about the lack of fed help(though he may have behind the scenes). New Orleans had advance warning, and Nagin did. Giuliani acted more like a leader and Nagin did not. I was more inclined to help the rest of the region who DIDN'T display the woe is me and why aren't I getting more and faster help from the rest of you people attitude. But thats just me.
-by wilky


Apples and oranges.

That said, more people died on 9/11, murdered, than Katrina killed. Many of the Katrina deaths were totally preventable if Nagin and Blanco had followed their pre-existing plans.

The Corps may have flooded NOLA, but they killed no one. The personal choices made by some of the residents, and the decisions by politicians not to follow their plans did that. And, one could argue, the Corps did exactly what the politicians told it to do. It's been a source of pork and a political pawn for decades and the people of NOLA reaped the results. And until a year ago, the majority of the people of New Orleans were content with those conditions.

The disaster that struck New Orleans demonstrates one great truth. Don't count on the government.

Rudy is an icon. Whether or not he was right or wrong during the murders on 9/11, his was the calm and serious voice everyone in the United State heard. On 9/10 he was an SOB. On 9/12 he could have been elected Pope. In a narrow set of circumstances, he met a need the people had for a leader. He inspired us all at a time when we needed inspiration.

Nagin and Blanco cannot say that. Not ever.
-by Chuck Simmins


So Paul - if Katrina hadn't come along NOLA would have flooded anyway. since the Corps "caused" the flooding? Uh-huh.

And, of course, no one in NOLA has any responsibility whasoever for protecting their own city?

And another thing - Paul - you might know NOLA and Katrina, but I suspect you are as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to enginnering, construction, demolition, or emergency response. Your comments suggest as much. Don't be mad - most people don't understand these issues any better than you do.

Look, what is pissing the rest of us off is not whether or not the city has been re-built, but this mindless whinning blame game by everyone in NOLA.

To illustrate. My neighbor (Mr. Nagin) puts a shitty cheap roof on his house. The wind blows off his shingles.

Mr. Nagin then starts in. It was the contractor. It was the goverment. It was me for being an uncaring racist and not jumping up to help him immediately. I could've/would've/ should've saved his roof for him. Waaaahhh.

Meanwhile, down the street, Mr. Guliani is busy tacking back up his shingles. I decide to go by and help. He says "thanks bud." I feel good.

Paul - you getting any of this?
-by Big D

Paul responded repeatedly to people in an abusive, unpleasant manner, then began deleting comments and calling people morons for making them. I don't know what comments were deleted. They may have been unacceptable, and the people may have been morons, but I do know what Paul said, here are some highlights:

"Sigh... Stupidity on parade."
"Nahanni, well, you're still just a clueless idiot."
"Don't try to bullsh*t me.
Go watch the video before you embarrass yourself. Again."
"Sigh... Stupid and unwilling to learn -- a dangerous combo."
"Now please.... I've not deleted anyone from this thread for being stupid. Don't be the first."
"Sometimes stupidity is just overwheming. Tongiht for example."
"No rickinstl I deleted you because you're an ***hole."
"Doc they wallow in stupidity."
"It is amazing how stupid some people can be."

There's more, that's just a sample of his responses. Now, I understand that in comments, people can become very passionate and animated, and begin to yell at each other, in a sense. I know that it is easy to be frustrated, and that sometimes people are being stupid and there's little else to say about them.

But there are two problems here. First, Paul is being incredibly patronizing and arrogant, attacking people for disagreeing with him when they were, in fact, right - such as when they pointed out what the video said, and Paul over and over, in an insulting manner, attacked them for being wrong, until he bothered to check. Second, he started out with this approach, he didn't become angry after a while, he launched in immediately with his first comment attacking the person who disagreed as a colossal idiot.

Ace from Ace of Spades HQ has a rule that he tries to follow and advises other bloggers to - and it's advice I think is very sound and I try to follow: do not argue in your comments section. I think especially if you are incapable of doing so in a calm, rational, and winsome manner you should avoid it at all costs. Paul clearly cannot. This is a good rule and I advise other bloggers to heed Ace's words.

For me, while there's information about Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing tragedy, this post is more about commenting and blogging. If you cannot restrain yourself from attacking your commenters, demeaning and abusing them, and making your point in your blog without arrogant, patronizing attacks, you are a pretty poor blogger and writer.

If especially you choose your conclusion before researching and launch into long diatribes, perhaps you ought to consider making any retirements you announce permanent.

Comments, Katrina

RUNNING THE NUMBERS

"It’s about time these anti-war, anti-Bush progressives got called on their amazing short-sightedness."

There is a dual talking point being thrown about by the left right now in an attempt to make them look strong on national defense and the GOP weak. The first part is the statement that they are tough on terror and can be trusted with national defense. This does not seem to be getting any traction, although they've been for 4 years throwing it out and proclaiming it to be true.

The second part is "the right are weak-kneed cowards who jump at their own shadow when it comes to terrorism." The attempt is to portray reactions to terrorist strikes as mewling weakness, pointing out terrorism as a genuine threat as craven terror, and calls for greater security as pants-wetting meekness.

While it might seem difficult to make these two apparently conflicting points mesh - both to cry terrorism is not that scary or a threat and that they'll protect us all from this meaningless threat - it is the present standard being set by many on the left. Ace of Spades, Protein Wisdom and several other blogs have been mocking this with various posts on how terrified they are of kittens and sunny days, because you know a terrorist might be hiding in those shadows.

But last Friday, Protein Wisdom posted an excellent e-mail I highly recommend you drop by and read (actually, although it's a very offbeat and counterculture site, I recommend reading it often for Mr Goldstein's wit and wisdom). The email points out this from Reason magazine recently:

But how afraid should Americans be of terrorist attacks? Not very, as some quick comparisons with other risks that we regularly run in our daily lives indicate. Your odds of dying of a specific cause in any year are calculated by dividing that year's population by the number of deaths by that cause in that year. Your lifetime odds of dying of a particular cause are calculated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in that year. For example, in 2003 about 45,000 Americans died in motor accidents out of population of 291,000,000. So, according to the National Safety Council this means your one-year odds of dying in a car accident is about one out of 6500. Therefore your lifetime probability (6500 ÷ 78 years life expectancy) of dying in a motor accident are about one in 83.

The emailer was upset at this attempt to reduce terrorism's threat to statistical negligence, and Jeff Goldstein responded with the article Moral Arithmetic.

Interestingly (well, to me, at least), Ace and I were discussing this very same thing on our last radio show [Hoist the Black Flag] earlier in the week, and both of us—along with Jim Pinkerton—were simply appalled. On its face, the argument seems rather sensible: the idea is that, because the statistical likelihood of your falling victim to a terrorist attack is slim, it is perfectly reasonable to weigh that likelihood against the more likely inconveniences / governmental encroachments brought about by the (potentially hysterical insistence upon) increased security.

What I find most cynical about this argument is that, a) I don’t believe for a second its proponents are serious, and b) it is the kind of argument that trades a sense of national purpose for the luxury of not being at all inconvenienced—all while asserting, if only obliquely, that the ideals we are fighting to protect are negotiable and can be best determined by a cost / benefit analysis that takes no stock in such outmoded intangibles as national unity, doing what we feel is "right," or doing what—for the purposes of freedom and liberty—really must be done.

Professor Goldstein points out a problem with this kind of attempt. How many must die before you start to really become concerned, or call for action? Even a million, he says, is a pretty small percentage of the 300,000,000 Americans living in the country.

Further, the very idea is based upon the kind of civic selfishness that is anathema to the charitable ways of Americans. As Ace pointed out on the show, his likelihood of contracting HIV, as a heterosexual male whose drugs of choice don’t involve the sharing of a syringe, are very low. So should he begin parading around the statistics in order to convince people to cut funding / charitable giving toward the cure for AIDS?

Should I protest funding for cervical cancer research simply because my chances of contracting it are nil?

The article ends with this very valid point:

If you don’t like the Bush Doctrine or the given tack for fighting terrorism, say so and say why. But to fall back on the canard that we’re in some kind of serious danger of losing our liberties—after five years of war where we’ve been asked little sacrifice—is itself the very kind of scaremongering the anti-war people always accuse the administration of engaging in each time it purports to take the terror threat seriously.

What the administration has going for it is that it is fighting to protect a way of life—not, as some others evidently are, a mere standard of living.

Commenters at Protein Wisdom responded:

Sure, I may have a better chance of dying by a lightening strike than in a terrorist attack, but lightening isn’t going around actually trying to kill me. And the terrorists would dearly love to up that annual figure, as you noted, to something well above 3,000/annum.

I had a lunatic shoot my car one night - the shot missed me by about 12 - 18 inches. Since that kind of attack is relatively random, I suppose the police shouldn’t have pursued this guy and the state shouldn’t have shoved him into a mental hospital.

That kind of reasoning is unreason - the grasping at straws of a petulant viewpoint that knows it is losing.
-by MikeyNTH


Reminds me of that scene from the “Time Machine” movie where the happy morons living above ground simply acquiesce to the “morlocks” or something appearing every now and then to claim a couple of them for food or some such. Hey, the numbers favored their not being selected personally so why not play the odds and continue being the happy-go-lucky, toga clad idiot for as long as that gravy train held out? Funny how art imitates Lefty life, huh?
-by AFKAF

What the administration has going for it is that it is fighting to protect a way of life—not, as are some others evidently are, a mere standard of living.

And right there is the call to arms, so to speak, that defines why we fight. Mazeltof!(?)

It’s also the very concept that the moonbats can’t grasp when they talk about national “sacrifice.” They are so wound up in the utopian ideals of civil liberties and redistribution that, at times, it makes the fervor of jihdists look like girl scouts selling cookies. It is possible to recognise the enemy as wanting to destroy a way of life and also recognise that the relatively minor adjustments to our everyday freedoms do not seriously impact our way of life, standard of living or our combined federal ideals.

In other words, let’s win this damn thing. And stop whining.

PS: Are the statistics ghouls also going to be the ones screaming loudest for Bush’s head if, God forbid, a dirty bomb goes off in Chicago and kills 50,000 citizens? Don’t answer, I already know that one.
-by BJTexs


Among the things this calculus leaves out are the repercussions of terrorist assaults on our society. I’m not the least bit worried about losing my life to a terrorist, but I worry to no end what American society would be like if there were weekly bombings killing dozens - or (dog forbid) a WMD attack killing tens of thousands.

I’m talking major economic dislocation, extreme reactions by law enforcement and politicians that would make the inconveniences of today’s airport security seem like an afternoon at the spa.

It’s about time these anti-war, anti-Bush progressives got called on their amazing short-sightedness.
-by equitus


What the administration has going for it is that it is fighting to protect a way of life—not, as are some others evidently are, a mere standard of living.

Damn straight.

The wordings of the current oath of enlistment and oath for commissioned officers are as follows:

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

“I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.” (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

Didn’t see anything about probability and statistics in there. Maybe I’ll just have to look harder or with more nuance.
-by Major John

So do these numbers comfort you?

No moreso than the assertion of an unproven straight-line projection.

Oddly enough this rationalization isn’t used when discussing the military deaths in Iraq.

Especially when the year-to-year figures are down.

But my favorite part of the Reason article is that it closes with a quote from FDR, who—by the author’s logic—should have done nothing after Pearl Harbor.
-by Karl


If somebody sucessfully blows up a crowded shopping mall, do they think these statistics will impress consumers? Will they be able to convince shoppers they are safer in the malls than the car ride there? Or will they be bitching and moaning about an economy that is truly in the crapper?

How can you not even mention the economic impact of something like 9/11? I know it is considered heartless to consider such things to these pinheads, but it affects the lives of all of us, survivors included.
-by B Moe


"Many a statistician has drowned in a very wide river with an average depth of six inches.”

SB: result
Watch them outliers, boys…
-by mojo


1993 WTC Bombing - 6 killed
1996 Khobar Towers - 20 killed
1998 US Embassy Bombing - 220 killed
2001 WTC Attacks - 3000 killed

Mathematically, I see the number of deaths growing by an order of magnitude roughly every three years, which leads me to conclude that the Bush Doctrine has already stopped an attack that would have killed tens of thousands of people. And were I to forecast the likelihood that I’d be killed in a terrorist attack, I’d say that w/o the Bush Doctrine, I’d stand a 100% chance of being dead by 2016.

No thanks, I’ll stick with Bush…
-by Matt Knowles


Well, since our lifetime chances of dying from any cause are approximately 1 in 1, I propose that we indulge our inner passions without regard for the consequences to others or to society as a whole. Shoot up at work? Donkey punch that chick I picked up in a bar? Tell my wife the battery went dead? Obey the traffic laws? That’s for chumps, my friend Eddie Haskell tells me. Don’t you dare judge me. Live it up until Carousel—that’s my motto.

TW: Reason - the middle ground between High Times and Oui.

-by Tongueboy


Someone in our local papers forum brought this article up - here was my reply:

He makes some very good points but completely fails to address the true impact of terrorism and thus he ignores reality and attempts to minimize a true threat to our society and our way of life.

It isn’t so much that we all fear death or even injury from terrorists, but the impact of 9/11 was far greater to the economy and impacted employment, wages, inflation, and virtually every person’s financial health for at least 2 to 3 years following 9/11. (9/11 is estimated to have stalled or removed more then 1/4 of the country’s GDP with IMMEDIATE DIRECT costs of over $27 billion dollars.)

As such his premise that even if we had a 9/11 every year we would each individually probably be okay is a foolish exercise as the true impact would not just be the immediate deaths but would include the removal of 1 year out of every 4 years growth and production. It would have an increasing exponential economic effect. Got a garden, because after just a couple new 9/11’s we will all be growing potatoes for dinner while we look for any work doing anything.

He has no way of assessing the potential deaths from lack of health care, proper nutrition, or other issues caused by severe economic downturn and as such he hasn’t included the actual total risk factors associated with terrorist attacks.

As an aside I am personally amazed that as a nation we accept as routine the fact that about 45,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. You have to go back to WWII to exceed that number in annual US military deaths (about 300,000 in the 3 1/2 years of the war). But most of us just accept it as part of daily life (partially because we don’t realize how high that number is.)

Of course the topic quickly changed to the issue of duct tape (the use of which I calmly explained after I was told “I had to admit was a foolish suggestion” - I even managed to point out that had people gotten their duct tape and hot listened to Harry Reid and the left they probably would have had food and water when Katrina struck) and the topic was rather quickly dropped.
-by LifeTrek


Consider the following gedankenexperiment:

Let’s assume that your chances of being killed in a terrorist incident are roughly one in a million in any given year.

Let’s imagine that Osama bin Laden simply asked for 300 Americans a year, to be beheaded. And in exchange, he guaranteed that there would be no al-Qaeda attacks on the US proper (fifty states, plus DC). And let’s, for the sake of this argument, assume he’s actually credible/sincere.

By the logic exhibited by this progressive argument, a lottery for picking 300 Americans at random would be far preferable to spending some billions of dollars on airport security, port security, etc. And, given much of the rhetoric, it would be fairer, since rich and poor, black and white, red state and blue stater would all be participating.
-by Lurking Observer

The "tribute" of lives that Lurking Observer mentions reminds me of the tribute that was exacted from the USA by the Barbary Coast pirates in the 18th century until several nations banded together and demolished them - that's where the "shores of Tripoli" line in the Marine Hymn comes from. Until defeated, the men receiving these tributes rightly judged the US weak and under their power.

Among the other points brought up by commenters was that the terrorists didn't set out to kill roughly 3,000 people in 9/11, their goals were much loftier. It simply was a matter of hours before the buildings had ten times that many people in them, or more. And the plane intended for the White House never got there, thanks to the heroes on flight 93.

The terrorists aren't concerned about getting x number of dead in a quota. They want as many dead as it takes for the United States to knuckle under their demands, to surrender to their orders. If that takes 50, so be it - the rest can be dealt with by Islamic law when the time comes. If that takes 150,000,000, that's perfectly fine as well.

Acting like because you live in a town the terrorists likely haven't heard of and in a state they likely don't even know exists like I do doesn't mean somehow that we ought not deal with them. In the attack on Pearl Harbor, just over 2000 people died, mostly military. The Hawaiian Islands weren't even states, they were territories of the United States, and they are thousands of miles from the mainland, most of which Japan had no reach or realistic chance at even knowing about, let alone seeing. By the spurious logic in the Reason article, we ought not have gone to war - who cares if just 2000 out of just over 138,000,000 people die far away on an island, right? The chances of you being killed are miniscule, right?

The reason we take action is not out of a cold set of statistics worked out to see how much I personally am in danger. It is not because the threat is unlikely to affect me, or that it was "only a few people" who died. We take action because it is right and they are wrong, and we have a moral responsibility to fight evil wherever we find it and to defeat the enemies of the United States, and liberty worldwide.

It seems to me that this kind of rhetoric trying to downplay the threat of terrorists and mock people who are concerned with it, is awfully reminiscent of the way the left treated the threat of communism in the Cold War (or, as I call it, WW3). It's as if the left in the US, in place of leadership and plans, can only offer bitter mockery and dismissal.

Terrorism

Quote of the day

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Quotes

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF VIRTUE, pt 1

This is the second part of an essay began with Virtue and Vice last week

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
-Hamlet (Act 1, Scene V)

Although most people are at least familiar with the concept of virtues and of vice, when Vice is thought of it either conjures up a mechanical contraption that holds things tightly on a workbench or a television show with hot cars and stylish actors from the '80s. Neither term are used much in modern discourse, unless to be mocked and derided.

Virtue is usually considered with a false sophistication, a sense of jaded superiority, as if the speakers have evolved beyond such petty concepts or as if having virtue is a sign of someone who is stunted, inexperienced, and likely dull and frightened.

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." -Mark Twain

In a society where sarcastic wit is the height of sophistication, someone who always tries to do good and live a virtuous life will be considered a bore and a hypocrite - or worse, judgmental - the last sins left in much of modern culture.

"I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores" -Moliere

Virtue is self evidently good, it is by definition good living and proper attitude toward others and life, an altruistic goal - one that is in its self good and worthy, without requiring other reward. But in a society where virtue is mocked and vice nurtured, what would seem obvious becomes less so.

WHY?
Why should we be virtuous? What difference does it make if one lives a virtuous life and abandons vice? And how can such a life of virtue be cultivated, encouraged, and lived?

For those who are religious, every single religion on earth has a system of virtues that must be followed and vices that must be avoided. The answer for such a person is easy: because my faith so dictates. As an example, for the Christian obedience to and adherence to the perfect will of God is the highest goal in life, far beyond any other. This is desired not out of hope of reward or fear of punishment, but out of love and gratitude for so great a salvation, for so undeserved charity and condescension on the part of God. Amazing Grace rings with these concepts more than almost any hymn in human experience.

In other faiths, more commonly the religious have a hope of a reward and a better life in the future that they live rightly for. The Buddhist tries to live a life of virtue because to do so perfectly will release them from this veil of tears and make them one with the universe in perfect harmony. For the Muslim or Mormon, the rewards are a bit more earthy and tangible - a paradise with all the great things you lacked on earth, even one's own planet to care for and develop if you are a virtuous enough Mormon. It is this hope beyond mortal life that religion gives to many people to live a life better than they might wish otherwise. Whatever their life is like here, and for most of us that's often not particularly pleasant, in the future, they have a great reward - if only they will do what is right.

Many who are completely irreligious will embrace the concept of Karma, where ill one does will come back to haunt them in the form of bad fortune, or good they do comes back to benefit them as good fortune. Although this is an overtly religious concept that the Hindu embrace, it is very common to hear people speak of good karma or bad karma without being remotely Hindu or religious in any sense. Karma is an end run around religion, a way of working out reward for good behavior in this life without needing an afterlife to enjoy it - in a sense it is impatient and intemperate the way most such people understand the concept.

The non-religious in general, however, do not have such a reward waiting them, for them this is all the life they can be sure there is, although some suspect another existence after death but reject religious interpretations (or, at least those of organized religion). For the secular, virtue must carry its a different reward. And in the experience of most, virtue carries not its own reward, but burden, sacrifice, and difficulty.

To live a virtuous life means giving up in many cases. You give up what vice invites and tempts with. Instead of lust and one must be temperate. Instead of sloth, one must be industrious. Instead of ease, one must have fortitude. Life calls to us from all angles and almost all sources to abandon wisdom and to do not what is right in the long run, but what is pleasant immediately. Advertising, rather than relying on shame for lacking the benefits of their product as in ages past, tends to rely on temptation of great joys and pleasures one will gain by using it. Entertainment shows us people having the good life by living badly, especially much rap music celebrates such a philosophy.

