Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Two US Citizens and a Permanent Resident Arrested

for terrorist activities. The men live in the Toledo area.

Prosecutors also say the three communicated by computer with an individual in the Middle East, passing information about potential attacks and terrorist training materials back and forth, as well as communication about potential weapons and targets.


But let's stop that Evil Bushitlerhalliburton "illegal" spying, shall we???

NOT!

Monday, February 20, 2006

The Day the Air Force Has to Hold a Bake Sale...

The day the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber, we will be facing issues far more grave than funding levels for public education.

Hurt Feelings

The New Final Outcome

From the Vatican's statement on the Danish cartoon fallout: "The right to freedom of thought and expression cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers."


Really? What if you're an agnostic Inca who thinks the tossing of virgins into the mouth of a volcano won't produce a better crop? You shouldn't say anything for fear of offending the true believers? Where's the morality in that, particularly from the virgin's point of view?


Definitely recomended reading.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Found the WMD

Apparently CAIR found them.
WWMD

What Would Muhammad Do?

We missed them for the extra "W".

(Sorry, it was just too easy.)

Friday, February 17, 2006

More Abu Ghraib Photos Surface

Go look for yourself, or see thumbnails below. Filthy sons and daughters of pigs.

Hat tip to Daniel In Brookline

Thursday, February 16, 2006

I believe the hip term these days is, LMAO

Journalism School Exam with Answer Key

More Photos Surface

More photos of the moon have surfaced. As you may remember, the moon has been circling the Earth menacingly for billions of years, constantly shifting its position relative to the Earth. On occasion, it appears that there may be someone on the moon known as "The Man" who could be secretly spying on us from a distance.

Since the earth turns 360 degrees every day relative to the moon's position, The Man has the opportunity to spy on all of us, weather permitting.

It is very important that we publish these pictures as they provide more evidence that there is, in fact, a Moon. The Moon exists, and is in the gravitational pull of the Earth. Scientists say that the Moon will inevitably crash into the Earth someday, but the Bush administration denys that this is anything to worry about.

Many U.S. media outlets refuse to print the latest batch of pictures out of sensitivity to people who consider the Moon sacred. Some religions explicitly prohibit depicting the Moon in any form.

"There's no reason to publish the pictures", says Stanley Jihado, editor of the Mudville Times. "We can talk about the pictures without actually showing them to you. There's no actual need to see the pictures."

Ron Antiamericus of the Communist News Network disagrees. "People have the right to know. This is new evidence that the moon exists. We need to show these pictures so that people realize that it's out there, it's big, and it never stops. One day, its impact with the Earth could mean the extinction of the endangered three-finned silverfish native to small rainpuddles on the edges of the Peruvian Rainforest ... oh, and mankind as well. While pictures of the moon have been published before, these new photos give further evidence of its existence and potential to wipe out life on Earth as we know it. "

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Michelle gets 'em again

Another hat tip to Michelle Malkin, who -- once again, I can't improve on. So I'll just send you there: The Question Everyone's Asking

The same people who, out of deference to Muslim sensibilites and a wish not to provoke Muslims don't have any problem dredging up more pictures from a two-year-old scandal and publishing those images. Nope.

See, these images will hurt Bush, and no one will threaten them over publishing them. They'll just riot and kill others. So... go with them.

Useful idiots. CNN. Washington Post. Reuters.

Here's the kicker from the Reuters "story":


While some of the photographs are similar to the images made public two years ago, the latest photographs apparently reveal further abuse including new incidents of killing, torture and sexual humiliation.
Pretty clumsy, bumbling excuse for trying to make old news new news. Funny, it comes just as people are starting to realize that the Muslim reaction over the cartoons is actually backfiring on both the Muslim world and the press which refuses to publish them "in the name of decency and respect." Coincidence?

Note the wording. "New incidents of killing, torture...." -- no, no new incidents. Perhaps old incidents that everyone didn't know about. But this is nothing new. This is not news.

But, but, you're forgetting... West BAD!!!! Anti-West GOOD!!!! Our carefully crafted propaganda campaign, going down the tubes!!!! Aiiiiiieeeeee!!!!

The intent, of course, is to imply that this is America's SO, and that it must still be going on under BushHitlerHalliburton.

Pigs.

The Cheney Coverup (Humor, with a barb)

Inquiring minds, and all, from the Opinion Journal

Still laughing....

