LEADER OF FINLAND'S ISLAMIC PARTY HAS NAZI PAST

Abdullah Tammi, the founder and spokesman for the Finnish Islamic Party, builds up my distaste for Socialists as well. He is a former member of the Finnish KDP, which in English translates as - you guessed it - National Socialists, aka nazis.

Via Solomonia and Tundra Tabloids.

Reliapundit adds: Baathism is a form of socialism as is Nazism and Stalinism etc. They are all collectivist ideologies. Islamism shares a lot with socialism: it's also a coercive prescriptivist ideology - and utopianistic, too. All this deep commonality - and antipathy to the West ands Judeo-Christian Civilization is why the Left and the Jihadists are allies.

WEEKEND WITH THE ARTS: PIERRE BONNARD, PROPHET OF COLOR

There's more to life than war, taxes and politics - and a lot of it's more fun, too! That's why every WEEKEND, here at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, we post some of the cultural things we're into, things we think you might also find entertaining, enriching, and stimulating. We just might turn you on to something cool.

After all, the arts - ALL ARTS, not just fine arts - are a big part of what our liberty is for, and what we're fighting to defend!

THIS WEEK: PIERRE BONNARD - PERHAPS THE GREATEST COLORIST OF ALL-TIME. AND THE BEST COMPOSITIONALIST, TOO. AND HIS BRUSH-STROKES ARE THE BEST, TOO. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE!? MORE INFO HERE. (CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES.)

A SIMPLE IDEA TO MAKE AMERICA'S GOVERNMENT EVEN MORE REPRESENTATIVE AND RESPONSIVE

Glenn links to a review of the new Larry Sabato book which recommends 23 - YUP TWENTY-THREE! - amendments to the Constitution.

One wonders why Sabato doesn't just throw it out - like Chavez - and start from scratch!

I have a simple idea which would improve both the responsiveness and representativeness of the federal government, and it would NOT require a single solitary change to the Constitution!

I would INCREASE the number of Representatives in the House to 600.

I would assign the new seats by using the US DECENNIAL CENSUS figures - exactly the purpose for which the Census was designed and put into the Constitution by the Framers.

These new seats would not be attached to an incumbent of any party and would therefore be open seats more readily contested fairly - (since incumbents have great electoral advantages and are returned to office so frequently).

Having more Representatives would make each district smaller and reduce the committee responsibilities of each representative and thereby allow her/him to do more constituent work - BE MORE RESPONSIVE.

The number of representatives was capped -BY STATUTE - in 1929:

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the Membership at that level, creating a procedure for reapportioning state delegations in the House under “the then existing number of Representatives” (see Act of June 18, 1929, ch. 28, 46 Stat 21).

It can be undone by statute. A simple majority vote by each body of Congress and a signature by the POTUS.

A body with 600 members is much more manageable now than a body with 420 in 1929. Many representative bodies in the USA and around the world have 600 members and function fine.

This change would also have the added benefit of making the electoral college more representative and more accurately reflect the wishes of the people.

Scientists discover purpose of appendix

Evolutionists used to upset creationists by calling it a "vestigial" organ but that was itself a leap of faith -- faith in the completeness of their own knowledge. Being myself a REAL atheist, I am pleased to see that the appendix may be functional after all.

Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for the gut. That is the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week. For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors could find no function for it. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It becomes inflamed quickly, and some people die if it is not removed expeditiously. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalised with appendicitis, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria that populates the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. More bacteria inhabit the typical body than human cells. Most of the bacteria are good and help digest food. But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case. The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker, a study co-author.

The location of the appendix, just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac, helps support the theory, he said. Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts as a bacteria factory to cultivate the good germs, Parker said. That use is not needed in a modern industrialised society, Parker said. If the gut flora dies, they usually can be repopulated easily with germs picked up from other people, he said.....

Source

Megan McArdle misses some very basic stuff

Megan McArdle ("Jane Galt") is a very smart lady who seems to have learnt a lot about economics when she did her MBA. She has written much that I admire. She seems to be a bit light on psychology, however.

Her recent article on racism and sexism in America shows very little understanding of impression-formation and the stereotyping literature, or, indeed, of current politics.

She quotes research studies which show that people with identical resumes get preferential treatment if they are white or male and infers racism and sexism from that.