"Life sucks, then you die"
-various

Against such a culture, the draw to ignore virtue can be strong. And in almost every case, vice is the opposite of virtue. For each virtue you can usually find at least one vice that is the result of abandoning right living. Lacking wisdom begets willfull foolishness, where one ignores what is discerning and wise for what is emotionally appealing and feels right, or at least pleasant. Lacking humility begets arrogance and self-promotion, where in the place of rightly recognizing the worth of others and one's faults, you ignore your faults, tear others down, and promote yourself as wonderful. Lacking courage begets cowardice, not the craven, cringing type of cowardice, but the kind that avoids hard choices and tough tasks for the easy, the quick reward, and the simple answer.

To combat this, one has to see the benefits of right and good living, that virtue is what is best, even if it is difficult and unpleasant. Indeed, to understand this requires virtue: wisdom to discern what is virtuous and why it is best, and courage to live it out, against all loss and personal displeasure.

PERSONAL
Virtue has a personal effect on each who live such a life. Being a virtuous person has eventual reward simply in one's health and psyche in very simple, tangible ways. Like the young person who does not constantly feast on junk food and eschew exercise and later does not grow older fat, out of shape, and with poor health, living virtuously will show reward later by avoiding the unpleasant more than embracing treasures. Avoiding smoking is another example. Even for those who do not develop lung cancer, emphysema, and other unpleasant diseases, smoking long term will generate poor lung capacity, demolish the sense of taste, cost thousands of dollars a year, and make you reek of burnt tobacco.

Living a virtuous life will let someone avoid a great deal of potential pain. Chastity will help one avoid various Sexually Transmitted Diseases. But there's another benefit. There is a current ad campaign trying to get men who have gotten by for centuries without needing perfume all over their bodies to use "body sprays" which are little else. It lies openly and without shame claiming that this spray will help you avoid regret over "unfortunate hookups," meaning they recognize that sleeping around - particularly drunk - will lead you to shame and regret often enough that they can attempt to sell a product with an appeal to it. Chastity will help you avoid such shame, regret, and painful memories.

Temperence helps one avoid becoming overweight, addicted, or wrecking one's health by overindulging in things that are damaging in excess. Fortitude helps one avoid failure and loss by finishing a job, following through, and completing the work no matter how hard or unpleasent the job may be. Each virtue can be examined in this light, revealing the personal benefits received in the long term that eclipse temporary gain and by vice.

But there's more than tangible, physical or monetary benefit to a virtuous life. Like the opening quote suggests, there is more to life than what you study and can test in science (philosophy in Shakespear's sense here means scientific study, it's an archaic use of the term - natural philosopher, for instance, meant someone who studies biology and botany). Life is not simply what is tangible and can be tested by the senses, although since most demand naturalistic proof for all matters, it cannot be thus proven.

Wisdom teaches us about this deeper part of life that all too many embrace without understanding or examining. All believe in love, yet love cannot be measured, tested, or even sensed - only it's effects can be. All believe in evil, whether they care to admit it formally or not. Yet evil is strictly a moral concept, it cannot again be tested or sensed physically. We are surrounded by a world deeper than what we test with our mere senses, a world described as spiritual by some. And it is this part of us that virtue feeds like a nutritious, tasty meal feeds our bodies.

Virtue gives your spirit, your soul, your anime (whatever you care to call it) nourishment and cleansing. Virtue is, in essence, exercise, food, and energy for this part of yourself. You can destroy this side of you, shrivel, weaken and mangle it by continuous vice and ill living. While this concept might seem laughable to some reading, it is only very recently that people began deluding themselves that the natural world is all that exists.

"While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years." -Abraham Lincoln

SOCIETY
But virtue has more benefit than simply personally avoiding ill effects later in life or personal spiritual gain. As a culture, people benefit from virtue in the citizens where they suffer from vice. In a society of humble, honest, just, temperate, wise, and courageous citizens, one can rely on the population to make good choices, to avoid crime and to do what is right in any given situation. A society made up of those who practice fortitude, humility, love, and mercy is a society of great good, one that uplifts all within it, and which accomplishes great things by their industry and efforts.

Such a society allows one to leave doors unlocked without fear of invasion or robbery. Such a society benefits all by good voting and excellent service when elected. Such a society requires few laws, because in the place of compulsion by force, the people will tend to do what is right and beneficial to all and avoid what is damaging to their neighbor.

Philosophers long before the United States was formed understood that the key trait of a republic had to be virtue, a moral people. If the people were virtuous, they could be trusted with ruling themselves, making right decisions, enacting justice, and serving nobly in office. But they also understood the dire danger to the republic if this was lost. Consider these quotes from the founding fathers of the United States:

"Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppressive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people."
-George Washington

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
-John Adams

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
-Patrick Henry

"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security."
-Samuel Adams

It is a fact that laws are used to restrain the unvirtuous, the vice-filled. The less virtue the members of a society have, the more laws are required to keep them from ill behavior. And it is in a culture where the general public values immediate benefit and rejects virtue that all suffer from, cower in fear of, and demand less liberty, but more regulation. It is true that the more laws a culture has, the more lawless it has become.

In a sense, a culture has a soul, made up of the collected spirits of all who live within it. The more virtue is abandoned, the more this collective soul suffers, and the more society decays. This has broader effect than simply personal misery. The person for whom doing what gives immediate pleasure and gain overcomes doing right and perhaps in the future gaining is the person who is increasingly willing to do whatever benefits them right now, no matter who pays or what evil that entails.

MORE THAN THAT
But consider this. In order to have more than simply the ethically weakest abandon virtue has to create an alternative system of virtue and rules. People will strive toward a set of spiritual goals if for no other reason than to appear to be doing what's right to their peers. And if you create a moral system where you abandon all absolute systems of ethical behavior and all objective standards of right and wrong, you can have just such a system.

Do what feels good, judge what you feel is right by what's inside, follow your gut. Those who tell you what you're doing is wrong are judgmental, and besides they do wrong so they are hypocritical as well. And if there's no absolute standard, why, it's just their opinion anyway, and why does that matter more than your opinion?

Any of that sound familiar? Does that give us a better society, a more wholesome, beneficial one? In your experience, is our culture better off for such a viewpoint? Does it appear to be doing better and in the future gaining or losing?

Without a shared set of morals and an objective standard for what is right and wrong, we are simply left with either our personal opinions - which change easily to fit whatever situation we find ourselves in - or society at large, the will of the mob. In such a system, anything can be considered right and good if enough people agree upon it. No matter how objectively reprehensible and loathsome.

And make no mistake, you cannot have a society free of morality. You simply exchange one set for another when you abandon what went before. I'll delve into this more deeply in another essay some day.

Next Week: how do you cultivate virtue in your life and others?

This is part three of the Considering Virtues Series
Part One: Virtue and Vice
Part Three: The Care and Feeding of Virtues, pt 2

Essays

SING ALONG

I've not traveled to Europe, but from what friends tell me, I understand that singing along with people is not an unusual thing to do. In the US, it takes a tremendous amount of alcohol and a karaoke machine to get people to sing in public, groups or not. But in other countries, it is part of their culture and growing up to sing together. Some songs are so well known that they can sit and sing from memory in a cafe together, as entertainment, with total strangers.

In Japan the baseball teams each have their own song, created by fans, which are sung during the games. Soccer (or futbol) enjoys this as well with fans singing team songs during matches. It really brings the fans together and adds something special to the games.

The United States used to be more like this. Two generations back, when radios were new and didn't run all day long, families and friends would sing together. Someone would play the piano or guitar or fiddle and everyone would sing. Those old cowboy songs were actually sung by cowboys on the trail, playing a harmonica - according to reports from the time, it seemed to calm the cows down on the trail, keep them in line.

We've lost that.

As a nation, we've lost the kinship and camaradrie of this sing along phenomenon. In fact, it goes deeper than that. How many songs do you know well enough that you could sing along with people? No overhead projector, no book, no karaoke giving you the lines. Most people can sing something like the first verse of Amazing Grace, a few Christmas songs, or a song like House of the Rising Sun.

A comedian brought this to my mind not so long ago. When our parents and grandparents were young, songs were easy to sing along with, they were catchy, and many of them were enduring, songs that they listen to and remember great times. But as generations have rolled on, fewer of these kind of songs remain. When I went to high school, one of the big songs was "Safety Dance" which was bizarrely catchy and memorable but is just a piece of trash. How does that stack up to something like "The Circle Be Unbroken" or "Old Man River?"

What will today's youth remember about growing up, when they are 80 years old will they be sitting around the piano singing 50 Cent songs? Will they sing Britney Spears? Somehow I don't think these songs have any enduring qualities. Instead of singing around the piano, we listen to other people sing for us.

We've lost something important in our culture, in our shared heritage with past generations. Something we all share and can remember and join in on. What will we have, anecdotes of Seinfeld, images from Survivor?

Popular Culture

McTERRORIST

"He watched Internet videos produced by conspiracy theorists. He believed that what they claimed was true."

Recently the German Magazine Der Speigel looked at the recent terrorist attempt in England and who attempted it, discovering something that goes contrary to the usual line on terrorists. These weren't starving, embittered, disempowered angry Muslims. They were what Der Spiegel calls "Fast Food" jihadis:

But for at least one resident of High Wycombe, Jennifer Baker, the world is no longer what it once seemed. Baker lives at Number 17, Hepplewhite Close. Late in the night of August 10, several police cars stopped in front of a house down the street, Number 31, and dragged a man from a red Nissan Micra, a man Baker says was always a "particularly nice boy."

This particularly nice boy was named Don Stewart-Whyte until six months ago, when he converted to Islam and took the name Abdul Waheed. He and 23 accomplices were accused of having plotted to blow up 12 airliners en route from Britain to the United States. According to Home Secretary John Reid, the authorities had amassed "substantial evidence" against the would-be attackers. This evidence presumably includes intercepted emails and wiretapped phone conversations, but also large sums of money, weapons and bomb-making chemicals. A suitcase containing explosive chemicals was found in woods near High Wycombe on Thursday. Videos featuring the likely martyrs surfaced on Friday, and on the same day authorities in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur arrested Matiur Rehman, a high-ranking al-Qaida terrorist believed to be behind the thwarted attack.

The article describes the town this young man came from in idyllic terms, where kids leave the bicycle on the lawn without fear of being stolen. But the landscape in England is changing, and young people who once were punks and radicals have found a new cause to fight The Man:

At first glance, the August 10 conspirators had little in common. Most were average people living what appeared to be a perfectly normal British life, some with pregnant wives and young children, and almost all had their favorite football teams.

But normal British life has gradually changed in recent years -- with dramatic consequences. Many astonished Britons are now faced with a few simple facts that no one has been willing to admit. One-third of young Muslims would rather live under Sharia law than under the laws of the United Kingdom. A third of young Muslims also saw the attacks of July 7, 2005, when 52 people died in London subways and busses and hundreds more were injured, as a sort of justified revenge. Finally, one-third sympathize with bin Laden.

The same opinion polls show that jihad has infected an entire generation of immigrants. Scotland Yard estimates that 800 to 1,200 young British Muslims are prepared, at any time, to sacrifice their lives in this strange holy war.
...
It seems likely that in the end, Zaman was a complete convert to Muhammad or, perhaps more precisely, to a fast food version of Muhammad preached on Web sites, in propaganda videos, by itinerant preachers and during weekend outings. And it was a version of Muhammad that became Walthamstow's own deadly version of pop culture.

At the Captain's Quarters, Cap'n Ed looked at this story and was reminded of a story out of Toronto after the terrorist attack there was foiled called Hateful Chatter Behind the Veil.

Der Spiegel refers to these converts as "fast-food jihadists", and the description has its advantages. None of them seem particularly oppressed by the culture they rejected, either in Britain or in Canada. Most of them came from middle-class families. Yet all of them went through some kind of identity crisis that one would have expected from their immigrant parents and not from the assimilated generation of native-born Britons and Canadians. The suspects went shopping for a new philosophy and seized upon the easy, quick, and satifying answer that everyone around them was to blame for their unhappiness.

This brings up a genuine concern that Captain Ed ends his article with:

How can we prevent these disaffected citizens from transforming into traitors? Perhaps we can start by teaching children early about why Western freedoms and liberty hold the best promise for prosperity and happiness, and that life has intrinsic value. If we stop derogating our own culture and history, our children may learn to value it. They won't then be tempted to sample drive-through philosophy in any form, especially the most virulent kinds.

And Commenters responded:

Remember the apparently disaffected 'middle-class' youth of the '60s, some of whom became Weathermen and other violent radicals? If a placid, couch-potato society does not provide direction, motivation, even passion, young people will 'search' for enterprises and causes that do.

What's particularly dangerous in our time and place is that under the guise of religious freedom we have Muslim clerics who serve as recruitment officers for Jihadists. They offer direction, motivation, and passion--and instruction in bomb-making.
-by Mr Lynn


Captain, you're so right about teaching children young to value their freedoms and their history. One of the worst disservices of the MSM is that they do not highlight the heroes and successes of our military, only their abberations of "conduct unbecoming."
-by goddessoftheclassroom

Patriarchy and authoritarianism. The Muslim’s mind is imprinted with authoritarianism which starts with the supreme authority, Allah, through his one and only prophet, Muhammad, his Caliphs or Imams, and the high-ranking religious divines all the way down to the village clergy. This authoritarian mentality encompasses all aspects of life for the Muslim.

A Look at the Muslims’ Mindset August 22nd, 2006

Writing in the American Thinker Iranian exile, Amil Imani, delineates the authoritarian tenets inherent in Islamic theology. Mr. Imani concludes that ‘slavery of the mind is as evil as the slavery of the body. Islamofacism enslaves them both.’ He postulates that the remedy is for Muslims to reject the exploitive clergy and the discriminatory teachings of the Koran that suffocate Liberty.

So the solution to the evil that is Islam resurgent is for the overwhelming majority of Muslims to repudiate the central tenets of Islam? Why didn’t I think of that?

The cornerstone of Western freedoms and liberties is freedom of conscience. Freedom of conscience cannot be established in terms of Islamic theology. If I am wrong find a Muslim cleric preaching the Rights of Man in a mosques anywhere in the world. Find a Muslim cleric who does not believe that Islam is destined to subjugate all other faiths and races. Find a Muslim cleric who condemns, publicly, unconditionally and in terms of Islamic theology, the ever increasing evil done in the name of their god.

We must demand of the Muslims that live amongst us that they repudiate the tenets of Islam that are incompatible with our founding principles of individual Liberty. At a minimum we must demand that Muslims renounce and reject the implementation of Islamic law anywhere and for any reason. For over 200 years we called the demands we made on aliens wanting to live amongst us assimilation.

If you believe I am to harsh to our Muslims neighbors then tell me if you trust a good Muslim to drive an SUV?
-by Ralph127


There were always rebels between the youth, some went stealing, some went rapping, some joined Communists, or Maoists, or Buddhists, or Fascists, or whomever. The danger mix is lack of morality implemented by Islam, or rather lack morality in respect to Infidels. I have shivers along my spine just thinking about what kind of youths can plan in cold blood a large-scale mass murder and of all the community they come from. What can we say about the religion, which is not condemning this kind of monstrosity (except for a token “Islam is religion of peace” statements).
We have to demand more from Muslims living next to us, and keep all the community responsible for growing and supporting monsters (“It takes a village to raise a child”). We also have to be much more ruthless in weeding out all the “fiery clerics” and various “prophets”. And this is just for starters.
-by TomB


Mr Lynn,

The senior revolutionaries, whether Marxist or Islamist, seem to come from middle-class/wealthy origins.

From the beginning of time, the thing that young men dream of is fame and glory -- the sense of being important and doing important things. They dream of being rock stars, astronauts, the next Bill Gates, etc. Then reality starts to rear its ugly head, and many realize that their fate is to be just another middle-class shlub.

The biggest thing that a revolutionary movement can give a young man is a sense of importance, a refuge from a fate of becoming some middle-management nobody in some mega-corporation. Even if caught, the young jihadi has succeeded in getting his name in national news -- he's Somebody now.

One reason why the US doesn't have it as bad as Europe is that our economy still is open to garage-shop startups, so young men can work at their dream of being Somebody, with some hope that it might even happen.

The major weakness of the West is that we no longer have a frontier, a place where young men with burning dreams of greatness can go to test their abilities against a harsh environment. Without such an outlet, frustration turns inward until it explodes
-by PapaBear


For the US, the problem isn't how we treat them when they are here. I feel no need to give special treatment to people we've let in. (For one, that could quickly turn into pandering). The only problem for the US is who we allow to immigrate into our country. We need to be more concerned about allowing people to immigrate who do true want to participate in our country's judical and governmental system.

Canada and UK are having a problem because they have been on the forefront of Multiculturalism. Part of it requires you recognize specific groups and treat them differently or as a sub-nation. France did the same thing a segregationist quasi-racist way. Canada and the UK have done it in a pandering politically correct way.

I remember in Canadian high school being told that Canada's multicultural model is like a mosaic. It is like a stained glass picture. While America's model is a melting pot where you through in a bunch of vegetables and you get a greenish brown gruel.

Although the above description is not correct, the French system of segregation and the UK politically correct version, pandering, are turning out to not be healthy long term for their countries.

One thing thats missing that's lead to the problem in all Western Countries is the social pressures that used to be applied to immigrants in school to integrate. That's absent. Without the pressure in schools it will take generations it integrate. In that time, local self-segregrated communities can form. To me the answer is to only have immigration in small amounts from multiple countries.
-by jpm100


Christ youse right-wingers are almost f*cking hopeless. Goesh is a perfect example. Sh*t the Palestinian people are living in squalor and you expect them to become 21st century's verision of the American Indian. Sober up. It's little wonder why young folks are disillusioned with 43 and his criminal cronies. Just vote for the donkeys nov 7th maybe then we can our country back on track.
-by Tommy1Nut


tommy1nut,

Are the Arabs living (and voting) in Israel living in "squalor". If not, why not? Could it be that they have foresaken murder as a political tactic and are trying to actually BUILD a productive life?

And if the Pals are living in "squalor" what of their very, very rich fellow Muslim patrons of Saudi Arabia and Iran? The Iran giving hundreds of millions to Hizbollah? For arms.

By all means, continue to delude yourself that the Palestinians are mere "victims". By holding that view, you are very, very noble in supporting them. So noble are you that you can remain blind and deaf to the actions Palestinians take themselves to maintain their conditions; namely following a fiend like Arafat (who siphoned millions out of the "aid" he recieved) and Hamas which has voiced only one goal: eradicating Israel. How productive of them.

Captain,

Public schools, firmly in the grasp of the left, will never teach the notion that America has done "good" at any time. It doesn't fit with their agenda. There may be better reasons to support unfettered school choice but this is a pretty good place to start. That is for people who actually believe America, and our values, is a force for good in this world.
-by JAG

jpm100: "To me the answer is to only have immigration in small amounts from multiple countries."

Assimilation is one key to having a nation's populace assume shared values. The other is to ensure that it isn't too weighted to any particular group lest it provide instability. The generational multiculturalism that has been pressed by our educational institutions has damaged assimilation's stabilizing and unifying benefit and we are likely reaping some of the unintended consequences. The islands of discontent consider themselves separate from the mainland and willfully aspire to expand their own influence in a "foreign" land. Agitated individuals serve as recruitable fodder and sacrificial lambs for their new oppressor.

It's important that we recognize this domestic evolution in our ongoing democratic experiment.
-by Anonymous Drivel

Writes PapaBear, "The major weakness of the West is that we no longer have a frontier, a place where young men with burning dreams of greatness can go to test their abilities against a harsh environment. Without such an outlet, frustration turns inward until it explodes."

A point also made (in a different, but not irrelevant context) by Robert Zubrin, who argues that there is a new frontier just waiting: space, especially Mars.

But meanwhile we are bogged down defending ourselves against Islamic youth who are growing up in a subculture that, as Ralph 127 points out, brilliantly:

"The cornerstone of Western freedoms and liberties is freedom of conscience. Freedom of conscience cannot be established in terms of Islamic theology. If I am wrong find a Muslim cleric preaching the Rights of Man in a mosques anywhere in the world. Find a Muslim cleric who does not believe that Islam is destined to subjugate all other faths and races. Find a Muslim cleric who condemns, publicly, unconditionally and in terms of Islamic theology, the ever increasing evil done in the name of their god."