Gored in Jeddah

She's smart. She has a sense of humor. And she's attractive, to boot.

She's Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel, and here's her take on Golden Boy Gore's trip to Wahabi Central.

I'd rather hunt with Dick Cheney....

The first reactions in the press to Mr. Cheney's hunting accident, I thought, were measured and not out of line. There was an appearance of the Washington Post's Dana Milbank on Fox News, I think where he showed up in a hunting vest and cap in a very "Saturday Night Live" type interview that was -- I have to say, actually pretty funny. I thought the typically level-headed Michelle Malkin overreacted a bit on this one when she took him to task over it.

However, as predicted, it appears that the enemies of this administration actually are going to go ahead with making a mountain out of this molehill incident. Frankly, it's between friends. It's really nobody's business but the Cheney's and the Whittington's.

First, there's the whining that the Whitehouse Press Corps wasn't immediately notified of this obvious threat to the security and well being of our nation. Screams of "cover-up" are being forwarded by the left-lounging press (no, they stopped merely leaning that way long ago and built quite a cozy parlor to ensconce themselves in.) If they were going to cover it up, why would they bother telling the local press?

Ok, now to what REALLY prompted this post...

This story, by one David Ignatious in the Washington Post. What this story illustrates to me is a fine example of starting with a premise, and trying to fit everything you see into a structure that supports the premise. Almost the opposite of scientific method. It almost always leads you to the same conclusion you started with.

I've said it before -- and I'll say it again. Scientific Method 101 (for poets) should be a required course in any Journalism School, and it should not be taught by the Journalism department.

Here's the headline (mind you, he launches right into the Cheney hunting accident incident from here)


An Arrogance of Power

It has become more and more apparent to me over the last 6 years that, to the Left, "arrogance" means "continuing to flatly disagree with our opionions and not admitting or acting as if we are right, which we are. But you're the arrogant ones."

Here's what comes pretty much right after that headline:


The most vivid example is the long delay in informing the country that Vice President Cheney had accidentally shot a man last Saturday while hunting in Texas.

Wow. What depths has this administration sunk to? God! The nerve! I mean, really. No crime, no charges pressed... and they have the nerve not to immediately notify the Whitehouse Press Corps. Just... shocking!


But let us assume the obvious: It was an attempt to delay and perhaps suppress embarrassing news.

Could be, with people like Mr. Ignatious salivating for any uncovered sneeze to weave in to the fabric of the assumed nefarous Bush-Cheney-Rove plot. On the other hand, it could be that it was a minor hunting accident between friends, Cheney himself wiped the blood from the man's face. I'm certain he was quite concerned, apologetic, and maybe even embarrassed. Any decent person would be.

But here's the kicker. The ugly head of moral equivalence is conjured up by Ignatious, when he asserts:


Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy's delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969.

WTF?????

Accidentally hitting a buddy with a few shotgun pellets while hunting together and making sure the man is taken care of to the point of personally tending the man's minor inuries while he waited for medics to take over


EQUALS:

Driving drunk and going off a bridge into a body of water and leaving his female passenger to drown while he goes back to his hotel room overnight to cook up an alibi

I can't believe he went there. But he did. Still...



In the rest of the article he goes on to repeat the littany of charges (far more serious than a hunting accident -- which, I remind you Ignatious says is the most vivid example) that we've heard ad nauseum in the MSM as if the leftist assessment is undeniably correct and the administration goes arrogantly on disagreeing with them. As do I. And a lot of lawyers.

People voted for Bush and Cheney because they seem like basically decent and responsible people. They still seem like basically decent and responsible people.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Hungry, Mr. Hussein?

Go for it, Saddam.

Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has told a Baghdad court that he and his seven co-accused are on hunger strike in protest at their treatment.
I don't think you have a lot of real sympathizers... although I'm sure the American Left will feign it. Still, I think even they don't really like you. They'll just use you to bash Bush.

I'm not worried. There's been so much Bush Bashing for the past 6 years, I think that Bush and most of the American public to the right of Alan Colmes have developed rather thick callouses to it.

Thomas Sowell on Democrats damage to our credibility

Thomas Sowell drives the 16-penny nail into the wall frame with one hammerstroke when talking about how the "temper tantrum politics" of the Left and their rabid resentment and hatred of Bush have weakened our position in dealing with a nuclear Iran.