She totally ignores the very well-known effects of affirmative action -- effects that Clarence Thomas has recently waxed eloquent about. The plain fact is that affirmative action has totally betrayed back people by creating the reality of a "black" university degree -- a degree which may signify negligible academic achievement because of the different standards applied to blacks both at the time of admission and during their university studies. There was even one case where a black graduate of a New York university was barely literate.

Does Megan think people are unaware of that? Does she think people are unaware of what has been one of the major political issues in America for decades? So if two people offer resumes that claim identical academic qualifications and one of the applicants is black, does Megan think that any rational person would regard the "black" degree as REALLY equivalent to the degree held by the white candidate? Surely the question answers itself. Under such circumstances it is a very good bet that the white candidate REALLY IS more qualified than the black candidate. Favouring the white candidate shows realism, not racism.

The situation with women is a bit more complex. Megan refers to a study by feminist Elizabeth Spelke which shows that men and women with identical mathematical qualifications are not treated equally. The male candidate is preferred. To understand that, it helps to know that the research literature on stereotyping shows the exact opposite of what most people believe. See here and here. What that literature shows is that impression-formation is very responsive to reality. If people think that women are not generally good at mathematics or interested in it, that will probably be true IN GENERAL (though not of course without exceptions).

And all the research that has ever been done on mental abilities has shown that women are best at verbal skills while men are best at mathematical skills. Does Megan really think that people are unaware of that difference between the sexes? They are certainly not. They might not know of the research but they know of the reality that it describes. So when people judge that men and women with ostensibly similar qualifications in mathematics are probably not really equally able at or interested in mathematics, they are simply doing something that humans do well -- using ALL the information they have to make a decision rather than just relying on a few bits of paper before them. Again, their lower expectations of female mathematical ability are realistic, not "sexism".

Megan should give her fellow-Americans more credit for intelligence and good sense.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ANOTHER CHRISTIAN MURDERED BY JIHADISTS IN GAZA

NYTtimes Reuters: Prominent Palestinian Christian Killed In Gaza

A prominent Palestinian Christian in the Gaza Strip was found dead on Sunday after being abducted near his home, six months after the religious bookshop he ran was blown up.

There was no claim of responsibility for the killing of Rami Ayyad, director of the Protestant Holy Bible Society.

Medical officials in the Hamas-controlled territory said he had been stabbed repeatedly. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry condemned the killing.

Neighbors said unknown assailants seized Ayyad, 31, on a street near his home in Gaza City late on Saturday. His body was later found elsewhere in the city.

Ayyad's mother, Anisa, said her son had telephoned his family after he was seized.

"He said he was going to be with the 'people' for another two hours and that if he was not back (by then), he would not be returning for a long, long time," she said. "Rami redeemed Christ with his blood. Rami redeemed the Bible with his blood."

Last April, an explosion at the Holy Bible Society in Gaza City blew out windows and ignited a fire that burned shelves of Christian religious texts and pamphlets. Police said a bomb caused the blast.

Attacks against Christian sites in the territory are rare but at least 40 Internet cafes and video cassette shops have been blown up in the past year.

Many of the bombings were claimed by The Righteous Swords of Islam," a little-known group opposed to what it described as violations of Islamic tenets.

Some 3,000 Christians live among 1.5 million Muslims in the Gaza Strip, territory that Hamas Islamists seized in fighting against the secular Fatah faction in June.

Relations between Muslims and Christians in the Gaza Strip have generally been good.

"This crime will not pass unpunished and the ministry has opened an investigation," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

• The suggestion that Christian-Muslim relations were once good is pure BS, simple PROPAGANDA.(MORE ON THIS AT AN EARLIER POST HERE AT TAB, BY OMRI.)

• And never forget what Arafat's terrorists did to the church in Bethlehem.

• MORE ON MUSLIM ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANITY ION THE HOLY LAND HERE.

WHY ONLY 38 GROVES IN THE FLIGHT 93 MEMORIAL?

Alec Rawls has more info on the suspicious and ambiguous going-ons surrounding the design of the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania, presented in this long post and short post here.

The current question surrounding the subject is, if 40 heroes died in the crash, why does the actual design only contain 38?

More answers ahead.

SALAH CHOUDHURY'S NEW BOOK

Here's an e-mail that was forwarded to me telling about a new book that persecuted journalist from Bangladesh Salah Choudhury published:

Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007
From: Salah Choudhury salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com

Dear Friend:

I am happy to inform you that my book titled

'Injustice & Jihad'

is now getting ready for shipment.
The book contains 384 pages.