Does free politicl speech include the right to advocate the destruction of the Republic? Ralph 127 essentially says "No," and I think he may be right:

"We must demand of the Muslims that live amongst us that they repudiate the tenets of Islam that are incompatible with our founding principles of individual Liberty. At a minimum we must demand that Muslims renounce and reject the implementation of Islamic law anywhere and for any reason. For over 200 years we called the demands we made on aliens wanting to live amongst us assimilation."

How do we demand these things? Dare we suggest that we close the mosques? There are at least five right in the Washington, DC area. What are they preaching under those domes?
-by Mr Lynn


I just completely disagree with this statement. I intend no offense:

"The major weakness of the West is that we no longer have a frontier, a place where young men with burning dreams of greatness can go to test their abilities against a harsh environment. Without such an outlet, frustration turns inward until it explodes."

there most certainly is such a place! It's called the military. We have people in some of the harshest environments on earth. For example we proved the weenies in the Press and the Taliban wrong when we carried on despite the allegedly terrible afghan winter. I'll bet they didn't know we had reserve outfits that do mountains.

You want harsh? How about Iraq? Thirty days without a shower not harsh enough for these young men? Five days without sleep not a big enough challenge?

If these pansy assed little morons from london really wanted a challenge, I am certain that the British military could provide it. I don't have the history just at hand but I am certain that muslim units fought for the British empire at some point.

No, the problem is that the culture of duty and honor is being dissipated. It seems to me, and again I don't have any history handy, that such a loss contributed to the decline and fall of Rome.

that place where young men can test their mettle still exists. That place where failing such a test of abilities might well mean death is right there. the higher purpose, the shot at glory, the chance to drink deeply on St crispan's day is right there for the taking.

I believe it was Eric Hoffer who postulated that a person who is prepared to follow, will follow. Its a question of directing these followers to the right leader.

Whether its a radical Imam or a Marine drill sargeant, the quesiton is the same, "Do you want to live forever?"
-by Skip


skip is right to cite Eric Hoffer. [i]The True Believer[/i] describes these Islamist sheep to a T.

skip is not quite right that the military in a free society is the equivalent. Yes, there are similarities (erasing former identity, constructing a new one, etc.), but there are also differences, though they may be subtle.

And yes, our forces in foreign lands do sort of substitute for the wild west, but there is a more profound meaning to the loss of their frontier--and the need for a new one to energize a growing, free society.
-by Mr Lynn

I think these commenters are dead on in many ways, I know this is long but there were many good things said. Check out the thread for even more, and it's being added to as time goes on. Especially critical is the lack of a harsh, challenging frontier for a young man to test himself, to prove himself, and to make a life of his own. This is incredibly critical for men, something women often do not understand. Why do you think guys do such stupid, self-destructive stuff? It's not because they are idiots, it's because they need that challenge and comfortable, safe, predictable modern society does not offer it.

To a certain degree, as Skip notes, the military can, but Mr Lynn does a good job of showing the limitations of that realm for what young men really need. If we did a better job of explaining what and why we're fighting, what the dangers and causes are, and what we'll face if we lose, then the military would be much more useful in this role.

Terrorism, Popular Culture

WHAT IS A CONSERVATIVE?

Did paleoconservatives leave the conservative movement, or did the conservative movement simply stop being conservative?

Political movements are difficult to pin down exactly, as each person in the movement has their own version of what it stands for and what it means. This is further complicated by different aspects of politics having their own positions, which makes broad categories such as "liberal" and "conservative" confusing. To make matters worse, as time goes on the definitions change and new sub-movements develop. In this morass, it's useful to try to be more specific about what each movement really means.

At Town Hall, William Rusher examines the history of conservatism and how it has developed different movements over the years, gained momentum and power, and changed.

In the last couple of decades, the conservative movement has grown so large, and subdivided into so many factions, that even discriminating observers can be forgiven for confusing one with another. Just who are these "neoconservatives," who are allegedly so influential in the Bush administration, and how do they differ from ordinary, garden-variety conservatives? Where did the "paleoconservatives" come from? What exactly do they stand for?

The name of the article is Conservatism 101: A checklist, although there's no real list. He describes the development of conservatism through the last 50 years, starting with William F Buckley's friends:

I offer the following definitions to navigate through the swamps of terminology. Back in the late 1950s, most of the conservative movement could and did meet for lunch in the company dining room of Bill Buckley's family oil business on East 37th St. in Manhattan. They were devout Cold Warriors and, in domestic affairs, were generally opposed to the steady growth of government. On both counts, they opposed the policies of the liberals, who ran the country. They called themselves, simply, "conservatives." No one rose to protest the term.

From the start, the conservatives recognized the existence of a group of country cousins who called themselves "libertarians." The libertarians had been around for a while. Their big obsession was government, which they wanted to keep as small as possible. The conservatives had considerable sympathy for this view, but thought there was more to conservatism than just that. Moreover, the libertarians' antagonism to government action kept them from endorsing wholeheartedly government measures needed to win the Cold War.

He examines the birth of neoconservatives, the "New Right" that Regan championed, paleoconservatives, and finally the newest blend of conservatism that most bloggers adhere to today:

Finally, in 2000 Bill Kristol and a handful of younger neoconservatives began advocating a combination of a tough foreign policy and a lean, but muscular, domestic government that they have dubbed "national greatness conservatism." Just how far they will get, it is still too early to say.

Although the writer left out the significant influence Phillis Schlafley had in the 1960s with her little pamphlet, he gives a decent overview to the movement. With this as a foundation, commenters responded:

I don't thimk the conservative movement stopped being conservative at all. I think that the conservative movement grew to include and embrace different ideas in a way that liberals never could. Conservatives are able to disagree and debate their ideas, but still hold many of the same core beliefs; the left does not brook dissent and will excommunicate anyone that falls out of lockstep with the ideology.

Further, I think that the paleoconservatives have been the ones that do not want to see any real change in the conservative ideas and like Pat Buchanan tend to cling to an ideology that simply cannot work in our modern world. While we would all love to see less government, we cannot crawl into an isolationist hole and let the world proceed as it will. That would make us less safe, and would doom the world to be devoured by all sorts of undemocratic ideologies.

BTW, I have a post on my blog about isolationism. Check it out and see what you think. Just click my name and you're there!
-by Flagwaver


Rusher did a nice job in limited space. I'd add that most paleocons seem to regard themselves as just plain traditional conservatives. "National greatness conservatism" won't take hold as a label because it is awkward and hard to grasp. My guess is that whoever coined the expression was trying to come up with a conservative equivalent for what some liberals used to call "national liberalism."

A further comment: Regardless of which prefixes are attached, a "conservative" is someone who believes that some earlier condition of society , or of some significant aspect of society, is superior to what exists in the present. In the interest of brevity, I'm including "government" in "society."
-by Gestell


In one of his books, Hayek's last chapter is entitled, "Why I Am Not a Conservative". Better than any writer of the post-WWII era, Hayek articulated constitutional democratic-republicanism based on the rule of law, respect for property rights and common law contracts. (That is a poor labeling of but a fraction of his foundational work.)
I move that we reclaim the word "liberal", since they no longer want it, and return it to the traditional 19th-century definition in which it once basked. Any "conservative" objections?
-by Tim


A useful perspective on this is the "Pournelle Axes" which places the political spectrum on a two dimensional plane rather than the traditional left-right line.
See here
-by SunSword


Regarding the U.S. and global intervention. There may not be much of a solution to that nor to the conservative wish for a "limited government."

Much of the intervention came about from our industrial and military might after WWII when we were the only nation basically left intact and fully functional as an industrial giant.

The whole world bought from us and we bought from them the raw materials we needed. Often, Communism or some rogue nation threated the people we bought from and we went to their defense or to stop the spread of Communism. Whether right our wrong, our nation viewed communism the way we should view Islamofascism. Communist nation's goals were world dominance just as is Islamofascism's goal.

But, what we used, often, was not direct military action. We used the CIA funded groups that we now have to fight. We supported Castro, who immediately turned on us once in power. That has been the case, time after time. The people we use, know they are being used, and resent it. Then once they are victorious, they have no love for us because they know we "used them" for our goals, not theirs.

Still, our population is dependent on those foreign nations for our standard of living and demand our government "do something," anytime supplies are interrupted and our prices go up as a result.

Conservatives are about 20% of the population and Republicans about 37%, last I checked. Democrats were also about 37% and independents about 26%

In some states like Conn. independents outnumber both parties which may help Lieberman but does little for the 30% Republican (and much smaller Conservative) voters.

Our nation is pretty much divided now along population demographics. Major cities and the old "Rust Belt" states are "Blue" but only around the industrial centers and big cities. The rural parts of the state (low population) may have the most land mass but seldom the population to offset the major populations centers. Even California is "red" state if you look at the number of counties that are red and large but sparsely populated. The use of social services is much more common in those high population areas while the rural population is more independent and shuns many government services that their tax dollars pay for.

If this was the way our founders created the nation's governments, all those programs would be funded and administered by the states and the voters would know what it was costing them because states can't "borrow" the way the Federal Government does. You would see more control over the fraud that goes on in social programs, lower adminstration costs, etc.

Conservatives often want the same social programs but they don't want the federal government running them nor the rampant borrowing to fund them. They also know that like it or not, we have to compete with low tax nations for business and investment. Yet, they do expect to pay taxes, but know that paying them in the prices we pay (20-35%) and the cost of collecting them from business, means we pay more for social programs than we should have to and at the same time, drive business from our shores.

Liberals have good intentions. They are just lousy at fulfiling those intentions because they want to use the Federal government contrary to what our founders intended. However, most voters have lived under socialism for so long that they support the federal government being involved in these programs.

I don't see any solutions to the "foreign intervention" because we are increasingly more and more dependent on foreign sources of oil because our own socialist policies block much of what would give us independence. Also, how do you deny the fact that Islamofascists say the whole world must submit to them?
-by Old Man


I have had my nickname on Townhall for a while now if only to counter what I believed to be neocons. Interestingly, Molly Ivins named what I believe I am in a column as being an anti-government Goldwater Libertarian/Conservative. Of course back in 1960 when I became 21 and started voting we were just called republicans. I believe the issue for most of us "oldcons" is the actions of and not definition of whoever these people are who run the executive and legislative branches. Government is hugely larger and more intrusive under them. So perhaps we should hope for Nancy Pelosi to become the speaker of the house so that when she claims she is going to balance the budget you know she is lying as opposed to these "neocons" who we had to discover were lying.
-by OldCon

The way I would break things down is a bit different, and will have to wait for a full essay, but in brief, you have to separate culture, economy, foreign policy, fiscal issues, and other issues to distinguish between different conservative movements. When this is done, you find that many that are labeled "conservative" aren't at all. For a glimpse at what I'm considering, check out the World's Smallest Political Quiz and it's four-way chart. The quiz is too limited to be very specific (some of the questions are too vague) but it is much better than most political continuums - especially Pournelle's quiz mentioned in the comments.

Politics

Quote of the day

"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. ... How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?"
-John Adams

Quotes

Songs I Like - Amazing Grace (John Newton)

We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we've first begun

Amazing Grace is a deeply Christian song written by a wretched, horrible man who experienced salvation and could not contain his gratitude and joy. Once a particularly evil slaver who delighted in using his gift of verse and song in creating particularly vile songs mocking God and celebrating sin, John Newton was so overwhelmed by a grace that could love and embrace even him that he could not restrain his gift and this song resulted. If you want to know more about the man and his story, there are many websites that have the information such as this one.

Christian or not, this song touches nearly everyone with it's beauty of tune and power of lyrics. Just the tune became a top 10 hit in 1959 when played on bagpipes - one of the least favorite instruments of all time to many people. Funerals across all faiths or lack thereof play this song, and it brings a tear to my eye every time I sing it. This is one of the greatest songs in the history of mankind.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

T'was Grace that taught
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
we have already come.
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far
and Grace will lead us home.

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

When we've been here ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
than when we've first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

Note: this is a repost from yesterday, when I overloaded the 1 meg limit per day on blogger.

Music

CLARIFYING

"there is no democracy in Islam or nonsense like ‘democratic Islam’."

Australian blogger Tim Blair has a helpful note up today from an Imam that helps clarify the position of radical Islam for everyone. Because we in the west tend to be tolerant of other ideas and willing to consider new ideas and thoughts, we often make the mistake of presuming everyone does.

Abu Bakir Bashir—spiritual counsel to the Bali bombers, who’ve recently gone cold on the whole martyrdom concept—explains things to slow-learning liberals:

The principles of Islam cannot be altered and and there is no democracy in Islam or nonsense like ‘democratic Islam’. Democracy is shirik (unbelief) and haram. Here we do not compromise. Those who claim to be Muslims and do not support Shariah one hundred per cent are all munafik and kafirs, they are out of Islam. No need to discuss with these people, they are not part of the ummat anymore. There is no need to listen to public opinion: kafirs, apostates, liberals, atheists - they are all non-believers...

Note that last line: atheists, liberals, kafirs (meaning an unbeliever, a person who hides, denies, or covers the truth) do not matter. They are not worthy of discussing anything with, they are all non-believers that one does not negotiation or compromise with. Democracy is unbelief. Tim Blair concludes with this line:

Memo to liberals: you’re a root cause.

And commenters responded:

No need to listen to liberals?

Thanks Abu. Now we’ll all have to listen to a lot of high-chair banging about ‘stifling of dissent.’ Don’t you know? Free speech for liberals includes the right to be heard (and agreed with), too.
-by cosmo

The planned attack here stunned Germans who thought the country’s vehement opposition to the Iraq war...

As if that’s even close to the Islamotards’ prime motivation. Cuz they were so docile before that.

...would insulate it from becoming a terror target almost five years after the attacks on Washington and New York.

SURPRISE!

I have a not-real-interested-in-politics-and-such friend who has traveled to Germany several times over the past ten years. Two things she’s noticed over the course of her trips:

1) Increasing anti-Americanism.

2) More Muslims.

If these Muzzie retards had an once of brains, they’d leave the Germans and French alone and just keep breeding. But that’s a big “if”.
-by Dave S.

"The planned attack here stunned Germans who thought the country’s vehement opposition to the Iraq war would insulate it from becoming a terror target almost five years after the attacks on Washington and New York.”

Add to that the well-documented astronomical rise in German anti-Americanism across the political spectrum and it begs the question: Why in hell are US troops still in Germany? Its time for the POTUS to tell the Germans auf wiedersehen, bring the troops home and wish them good luck in defending their own country (they’re going to need it). In addition, the President should state that we wish them no ill will, in fact, he will encourage Americans to visit Germany while it is still in its pre-Islamic era.
-by Mark Razak

Mmm. Vanilla kafir. Oh, and I’ll have two mocha munafiks to go. BTW, wasn’t Smithers crushed under a wall in a Simpsons from last year? (I don’t know for certain as I gave up on the show about 5 years ago.)

And why are US troops still in Germany, Mark? Isn’t it obvious:

That, at least, is what one 27-year-old from Saudi Arabia believes. “It’s all a Protestant crusade,” the man explains. “All of northern Germany is Protestant, isn’t it? And so is President Bush.” Then the man launches into a melange of confusing arguments and historical facts. The bubonic plague, Martin Luther and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl all make a cameo. It’s all connected somehow, the man is sure of it.

More at LGF.
-by andycanuck

What will it take for liberals to get the message, islamists spell it out day after day what they think of us, if or should i say when they take over we will not be able to say we werent warned, they say what they mean and they mean what they say.
-by phillip

#10 I assume you are referring to the Hessian mercenaries that fought with the British in the Revolutionary War? Point taken.

But I would put Islam as the earliest and most definitive “tradtional enemy” of the United States of America.

Where do you think “the Shores of Tripoli” in the Marine’s Hymn derives?

On Jefferson’s inauguration as president in 1801, Yussif Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli demanded $225,000 from the new administration. Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May of 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents, but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis soon followed their ally in Tripoli.

In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli “and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.”

Algiers and Tunis backed down almost immediately on the show of force by the Americans, but Tripoli and Morocco remained committed. The American navy went unchallenged in the sea, and as yet the question remained undecided. Jefferson pressed the issue the following year, with an increase in military force and deployment of many of the navy’s best ships to the region throughout 1802. USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw service during the war under the overall command of Commodore Edward Preble. Throughout 1803, Preble set up and maintained a blockade of the Barbary ports and executed a campaign of raids and attacks against the cities’ fleets.

Not to mention Decatur.The USS Philadelphia captured Oct. 31. Stephen Decatur led 62 “volunteers” - and burned the Philadelphia on Feb. 16, 1804.

The First Barbary War was beneficial to the military reputation of the United States. America’s military command and war mechanism had been up to that time relatively untested.

The First Barbary War proved that America could execute a war far from home, and that American forces had the cohesion to fight together as Americans rather than Georgians or New Yorkers.

The United States Navy and Marines became a permanent part of the American government and the American mythos, and Decatur returned to the U.S. as its first post-Revolutionary war hero.

Oh, and the Europeans continued to pay tribute for another 30+ years.
-by MentalFloss

There are two kinds of Muslims: those that use violence to achieve world domination and those that prefer peaceful methods to achieve world domination.

The ends are the same, only the methods differ.
-by Director

Add the Socialists to the list.

The Socialists are divided: some think groups like Hezbollah are capitalists, while other socialists think they are not! go figure?
-by WeekbyWeek

#7 Add Jennifer Griffin to your list. She’s the head of Fox News Mideast office located in Jerusalem and has taken every opportunity to present Palestinian propaganda as news. The profound stupidity of this woman was clearly revealed a few minutes ago in the reporting of the kidnaping of the two Fox reporters by the Palestinians. She says that she notes a fact that those of us stupid people could not have noted, namely, from the video the kidnappers have released, the kidnappers are treating them like guests. This is very important, according to her, because a guest to the Palestinians is a sacred charge, and so they wont hurt these guys.

So, according to this moron, these Palestinians are not kidnappers, but vigorous exponents of involuntary tourism.

This idiot makes two other observations: (1) all the so-called terror groups, Hamas, Is Jihad, et al, have banded together to oppose the kidnaping, so they’re alright in my book, (2) the kidnappers belong to an unknown group. Yeh, right, because they’ve used a different name, nobody knows who they are. The Palestinian area is smaller than my home town, and everybody there knows everything that’s going on and by whom. (By the way, in her exposition she warned the Palestinians that if they don’t return the reporters, they will lose their chance to have their viewpoints publicized. Now there’s a confession of the Reuters, CNN type reporting she has been conducting if I’ve ever heard one.)
-by stats

The Canadian Islamic Congress is adding its voice to renewed calls for the federal government to review its 2002 decision to place Hezbollah and Hamas on its list of banned alleged terrorist organizations.

The Islamics will start marketing this concept here in Australia and then Britain. etc. They have a lovely world wide marketing dept here on Earth. Do the same quote and then do it world wide. Kinda like Reuters. It’s like Syncronised Jihad. Kyza Trad has tried to address this issue.
-by 1.618

The Canadian Islamic Congress is adding its voice to renewed calls for the federal government to review its 2002 decision to place Hezbollah and Hamas on its list of banned alleged terrorist organizations.

I guess that’s the Muslim response to Western demands that they get their own house in order - rather than actually rooting out the terrorists in their midst, they’d rather try to persuade the rest of us that those guys aren’t terrorists to begin with. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a winning strategy, except with UN types.
-by PW

At least one Aussie Muzzie is standing up to be counted:

THE founder of Australian mobile phone giant Crazy John’s has attacked “self-appointed” Muslim leaders, accusing them of destroying his community’s progress, and questioning their allegiance to this country.

John Ilhan, one of the nation’s most successful Muslims, yesterday blamed many first-generation community members for being opposed to Western ideals and cultural diversity, and accused them of “conditioning” their children to follow in their footsteps.

-by slatts

Meanwhile, back in ummat Christian Australia, atheist Phillip Adams bravely discusses people whose views ‘are rooted in a religious base’.
He says that’s OK, but only "as long as they argue in a democratic way”.

Phil overlooks a few points:
1. Argument is logical and fact-based, or uses moral precepts, it is not democratic or undemocratic.

2. As an atheist with about 5% of the population with him on a good day, Phil is hardly in a position to push his own views then, but he does anyway - this is the ABC Australia he works for.
3. Christian countries represent nearly all the democracies in the world, and created a few others along the way, like Japan.
3. Adamski is trying to slur religious people as ‘undemocratic’ obscurantists, but thinks atheism and agnosticism are not metaphysical beliefs too, apparently, so they must be rational and ‘democratic’.