It would be far better if the threat of force were credible enough that actual force would not have to be used. But divisive politics have undermined the credibility of any such threat. That can narrow the choices to killing people in Iran or leaving ourselves and our posterity at the mercy of hate-filled and suicidal fanatics with nukes.

Some moderate voices?

I have a new link on the sidebar. FreeMuslims.Org . I'm glad to see a group of Muslims organizing under a banner of enlightenment and living peacefully with people of various faiths in a free world. Welcome to my sidebar.

On that note, here's another good comment by an Egyptian blogger.

See ladies and gentlemen, this is what's drawing this region backwards into the abyss of stupidity and irrationality. We invoke religion in everything. We see everything through the prism of religion. Our false religiosity that lacks the power of our God-given mind has crippled our ability to rationalize and make sound judgements and come up with reasonable conclusions. Katrina becomes God's judgement on America while Pakistan's earth quake had killed far more people. The Tsunami becomes God's punishment for the sex industry in Thailand while most of the dead were Muslim Indonesians. The US invasion of Iraq becomes America's war on Islam while the ones who are ramming suicide car bombs into Shia mosques are fellow Sunnis. And the list goes on and on.

We have our own religious and political zealot nuts over here who blame Katrina on some alleged wrong-doing of our society -- and believe me, our society has plenty of them which I'd like to see exorcised. But it is a part of the price of being allowed to believe what you will and say what you will.

Anyway, Big Pharoh's post and blogs like it (see his blog links) in general are a glimmer of hope.

I have to wonder -- not seeing much from our own western MSM actually COVERING the views of moderate Muslims -- all we get is their smug ascertations that most Muslims are more moderate in their views. It's nice to see some evidence that at least some of them are.

Monday, February 13, 2006

About the best commentary I've seen on the Cartoons

Apparently a few more newspapers are taking the correct side of the free speech issue regarding "the cartoons". In the comments section about the upcoming publication in the Canadian paper Western Standard, someone going by ET responds to the calls for the press' "restraint", "respect", and "common sense" thus:


Those cartoons are legitimate political (and social) questions. They are asking Muslims to explain the huge discrepency between their stated beliefs of their religion, and their actions. Those require explanation, so far, the Muslims refuse to engage in this dialogue.

You are accountable for what you do. Muslims are accountable for the violent attacks carried out by people, in the name of their religion. They have to explain, to us who are the recipients of these attacks - why they accept these actions. OR, OR, if they do not accept these actions, then, they have to loudly, very loudly, protest against those Muslims who are carrying out these actions. So far, - they are silent.

Respect? For what? For bombing commuter trains?
Respect? For what? For their vicious drawings of Jews and Christians?
Respect? For what? For their silence or their dancing in the streets when their suicide thugs bomb buses and trains and restaurants?

Common sense? To be silent while a fundamentalist group terrorizes you to silence, terrorizes you to submission, such that you cannot question, cannot critique, cannot dissent. Is that common sense - to be silent while these fundamental rights are being terrorized away from us?

Are we supposed to end up like those people in Iran and Syria, terrified of saying anything other than permitted by the mullahs - and beheaded by them if we ask a question?


Posted by: ET 11-Feb-06 9:00:32 AM


No.

No indeed. This argument just needs to be repeated over and over like a Cluebat™ in response to the appeasers until everyone gets it.

Otherwise, everyone's gonna "get it".

Friday, February 10, 2006

More Moral Equivalence Math

Since when is expressing your opinion on something "deliberate provocation"?

If I see followers of a certain belief in a way that is counter to how they see themselves, am I not allowed to express my view?

If I look around me, and everywhere I see civillians being targeted randomly I see Muslims doing it -- and I'd like to point that out... Drawing a cartoon with the founder of that religion with a bomb in his turban is simply making a statement. It says to the world, "this is how I see Islam". If Muslims don't like it, they have the right to try to convince us otherwise.

Unfortunately, the opposite road was chosen, and the voices of the moderates have been scattered and stiffled.

In the BBC article that helped precipitate this post is a very patronizing Q&A on the subject that sounds like it's aimed at 4th graders. Most of it is pretty straightforward -- but I did find it a bit misleading in places.

In it, we see:

What do Muslims say about the cartoons?

Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits images of Allah, Muhammad and all the major figures of the Christian and Jewish traditions.


There are far too many examples that this is not true for this statement to hold water. Oddly, we see just the opposite in another BBC story which is linked right above this statement in the very same article. Wanna get your stories straight, guys? Just goes to show you you can't believe everything you read in the press no matter who published it. But one of the major problems pinning Islam down on anything is there is no "Pope", nobody who can authoritatively speak for Islam. Except he who has the biggest sword.
Has Muslim reaction to the cartoons been uniform?

Not at all - some Muslims have accused protesters of overreacting.

A weekly newspaper in Jordan reprinted some of the cartoons and urged Muslims to "be reasonable".

Indeed it hasn't been. There are reasonable Muslims. Like the editor of that very newspaper in Jordan... Who was arrested over publishing some of the cartoons.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

FISA

Read an interesting article in the Opinion Journal this morning... this is an astute, rational assessment of the situation.

What FISA boils down to is an attempt to further put the executive under the thumb of the judiciary, and in unconstitutional fashion. The way FISA works is that it gives a single judge the ability to overrule the considered judgment of the entire executive branch. In the case of the NSA wiretaps, the Justice Department, NSA and White House are all involved in establishing and reviewing these wiretaps. Yet if a warrant were required, one judge would have the discretion to deny any request.


The rest of the article has multiple good points as well
  • FISA warrants [..] are supposed to require "probable cause" that the subject is an agent of a foreign power. [..] Deputy National Intelligence Director Michael Hayden explained [..] in fast-moving anti-terror operations it's often impossible to know if someone on the U.S. end of an al Qaeda phone call is actually an "agent." [this requires a] different "reasonable basis" standard.
  • even as Jimmy Carter signed it for political reasons, his own Attorney General declared that it didn't supercede executive powers under Article I of the Constitution. Every President since has agreed with that view, and no court has contradicted it.
  • We already know FISA impeded intelligence gathering before 9/11. It was the reason FBI agents decided not to tap the computer of alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.
  • it contributed to the NSA's decision not to listen to foreign calls to actual hijacker Khalid al-Midhar
  • former Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman explained in his 1978 testimony on FISA [that] the President is accountable to the voters if he abuses surveillance power. [..]But judges, who are not politically accountable, have no similar incentives to strike the right balance between intelligence needs and civilian privacy.
Very good article.

Radical Muslim Response

Lest anyone fool themselves about the seriousness of this issue, and how important it is that in the end everyone stand against appeasement, Michelle Malkin (well, she's been covering this so darned well, why shouldn't I keep going back to her) has these photographs.

Make no mistake about it... I realize all Muslims aren't like this. Probably even most Muslims aren't like this. But once again, I ask -- where are their voices? There is a smattering of them in the blogosphere and the press, to be sure. We appreciate it. Very much, actually. There are many reasonable Muslims in the world. But let's have at least one, major, recognized Muslim group or cleric set the record straight if they actually agree with the lonely voices of the few moderates (or are they liberal Muslims? I don't know) if that's not really what Islam is about.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Woah, hit the brakes, Anne Applebaum

I guess what passes for balance these days is saying "both sides are wrong" -- then one can go pat one's self on the back at the "intellectuality" of it all. So Anne writes in a recent Washington Post article of Hypocrisy of the cultural left. -- Then (in the name of balance, I suspect) she goes on thus:

· Hypocrisy of the right-wing blogosphere. Remember the controversy over Newsweek and the Koran? Last year Newsweek printed an allegation about mistreatment of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base that -- although strikingly similar to interrogation techniques actually used to intimidate Muslims at Guantanamo -- was not substantiated by an official government investigation. It hardly mattered: Abroad, Muslim politicians and clerics promoted and exaggerated the Koran story, just as they are now promoting and exaggerating the Danish cartoon story. The result was rioting and violence on a scale similar to the rioting and violence of the past week.

But although that controversy was every bit as manipulated as this one, self-styled U.S. Conservativess" blamed not cynical politicians and clerics but Newsweek for (accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world: "Newsweek lied, people died." Worse, much of the commentary implied that Newsweek was not only wrong to make a mistake (which it was) but also that the magazine was wrong to investigate the alleged misconduct of U.S. soldiers. Logically, the bloggers should now be attacking the Danish newspaper for (less accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world. Oddly enough, though, I've heard no cries of "Jyllands-Posten insulted, people died." The moral is: We defend press freedom if it means Danish cartoonists' right to caricature Muhammad; we don't defend press freedom if it means the mainstream media's right to investigate the U.S. government.