If anyone is willing to buy single copy [US $ 30 per copy], they may kindly contact Dr. Richard L. Benkin at drrbenkin@comcast.net who will kindly make arrangements for delivery of the books.

On the other hand, for any bulk purchase at a special rate [US$ 25 per copy], please contact Amanur Rashid Aman, Circulation Manager, Email: ediblitz@yahoo.com

I shall be personally obliged if you will kindly circulate the news of publication of this new book.

With Profound Regards

Shoaib

So now, if you'd like to get the book, you'll know where to go. REMINDER: His only crime was that he wanted to go to Israel to attend a Writers' Conference in Tel Aviv.

WHY THE ANNAPOLIS PEACE CONFERENCE WILL BE A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME

LGF links to an article about more Palestinian pre-conference threats & demands:

Palestinians Demanding Again

The Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and it looks like they’re gearing up to miss another one: PA official: We won’t come to conference without declaration.

Ahmed Qureia, head of the Palestinian team to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel said on Saturday that there was no way Palestinians would attend the upcoming international peace conference unless a declaration of principles was formed.

Of course, all the Pali' posturing is bullshit. And Charles is right: it augurs not for success. But the reason the so-called "peace conference" - to be held in Annapolis starting on November 26 - will fail is not because of the posturing, but because of what lies beneath it: Palestinian "culture - the culture of Arafatistan, the culture of jihad.

Need proof? HERE: Israel proper is 20% Arab-Muslim - a percentage which is astounding when you think about it. And the Arab CITIZENS of Israel GET ALONG with their Jewish co-citizens just fine. SURE: polls show that MANY sympathize with the worst elements of Arafatistan's political ideologies, BUT THEY LARGELY GET ALONG WITH JEWISH ISRAELIS AND LIVE A MATERIALLY FINE LIVES WITH MORE RIGHTS THAN ANY OTHER ARABS ANYWHERE ON EARTH. This - and the "cold peace" Israel has with Egypt, Jordan and Turkey - makes many think that peace with the "Palestinian Arabs" is possible, too.

NOT SO FAST! WHY?!

Because, the so-called Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the so-called West Bank - not only can't get along with Israelis, they cannot stop themselves from killing EACH OTHER.

If they can't stop from killing each other, then Israel can't make peace them either.

These filthy jihadist animals of Gaza and the West Bank kill each other everyday and are teaching their children to commit genocide. Israel shouldn't be expected to make peace with this scum. REPEAT: The scum in Hamas and Fatah would no more keep an agreement with Israel than keep one with each other - which is to say they cannot keep a deal.

Israel should not negotiate a deal with people who cannot keep one.

AND IT'S NOT JUST POLITICAL IDEOLOGY WHICH PREVENTS A REAL PEACE; IT'S PALESTINIAN CULTURE: Any culture which condones parents killing their OWN daughters to restore their FAMILY'S tribal honor cannot be trusted to keep peace with a non-Muslims from tribe they hate.

Just as we cannot negotiate with al Qaeda, Israel cannot negotiate with Fatah or Hamas.

Until jihadism is erased from the face of the Earth there will be no peace. Peace is the result of victory, not compromising with evil enemies.

WHO HAD A BETTER "JOBS CREATED" STREAK, CLINTON OR BUSH?

BUSH. 43 STRAIGHT MONTHS. BEST JOB CREATION STREAK SINCE 1939 - WHEN THE BLS STARTED TO TRACK WELL ER UM LABOR STATISTICS.

USE THE LINK FOR STATS, JPEGS, AND LINKS.

CARTER DENIES GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

CARTER DENIES WHAT BUSH ALONE DECRIES.

SO TELL ME... WHO IS MORALLY CORRECT, BUSH OR CARTER?

ANSWER: CARTER IS SCUM.

PHOTO: MUSLIMS BARRED FROM JERUSLAEM

• THIS SIGN IS A FAKE, OF COURSE, BY THE GREAT DOUG ROSS. BUT THERE'S ONE LIKE IT IN SAUDI ARABIA. READ DOUG'S LINK-FILLED POST. BOTTOM-LINE: IMAGINE THE OUTCRY IF SUCH A SIGN APPEARED IN ISRAEL.
  

• I SAY: THE USA SHOULD BE DOING MORE TO OPPOSE STATES WHICH DO NOT ALLOW FREEDOM OF RELIGION. LIKE SAUDI ARABIA - AND VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER MUSLIM NATION.

• AND CHINA.

MY DEFINITION OF TORTURE: LISTENING TO LEFTISTS

JUST SAYING...