Rant on, Adamski
-by barrie

I should note here: leftists know and understand. They just see radical Islam as a smaller threat than the evil Bush administration and conservative Christians. As Hehpundit says (to steal a bit from Ace): "Because elites around the world see American culture as a more immediate threat to their power than Islamic fundamentalism."

Islam

Quote of the day

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong."
-Winston Churchill

Quotes

UNABOMBER TODAY

"That ink blot looks like the oppressive technocratic regime attempting to enslave our free minds ... or maybe a bunny rabbit."

This is long and winding, so please bear with me. I've posted here several times about the problems with what I call the legacy media. This term comes from "legacy software," a term used for organizations that keep old software around even though it is dated and you have better simply because it is familiar and understood better than the new material. Sometimes a few systems will be kept around with this legacy software to run older applications. The legacy media is the same way, it's old, it's dated, and it's been replaced by newer, superior sources of information, but is still lingering on for now.

Recently two Fox News reporters were kidnapped and for days no one came forward taking credit or making demands. As CBS News reported it:

Masked Palestinian gunmen ambushed a car carrying a Fox News crew in Gaza City on Monday and kidnapped two of the journalists inside, according to witnesses and Fox.

"We can confirm that two of our people were taken against their will in Gaza," Fox News said in a statement.

A Fox employee in Gaza, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to release information about the incident, said the two kidnapped people were reporter Steve Centanni, a U.S. citizen, and cameraman Olaf Wiig who was from New Zealand.

Finally, Reuters News released a statement by the "Holy Jihad Brigades" nine days after the kidnapping. This previously unheard of organization claimed responsibility and demanded the United States release "Muslim prisoners" within 72 hours.

Fox News Channel correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were shown sitting cross-legged on a blanket on a floor. They sat against a black backdrop with no markings. No militants could be seen.

"We're alive and well, in fairly good health," Centanni said, speaking in a clear and calm voice.

Centanni said they had been treated well.

The video bore many hallmarks of tapes of captives issued by militants in Iraq, and the rhetoric of the group also mirrored the heavily religious language used by Iraqi insurgents.

Hamas claims to have never heard of this group, and no one else seems to know who they are either, leading me to suspect they were simply formed after the act, perhaps when their action was rejected by Hamas as bad PR. As sad and upsetting as this news is, especially for the families of these men, there is a deeper problem at play here. The event is a touchstone that is revealing something ugly in our culture in the reaction of some to what has happened.

Sites like Democratic Underground echoed with some commenters calling this justice and even hoping the men had their head cut off. DU Moderators wisely began to sanitize these posts, deleting them. But the posts had been put up, which is a sign that should cause some concern. Is the fact that Fox News commentary tends to be more conservative and they have an American flag in the corner enough reason for this kind of vile hatred?

Apparently so, if you ask TV Critic Bob Laurence (a Howard Dean supporter and donator):

One is that, sadly, they are far from the first to be kidnapped, injured or killed. They are, alas, only the most recent two of many. The kidnapping or targeting of journalists in Iraq isn't the story it once was.

Second, Fox has deliberately set itself apart from other news media. Starting at the top with Roger Ailes, the Fox sales pitch has been to deride other media, to declare itself the one source of the real truth, the sole source of 'fair and accurate' news reporting. As a result, there's not a reservoir of kinship or good will with Fox on the part of the rest of the news media. You can't keep insulting people and then expect friendship when you need it.

They've made it a policy to keep a distance between themselves and the rest of the media, far beyond the usual competitive spirit, so that's where they are: at a distance.

Fox News isn't covering the story very closely - likely out of concern for the lives of the men - and other news organizations are not either. Felix Gillette suggests this is out of a no win situation:

I think the blogger who suggested that reporting on this story is a no-win situatiuon for FNC's competitors made a good point, as far as it goes. "If you don't cover it, you are biased against Fox," the blogger wrote. "If you do cover it and the whole thing goes bad, how long until (there are) accusations that the liberal media killed Fox reporters with their careless coverage ...?"

Bob Laurence's comments above suggest another motivation as well, after all attacking Fox for claiming to be the best source of news is sort of odd, considering every news organization does the same thing - it's called competition. Even these 30 palestinian journalists stood up publicly in opposition to what happened, for whatever reasons. But not the legacy media.

One is reminded of the almost total lack of response from Hollywood to a filmmaker's bloody, brutal murder for speaking out against excesses of religion - because he was Theo Van Gogh and the religion he spoke out against was Islam. Why does that matter? Let's examine what the media's worldview is like.

Particularly revealing is the description of the "conservative media" by Marvin Kalb at a Washington DC forum, via the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday (link now in subscriber side only):

It used to be that we really felt that we were trying as best we could to cover it objectively, to cover both sides, to be fair to both sides, to explain the policy of both sides.
Today, the media appears to be broken down into camps where Fox prides itself on being pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-freedom. It turns out that very conservative newspapers are pretty much the same way. The New York Times, the Washington Post, other of the mainstream media today, again, try to do it down the middle.

The contrast Mr Kalb - who works for Fox News - draws here is very disturbing to me. He is contrasting being pro-freedom and pro-democracy with objective coverage. That's a deep problem with understanding the world, one need not be ambivalent toward liberty and democracy to offer objective coverage of the events. In fact, rejecting liberty will tend to bias you in your coverage, as Mr Kalb goes on to admit:

People today turn on the news not to find out what happened, but to get confirmation of what it is that they already believe. And in the Middle East, we are involved in a battle of biases, with everybody believing that he has discovered the truth.

He's admitting here that the supposed "down the middle, objective" side is biased as well, it's simply not biased toward liberty and democracy. Which is inevitable, there is no 100% objective coverage. If you treat evil as equivalent to good or as a meaningless factor, you've just positioned yourself to treating that evil as neutral. In a battle of terrorists vs their victims, to take a "neutral, objective" position is to actually take the side of the terrorist. Because if you do not note evil as it is, you're taking their side and covering them as if they are not doing evil. You're treating them as if they are a disinterested party in an equal struggle with their victims.

That kind of moral equivalence is not objective coverage - objective coverage would cover evil as evil and good as good without taking a personal stance. It is only a fool's version of objectivity to say "we'll take no stand no matter what!" Objectivity and neutrality does not personally invest it's self in one side or the other but it does not have difficulty recognizing right from wrong. And this is where the modern media is getting its self into so much trouble. Thinking that they are being objective, they are instead being moral equivlators, treating evil as ethically equivalent to neutrality.

This mentality goes beyond simple efforts at neutrality, however. There is a real anger and bitterness directed at Fox News and other less "neutral and objective" news sources and pundits. Consider the words of Kevin Drum in response to a call for the left to criticize the evil repressive regime of Iran:

On the one hand, I think Beinart is exactly right. For example, should I be more vocal in denouncing Iran? Sure. It’s a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything I stand against. Of course I should speak out against them.

And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration’s determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike. Only a naif would view criticism of Iran in a vacuum, without also seeing the way it will be used by an administration that has demonstrated time and again that it can’t be trusted to act wisely.

So what to do? For the most part, I end up saying very little. And Beinart is right: there’s a sense in which that betrays my own liberal ideals. But he’s also wrong, because like it or not, my words — and those of other liberals — would end up being used to advance George Bush’s distinctly illiberal ends. And I’m simply not willing to be a pawn in the Bush administration’s latest marketing campaign.

For a long time now, people like me have been asking where the criticism of the Islamic extremists is, why feminists are quiet about the brutality and oppression toward women in places like Iran, why homosexual activists do not decry the evils of radical Islam toward gays, etc. We've suspected why, and here's the overt answer: because to do so might help President Bush.

There's a serious problem with this approach. Liberalism means what the word looks like, not what it's been twisted in to. A few classical liberals like Christopher Hitchens and Frank Warner understand this, they know that liberalism is about liberty, and President Bush's attempts to end these evil regimes is fighting for liberty and thus true, classical liberalism.

But Kevin Drum is a modern liberal, and he sees what president Bush is doing as "illiberal." Liberating millions of Afghanis and Iraqis? Illiberal. Fighting the evil of terrorism, working to bring democracy and liberty to the Middle East? Illiberal. Backing democracy Israel in its defense against the terrorist organization Hezbollah? Illiberal.

How can this be? Because for Kevin Drum and so many others, President Bush represents all that they are willing to define as evil. He and his kind are dangerous, sinister. He openly admits praying and reading the Bible, he openly states he wants to do God's will! Why is this so bad? Well on the surface, it's not, President Clinton said much the same thing, and used the word "God" many times in his speeches. The difference is to Kevin Drum and those like him that President Bush means what he says.

When President Clinton said these kind of things, it was winked at because people knew that didn't mean he would actually try to live his life in a Biblical manner and govern according to what orthodox Christianity considered proper. They knew President Clinton didn't mean by these statements that his worldview was essentially Christian. They understood him to mean he was "spiritual" in a vague, general sense, and thus safely non-evangelical.

But President Bush is very open about his faith guiding his actions, and follows through on this with the most socially conservative agenda and actions ever taken by a modern president. His policies and statements are coherent, they match each other. And for the modern liberal, the leftist of today, this is the most frightening thing possible.

I ran this political cartoon yesterday, just to make a point about how things are perceived by some. Take a look at what conservative Christians are considered like by at least this cartoonist. It's not the stance against activist judges that's the problem to this artist, it is the stance by a conservative Christian who is a hair's breadth from screaming for bloody jihad and opening the death camps for all who dare to disagree.

Now while there might be a small radical minority of people who claim to be Christians that might do such a thing - such as registered Democrat and anti-war activist Fred Phelps - I can personally assure you as a Christian that this isn't even joked about by conservative Christians in private.

But that fact doesn't change the fear felt by those who are so out of touch and unfamiliar with conservative Christian ideology and aspirations as the modern leftist is. Almost always these people are insulated by masses of common thinkers, agreeing with and feeding this fear without bothering to visit with actual conservative Christians to find out the truth.

This kind of isolation is easier with the internet, allowing even leftists who are living in heavily conservative areas to stay away from those they fear and hate and feed themselves on websites and chat boards of like-minded individuals. The danger is that conservative Christians do the same and form equally wild, hateful views of leftists.

UNABOMBER TODAY
But what we have today is a situation that makes me examine past events. Consider this, for example. Theodore Kaczynski from the late 1970s til he was finally caught in 1995 sent letter bombs to various locations and individuals. His manifesto and writings revealed that he was a radical leftist who believed that industrialization and the corporations were dooming this country and that someone had to take action. His 35,000 page manifesto entitled Industrial Society and It's Future examined life and called for revolution to reverse the industrial revolution and return humanity to a simpler life that pollutes less and does not harm the environment - thus resulting in happier, more healthy people. Criticism of the modern left in this document characterizes the movement as frightened and ineffective, not wrong.

This man was code named UNABOM because of his tendency to send bombs to Universities and Airports, and Unabomber became the man's nickname in the press. When he was caught, Mr Kaczynski was universally mocked and derided, the crazy man in a shed writing his lunatic manifesto. The fact that he was a radical leftist was brushed under the rug, the fact that his calls for destruction of industry echoed and equaled calls by radical environmentalists was ignored.

He was condemned and no one sided with him or defended him. Even radical leftist alternative newspapers carried cartoons mocking him and his theories, he had no friends, no defenders, and no supporters in public.

But... what if he was active today, what if he sent bombs to the evil Bush administration for it's thralldom to big business, as many leftists claim? What if he saw the War on Terror as a war for oil and American empire like almost all leftists claim today? Would he be castigated by late night hosts, would he be mocked by comedians and internet writers? Would he be called unbalanced by the media?

Or would his manifesto, which is much more lucid than you'd think, be an underground internet smash hit? Would it be quoted and lauded on Democratic Underground and Daily Kos? Would his actions be considered improper but not unreasonable given the "great evil" of President Bush?

Would the media cover his poor living conditions, his bravery and intelligence, his sickly childhood, his great intellect, and would they - like his lawyers - claim it was stress tests he underwent in Harvard that caused him to go around the bend? Would they praise his desire for a simpler life, or at least consider his goals to be not so very awful?

Would the Unabomber, in short, be considered a bad guy today? I suspect he'd be embraced as an underground hero, a freedom fighter, a revolutionary against the evil Bush administration.

How far we've come.

Thanks to Ace of Spades, Michelle Malkin, Poynter Insitute, and Rush Limbaugh for the quotes and information used here.

Essays

Second Quote of the Day

"Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway."
-Bob Dylan noting that people downloading music are getting it for free

Quotes

CLASS OF 2010

"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
-by Susan Ertz

This September, the Freshman class of 2010 will be entering high school for the first time. These kids are growing up in an era and time that is quite different from mine, the Reagan years. The Berlin Wall fell when they were too young to even be aware, Record Players went the way of the Reel-to-Reel player, and Cassette Tapes aren't even available to buy in CD clubs any more. Movies with digital monsters and computer animation have always been around, and television has always been in stereo.

In a list that is sometimes funny and sometimes troubling, Inside Higher Ed looks at the annual Beloit College "Mindset List" of things this class of youngsters doesn't know. The top three:

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
2. They have known only two presidents.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.

Others in the list include...

6. There has always been only one Germany.
7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.
11. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
15. They have never had to distinguish between the St. Louis Cardinals baseball and football teams.
19. “Google” has always been a verb.
28. Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents’ attics.
30. Non-denominational mega-churches have always been the fastest growing. religious organizations in the U.S.
33. They have no idea why we needed to ask “...can we all get along?”
37. Brides have always worn white for a first, second, or third wedding.
60. They never saw Bernard Shaw on CNN.
63. Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.
75. Professional athletes have always competed in the Olympics

Commenters examined the list:

My daughter and oldest son (20 and 22), both learned to drive a standard shift and are very good at it. My daughter, who needed a car for where she went to school (had to drive to several remote sites for classes) acquired a 1993 5-speed Honda. Upon returning from school, she complained that it would lose power going up long hills. They are bright and alert to the world, and would have few problems with the 75 items in the list, including having played the “state liscence plate game.” My most recent failing as a father, though? Not having taught them to downshift.

Herein lies the metaphor for my wireless, connected, hip, confident, friends-all-over- the-world children: They do not know how to downshift. After a couple of runs to Starbucks, I am not sure they ever will.
-by MDG, Director of Graduate Studies at Kentucky State University

Yes indeed. . . but what is this one doing in the list>

52. They never played the game of state license plates in the car.
-by John Fembup

Yeah, that one got me, too, at first. I think it means that today’s young travelers have so many entertainment options (hand held video games, DVD players, i-Pods, etc.) that parents no longer have to come up with ways to keep them from getting bored during long car trips.

Too bad. I used to love the license plate game.
-by Unapologetically Tenured

I’m about to go back to grad school after already going through law school and a few years working — I’ve finally reached the age where this stuff is truly scary. Before, ho-hum, these lists didn’t faze me. But now... but now... can they really be so young that the Soviet Union has never existed to them? (Well, if it were true.)

(They must have seen 3 presidents, incidentally. An 18 year old today would have been born in 1988: Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr.)

#27 is the one that really threw me for a loop. Anyone who doesn’t love Kareem is dead to me.
-by Paul Gowder

I don’t really get #46: “Public school officials have always had the right to censor school newspapers.” Yeah, I realize that the issue went up to the Supreme Court in the last twenty years or so, but the decision just reaffirmed the status quo ante. The principal could always censor, or at least shut down, the paper at will, whether anyone thought it very Constitutional or not. There may have been five years or so there where a lot of kids thought their school paper had First Amendment rights — as long as they didn’t test them — but that’s about it.
-by Bill Adams

So... do you have any of your own you can add to the list? I have a few:

76. Digital Watches are really retro
77. The internet has always existed
78. Complaining that someone sounds like "a broken record" makes no sense

Popular Culture

JUDICIAL RESTRAINT

“just a few pages of general ruminations ... much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect.”

While I and many of the founding fathers rejected the decision, Marbury v Madison concluded that judges have the power to interpret law and decide if a law is constitutional or not. In essence, it gave judges the final say on constitutionality, which many of the founding fathers did not agree with. They warned this gave judges autocratic, unquestionable power over the country, power far beyond what they were designed by the constitution to have.

And they were right, it has. Marbury v Madison was a sort of compromise, giving judges judicial review in exchange for judicial restraint. In other words, if the judges would be careful to restrain themselves very strictly within the boundaries of proper procedure and law, they were given the power to review laws and decide on their constitutionality. Almost immediately, they rejected the former and embraced the latter.

Ann Althouse wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times that examines this concept in light of the recent NSA decision by Judge Taylor (who, incidentally, was apparently involved with the organization that brought the suit in what looks to be a conflict of interest).

This, of course, is the most basic question in constitutional law, the one addressed in Marbury v. Madison. The public may have become so used to the notion that a judge’s word is what counts that it forgets why this is true. The judges have this constitutional power only because they operate by a judicial method that restricts them to resolving concrete controversies and requires them to interpret the relevant constitutional and statutory texts and to reason within the tradition of the case law.

This system works only if the judges suppress their personal and political willfulness and take on the momentous responsibility to embody the rule of law. They should not reach out for opportunities to make announcements of law, but handle the real cases that have been filed.

She asks several very important questions, and ends with this one:

If the words of the written opinion reveal that the judge did not follow the discipline of the judicial process, what sense does it make to take the judge’s word about what the law means over the word of the president? If the judge’s own writing does not support a belief that the rule of law has substance and depth, that law is something apart from political will, the significance of saying the president has gone beyond the limits of the law evaporates.

Commenters at Ann Althouse's site responded:

If I may paraphrase what I take to be your point (and one it's hard to disagree with): if judges are going to make political decisions instead of legal ones, why should we listen to them instead of to the guy who was elected? Why should the judiciary have the monopoly on political decisions?

You are right that Marbury represented a tacit deal: judicial review in exchange for judicial restraint. Taylor, and too many other judges, have broken that promise.
-by John F.


Well done. I can't help but wonder if President Bush is asking the same thing and, ala President Lincoln, saying "to heck with it" and continuing the program anyway. So much is at stake. And after lives were lost, guess who would howl the loudest?
-by Dr. Melissa


Congratulations on a wonderful article. Well-argued, well-written, and sure to give fits to defenders of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor. (As I can see has already occurred above).

If these folks hate Bush's approach to war-time restrictions on liberty, how do they feel about Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt? Do they read any history at all?
-by Pogo


I came to your blog just to congratulate you on a wonderful little essay of crystal clarity that enabled layman such as myself to readily "get" what the core issues of criticism the legal community had with Judge Taylor's decision were.

That was an essay that provided a lot of learning in a concise way. I have always worried about "over-reaching" people in power - be they state Attorney Generals, judges, colonels, or power-thirsty little corporate toady-boys. Most are careful to cover their tracks. It is amazing that just such someone in a high appellate court position would be so careless (or arrogant) that they made such a poor attempt at hiding their personal agenda. For that reason, I sent your essay on to a consulting firm I do business with on Judge Taylor being a great example of executive "CYA breakdown". A Management Failure mode flushed out.

Suffice it to say that if Taylor had been at several private firms in similar capacity and had unwittingly smoked herself out as she did - she'd be gone.

I just wonder why she appeared to have no safety net. Like-minded confederates that knew her decision was pre-determined, welcomed that, but who could have quickly seen how professionally embarassing and intemperate her decision was - if they only had a chance to review&comment on a draft.

Finally, as other posters have noted, she did at least have the appearance of a conflict of interest that should have been mentioned by her to the Court. And more ACLU links may be flushed out, which hopefully do not include past direct work with the specific ACLU plaintiffs that appeared before her. That, even if innocuous, makes her situation look even worse.

Good thing we are the only country that gives judges like her lifetime appointments, ey?
-by Cedarford


Why are you so opposed to the President simply following the law and getting warrants for his eavesdropping? Isn't the little extra trouble the adminsistration has to go through worth the protections that warrants provide?

I just don't understand why so many of your ilk are in such a hurry to grant extra-constitutional powers to this president. It might not seem so unreasonable if the President wasn't a moron (or "idiot" as Joe Scarborough said).