This is just the kind of moral equivalence argument that we on the right are trying to shake the world out of. Here, she postulates that lying is the equivalent of expression of an unpopular opinion. No claims were made as to the veracity of the cartoons. They are, after all, political cartoons... widely understood as expressions of opinion.


"Newsweek Lied" = "Jyllands Posten Insulted"

-- not buying that one. Never mind the fact that the "Newsweek Lied, People Died" was more a sarcastic call for those on the Left to take a good look at themselves in the mirror than to condemn Newsweek for being irresponsible with the truth. Not that it wasn't a little of both.

In her shakedown of Leftist hypocrisy, she says:

An excellent domestic parallel is the fracas that followed the 1989 publication of "Piss Christ," a photograph of Christ on a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. That picture -- a work of art that received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts -- led to congressional denunciations, protests and letter-writing campaigns.
Excellent parallel of the offense, but the parallel falls apart when we get to the reaction. How many death threats were issued over Piss Christ? How many museums burned? Employees of newspapers who published it threatened? Again, people are missing the point completely. These people are demanding, on threat of violence and death and backed up by their actions, deference to their rules. This is terrorism. All of this introspection and subsequent capitulation means terrorism works.

She also makes the allegation that the "right wing blogosphere" (which I would probably be considered a part of) largely said, implied, or insinuated that it is wrong for the media to investigate the U.S. Government. Give me some examples, PLEASE.

What many of us object to is the pathological obsession the media seems to have about proving that this administration is stupid, evil, or both -- and have so much trouble coming up with solid facts to back up their beliefs that they go ahead and publish as fact -- things that are not, in fact... FACT.

Jimmy Carter falls off the ladder

Jimmy Carter was president when I was a boy.

I always thought of him as a nice guy -- probably too nice to be President.

In the years following his presidency, I generally had nothing but nice things to say about the man. He appeared to show a lot of class, and I admired his humanitarian work.

Slowly, though, especially over the last 6 or 7 years, his fingers have been slipping off the rungs of the ladder of respect. He was hanging precariously from the last rung yesterday when he suddenly fell off at Coretta Scott King's funeral.

“It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps.”

-- Jimmy Carter at Coretta King's funeral

In 1968. By Bobby Kennedy. Funny that wasn't mentioned.

Democrats are big on the "Unite, don't Divide" theme, but in lip service alone. At an event where there should have been nothing but uniting -- our current President gave a respectful tribute to her and to her husband and to the huge progress in human rights they contributed greatly to.

I don't know, it kind of looked to me like the Dems were pissed off that the President was even allowed to speak at the event (but imagine the howls of protest that would have come if he hadn't). I guess it was supposed to be their pulpit, so they ignored the standard of dignity the President had set and decided they needed to slap him down. This kind of thing leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of those of us who are conservative, but not racist. Which, contrary to popular Leftist belief, constitutes the strong majority. Think you're helping "the cause"? How?

Then the Rev. Joseph Lowry spews (right in front of the President and his father)
“We know there were no weapons of mass destruction over there, but Coretta knew and we knew there are weapons of misdirection right down here..."

Really? Are you sure?

Completely classless.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Riots, Cartoons in summary


I saw the twelve cartoons months ago when they were first published. Frankly, I found few of them offensive, and the ones that could be taken as offensive made very good, very real (to any honest, rational observer), points which are actually underscored by the Muslim riots we've seen over the last week.

I just caught Michelle Malkin on Hannity and Colmes, which I typically don't watch (I hate these shows -- there's never time in a 5 minute segement, or even a 15 or 30 minute segment to do anything other than sling soundbytes back and forth -- no side ever gets to present a coherent case) -- but... I heard Michelle was going to be on talking about it and I taped it so I could watch her segement.

What bugged me the most was that the other guest asserted that these cartoons were "obviously" published to intentionally inflame the Muslim population, and that this was not challenged (at least not very well -- I'm sure Michelle would have if she had the time).

Why aren't people getting the whole story? This all started when an author was looking to illustrate a book on Muhammad... a children's book ... which was meant to foster tolerance between religions, especially towards Muslims. When the author tried to get someone to illustrate the book, there was a strange vacuum. Illustrators refused to do it for fear of losing their lives.