SERIOUSLY: THE PROSPECT OF HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON AS PRESIDENT IS TORTURE.

MAYBE YOU THINK WHAT I'M BLOGGING IS HARSH?

OK.

BUT REMEMBER, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT'S HARSH AND TORTURE.

Obscene Editor OK

We read:

"The editor-in-chief of Colorado State University's newspaper will keep his job after he published a four-word column that said, "Taser this: F**k Bush." The CSU Board of Student Communications met Thursday for nearly four hours in a closed hearing before deciding to admonish instead of fire Rocky Mountain Collegian editor-in-chief David McSwane....

McSwane's column resulted in lost revenue for the self-funded newspaper, including 18 advertisers and up to $50,000.

Source

If he had said "F**k Obama" he would have had to go into rehab at least. "F**k Obama" would even have made (slightly) more sense. The Taser incident he was complaining about happened at a Democrat, not a GOP rally. But who expects sense or logic from the Left? Rage is their specialty -- as we saw in this incident.

The editor concerned was only a stupid 20 year-old kid but the fact that those in authority over his job (The CSU Board of Student Communications) kept him in the job means that they endorse what he did, even if they say otherwise. Deeds speak louder than words.

Maybe CSU has got the message that what you need in order to be as prestigious as the Ivies is to be as offensively Leftist as the Ivies are.

If Harvard can sack their President (Summers) for suggesting that a perfectly sound scientific hypothesis be examined, an American University degree these days is more an indicator of club membership than evidence of any intellectual quality. Bill Gates was right to drop out.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

More Leftist bigotry from NPR

National Public Radio was one of the first out of the box greeting Clarence Thomas's memoir, My Grandfather's Son. Nina Totenberg acknowledged that it was, "in some ways a beautifully written book" but went on to declare it "a book of complete bitterness and rage." The Washington Post's front page announced that Thomas had "settled scores" in his "angry" book. And Washington Post columnist (as well as Charen pal) Ruth Marcus writes of Thomas's "blast furnace" anger.

Imagine that. He hasn't gotten over it. Totenberg, for those who may have forgotten, was the journalist who first reported that Anita Hill had made allegations against Thomas (though at the time, Hill had not agreed to go public). And she was a prominent Hill enthusiast during the contretemps.

Totenberg affects surprise that Thomas is angry? It would require a masochist not to be angry. Imagine that your spotless reputation had been thoroughly trashed before a worldwide audience. Imagine further that everything you had attempted to accomplish in your career was undermined in two weeks by ideological opponents ready to do anything to keep someone with your heterodox views down. It is my experience that people often become enraged when they read even small inaccuracies about themselves in the newspapers. Contemplate enduring a campaign of vilification. How many years is it supposed to take to get over something like that? Is Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky thing?

Actually, speaking of President Clinton, the brouhaha over Thomas and what he did or did not say to Hill now seems almost quaint in retrospect. Even if we assume (and I do not) that the worst of Hill's allegations were true, they do not stack up to the kind of brutish behavior attributed to Bill Clinton by Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick. But the very same people who adjudged Thomas one of the lowest creatures on Earth, found Clinton's behavior a private matter of no consequence with no public implications.

More here. For a brief but thorough refutation of the Anita Hill perjury, see here.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

WELL-KNOWN PEACEFUL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GAZA CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS ABOUT TO BE DISRUPTED BY ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE. AGAIN.

Elder caught this last week, and we got the JPost story dropped into our inbox, but we didn't think that it was getting any coverage outside of the Israeli press. Until we saw this stellar piece of conventional wisdom journalism from the Christian Post:

A recent attack on an 80-year-old Christian woman in Gaza City raised fear among Gaza’s Christian community not only of subsequent assaults, but also the fate of long-held peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbors. Claire Farah Tarazi was the latest victim of anti-Christian attacks in Gaza since Hamas took control of the area in June, reported The Jerusalem Post this past week. Tarazi’s house was invaded by a masked man who, during the course of the robbery, beat her hands with a club and also hit her head with a tool causing her to bleed. “As soon as I opened the door, he pushed me inside and shouted: ‘Where is the money, you infidel?’ I shouted back: I’m not an infidel - I’m a proud Palestinian Arab,” Tarazi recalled to the Post. The assailant locked her in her bedroom as he searched for money, but Tarazi was able to escape through another bedroom door and went to a neighbor for help. Tarazi’s relatives pointed out that she was attacked because of her faith.