I think most Americans just aren't convinced that the danger is so great that we have to throw out a perfectly good constitution that's been adequate until 2001.
-by Nittachi


You show that it's possible to stick to the facts AND show personality; that proves it CAN be done. Most of us in journalism these days sacrifice the former for the sake of emphasizing the latter.... As a broadcast journalism major, I took one law class--on libel law. How I would have benefited from taking more! If more of us could learn to think and write clearly -- without sacrificing our own "voice" (I hate using that word but am on a deadline and can't think of a better one), the way you do, and had the rigorous self-control that you do, journalism in this country wouldn't be held in such low regard. The proof: unlike some of your less careful readers, I CAN'T tell from your op-ed how you feel about the President's actions. That's exactly as it should be. I wish we could clone you and put you in J-school. How do you feel about stem cell research? (I'd give you my opinion, but I'm a journalist! : )
-by Rick


Adept and his/her friends demonstrate that clearly that for some, the ends justify any means. In fact, for them, to even question the means, as Ann has done, is to attack the ends.

Folks. Ann is not arguing that the Court was wrong. She is arguing that it did a terrible job of judging. Congress' function is to make laws - that should not stop us from complaining when they are poorly written, even if we agree with the aim of the law. So, too, we should hold the judiciary to high standards, even if they are reaching the results we want. Otherwise, you are endorsing the priciple that having an imperator is acceptable, so long as it is our imperator.
-by Abraham

In essence, Ann Althouse is saying that there's something basically wrong with a court grabbing for unconstitutional power in a decision that claims to be about preventing the president from doing so. And she's right, that's ironic.

The problem the left has is that they support this decision without legal basis, so they embrace what this judge decided even if it's a horrible decision without legal support. It's the outcome they wanted, so they don't care whether it's legally right or not. When someone points that out, they throw fits - I left out many of the angry, even hysterical comments on Ann's site by leftists who considered her a horrid right winger (she voted for Al Gore, is moderate at most) for daring to question this decision.

Even decisions you like need to be right decisions. Simply agreeing with them is not enough, or you're giving judges all the power you claim to fear and reject in the president. For the left, their argument seems to be "this president shouldn't be trusted with this power, therefore the power should be ended" where the argument ought to be "this president shouldn't be trusted with this power, therefore we ought not have such men as president." Because if the power is constitutional (which it is, as many judicial decisions previously have stated), then it isn't the source of the problem. I wouldn't trust Hillary Clinton with such power, but that's a problem with her, not the power its self.

Legal Issues

Quote of the day

"The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed."
-James Madison

Quotes

THANKS, BRITS!

OK Thanks, Yanks rhymes better but it wasn't yankees who caught the skybombers. Reformed Chicks Blabbing has shamed me by thanking the British law enforcement, military, and intelligence forces who caught the terrorists who were planning to blow up more than 10 airplanes today as part of a worldwide action on behalf of Iran to celebrate the rise of the 12th (and thoroughly defeated, dead) Mahdi.

Today is when Amadinejad promised a great catastrophe and blow against the west. So far Iran appears to have taken over a Romanian oil rig in the Persian Gulf, but there has been no great catastrophe - unless you're a lunatic Imam of Iran.

The big thing planned, as far as I can tell so far, was to have all these planes explode in the air or on the ground in America. You failed, Iran. You tried and failed, thanks to the British and Americans who worked together, and mostly the British who took (appropriately) the lion's share.

Thank you again, cousins across the ocean. You are great allies, and I salute you. If I had a british flag I'd fly it today - all I have is an Australian one. So I'll just put one up here.

*UPDATE: If you want to contact England and say your thanks, here's a few addresses:

Scotland Yard's Email
The British Consulate, scroll down for the one in your area
The Queen of England - she represents the country
Let them know you are grateful for their work! Because of them, there's no 9/11 on this day.

Great Britain

Comment Type #31

PULLING RANK

Pulling rank is when a superior officer uses their rank (and thus the power it holds) to end an argument. A direct order may not be willfully disobeyed or ignored by an inferior rank unless the order is directly immoral or unlawful order (i.e. "Private, go rob that bank so I can run off to Bermuda with my six mistresses"). So when you pull rank, you can force someone in an inferior rank to shut up, obey, or agree. This is useful in time of war to shut up debate or to compel action when it is needed, but at other times it is simply abuse of authority.

But this isn't the only place someone can pull rank. Parents can do it with children, bosses with employees, and so on. All that is required is a position of recognized authority. In the context of commenting, this can take a lot of different forms.

Most often, people will claim authority or experience that the other person lacks, or will point to the time they've spent on a blog or message board as evidence of their higher skill and authority. Sometimes this works well, because it will be a correction of misconceptions or a clarification. A person who works at a library can clear up a technical matter of library policy, or someone who has spent 15 years programming in UNIX can point out just how silly the portrayal was of the little girl reprogramming the GUI system in Jurassic Park.

But most often, it's simply an ad hominem appeal to authority that is without logical weight and simply an attempt to shut up the opposition.

EXAMPLE
At An Army Lawyer, commenters ran into an interesting event in the armylawyer's examination of a recent decision by a district court on the NSA surveillance program. A commenter tried to pull rank and shut up discussion in this manner:

OK, I missed the Sealed Case, but the “take for granted . . . ” is footnoted by contrary opinion.

I agree that’s it’s time for me to do something more useful, trying to dissuade you from your worship at the Church of Statism seems futile. You’re very arrogant for a newbie
O-3 JAG who’s never been deployed, and it grates on me, as I have been deployed and have a couple of grades on you.

I’ll let you play in your sandbox undisturbed from now on. I will look forward to your posts when you go to Iraq, though - hopefully you’ll be assigned to some civil affairs work so you get outside the wire once in awhile. War often causes the scales to fall from innocents’ eyes.

As you can see, this commenter is attempting to dismiss the argument being made based not on its merits or the point being made - he even admitted that he failed to take into account what the other person was saying. He's simply maintaining that the other person is wrong because he's at a lower rank and less experienced.

Pulling Rank should only be done to help, clarify, and assist, not to simply shut up someone. If you cannot manage to use logic and facts to convince and change a mind, then that person isn't likely to heed your attempt to pull rank in any case. Further, in an anonymous forum, anyone can claim any manner of authority and experience, valid or not. This sort of weakens the impact, because Pulling Rank only works if the rank puller actually has recognized authority. You cannot successfully assert authority without some sort of backing from society or law any more than a stumbling lunatic walking down the sidewalk can convince you he's the voice of God rather than a MD20/20-reeking bum.

Don't Pull Rank just to shut someone up, don't assert authority you don't have or cannot demonstrate online. If you must Pull Rank, only do so to help clarify or assist, not to crush opposition; to benefit the commenting community.

This is part of the Profiles in Commenting series.

Comments

$185,169.12

That's how much Word Around the Net is worth, according to the Business Opportunities Weblog. Adamci worked up this little applet based on Technorati's data and data based on the sale of Weblogs Inc by AOL-Time Warner. When AOL bought Weblogs Inc for between $25 million and $40 million, this gives a rough estimate to how much big entertainment and business thinks blogs are worth, says TNL blog, and they broke the numbers down in a detailed analysis of the blogs in Weblogs Inc and what each had in terms of links, advertisers, and traffic.

In acquiring Weblogs Inc., AOL has now provided us with some numbers traditional media are willing to pay for a blog. Looking at the numbers above, one can try to guess at the value of a link from an external site. a single link on the weblogsinc network represents 0.002258559942180087 percent of the overall network.

At the different rumored price points from AOL, it looks as follows:

link	$25 million value	30 million value	40 million value
1	$564.64	$677.57	$903.42

I don’t know if those values are based on any real rationale but it’s nice to dream up the value of one’s blog based on this.

I'd certainly sell if someone offered me the 185 grand that my blog is worth according to these calculations. I can always start another blog and build it up again, but somehow I seriously doubt it's worth that much for real, considering I have no advertisers whatsoever and only about 60 unique visitors a day on average for traffic.

Still, it's fun to take a look. The Business Opportunities link lets you enter your blog's URL and check what it's worth if you care to, and dream if you are so inclined!

Sites of Interest

Quote of the day

"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
-Dr. Scott Todd, immunologist at Kansas State

Quotes

THE TEST

What if hollywood celebrities showed up wearing flag pins and ribbons at interviews? What if TV newscasters had flag pins and broadcast largely pro-American stories? What if the next three big movies that came out were incredibly patriotic and positive toward America? What if pro-America patriotism swept the nation?

Which political party would embrace and benefit from this?
Which political party would reject and suffer from this?

That tells you all you need to know about the modern political situation and where each party has positioned its self.

Just something to think about.
-Christopher Taylor

*UPDATE: For extra credit, read this Michael Barone Essay entitled Our Covert Enemies.

KIDS WROTE THIS?

"I clicked on the link and was actually a bit disappointed to find that it was printed in regular text and not in 'Crayon Font.'"

Although blogger demolished my post, I've blogged on using children for politics before in reference to a book (Why Mommy is a Democrat) in the past. But using kids for political gain is hardly new. Not only was this done shamelessly in the past, but more recently, kids are used for advertising, to hold up signs at protests, and to show up at political events for emotional appeal.

Recently, an especially crass and manipulative use of kids was done in Oregon, where the children of Portland allegedly wrote a Children's Bill of Rights (pdf file).

The Children’s Bill of Rights committee has been working hard to determine how to best utilize the document created by hundreds of children and youth from Portland and Multnomah County on June 1, 2006.

The committee has decided to create an accompanying resolution that the Mayor will present in addition to the Bill at the August 16th evening City Council meeting, which the City Commissioners will vote upon. However, the committee recognizes that this is not an easy process and will need the help of community groups and individuals, local businesses, elected officials and especially the children and youth of Portland and Multnomah County to be successful.

But the Bill of Rights does not read like something children would write or even be remotely interested in. Nowhere is the demand for more candy or for Christmas to happen more than once a year. At no point can one find anything remotely childish or child-like in the document other than it's leftist worldview.

Such typical children's concerns as funding for schools, a voice in the political process, emotional well-being, employment, libraries and museums are covered. Rights are demanded, such as medical care, love, and food. In an astounding coincidence, the "Children's Bill of Rights" reads almost exactly like the Oregon Democratic Party platform.

Ace of Spades carried this story, and commenters there were as skeptical as myself:

Since they already went with the kids we will have to go with:

"Soft Cute Baby Bunnies' Treatise on Conservative Foreign and Domestic Policy with Oodles of Love and Hugs"

Let's see the left out-cute that.

Idiots.
-by Rosetta


Schools routinely instruct kids to turn in their parents for "child abuse," which includes spanking. We have radically changed the law for sexual abuse, which no longer requires physical evidence, since all it takes to get a court hearing is an allegation from a vindictive ex-wife.

The McMartin preschool nightmare (dozens of charges dropped, several acquitals, no convictions, many ruined lives) brought forth the notion that "expert" therapists which inteviewed dozens false "victims" don't even have to be formally trained or degreed- all they need is an anatomically correct male doll and lots of loaded questions for children to answer. Many states have shield laws which don't even allow the accused (read Dad) to know who is making the allegation or to confront their own child over same. This is something right out of Stalinist Russia, but it has gone down here with little or no interest by most of the public.

Many parents are fearful of spanking their own kids, for fear of being labled "abusive." The left-wing educational establishment has done all that it can to foster attitudes conducive to this.

How many news reports have we gotten involving a moonbat teacher haranguing their class about Bush, Iraq, and anti-Americanism? The left knows that it has struck out with most adults in this country- all that's left to them is the kids. And they do this by actively undermining parental authority whenever and wherever they can.

And the sad part of all this is that they're succeeding.
-by Trenk269


Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Oh, and cheese zombies every day for lunch.
-by anonymous


Just wait until the underpopulated Portland Children grow up and experience the joys of having to support/pay for the overpopulated aged entitlement indoctrinators.
-by syn

II d. Individual Needs: Schools must respect and accommodate the learning abilities and aptitudes of all students. Children and youth have the right to express their own identity and to be respected for their individuality.

Right. In other words: "Don't you judge me. Don't you dare judge me with your fascist standardized testing."
-by krakatoa

So kids cannot b discriminated against based on "source of income?"

My guess is a kid whose mom was a crach whore got on the panel, and cried every time other kids made fun of his mom being, well, a crack whore.
-by Mark

Extra-curricular activities, including athletics, the arts, linguistics, politics, and any other areas in which students express interest, should be made available to all students, and all students should be supported in their pursuits.

Hhhmmmm, I wonder who's politics? And whatever else they're interested in, we'll help them with their opinion.

Privacy: We have the right to have privacy in our homes.

That's bunch of crap. They always wanna know how many guns you have in the home, how much you drink, smoke, etc. It's always on the questionaire at the Dr.'s office.

I was even asked all this crap when they came to get info from me in the hospital for my kid's birth certificate!
-by pajamma momma

We the Children, yadda yadda yadda, "Have the right to physical, mental, and spiritual wellness."

No. No, you don't. You not only don't, you *can't.* By sheer metaphysical limit.

At best, you might (for the sake of argument) have the right to gym class, health care, and stuff. You *can't* have a "right" to "wellness" itself, if only because even with the best treatment some small number of people will get terminal cancer. You categorically cannot have a right to an end state.

The government probably physically could give everyone *a* house. They'd never be able to guarantee anyone house beautiful, let alone that no one's house would ever burn down.

"The Vision of the Anointed." Gotta catch 'em while they're young!
Progressives - political John Karrs.
-by knemon

Memo to the City of Portland and all other municipal governments:

Pave the roads, collect the garbage and provide police and fire services. Just about everything else is beyond your competence and none of your damn business.

It's good to know that everything is so perfect in Portland that the Mayor and city council have all this extra time to engage in leftist indoctrination.

Morons.

Geeze. I thought Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey's blog would be the dumbest thing I'd read this week. Now it's not even the dumbest thing I've read today.
-by Drew


No demands for free candy? No demands to stay up late on school nights? I call bullsh*t.
-by shawn

Ace, there's a commercial that was on the Springfield MA classic rock station lately...all kids' voices talking about what the children of Massachusetts needed.

It was actually what the Teachers' Union in Massachusetts needed, of course.
-by lauraw

First rule of Economics:

Limited Resources :: Unlimited Demands

What is it with these communist bastards that they don't understand economics?

Oh.... Nevermind...
-by birkel

And the sad part of all of this is that they're succeeding.

I don't think so. One thing that conservatives have going for them is demographics. Libs just don't have as many kids as we do. Liberalism is the natural home of abortion, gays and lesbians, dinks, or near dinks, and narcissistic people who hate kids (not to mention any names). I have six kids, and they are all (or soon will be) conservative republicans, weaned on Rush Limbaugh. The three youngest are pre-political, but they'll be conservatives, trust me. We need to teach our children well, the future of the country depends on it.

The other thing that we have going for us is that although the libs dominate in academia, they no longer have a monopoly on the media. There are so many alternative outlets for news and opinion outside the msm. Conservatives rule talk radio, have Fox, NRO, The weekly Standard, the right wing blogospere, and on a level playing field, in the arena of ideas, we win. A congenital lib will only see what he wants to see, but I think the culture is producing fewer congenital libs.
-by nicedeb

"We, the children...."

They don't get three words out before the lies start. It takes a village to impersonate a child.

Notice too that it's All Rights--and No Duties.

Shorter version: "Your Children Are Property of the State."
-by Noel

I live in Oregon, and believe me this is far from the most outrageous attempt to manipulate people into leftist ideology and action. It's just a particularly woeful and sad one. Certainly no one should be surprised by something like this from Multnomah County.

Politics

WHICH BATMOBILE IS YOUR FAVORITE?

"As a man...I'm flesh and blood,I can be ignored, destroyed. But as a symbol...As a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting."
-Bruce Wayne (Batman Begins)

For over 60 years, Batman has been published as a comic book. The character and his setting has become part of popular culture and the most iconic image beyond the Bat-Man himself is his ride, the Batmobile. Over the decades, this car has changed significantly, with each artist giving the design his own take, and each movie changing the car.

Searching around, I stumbled across a Batmobile History website with extensive information, links, pictures, and timeline of the Batmobile and how it has changed. This site was good for an hour or so of killed time, and I haven't looked at everything yet.

So let's take a look at the Batmobiles through the years - for a more in-depth, extensive examination, check out Batmobile History. Warning, this is very photo-intensive, and may load slowly.

The Batmobile started out as an almost unremarkable red convertible like a contemporary Cord, with a little bat hood ornament. This car first appeared in Detective Comics #48 in February 1941, and it was the first time any car was given the name "Batmobile."

The red convertible, however, was soon replaced by a more distinctive batmobile with a bat mask on the grille and bat wing-like fins. This design persisted quite a while with some variations, including some "futuristic" batmobile versions in the 1960's.

Then came the Batman television show. Although entertaining in a campy, train-crash sort of way, the show did more damage to Batman than his entire rogues gallery possibly could. Instead of an intrepid crime-fighting detective who faced fearsome enemies and dark criminals... he was a joke. For over a decade, the character was subjected to goofy characters, situations, and painfully childish writing. The batmobile was very distinctive, however, one of the "futuristic" designs that still clings to memory despite the awful show. The comic book for a long time retained this design or variations like it.

In 1989, the next big change was with Tim Burton's Batman movie. The car introduced in this movie moved to a different style, a longer, more art deco, retro sort of image. The car was enormous and had a giant turbine intake on the front rather than a bat mask. Able to work on remote control, armor its self, and deploy various weapons at need, this was a darker, more functional batmobile. This has been an enduring, popular design.

However, when Tim Burton left the movie series, the following directors went a more... rococo route. The batmobile became ludicrously ornate, with ribs, lights, neon, and absurdly huge fins. The movies went the same way, with directors apparently thinking the woeful Batman TV show's campy nonsense was the template to follow rather than Dark Knight Returns.

In a reaction to this trash, better writers and directors worked on the Batman Animated Series with a more retro design. This batmobile was even bigger than the Batman movie version, recalling the darker and more stealthy designs of the past. This design persisted through the entire run of the series, a simple, but ominous design.

In 2005, Batman Begins was released, a "reboot" of the batman movies rather than a sequel to the terrible 90's movies. This new movie took the batmobile in a totally different direction, making it more functional, martial, and frightening in appearance. The batmobile wasn't so much a car as it was a tank, and while reactions were mixed, the thing does have a definite impact on viewers.

What is interesting is that Batmobile History showed how this tumbler was actually more bat-shaped than is initially obvious. As you can see in these pictures, the Nathan Crowly/Christopher Nolan design starts with a very batlike concept and expands on it to make a compact, faceted result like a stealth craft.

The entire effect is very reminiscent of the much larger, much more warlike "Batmobile" used in the groundbreaking, classic, and highly recommended Dark Knight Returns miniseries. This monster had a tank gun, machine guns, and was nearly indestructible, until Superman tore it open. The batmobile had changed in this 1986 series because the world had changed. Instead of transportation, the Bat-Man needed protection and offense. This concept appears to be what directed the idea behind the Batman Begins design.

So... which is your favorite? I still prefer the Tim Burton batmobile.

Fun

NASTY TUNES, NASTY KIDS

"So why start someone on that path any sooner than they need to? Why NOT save it for someone you love and go down the path together?"

It is generally agreed that sugary foods and bad diet combined with lack of exercise is resulting in fatter children around the world (especially in America). This is traced to such contributing elements as soda pop vending machines in schools, video games and computers making kids stay indoors rather than play outside, and so on. The response is a call for the vending machines to be removed (by non-students, at least), and for more exercise among young people.

But when elements such as sexuality are discussed, suddenly influences like music and entertainment are harmless, don't cause a problem and are, in fact, a reaction to young people being more sexual - which is natural, after all. Sort of like eating. Why the dichotomy?

Brent Bozell at Town Hall examines this issue:

A couple of years ago, researchers at the RAND Corp. released a study that found heavy exposure to sexual content on television shows relates strongly to teenagers' initiation of intercourse or their progression to more advanced sexual activities.

He compares food and fat kids to sex and sexually active kids as I did, then goes on:

Now the RAND Corp. has a new study, published in the August issue of the journal Pediatrics, taking on another major teenage influence: their music. The same alarming results jump off the page. According to the study, based on interviews with nearly 1,500 teens, those who said they listened to sexually explicit music were almost twice as likely to start having sex within the following two years than those who listen to little or none of that music.

This holds true for boys and girls as well as for whites and non-whites, even after accounting for a list of other personal and social factors associated with adolescent sexual behavior.

Music is no small part of youngsters' lives. Adolescents typically listen to 1.5 to 2.5 hours of music per day, and that doesn't include the amount of time they are exposed to music through music videos. The researchers were especially concerned about sexually degrading music like the F-bombs and "ho" lyrics of the rappers.