Now, folks, that's pretty bad. So Jyllands Posten decided to test the hypothesis that there was reason for illustrators to fear for their lives, and they solicited and published cartoons -- they didn't ask for them to be inflamatory or to say anything in particular about Islam ro Muhammad, merely that they depict Muhammad. One of them didn't even depict THE Muhammad. Just a guy named Muhammad. There are millions of those.

They published twelve cartoons, most of which are far less "offensive" -- when offensive at all -- to Muhammad or Islam than cartoons that get published about Jesus or Moses all the time. Granted, you hear some scattered vocal outrage sometimes ... every now and then, but nobody fears for their life when stating their opinions, negative or positive about Jesus by writing or drawing. The Taliban blew up ancient statues of Buddha, and nobody was killed or threatened over it. No embassies burned. No Immans were shot.

This was excactly the point.

To those who continue to defend the vile and violent reactions as "the work of a minority", "a small percentage", "one in a million" I say you have missed that point completely. A Catholic priest was murdered over it in Turkey. Buildings have burned. Death threats have been made, and made by the same people who have carried them out before on people like Theo VanGough. People are dying. This does not happen when someone "insults" Christianity, Judaisim, Hinduism, Buddhism.... Nope, the only religion it every happens with in modern times is Islam. Coincidence?

But all we get is "Yeah, but most of 'em aren't like us", and from most Muslims, the loudest voices we're hearing is "well we have every right to be outraged."

Fine!

Be outraged! That is your right.

But apparently Islam fosters mindset where this behavior can be said to be condoned, encouraged or even commanded (Whoever insults the prophet, kill him!)-- and it is proven by the widespread outbreaks of violence. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR IT!!! If Islam gives you an excuse for it, then obviously your culture is incompatible with ours. We need to recognize it, and you do. If you insist on killing us when you disagree, we're going to have to send you home or kill you in self-defense. What other choice do we have -- besides converting to Islam????? Tolerance my keister!

  • 1989: Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy in his book The Satanic Verses
  • 2002: Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel's article about Prophet and Miss World contestants sparks deadly riots
  • 2004: Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh killed after release of his documentary about violence against Muslim women
  • 2005: London's Tate Britain museum cancels plans to display sculpture by John Latham for fear of offending Muslims after July bombings
    -- (From BBC News)
Besides, with all this simultaneous outrage coming out four months after the cartoons were first published -- and the abundance of Danish flags to burn in places like small southeast asian island countries -- one has to wonder who is intentionally inflaming people?

Update: Oh, very good video, Michelle. Point well made.

Where were the death threats from the Jews?

For a little education on cartoons the Arab press feels appropriate to publish...

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArabCartoons.htm

Democrats "Contract With Al Queda"

Anyone who reads me (yeah, all three of you) .... I encourage you to read this:

Democrats "Contract With Al Queda"

Holocaust Cartoons

Iranian newspaper Hamshahri is now going to hold a Holocaust cartoon contest, soliciting cartoonists of the world to draw cariacatures of the Holocaust.

"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?"

Does Islam, in genral, get it?

Yes, it will upset people. Yes, there will be outrage. Yes, it will be condemned. But there will be no death threats, no buildings burned. And it won't be out of respect for Islam, but out of respect for the freedom to express one's views without fear of harm.

That, my friends, is the point.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Here's a talk show I could listen to

Now here's a talk show I could listen to if this article is any indication of it's content and train of thought.... (if I listened to talk shows, that is)

This religion is rapidly getting out of control. Muslims can murder 200 school children and their parents, shooting kids in the back, in Chechnya and the Muslim world hardly pauses a moment to notice. Let someone draw a cartoon of their so-called "prophet" and they start burning embassies and looking for Europeans to kidnap or murder. The more our Western leaders make excuses for their behavior, the bolder they become. These Muslims torching embassies and rioting around the world are not what we might consider highly educated. They have little or no understanding of Western culture and the concept of freedom of the press is entirely beyond the grasp of most of them. They believe that anything printed in any newspaper constitutes the official opinion of that country's government.

Oh really????

State-run Syrian newspaper Al-Thawra said in an editorial Sunday:

"It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims"


Reeeeally????