Music, as Socrates discussed in the Republic, is a powerful force, it reaches us at a primal, emotional level that unless we are trained to command our emotions and filter them with reason, can be overpowering. For young people this is especially true.

People who want to make excuses for the music industry also argue that sexual lyrics are nothing new in popular music, from "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones to any number of songs that discuss "making love." But a lot of late 20th century music that played on the radio had a layer or two of euphemism or double entendre. It might have gone over the heads of grade-schoolers riding along in the car. That's not true any more. In fact, it's just the opposite today. These lyrics are as blatant as can be and are being marketed directly to young teenagers through the likes of MTV.

Certainly images like Madonna and Britney Spears engaging in a long, tongue-wrestling kiss at the MTV music awards are not missed by young people. Parental involvement is the primary answer Mr Bozell suggests, and I agree. Parents who would not let a child watch an R- or X-Rated movie will let that child listen to X-Rated lyrics, or read such books. Why? Not because they don't care, but because they likely are unaware what the songs say.

For many parents today, they remember growing up and listening to music and think it was sometimes racy but ok for kids - they turned out ok! But not only does racy music have more effect than most give time to consider, but society bombards young people with sexuality, and the music is more than simply racy. Consider these relatively tame lyrics from Lil' Kim:

"When it comes to sex don't test my skills, 'cause my head game will have you head over heels. Guys wanna wife me and give me the ring. I'll do it anywhere, anyhow, I'm down for anything."

Young people are not emotionally and intellectually prepared to deal with things adults struggle with. They need to be taught, informed, and ready before taking on such issues, if at all. Nobody would expect a boy to strap on pads and head out on the football field without the slightest idea what the game is about or any physical training. Yet we bombard sexuality at young people long before they have any preparation or readiness to deal with it.

Bad enough this is done to adults, who presumably have the intellectual and emotional maturity to handle it. But with young people, they simply aren't capable of dealing with the onslaught. They have not developed filters, they are not ready to consider consequences and meaning of what they are innundated with yet.

I've read dozens of complaints from mothers who have a hard time finding clothing for their daughters to wear that does not make them look sleazy or for sale. Middle and Grade school daughters. Midriff-baring see-through mini clothing that is designed on adults to advertise prostitution, or at least easy sexual accessibility is marketed to girls in their teens and younger.

Commenters at the Town Hall site responded:

I believe it was Socrate, although I am not sure of that, who said if you would know the life of a nation, listen to its music. Early music was mostly religious, but as it became secularized, it pushed the envelope further and further until it is now utterly profane.
-by Juseff


We have a total sex obsession on the part of our "artists". They say it is natural and good, but so is eating, excreting, and sleeping. These people need to get their heads together and think about something else for a few minutes a day.

It is said that teenagers think about sex 20 times an hour. I think Hollywierd has discovered how to make 40 year olds into teenagers
-by Jeff


I have a small group called Grassroots American Values ( www.plan2succeed.org/grassroots/ ). I have researched Public Libraries and Public School Libraries and have found thousands of HIGHLY sexualized books in their Children and Young Adult (kids under 18) areas. To give you an example, here is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower":

"… she grabbed his p**** with her hands and started moving it…. the boy pushed the girl's head down, and she started to kiss his p****…. she stopped crying because he put his p**** in her mouth…."

Without ever entering your local Public Library, I guarantee you can find tons of books like this in it. Log on to your local library web site and do a search for "homosexual-juvenile" or lesbian-juvenile," for example, and you will be shocked with what you will find.

Behind all that is the American Library Association a multimillion dollar organization that has a "Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Roundtable"; one of this roundtable's main goal is to stack the Children areas of libraries with books about homosexuality! When parents (or small groups like mine) complain about the books, the ALA instructs librarians to accuse us of "censoring" information!

The ALA has their very own pompous "Library Bill of Rights" that states that a child should be allowed to read EVERYTHING in a Public Library.

Parents should start holding their librarians accountable. After all, we compulsory donate our money, they work for us, yet they do not feel accountable to us. If more people start challenging Public Libraries, the situation might change. For more information, check the following links:
- EdWatch
- Parents Protecting the Minds of Children
- Parents Against Bad Books in School
- Plan2Succeed
- Mission America
- Operation Information
- Phil Chalmers
- Laigle's Forum
- Racy Books Trend for Young Girls
-by Milla


Fondle Macaw asks what the big deal about teen sex is. Part of it is one of limits. (click on my name and read my blog on defense of limits). But the other part is one of how it changes kids.

It is not so much that kids have sex young. That has happened since Cain got it on with a hotty under the apple tree. It is that it is so pushed by the media that kids who don’t want it and are not ready for it, think they have to. I know a girl who gave a boy oral sex because she did not like him, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and “it was easier to do it than to argue.”

And don’t get so excited about the rubbers. I am a daddy because the rubber did not work that well. They also don’t help with herpes, crabs, and a number of other STDs.
-by Jeff


What one feeds their mind on will have a direct affect on the character and personality of that individual.

Candy is quite a treat but when the treat is the main course the stage is set for all sorts of decay.

The present society would seem to be in a state of confusion regarding that which is vulgar, profane, or obscene.

The inability to express one's self, save the use of language one already acknowledges will be found offensive in the company of those who read or hear it, demonstrates a lack of self-respect.

If those with whom one daily discourses use such debauched attempts at communication then this writer would advise him to seek new friends on higher ground.
-by Gary


Faundel Macaque writes:

Why is it so often taken as axiomatic that it's undesirable for teenagers to have sex?

For one, they are more often than not emotionally unprepared. For another, they are almost always financially unprepared if they get pregnant or infected.

To reverse your question, exactly when is it desirable for teenagers to have sex, and why?
-by Jeff


When I was a teenager, way before 60s, we had 1 girl who 'left' high school. NO Sex ed.

My son's school started a nursery for the high school's student's children. Sex ed in middle school.

His daughter's classmates were 'admonished' for having a 'sex ring' that give oral sex in middle school. Sex ed in elementary school.

I see a progression here. And I DON'T think it can be good.

And there ARE predators out there, just waiting for a child... And, yes, they have ALWAYS been around. Just didn't seem as numerous... And they WEREN'T USUALLY TEACHERS.
-by Ms Conservative


I find it interesting that people like "Fondles Macaques" expend so much effort diminishing the problems caused by teenage sexual activity and completely ignore the fact there are absolutely NO problems caused by teenagers (or unmarrieds of any age) NOT having sex. The claim that condoms are a panacea is ludicrous. A partial list of the STDs against which condoms are ineffective has already been provided. HPV, one cause of cervical cancer, was left off that list.

I, for one, am overjoyed that I abstained - completely - and not in the liberal "no thanks, I'm abstaining from intercourse tonight. You'll have to settle for manual or oral" definition. Without having done so, my wife (who also waited) would not have married me. The argument of "sexual incompatibility" among marrying virgins that is frequently forwarded by proponents of promiscuity is fallacious. People who spend their lives searching for their "sexual soul-mate" always report the lowest levels of satisfaction in their sex lives. Who reports the highest: married Christians.

As for Europe - the continent is completely obsessed with sex. In many countries, you can't buy gum without being exposed to nudity. On television, children are exposed to pornography that wouldn't make it into family theaters in the US. In theaters, sexually graphic banner ads for porn movies are displayed next to posters for Disney movies.

I lived in Norway in '89-90 at a time when their parliament passed a law that put abortion on their approved list of state-funded medical procedures. It seemed that every woman whose gestation fell within the allowed time frame ran straight to the hospital to abort her baby. The end result was that the hospitals and clinics were so full of abortion patients that people who needed real medical care would have to wait up to a year to get treatment.

Parliament eventually came to their senses and realized that, although politically popular, the move was unwise. Even prior to offering free abortions Norway's birth rate was declining along with the country's population. Their Socialist democracy would be unable to survive without future generations of Norwegians to fill the government tax coffers.

Sex is necessary for the survival of the species. In it's divinely proscribed context, it is also beautiful and beneficial. Those who pursue sex as recreation and market their immoral views outside that context do so to the detriment of themselves and their society.
-by Wingo


There is a simple solution

Don't let your kids grow up around this kind of stuff. Keep it out of your house. Your kids are going to hear rap music sometimes, just like they're going to breathe second-hand smoke sometimes, but you can let them know it's not okay. You don't need to spend time worrying about it--that's just giving it power over you--just live as if it didn't exist. If you go on a crusade trying to cleanse the earth of rap music, you will go crazy and irritate a lot of people, but you will not succeed.
-by Malou


I think FM is a bit confused. Because something is a "natural urge" is no reason it should be considered desirable, or held sacred. If someone upsets me, my natural urge is to strike, perhaps kill, them. When I see an object I want, the natural desire is to take it. It is our willingness to supress these "natural desires" that allows us to live in a society. Simply because something is a natural desire does not mean it is good for an individual or for a society.
-by asherrod


Faundel Macaque: IT WASN'T SHOCK
I was showing a progression, of age and actions. I haven't been shocked in a looonnngg time.

Were there girls back when I was in middle school who knew about these things? Undoubtably. Would they have ever formed 'a ring' I don't think so.

Sex was PRIVATE.

That is the biggest difference in attitude between my generation and my granddaughter's. I was never raised that sex was BAD. But it was something that you only did with someone you LOVED. You didn't pass it out like handshakes.

Sex has consequences, some of which we aren't even sure of NOW. Not just pregnancy, STD's or self-esteem issues.

For starters, IT DOES FEEL GOOD and once you start, it's hard to stop. And like anything else that feels good, there's another progression. What once worked wonders - now is mildly nice after awhile. When was the last time you got excited by the bra strap that excited you in middle school?

So why start someone on that path any sooner than they need to? Why NOT save it for someone you love and go down the path together?
-by Ms Conservative


As a parent of a 13 year old I certainly encourage my daughter to resist any natural urges she might have toward having sex with the boys in her life (or the girls, but a loud resounding "ick" from my female progeny tells me I needed worry there). Why would I do that?

First, condoms are very poor contraceptives (failing about 23 percent of the time in laboratory tests), so I don't trust them to protect someone I love against much of anything. I have two friends who have condom children and they were responsible adults when it happened. Neither reports a blow-out, but there's a baby to prove something when wrong. If it will let the huge human sperm through the holes in the latex, why would you trust a condom to prevent the tiny HIV virus from coming through? I certainly wouldn't recommend that sort of risk for my 13-year-old.

Second, sex education as taught in most public schools is criminal in its neglect of the issues of disease transmission and risk of pregnancy. I know three teenaged girls who are raising babies because they thought they knew what they were doing and they didn't. Why would I want that for my 13-year-old's future.

Third, sex is a physical act with emotional, psychological and spiritual implications. We've all seen the movie (or maybe we've been direct witnesses) to when one partner says the name of a past lover during the sex act. Are there two people in the bedroom, or two people and 12 "ghosts" -- the memories of past experiences haunting what should be a sacred bond. To me, that's adultery. And, the studies agree with me.

The more partnersyou have, the more likely you are to compare your current partner to those from the past, usually during the sex act. You are also less likely to commit to a long-term monogamous relationship, pretty much guaranteeing a divorce in your future. Why would I want that for my 13-year-old's future?

Fourth, just because something is a natural urge does not make it healthy for us to indulge. My natural urge upon seeing $1 million cash sitting in an open safe is to help myself, but the guy who owns the $1 million might care if I take it and I might have something else besides prison planned for the next 10 years or so. Natural urges aren't always good things. Sometimes there are good reasons to restrain ourselves. I think sex among the young is one of those times.

Sex, when you're mature enough and have someone you want to know at a deep level of intimacy is a wonderful thing. I personally would not want to plumb that depth of intimacy with someone unwilling to commit to a lifelong monogamous relationship (read that marriage). And, I hope that my 13-year-old has better sense than to waste her passion on some idiot who just wants to get his rocks off.
-by aurorawatcher


There's more than one way to look at this insane movement of pushing sex on chilren, which unfornatley the politicians, judges and insitutions are not taking notice of. I suspect that the millions and trillion of dollars generated from this attack and abuse of children is clouding their human emotions and decencey.

Children in the past have always been allowed a childhood and innocense and protection from the deviant and ills of the world and sexual content was kept undercover. This adult responsiblity allowed children to be able to progress and deveolp in many other stages in their formative years. And when they selpt at nite, their heads were not full of sex and adult concerns, this allows the natural and decent way for children to grow.

Think of all the sexual abuse of children today committed by adults, teachers are high on the list and growing, if an adult has the right to say anything they want about anything they want, whether it be sex, or something that is not your family values, then they can gain access to your childs mind, body and soul. This is very dangerous and children's emotions can be damaged for their intire lives.

I know when my two daughters were in high school they informed me if I did'nt agree with the homosexual agenda, I was a biggot and a hater. Thank God they were in high school and already had their moral and ethical ways to refer too. For now they are adults and married and parents and responible and loving people, that want the best emotional and spiritual and all the protection and happiness that life can afford them.

Money, Money, Money is spent and people are becoming increasingly unhappy, unsafe and insane. I would investigate these people in power and reconize they really don't focus on the people's true needs, they focus on how they can gain, more money, more power, and if they destroy you and I in the process, they will start on the children for they are the only one's left.
-by Kathy


Despite the fact that Brent Bozell is connected with a "research" institute like the MRC, he obviously doesn't understand research.

The RAND study is seriously flawed (for example, the researchers employ a very limited universe of available music that is studied).

More importantly, the researchers messed up on their regression equations. Regression equations are used generally for two reasons -- 1) to specify a model of a relationship of several items of interest or 2) to see what the relationship between two variables with other variables factored out. In this case, consumption of music with sexually degrading lyrics is related to a number of other factors, including low grades in school and peer approval of sex.

With initiation of sexual intercourse as their dependent variable, they entered the music consumption variables from Time 2 first. When you enter variables into a regression equation, you need to have a theoretical ordering. At the very least, time order needs to be used (that is, what happens at Time 1 needs to be entered into the equation before what happens at Time 2, etc.) That didn't happen here. What the researchers did was to put the music consumption variables first, which *maximized* the *apparent* influence of sexually degrading music lyrics.

To put into words Mr. Bozell would understand, the researchers "cooked" the statistical books. Real researchers would understand that, Mr. Bozell.

But, here is something that Mr. Bozell should understand. It was not sexually *explicit* that was related to the initiation of sexual intercourse, but lyrics that were sexaully degrading.

I would at least think Mr. Bozell could read.

In the future, before Mr. Bozell tries to tackle reading social science, maybe he should get someone to explain it to him. I am sure one of the MRC interns could help.
-by Doc Rod


The studies suggesting that married Christians experience the highest levels of sexual satisfaction are first-person surveys. They suggest that people who are less experienced - or completely inexperienced - prior to engaging in long-term, faithful, trusting, loving, monogamous relationships are more satisfied with their own sex lives than any other group. It has nothing to do with Bible thumping. It has everything to do with sharing the experience with someone you know is comitted to ALL phases of the relationship - as opposed to being in it only for the sex.

True, if you were to watch them on film their sex lives may not appear as exciting as those of porn stars. But the rate at which your methods excite a third party does not equal satisfaction.

I have personally known people who have said the best sex they ever had was with a person they hated. The result was that they would end relationships with partners they "loved" and "trusted" for the selfish reason that said partner couldn't provide an equivalent sexual experience. They found themselves chasing a lie and, in the process, became less loving, less trustworthy, and less likely to find what they were looking for - sex junkies looking for the next fix. Some recognized the pattern and were able to move past it. Most never will.

I'm smart enough to know that I'm not going to change your mind. You'll go on believing what you choose to believe regardless of the facts. Just do me a favor and stay away from my daughter.
-by Wingo

No one answered Doc Rod, and I wish they had - also many posts had been deleted which were contrary to the general opinion (you can find quotes and responses to them above), so I couldn't post them. Someone with greater understanding of statistics will have to reply to his point, although it appears to me his argument is flawed.

Certainly there's something basically wrong with our society if people are so clueless morally and logically that they are unable to determine why sexual activity at a young age is detrimental. My suspicion is that the answers are not unknown, but rather the people making these kind of statements are feeling a bit guilty for their actions and are being defensive.

Popular Culture

Quote of the day

"Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Help us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong."
-West Point Cadet Prayer

Quotes

THE FALL

Just a quick note: 15 years ago today, the Soviet Union fell. Communism was crushed in the meatgrinder of truth and history, revealed to be the utter failure and fraud many always knew it was and took much abuse for saying so.

Celebrate by watching the Little League World Series! And say a prayer for Russia.

History

VIRTUE AND VICE

"Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal."
-Horace Mann

There is a scene in the movie gladiator, where the corrupt and pathetic Commodus pleads with his father Marcus Aurelius after having been passed over for Emperor of Rome. Commodus knows the four virtues, virtues that man should live by that were developed by Greek philosophers such as Plato and considered the height of what Romans ought to live by.

"You wrote to me once, listing the four chief virtues. Wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

As I read the list, I knew I had none of them. But I have other virtues, Father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness. Courage. Perhaps not on the battlefield, but... there are many forms of courage. Devotion to my family, and to you.

But none of my virtues were on your list."

Commodus had no virtues, but he had traits that he considered virtues, and was wise enough to understand he lacked all that it took to be considered a great man in Rome. It is all too often that people either mock and shun virtues or embrace things that are not truly virtuous. William Bennett wrote a book in 1993 called The Book of Virtues that was turned into a PBS series. His idea was to reintroduce virtues to young readers, using little stories to illustrate what each meant and why they were important. He believed as many do that virtues guide men and women to a better life, to a more noble existence than simply survival and pleasure.

Virtues are traits that are beneficial both to the person and those he interacts with. They are like signs to guide the way through life, but instead of being on the road side, they are inherent, like habits that shape the way someone acts and interacts with the world. Virtues are considered moral, but most in a way that does not carry significant moral baggage, which makes them more attractive to secular teachers and parents.

Certainly a world without honesty, patience, modesty, moderation, and other virtues has not given us a better world unless you are a small, selfish hedonist.

But what are virtues, and why does each matter?

“It is a distinction to have many virtues, but a hard lot”
-by Friedrich Nietzsche

Depending on where you look, there can be dozens of virtues listed. The Virtues Project online has an extensive list of different virtues from various sources, over fifty total. Over time people have expanded on the list and recognize different traits that are good for a noble and better personality, but in the end many can be classified within other virtues.

The Romans lived by the four primary virtues listed above, although they recognized other virtues.

FORTITUDE
Although fortitude is a kind of courage, it means more than that. Fortitude is a steadfast adherence to a goal, it is staying with what must be done because it is right, even if it becomes difficult, frightening, expensive, or has a personal cost. Fortitude is the virtue that keeps you going when you know you must make it to the end, for a right and good goal. A lack of fortitude makes people want to give up when the going gets tough, to abandon a project because it does not show sudden, swift success, and to leave when it is expensive or frightening.

It is a lack of fortitude, for example, that leads people to wish to abandon Iraq to the death squads because the news focuses on the bad, because it is expensive, and because we have not seen total success in a single news cycle. It is fortitude that makes the soldiers stay and fight and work, that gives President Bush the drive to see it through. It is fortitude we need for the sake of our children and the Iraqis themselves.

Our society, focused on the short-term benefit, comfort, and ease has all but abandoned fortitude for the sake of pleasure. If it does not make us entertained, happy, or rich in a short time, it is considered poor entertainment, unhappy, or a bad investment. Fortitude is what keeps families together even though it is hard or unpleasant. Fortitude is what gives students the drive to finish college. Fortitude is what lets someone start in the mail room and make it to CEO.

In Fortitude contains my virtues within it, sub categories that can be exemplified by someone truly virtuous:

• Integrity - consistency in life, adhering to a constant pattern of virtue, even when it is difficult or counterproductive. Holding to virtues regardless of gain or loss.
  
• Magnanimity - a reaching for great things and true honor without failing to be humble.
• Munificence - the willingness to incur great personal expense for the cause of a great work.
• Patience - the tendency to face difficulty and evil with equanimity, without being depressed or miserable.
• Perseverance - the drive to continue good work in the face of any obstacle.

JUSTICE
This is the virtue that seeks to treat each person based upon the content of their character and their deeds rather than their status. It disposes one to give each person their due and to respect the rights of others. A just man will not treat someone good or ill merely based upon their appearance or status in society, but will instead treat them as reason and ethics demands. An unjust person will consider the ethnicity or gender of someone sufficient for ill or good treatment. An unjust person will ignore what is right and good for what is prevalent in society or based on personal prejudice.

An example of injustice is the idea of slave reparations. Forcing someone to pay the great grandchildren of people that one's ancestors 3 generations removed mistreated is not just. Justice requires the right treatment of all people based upon their character, not their color of skin or background. Justice treats the bum in rags with the same nobility as the wealthy, beautiful celebrity or Senator.

Today, concepts such as social justice attempt to set people into groups so they are considered as a mass rather than by individual merits. Minorities must be given special treatment because at some point they were in history ill treated. This is unjust, not only to the group in question, but to those not in the group.

Other virtues related to and part of Justice are these:

• Affability - treating one's fellow man without assuming the worst, behaving appropriately to each in social dealings.
• Gratitude - the proper recognition of benefits that one has been given.
• Liberality - the tendency to be willing to give when appropriate, deserved or proper
• Piety - the proper recognition of duties and honors one owes to parents, country, and God.

TEMPERANCE

Temperance is the virtue that rejects pleasure, comfort, and ease when inappropriate or in unreasonable amounts. A temperate man is one that will not overdo in anything, be it food, work, sex, entertainment, hobbies, or any other part of life. Temperance restrains a virtuous person to the appropriate amounts of any given task or pleasure. Intemperance drives the workaholic to extremes, whatever the excuses. It drives those who drink to excess for fun, it drives those who play video games hours a day or browse the internet all day long. Intemperance is a hallmark of modern society, it is relied upon for advertising, for income.

Temperance is what keeps someone from eating an entire bag of candy at once sitting or skipping work to play golf, again. Temperance in our society is not only nearly missing, but is mocked and shamed. Refusing to do something because it would be unseemly or too much is laughed at as "puritanical" or acting like an old woman. A temperate person stands out more than almost any other virtue.

Related to temperance are these virtues:

• Abstinence - moderation in eating and sexual activity (such as waiting til one marries), this is related to chastity.
• Modesty - moderation in how one appears, the desire to show temperance and humility in appearance and the desire not to unreasonably incite sexual desire and thoughts in others.
• Sobriety - moderation in drink and the use of other intoxicants such as tobacco and drugs.

WISDOM
Discernment and wisdom are among the most difficult of virtues to obtain and emulate. A wise person is one that is able to make proper decisions and analyze situations, people, and statements for their true meaning. Not only that, but wisdom tells someone where an act or statement leads to, what comes next and why that is important, good, or ill. Wisdom is entirely separate from intelligence, and is sometimes referred to as "common sense," or the ability to know inherently whether something is a good idea or not.

A wise man will make few poor choices, or making them, does so out of a greater calling for good and right. Wisdom leads not to a path of ease, but a path of fewest errors and regrets. The unwise does not consider the consequences of what happens, nor what an action or statement might lead to. An unwise person considers only the immediate benefit, or what is emotionally compelling.

In our society, what makes for good impressions and feels right is chosen far more than what is most wise. Wisdom is often considered illogical or discarded because it often cannot be proven through scientific effort or logic. Wisdom is the weight of experience given form, so that while one may not be able to prove that eating properly is a good habit to form that will benefit one later, it is true. Wisdom recognizes that exceptions do not make a rule, and that proof does not require the absence of any possible questions, only unreasonable ones.

Related to Wisdom are these virtues:

• Frugality - the proper use of one's resources, living within one's means without waste and excess.
• Gravitas - self control, the lack of personal excess and consideration of consequences in life.
• Prudence - the right method of conduct, choosing the most appropriate action.

Seneca postulated that Prudence alone encompasses all the virtues, since a prudent person will take the right action and do the right thing in every situation, thus exemplifying each virtue in their behavior and deeds. A Prudent person will be just, temperate, and have fortitude, for example. Such a person can only be able to make such choices, he argued, by being prudent inherently, being a wise and virtuous person within.

In addition to the primary Roman virtues, there are others that history has taught. The Roman Catholic Church taught the seven deadly sins (Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth), to which they offered seven virtues that would counter these and lead to proper, pious living. These virtues were (in addition to Justice, Temperance, and Wisdom): Courage, Love, Hope, and Faith.

From the many virtues, I'd like to list the main, most important ones missing in our culture or misunderstood greatly in our culture. There are dozens, literally, that could be added, although almost all of them are actually parts of a greater virtue like patience is part of Temperance.

"We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them."
-La Rochefoucauld

COURAGE
In addition to the previously listed virtues, the Roman Catholic Church considered Courage important. This was, indeed, a Roman virtue as well. Courage is not fearlessness, it is the ability to function and do what is right even while one is afraid. Fear does not indicate a lack of courage - failing to act properly out of fear does. My favorite example of courage is in To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout considers her father Atticus Finch to be the height of courage because
he alone in the town stood up to a rabid dog and shot him in the streets. This did take a sort of courage, but Atticus wanted Scout to understand this virtue better.

He had Scout spend the whole summer reading to and spending time with an old woman who was dying. The old woman smelled funny, was boring and confused, drooled and was in general someone no child would want to spend time with. But Scout spent time each day the whole summer with this woman until she died. Courage is doing what is right even if you personally do not want to - it is related to fortitude in this way.

A lack of courage leads one to take the easiest path, to avoid things one does not prefer to do, and to show intemperance in life. Cowardly behavior leads one to avoid virtue because those around may mock or belittle you. Courage requires one to do what is right, even if the world says one is wrong. Courage requires one to do what is right and be ready to pay the price - because there almost always is one.

HONESTY
Honesty is more than telling the truth. It is a rejection of deception, manipulation, and trickery at any level. An honest person will avoid doing something that might mislead someone. Honesty embraces the truth, desiring to avoid any misconceptions. Honesty will speak truthfully and without manipulation even if it means personal injury or lack of gain, and will fight against lies and deception. Honesty is the opposite of spin; to spin something is to restate it in a manner that is beneficial to one's self, to emphasize that which is good and ignore that which is bad.

Dishonesty is common in our culture. Advertising revels in this, while winking at the viewers. Ads will overtly state a product to have virtues it lacks, or to give benefits that are absurdly improbable. Use this body spray, boys, and beautiful girls will tear your clothes off to have sex with you in large groups. Drive this car and you will be happy, considered powerful and sexy, and have fun. Drink this beer and a party will erupt. More than that, dishonesty is defended as what reasonable people engage in. Telling the truth is hurtful, is mean, and is bad policy. Lying about some things is only reasonable, even if it is under oath to a grand jury.

Honesty is not a weapon to bludgeon people with, it is a tool to greater virtue and honor. Honesty leads you to avoid lies and deception, but does not compel you to hurtful revelations. Being honest does not require someone to tell the plain truth at all times to all people in the most stark manner - that is cruelty disguising its self as honesty. Honesty as a virtue is tempered by Wisdom and Love.

"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices."
-by Benjamin Franklin

HUMILITY
Humility is one of the least understood virtues. To many, humility means to publicly decry or downplay whatever one does, to always point out one's failures. Humility is considered a way to attract positive attention, to seem like the better man by self deprecation. True humility is simply the proper recognition of one's value and worth. It is a relative understanding of what someone really is, not a rejection of one's value. By understanding the validity, value, and importance of whoever one is dealing with, one can be humble by recognizing one's relative faults or lacks thereof. Someone may be poor and of low status, but they might have a noble perseverance in work, a simplicity of life, a higher virtue of temperance and fortitude.

Humility is not humiliation or self-abasement. It is proper perspective - you are no better than any other man, and he in fact will have virtues and strengths you may lack. A just and wise person will always be humble.

A false humility is common in our culture, with people seeking a better public image by downplaying themselves. False humility is extremely common when given a compliment - pointing out personal fault, brushing it aside. But in fact, true humility embraces a compliment not for self advancement, but because of a genuine appreciation for the gift offered and a real enjoyment of someone's goodwill. Children excel at this, they will often show genuine gratitude over a compliment. Why? Because they think so greatly of the person giving a compliment, not because they think so greatly of themselves. The focus of a humble person is not upon themselves, but upon others, upon those they deal with.

LOVE
The number one most misunderstood virtue of our times, and many times before it. To love is not to experience vast emotional stirring and a floating, dizzying high. Love is not infatuation, love is not affection. Love is much greater and is easier to understand if a different word is used: Charity.

Love, the real thing, will give evidence by emotional surges from time to time, but is a constant, steady, and underlying presence. One may dislike, temporarily at least, someone that they love. One may not think about someone they love at all times. It is infatuation or sexual desire that is most often meant when someone mentions love in our culture. The feeling that one is walking on air, the constant reference to them in your mind, the compulsion to be with them and the tearing pain of separation - those can be evidences of love, but are not love themselves.

Charity, or real Love is selfless. Love concerns the other person more than one's self, is most concerned for what is best for them. Love wants the other person's well being and success, happiness and health more than any possible benefit for one's self. Truly loving someone means being willing to correct and teach them, stop them from evil, and even to punish them for doing wrong. To fail to punish wickedness is cowardice and laziness, not love.

One does not show love toward children or students or those under you in employment if you do not punish them for wrongdoing. To fail to do so does not consider their best interests, their well-being, and their future. It is a false sense of love that lets a child do whatever he or she wants, without limits or discipline - the results are easy to see for all around you.

Love, real love, is what the world needs - but what is offered in it's place is foolish, unjust, and unloving. Love does not let the terrorist attack without facing justice. Love does not ignore the wrongdoing of someone because they seem penitent. Love does not ignore the wrong someone does because they have had a hard life. Love seeks what is best for someone, even if they personally happen to dislike it or consider it unloving at the time.

Related to Charity is Compassion, which is the ability to feel or sympathize with the pain and difficulty of someone. Compassion understands their anger, their pain, their frustration. Compassion is able to recognize and judge based on someone's life and what they have experienced, to empathize with people. Compassion is not an excuse to ignore their actions, but it allows someone to be wiser in understanding their actions and behavior, and can lead to Mercy.

“The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed- It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”
-Merchant of Venice (Act 4, Scene 1)

MERCY
Mercy is another often misunderstood virtue. One cannot require mercy, or compel it. Mercy must be granted entirely by choice and without law. If Mercy is compelled, it ceases to be merciful in any way. We must be just, we may be merciful. Mercy is showing leniency or compassion to someone who does not deserve such. A merciful person is willing to give someone a second chance, even when they clearly deserve punishment - but never arbitrarily. Mercy is not an end unto its self, ever. Mercy is to a purpose, for a reason, to a greater, higher end. One is not merciful simply to show mercy, but to lead one to repentance, to lead one to virtue, to learning, and to right living.

Mercy simply to be merciful is not a virtue at all, it is simply a lack of the virtue Justice. To absolve someone of crime simply because one wants to be merciful not only misunderstands mercy, but misunderstands justice. The person who is forgiven without reason or purpose, without a higher end will lead them to greater, not lesser vice.

TOLERANCE
Yes, tolerance is considered a virtue in our society. In some ways it is considered the highest, if not the only virtue. But the word "tolerance" used to day is not what tolerance really means. True tolerance is the tolerance of persons and their beliefs, but not their actions. If one tolerates evil, then one is unjust. Tolerance is not simply allowing anyone to do whatever they want, it is allowing anyone to believe and be whatever they want. You can believe what you wish, but you cannot do whatever you wish, some things are actually wrong and not to be tolerated.

To some degree, everyone still follows this pattern, even the rabid psychopath has limits of behavior they will not tolerate, in others at least. Society does not tolerate racism, theft, rape, and so on. But today tolerance has been almost totally inverted. Now tolerance means accepting whatever someone does, but not their beliefs in many cases. Modern tolerance views strong religious conviction with suspicion - especially orthodox Christianity - but behavior with a shrug. Modern tolerance is considered a great thing to do, when it is actually often a very minor thing.

Tolerance means putting up with that which you do not like. It is not a kind thing to do to others, it's not a good thing. The world does not need more Tolerance, it needs more Love. Tolerance puts up with other people, Love wishes best for them and helps them achieve it. Tolerance is dry, cold, and disconnected. Love is compassionate, caring and interested.

When Tolerance is a virtue is when it allows one to put up with people that one disagrees with or finds disagreeable. As long as they are not doing evil or wrong, one ought to be tolerated. It shows patience with others, humility in the recognition that I'm probably obnoxious to others, justice in that one must not be punished for not doing wrong, and charity in being kind to someone who may be confused or mistaken. Tolerance is a cold virtue, but a virtue if properly practiced.

"Blushing is the color of virtue."
-Diogenes

Let me end this overly long excessive essay with a brief caveat. I fail in all of these. I do not exemplify these virtues, I exemplify many if not all vices. The big danger in writing this kind of thing is that people might come to the mistaken conclusion that the writer either thinks or actually is that which he advises and calls to. All of us together must be better people.

But why? Why be better? Why have these virtues, why work toward this? What difference does it make to be a virtuous person? And how does one cultivate such virtues? This essay is too long already. So I'll try to tackle that next week.

"To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them."
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

*UPDATE: Tolerance is no virtue, I was in error. Examining the concept more closely I see that proper Tolerance appears to be a virtue because proper tolerance involves the exercise of other virtues, such as discernment and fortitude. More on this next week.

This is part one of the Considering Virtues series
Part 2: The Care and Feeding of Virtue pt 1
Part 3: The Care and Feeding of Virtue pt 2

Essays

THE FALLACY OF WORLD OPINION

"If you are ever morally confused about a major world issue, here is a rule that is almost never violated: Whenever you hear that 'world opinion' holds a view, assume it is morally wrong."

One of the complaints about President Bush and the War on Terror is that the world seems so very upset at the US (and other nations, but in particular the US) because of our actions and we really ought to stop doing what makes them mad. The concern that "world opinion" as represented by polls and well-televised protests (rallies in support never seem to get the media's attention) has turned against the US, that we were so very well-liked back in the golden good old days of the 90's.

Among the fallacies in this viewpoint is the idea that the 90's were a golden age (Waco, Elian Gonzales, World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City Bombing, Khobar Towers, etc etc), that the world's opinion was ever positive regarding the US, and that polls represent the world's opinion accurately and comprehensively. In any case, does it matter what the world's opinion is? Should it matter what France and Ghana and New Zealand think of what the US is doing and why?

Dennis Prager tackles this idea, examining the validity of world opinion and what shapes it. He begins by examining horrific events around the world, tragedies, massacres, and ghastly things that have happened to people. Did world opinion matter in these cases? Did the world condemning or not liking what happened make any difference?

Ask any of these poor souls, or the hundreds of millions of others slaughtered, tortured, raped and enslaved in the last 100 years, if "world opinion" did anything for them.

On the other hand, we learn that "world opinion" is quite exercised over Israel's unintentional killing of a few hundred Lebanese civilians behind whom hides Hezbollah -- a terror group that intentionally sends missiles at Israeli cities and whose announced goals are the annihilation of Israel and the Islamicization of Lebanon. And, of course, "world opinion" was just livid at American abuses of some Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. In fact, "world opinion" is constantly upset with America and Israel, two of the most decent countries on earth, yet silent about the world's cruelest countries.

Why is this?

Mr Prager examines four different forces that shape world opinion and affect its validity. First he looks at television news:

Because it is almost entirely dependent upon pictures, TV news is only capable of showing human suffering in, or caused by, free countries. So even if the BBC or CNN were interested in showing the suffering of millions of Sudanese blacks or North Koreans -- and they are not interested in so doing -- they cannot do it because reporters cannot visit Sudan or North Korea and video freely.

Another aspect that shapes world opinion is the courage it takes to cover some events and the lack to cover others:

It takes courage to report the evil of evil regimes; it takes no courage to report on the flaws of decent societies. Reporters who went into Afghanistan without the Soviet Union's permission were killed. Reporters would risk their lives to get critical stories out of Tibet, North Korea and other areas where vicious regimes rule. But to report on America's bad deeds in Iraq (not to mention at home) or Israel's is relatively effortless, and you surely won't get killed. Indeed, you may well win a Pulitzer Prize.

A third force, related to the second, is power that people can bring to bear. Anger radical muslims, and you might end up with your head almost hacked off, shot multiple times, with a note pinned to your chest with a dagger like Theo VanGogh. But violence isn't the only power:

To cite the Israel example, "world opinion" far more fears alienating the largest producers of oil and 1 billion Muslims than it fears alienating tiny Israel and the world's 13 million Jews. And not only because of oil and number

Fourth, those who don't fight evil condemn those who do. "World opinion" doesn't confront real evils, but it has a particular animus toward those who do -- most notably today America and Israel.

Dennis Prager concluded that world opinion is meaningless, without value. We ought to ignore world opinion because often a negative response is a sign you're doing something right, not wrong. Commenters responded:

Perhaps the Europeans (that's what "world opinion" usually means when used by the liberal press) are afraid of offending their now considerable Muslim population by siding with Israel. Cowards! I have yet to hear the same level of condemnation directed by European statesmen toward Islamic terrorist atrocities. And I'd also like to hear anti-terrorist condemnation from the "peaceful moderates" that supposedly exist within Islam. Israel is fighting a just defensive war and Hezbollah is mounting a cowardly offensive, firing rockets from behind the skirts of women and the diapers of infants.
-by RedWhite&Blue


The ancient Greek statesman once gave a speech honoring the war dead of Athens. In it, he said that some people in later times might not believe how valiant the Athenian soldiers had been, because men are unwilling to believe that anyone else is better than themselves. Likewise,
now, corrupted nations refuse to believe the many-times-proven fact that both Israel and the United States have behaved overall in a morally better fashion than many nations ever do.
-by Copperfox


Consider the "world" opinions of Islamic apologists:

1. They accuse the US and Israel of the very acts Islam publicizes and brags about: terrorism, torture, enslavement, exploitation.

2. They call Islam a "religion of peace" even though Islam has killed people in England, Thailand, Russia, Jordan, France, Spain, India, Israel, Iraq, Sudan, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Egypt, the US (in Seattle just this week) and many other countries around the world since 9-11. And this "peaceful" religion did not become violent recently. Islam has been, since Mohammad, a combination of a religion and a political movement founded on the relentless subjugation of other people. The Mediterranean, including North Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey were all Christian communities conquered and subjugated by Islamic violence. Moslem warriors killed, raped, enslaved, and looted one Christian community after another, including incursions into Spain, Greece, and France, all the way to Vienna. In this context, the Crusades were merely a defensive response to Islamic aggression.
-by RuggedInvididualist


This disease of caring about world opinion has even infected our Supreme Court. David Souter actually had the audacity to cite international law and evolving standards in his majority decision. I'm not sure what those entities have to do with the constitution -- the only document or force that is supposed to matter to a Supreme Court Justice.
-by Sammy


The world has become a small community where technology forces its members to relate and react to world events instantly, thus exposing who and what they are. There is now a peculiar sense of doom affecting our neighborhood and rather than name it and face it, our friends prefer to hold hands tightly and ignore the banging on the door.

Nations like the U.S. and Israel are renegade brothers of this community because they adhere to values based on absolutes which have been abandoned by our neighbors. Values give rise to hope and hope gives rise to a positive outlook. Most of our neighbors have no such values and don't seem to care if they slide into the gray dimness of despair. As this slide gains momentum, evil becomes good, war becomes peace, compromise becomes appeasement, and resolve becomes capitulation.

World opinion must be judged on its willingness to face the unpleasant challenges of today's world. The enemy must be acknowledged and faced with complete and utter courage. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.
-by scribbler


For something over 9 years, I was a B-52 bombardier (the guy who aims the bombs). B-52s and Minuteman missiles stood ready to inflict unacceptable losses upon those nations who wished our nation harm should they take action.

"World opinion" opposed our mission as provocative; the conventional wisdom said our military strength forced the USSR and China to deploy commensurate forces for protection.

Then, as now, much of "world opinion" was generated by Europeans, especially the French. Another source was UN delegates. Then, of course, there were man-on-the-street interviews staged by reporters to validate the premise. True to Prager's thesis, all of this opinion was gathered in countries where free access existed at least in part because of the US "nuclear umbrella." Those offering opinions either were not informed enough to understand their reliance on the force they were demonizing or they were attempting to undermine the freedom they were exercising.

Fools exist in every society, and they all have opinions. That understood, it follows that only a fool would place equal value on all opinions. Just once, I would like to see the results of an opinion poll where respondents were administed a test of basic subject knowledge. I believe that I never will, because such a poll would be self-disqualifying.