Anyone care to go back through Al-Thawra papers past to look for insults to the beliefs of millions of Christians or especially millions of Jews? Hmmmm????

Very good Slate article on the Muhamad Cartoon Flap

By Christopher Hitchens. The whole article is here

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice [...]


No point in me trying to put it better myself.

Can you say Dhimmitude? Yeah. We had a war over that kind of thing about 150 years ago. It lost.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Danish Embasies in Middle East being torched

In the daily barrage Christianity takes on this planet, you don't see death threats and buildings burning on their part. For sure, there's been the occasional crackpot. But you don't see these seething mobs.

But do something to piss Muslims off (which appears to be rather easy to do), look out! Millions of them will go Medieval on you and start destroying things, even killing people.

I know, I know... not all Muslims are like this. Not even most of them. But as I've said before, those more moderate ones are not nearly loud enough, nor strong enough, nor full of enough conviction and perseverance in their tepid and infrequent and qualified condemnations.

This is a problem.

Fee speech means people get to speak their minds and opinions. If a cartoon offends you, it's either a lie, a misunderstanding -- or you need to do some introspection and ask yourself why others see you that way and what you can do about it.

Get with the 17th century!

Friday, February 03, 2006

I MUST PROTEST

My own country. The State Department of the Beacon of Freedom for the entire world comes out squarely on the wrong side of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy.

Directly lifted from Michelle Malkin's post on the subject

New Zealand's Dominion Post reminds its readers of the context that the State Department ignores:

The drawings were commissioned by the Jyllands-Posten (Jutland's Post) to accompany an article on self-censorship and freedom of speech after Danish writer Kare Bluitgen was unable failed to find artists willing to illustrate his children's book about Mohammed for fear of violent attacks by extremist Muslims.

Islamic teachings forbid pictorial depictions of Mohammed. The cartoons were published on September 30 with an explanatory article by the newspaper's culture editor, Flemming Rose.

The following is a translated summary of the article and explanation of the cartoons published in the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.

"The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. "It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule.

"It is certainly not always equally attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is less important in this context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no one can tell how the self-censorship will end.

"That is why the Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Mohammed as they see him."

If we replaced the word "Muslim" with "Christian" or "Jew", and "Muhammad" with "Jesus" or "Yaweh"... would this issue be treated the same way? No it would not. It thus constitutes special treatment of one religion over another.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Hopefully Congress will remember this when calls to do just that come up. If "Piss Christ" is free speech, if "Cruci-fixin's" on Will and Grace is ok, then so by Jove is a picture of Muhammad in any context.

Defend why it should be otherwise.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

What Liberal Bias?

Headline on BBC News tonight says:

Iraq pact 'decided before war'

Sounds like a declarative statement to me. An assertation that some new evidence shows that the declaration is true. I've seen dozens upon dozens of headlines over the past couple of years that appear to make that claim. Well, headlines are what people see. If they see the same thing repeated day after day in the headlines -- they might develop a sense that it must be true.

So what does the article say?

It says that some human rights lawyer (a group definitely known for their balanced view of our government) has updated a book (not written a new one) that asserts that that it is true. And this is news... why?

Oh, because it gives BBC a chance to print a headline stating their view again, even though this has been hashed and re-hashed and fried to a crisp of hashed browns. If they repeat the charge incessantly enough, it wil become true. I mean, look at all those headlines.

Is the man an insider in the foriegn policy dealings of the US or the UK? No. He's a human rights lawyer. And if he can win a case as huge as "Bush Lied, Thousands Died" that yields a monetary payout to some class-action suit, why, he could make millions.

So let's go over this one... more... time...

  1. Were there lots of good reasons to go to war against Saddam Hussein? Yes.
  2. Were those reasons communicated? Yes.
  3. Was it just WMD? No.
  4. Was there a decent chance the UN Security Council wouldn't call for war? Yes.
  5. Would that have been the case if a few countries on that council weren't up to their necks in economic interest conflicts with Iraq? No.
  6. Did Bush and Blair discuss what should be done in that case? One would think so.
  7. Would that be a reasonable thing to discuss? See #1
  8. Did it turn out our intelligence was fautly about some of those reasons? It appears that might well be the case.
  9. Does that mean Bush Lied? No.
  10. Does that mean there was no reason to go to war against Saddam Hussein? See #1.

I'm done.