A very wise professor started my doctoral research course by telling us the only thing a research study proves is how those being polled responded to the questions posed.

Only a fool would make more of the results garnered from blind polls of unqualified study groups, conducted by individuals with an agenda.
-by Gary Loftis


Yes, the United States is not perfect. We do selectively push out national interests at times under the guise of stamping out evil. Then again, it seems whenever we do there is some commendation from some group pointing out just how short of perfect we are.

I think the report card speaks for itself. Do we get straight A's? No. Are we at the top of the class? Yes.

American has always pressed its national interest, as does any sovereign nation does. We were the "Envy of the World" before there was a mass media when a limited press by today's standard (mostly our own, in a time more patriotic) created that persona. What's the point? Who IS the envy of the world today and just what have they done for anyone else but themselves lately?

When I hear more scrutiny of the bombing of Dresden than I do of London during the Battle of Britain and the nuclear attack of Hiroshima than Pearl Harbor it convinces me that Mr. Prager makes a very good point. Congratulations on a very well written essay. I hope a lot of people read it.
-by Budson


"World Opinion" - a cheap bandwagon tactic used by politicians to justify stances and motives. A propaganda tool. The false assumption used is that everyone is an equal stakeholder in an issue and that each persons opinion has equal value. Another one is that this opinion carries some weight.

If Israel wants to play this to it's own advantage then fine. Otherwise why give your enemies any creedence?

Anyone who has spent time observing politics can see this one a mile a away.
-by mjd001


Mr. Prager is so correct. To rely upon world opinion is moral cowardice. It's an admission of lack of principal and a lack of leadership. It takes no courage at all to act upon the latest opinion poll (the Clinton model). While it's wonderful to build a consensus -- and we always try -- it's not necessary to do what is right.

We have seen what happens when Western leaders are more concerned with approval-seeking and appeasement than confronting evil. For those who would learn, Neville Chamberlain, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have taught us a valuable lesson.

Israel is not in a popularity contest. They are faced with annihilation by the most evil creeps imaginable. They should care not a lick about world opinion until the Hezbollah monsters are destroyed.
-by GnuCarSmell

Any time the US does something besides sit home, make movies, and send money to whoever begs for it, the "world opinion" rises up in condemnation and anger. Even when the US does aid the needy and those struck by catastrophe, world opinion is against the nation. Remember the Boxing Day Tsunami? The US carried the majority of the burden of delivering goods, assistance, and money but what was the response from the world? The US isn't giving enough. The US is trying to export it's ideals to the area. The US is using this as an excuse to move the military into the area. The US is using this as cover to expand it's empire.

The way I look at it is like this: the most powerful nation in the world at any time period is a dragon. Be it Rome, England, the US, whatever. As long as the dragon sleeps and lets people sneak up and take some of it's treasure, everyone is fine, everyone is happy with it, although they mutter angrily about how powerful and dangerous it is. They are jealous of the dragon's hoard and it's power, but wish they were the dragon.

When the bandits threaten, the villagers wake the dragon and ask him to protect them, then condemn and criticize everything it does, the way it does it, and that it takes up so much room.

But when some idiot pokes the dragon or tries to steal too much treasure and the dragon wakes up, everyone gets mad, and more importantly, scared. When the dragon takes flight and destroys the one who poked it, annihilating the enemy, the villagers cry and scream and point fingers of blame. The dragon burned the huts! The dragon is scaring our children! The dragon might come after us next.

No matter that history shows the dragon doesn't want anything more than it has, will curl up asleep once the job is done, and is trying to hit only the bad guys, the dragon is scary. The dragon is dangerous. Everyone is jealous of the dragon's power and wealth, everyone wants to be the dragon, but at the same time, they fear what they'd do if they had that power and wealth, and presume that's what the dragon wants and would do as well. That's how I see it at least.

International

TAGGED

Generally speaking when I get emails with polls and lists of things to tell about myself, I tend - like many men - to delete them without reading them. It's rare I want to know that much about someone, and if I wanted to know more about someone, these polls rarely touch on anything I'd be interested in.

That said, when I got an email from Anna Venger to do a blog game being sent around about books, I decided to play along because she's one of those "I don't really know them but we've chatted some on the internet" friends and I wanted to link her fine blog again anyway. So here goes, all blame for it being boring is mine alone:

1. One book that changed your life: Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer. He examines each world philosophical movement and tracks the slow decline of the value and meaning of humanity and life until we reach present day. Small, easy to read, powerful. This is one of those books that when you're done makes you see the world more clearly and with greater discernment, like taking gauze off your eyes. Dr Schaeffer tends to have that effect.

2. One book that you've read more than once: The Bible. I've also read the whole series of Horatio Hornblower 3 times, the Aubrey-Maturin novels twice.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Bible. Really, with it's size, historical value, literary content, spiritual impact, and variety of content, this should be everyone's first choice. What other book packs so much in and is so readily available?

4. One book that made you laugh: Any of the Spencer books by Robert Parker. They're pulp and you can't read more than two or three in a row without seeing repetitions and patterns, but they are an easy, fun read. If only he'd ditch Susan Silverman; I tend to skip every other chapter because of her presence.

5. One book that made you cry: The Bible.

6. One book that you wish had been written: I have a few in my head that I ought to write, in particular a study of power, responsibility, and the meaning of life using the aforementioned Escape from Reason as a template.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. One would think that a sick pedophile pervert with whackadoo ideas would simply be ignored but for some reason he took the world by storm.

8. One book you’re currently reading: Mysterious Island by Jules Vernes. Never read it, so this is a treat, I really like his work. I've read only the first few chapters, so the guys are stranded on this island trying to work out how to survive.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: 21 by Patrick O'Brian (unfinished, the next book in the Aubrey-Maturin sea novels, then mr O'Brian died sadly).

10. Tag five others: I think not.

Fun

GREEK TRAGEDY

"Interesting blog, be sure and check out my site / blog when you get a chance..."

In my never ending quest to find new blogs from around the world with interesting comments, I step into Russia for a while via Globe of Blogs and find a site that examines literature, philosophy, and history named Globalization. The site is in English, which is a big bonus since although I took 5 years of Russian that's been decades ago and it would take me days to translate one post.

The post that caught my eye is a long, involved examination of mythology, in particular themes involving the bull in ancient mythology. The language is very erudite and academic, the article long and involved, with this kind of rhetoric:

In distribution of mythological ideas Krete-Minoans culture had the important value. It played a role of binding bridge between peoples of Asia and Europe. Unfortunately, it is primordial Krete linear letter "З" till now is not deciphered, so as a unique source of our knowledge of Minoan mythology is served with art. But also it gives fair food for reflections.

Alex Fantalov examines Minoan culture and how their ideas permeated the nearby cultures of the north east Mediterranean. He covers concepts such as the "bull jumping" dances and rites, the myth of the minotaur, and tries to trace the concepts of the various deities and mythologies of the area and into Europe to Minoan legends and stories. The article is quite long and involved, and delves into various areas with some scholarly effort.

And the comments he gets?

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-by [spammer]

You get the idea. I looked at the article and was only marginally interested, as post-modern deconstruction is not an effort I like or respect. But when I saw 26 comments I thought "but this could be an interesting, informative discussion of mythology and history, which both interest me."

No, it was just 26 spam comments, automated comments that spewed their vomit all over his site with vaguely, barely related information. The word god is in your post? Well, dog is kind of like that, here's an ad for dog products! Mythology is in your post? Well, here's a religion site. You get the idea. I hate these people, personally, for advertising all over unwelcome and unwanted. I hate their technique of piling on a site like that. I hate their idea that if they crap enough all over the internet, maybe someone will check out their site and buy something.

I wish there were painful consequences to this. It's like breaking into a private conversation and offering coupons to your store. It's like walking into a classroom and telling the kids all about a candy store, interrupting the teacher. It's like getting an invitation to a debate and breaking into a sales pitch vaguely related to the topic. It's rude, unwelcome, crass, and almost universally despised.

I feel bad for this guy, although he has the advantage of being a Russian speaker and thus can ignore the comments without much difficulty. I get some of this kind of crap on my blog and simply delete them because they add nothing and annoy people. Every month I go back over my old posts and delete spam because it tends to show up after a while. If you're even remotely considering signing up for a service that does this, or God forbid considering doing it personally - don't. Take my advice and use a tack hammer on soft, dangly bits on your body instead.

Comments

Quotes of the day

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure"
-Jacques Chirac

"As far as France is concerned, you're right."
-Rush Limbaugh
Quotes

WIRETAPPING BLUES

"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."
-Thomas Jefferson

A Michigan judge has ruled that the NSA wiretapping program is unconstitutional if a warrant is not obtained for every tap.

But let me allow Jamie "intelligence wall" Gorelick answer this judge. She testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14th 1994 on this very topic:

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General. It is important to understand, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."

Putting aside that I can't figure out how this judge has any jurisdiction over this to begin with, there is a federal court specifically given oversight on this issue (FISA). Further, as a commenter on Protein Wisdom points out:

Do you believe the founders meant to put the president above the law?

If you think they had a monarchy in my mind, and that Hamilton was only joking in Federalist 69 you’ll be disappointed by the ruling.

If on the other hand, you believe in everything you’ve been told, read and learned about the system of American Government since Grade 1 you’ll be happy with the ruling.

Really?

Can you then explain why The Fourth Circuit, Ninth Circuit, Third Circuit, Fifth Circuit, and the Second Circuit all have held that:

the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.

Just curious?
Take a stab there chief, please do.
-by The Ace

See, the logic here is that when you're dealing with intel and wiretapping at this level, you often don't have time to run get a warrant, and further the more people that know about something, talk about something, and run about trying to do something, the more likely it is that the bad guys will learn about it. The FISA courts understand this, and have ruled on it in the past.

This is not a legal quandary. Ruling that the 4th amendment prohibits any surveillance without a warrant causes more problems for law enforcement and intelligence than simply this one program. It is pointed out that this woman has made these sorts of rulings in the past (and been overturned) and that she is a Carter appointee, both of which go some way to explain this ruling. This kind of judgment seems to me more motivated by an attempt to nail President Bush than a concern for constitutional rights, national security, or privacy.

What was fine for President Clinton is suddenly a horror of unconstitutional imperial Presidential power for President Bush. Sorry, I'm not buying.

Legal Issues

ACTING NICE

"How dare they question George Clooney’s patriotism."

No doubt you're as tired as I am of hearing an endless array of Hollywood celebrities stand up and talk about politics, science, and other topics. While their opinions are generally vapid and goofy, they have as much right to talk about this as anyone else - and I have a right to not care what they think. But as opposed to when you or I have an opinion and say it, there aren't 15 cameras and microphones in our faces and our thoughts aren't broadcast, printed, and given air time on David Letterman to a prompted cheering crowd.

So this kind of thing wears out it's welcome pretty rapidly and even can go so far as to annoy enough to make one want to not even watch a movie with someone like Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon in it. The movie Team America World Police took this frustration and annoyance to new levels of violence and action in the typical subtle style of the creators of South Park.

But wait. Not all the people in Hollywood are making statements about how 9/11 was staged and President Bush is a chimp. 83 actors, directors, and other Hollywood types signed a statement condemning terrorism recently that was run as an ad in the August 16 LA Times:

It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hizbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.

"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.

"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

Such names as Nichole Kidman, Bruce Willis, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Sylvester Stallone, Don Johnson, Patricia Heaton, Sam Raimi, and James Woods were part of the group that put out the ad. While such an ad is more or less meaningless, it is at least a smarter move than other actors have demonstrated they are wont to take in the War on Terror.

Tim Blair carried the story, saying "Just when you thought Hollywood had become completely worthless," and commenters there responded:

Im surprised somewhat by Kelly Preston, but really am glad to hear that these guys did this. Am thankful actually. Something positive.

Not that I dont view a lot of actors with a jaded eye, but I think when they do come out and say something positive they shouldnt be met with derision.
-by S. Ferguson

But but, Murdoch and the Jooos own all the media and the studios and control who gets the movie parts, so like actors aren’t going to speak truth to money man!

/moonbat rant

John Wayne lives! The names are not too surprising, there are some known conservatives in that list, not to mention some hotties. Straight thinking and hot. Now there’s a combination that warms the cockles of my heart, not to mention, er, the opposite.
-by Vanguard of the Commentariat

Lets not get too carried away. They are only stating what should be perfectly understood. Terrorists = Bad. A celebrity endorsement in the political world is only required by the left and usually means you’ve lost.

James Woods has always carried a cluebat.
-by Infidel Tiger

Nora, Bruce Willis is supposed to be making a film about Michael Yon.

linky.
-by Nilknelf Arbed

Well that’s refreshing if only from the point of providing a counter to most of the blather from celebs and revealing that total group think isn’t in place.

but i still don’t care what movie stars have to say on anything except making movies (i’m big on consistency).
-by Francis H.

I wonder how many of them will survive their first round of verbal beatings at parties and social/publicity events.

Who’s gonna be the first to say they didnt really mean it, or their publicist did it without their permission?
-by Grimmy

When Sean Peann and the other members of FAG [Film Actor's Guild - the ficticious organization the actors belonged to in the movie Team America: World Police] were running around slagging off the war on Iraq, I remember asking:
Who cares for the opinion of someone whose sole purpose is to read other people’s writing and look good?

In other words, their only achievement was celebrity and their opinion was otherwise no more relevant than anybody else’s, despite higher exposure.

Whilst it’s encouraging to see acts such as the above, I maintain my position - who cares? I couldn’t care less for Nicole’s personal opinion any more than most of us would care for Tom Cruise’s.

Press statements strike me as little more than more PR for themselves.

What is important however, is the films that Hollywood may or may not start to produce. Let’s see if the signatories can use their influence to achieve something worthwhile. To this end, I wish them well. Otherwise, its just another empty press release.
-by Dan Lewis

ok Hollywood, if you mean what you say how about a remake of ‘Casablanca’ with, say, Bruce Willis as Rick – ‘cept this time Rick is a liberal pacifist drug dealer – and, say, Nicole Kidman as Ilsa – ‘cept this time she’s a democracy-loving Iranian muslim on the run from the mullahs with her husband (John Malkovich?) who has proof of the their clandestine nuclear weapons program and plans to tell the world. Just like last time French collaborators run he place and Rick has the only tickets out of town. What will Rick do? Will Rick finally grow a spine or will he betray Ilsa and us all?
Perhaps Mr Paco could write the script with his Patented Paco Hollywood Blockbuster Machine
-by larrikn

Bonmot: The mostly passive Jewish Hollywood community aren’t going to take this progressive anti-Jewish liberal sh*t much longer I can tell you.

Oh, YES THEY WILL!

Sorry, but wishful thinking won’t help us.

IMHO, the Jewish Democrat of modern times is the absolute thtupidest voter in the history of this nation… but adamantly so.

I sincerely hope to eat crow for you in ‘08, but I don’t expect to: liberalism is a religion which trumps any traditional, quasi-heartfelt and/or nominally practiced religion like modern Judaism hands down.
-by zeppenwolf

As he turns on a light and puts shoes on..

You’ll note that two of the main folks here are Australian

I don’t care who gets credit for leading some to the Ahaaa, state.

Hopper, Willis, Woods* I knew had the sense and the politics, the warped side of Hollywood, just gets most of the attention.

* Woods and 9/11
On a flight to Los Angeles several weeks before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Woods grew suspicious of four of his fellow-passengers: well-dressed men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. Throughout the flight, the men stared straight ahead, did not speak with one another except in low, hushed tones, and did not eat or sleep. Woods became so convinced that the men were “casing” the plane that he kept his cutlery after lunch and shared his suspicions with a flight attendant. “I said, ‘I think this plane is going to be hijacked.’ I told her, ‘I know how serious it is to say this,’ and asked to speak to the captain.” The first officer promptly assured Woods that the cockpit door would be kept locked and the plane landed safely.

On the evening of September 11th, Woods told the FBI in Los Angeles about the encounter. At six-forty-five the next morning he was roused by a telephone call from an FBI agent. “I said, ‘I’ll get ready and I’ll come down to the federal building,’” Woods recalled. “He said, ‘That’s O.K. We’re outside your house.’” When he was shown photographs, Woods thought he recognized two of the hijackers - Hamza Alghamdi, who was on United Airlines Flight 175 (which struck the south tower of the World Trade Center) and Khalid Almihdhar, who was on American Airlines Flight 77 (which struck The Pentagon).

According to writer Annie Jacobsen, FBI agents told her in a private conversation that Mohammed Atta, who was the unofficial leader of the 9/11 hijackers, was in fact on the flight with Woods. [1]

Politics
Woods is a vocal supporter of U.S. President George W. Bush and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. Woods lobbied hard to play Giuliani in the biopic Rudy!: The Rudy Giuliani Story and considers the role one of the favorites of his career. He is however on most political issues to the left of the Republican Party and is probably best described as a modern War Democrat, a la Ron Silver.
-by El Cid

Now, lets see Hollywood put out some rousing patriotic War on Terror pictures with actual Arabic terrorists as bad guys, sans moral relativism. Guaranteed blockbuster, although one wonders how the overseas sales would be.

Pop Culture

SECRET FUN BLOG

"It was a whole different game being played back when I was a kid..."

Don't tell just anyone, but I'm going to let you in on a secret. It's a special website with fun prizes and all your favorite heroes! No decoder ring is necessary, all you have to do is save 10 box tops from Crunch Choco-Bombs cereal and send them in with 50 cents for postage and handling for the secret address!

Or you could just click on the Secret Fun Blog hyperlink here. Trying to out-nostalgia Lileks, Kirk Demaris has a website about early 80s and late 70's pop culture. He's a decade or two younger than James Lileks (and myself) but the site will bring back many a fond memory for readers.

For instance, in this post, he starts out with comparing his wallet with Pee Wee Herman's - the similarities are eerie - but when it comes to the picture of his bicycle, the problems start. How can anyone's bike be as special as Pee Wee's? Well... Kirk's gives it a pretty good run for the money. I won't tell you the whole story, but here's a hint:

The entire site is full of fun pictures, nostalgic recollections, and examination of this guy's youth. And commenters responded, in particular to the trouble of understanding that different products occupy different universes:

Kirk - what an awesome story! That really put a smile on my face.

Peewee's Big Adventure is also one of the faves here at the compound - my son digs it in a big way.

The pics are priceless. You look so proud! What a great moment in your childhood. I've recently uncovered a decent pic of my first bike - an orange Schwinn Fastback Stingray 4-Speed, with a siver sparkle banana seat and roungdknob stick shift. Man, I was so proud of that bike. Up until that point I had been the laughing stock of the neighborhood, riding around on an old, creaky rust-laden girl's bike that was given to my sister by one of our cousins, then suddenly I had the raddest bike in the neighborhood. I was really mackin' with that thing, until a kid up the street got that amazing Cherry Bomb bike with the cool chrome coil shocks and sissy bar.

Of course, like all the other kids in the neighborhood, I managed to crunkle it up a bit during the numerous poorly-improvised ramp jumps we always had going, but for a while there it was a beautiful thing...
-by Flamen Dialis


Super-post! I remember those wallets and they were always for sale all over the Ozarks. Like the Frannkie shirt! YouTube has the commercial from that contest or another one like it from Fruity Pebbles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Q1pyVMFKU
-by todd franklin


Great story. I think imparting the differences between Marvel and DC is a right of passage of many dads. I am doing this regularly with my own kids (who actually believe that I know Superman and Batman because I've written their comics, but even better, they discovered a Justice League member ship card in my office and are trying to figure out which member of the Justice League I am. My son's hoping I'm The Flash.)

They have their super-hero action figures segregated into bins based on publishing company. No cross-over events yet, but I keep hoping. The fact that they don't make action figures in consistent compatable scales may make this difficult, as the Marvel figures are substantially larger than the DC toys, gives them too much of an edge.

I wonder if Pee-Wee ever had this problem?

Yeah, the whole "When Worlds Collide" thing must be a bewildering concept for kids. I think the whole Universal Monsters thing planted a seed in my own mind on categorizing things when I was a wee lad.

My daughter seems to have caught on as well. I tried to surprise them with their early afternoon movie viewing, and when they impatiently pestered me with questions about my choice I lied and said it was "Bugs Bunny." My daughter quickly retorted that Bgs Bunny was a Looney Tunes character and that whatever I picked was Disney (she saw that it came from one of the tins the limited edition Disney DVDs came in, so it couldn't be Bugs Bunny because he's not a Disney character.

I was so proud.
-by