Just how many times is the "peaceful" relationship between Gaza Muslims and Christians going to be endangered for the first time by an anti-Christian attack? Because the AP said last June that a Muslim attack on a Gaza Church "signaled the end of a relatively peaceful... relationship" between Gaza Christians and Muslims. And that was already pretty generous, since at that point the firebombing of Christian bookstores had been going on for months. It's like there's always this mythical state of Muslim-Christian harmony, which is perpetually being almost-disrupted by incessant, organized campaigns of anti-Christian violence.

Oh well. At least Reuters isn't blaming the Jews this time. Yet.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

LIBERAL ACADEMICS, MEDIA STILL MISUNDERSTANDING BASIC GRADE SCHOOL CONCEPT OF "FREEDOM"

Mark Steyn's article about Ahmadinejad is up at the NY Sun. It's mostly about the eyeroll inducing self-indulgence of anti-American and anti-Israel academics (they're so brave and edgy!) but there's another argument that deserves some fleshing out:

"I'm proud of my university today," Stina Reksten, a 28-year-old Columbia graduate student from Norway, told The New York Times. "I don't want to confuse the very dire human rights situation in Iran with the issue here, which is freedom of speech. This is about academic freedom." Isn't it always?... I don't know whether Stina Reksten, as a 28-year old Norwegian, can be held up as an exemplar of American youth, but she certainly seems to have mastered the lingo: We've invited the President of Iran to speak but let's not confuse "the very dire human rights situation" — or his nuclear program, or his Holocaust denial, or his role in the seizing of the embassy hostages, or his government's role in the deaths of American troops and Iraqi civilians — with the more important business of applauding ourselves for our celebration of "academic freedom."

The self-congratulatory ideological back patting would be frustrating enough if it wasn't also insanely stupid. Not to get pedantic, but freedom of speech and academic freedom aren't about helping people that you disagree with. They don't mean that academics are supposed to go out, find genocidal lunatics, and provide them with platforms for propaganda. That's not freedom of speech, that's making a choice to promote that particular kind of speech - to actively seek it out and bring it into the public dialogue. The correct question is: why would they choose to care about something like that? Why is it important that Ahmadinejad be brought into the discussion?

With the very deluded exception of liberal intellectual George Lakoff, there's no Western conception of freedom that says "freedom means having to do things you don't want to do or help people you disagree with." Most people would quite rightly say that having to spend blood and treasure helping your enemies is the opposite of freedom. Unless the people justifying Ahmadinejad's Columbia visit don't really consider him an enemy. Which is also something that should probably be discussed a little bit more.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

UN SET TO BLAME ISRAEL FOR INTENTIONAL, HAMAS-ENGINEERED HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN GAZA

Oh this is just too precious:

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned Sunday that if Israel carries out its threatened sanctions after declaring Gaza "hostile territory," it would likely create a humanitarian crisis. "In the past three months, 106 cargo trucks were allowed into the Gaza Strip per workday," the organization wrote in a paper issued in response to Israel's September 19 announcement of a change in policy towards Gaza in response to the continued shelling of western Negev communities. "This assured the prevention of a humanitarian crisis among the Gaza population. The continuation of this situation cannot be guaranteed if there is an additional deterioration regarding the restrictions at the Gaza border crossings," the paper said.

We'll leave aside how the near-daily bombardment of Sderot schoolchildren on their way to classes - at 7:30am when they're too far from buildings to seek shelter - is apparently not a humanitarian crisis worthy of UN attention. More importantly: Hamas has shut down medical clinics and prevented Israel from giving medical aid and blocked food shipments and halted humanitarian efforts. All as part of a deliberate campaign to intentionally create a humanitarian crisis - which they know from past experience will get blamed on Israel.

The UN, to nobody's surprise, is preparing to blame it on Israel.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

BRITISH SPY CHIEF CALLS OUT BBC FOR SHOVING AQ PROPAGANDA DOWN KIDS' THROATS, BLAMING US FOR 9/11

This is presumably part of the Britain's campaign to make sure that every single child is exposed to virulent anti-Western Islamist propaganda. They already get a little under a quarter of them in the mosques. Fifty percent of those mosques are already under quasi-Taliban control, which helps explain why they're supporting AQ leaders and putting out pamphlets encouraging their followers to prepare for jihad. And the kids who they can't get there, they get with TV shows:

Britain's former spy chief accused the BBC of "parroting" Al Qaeda propaganda to children as young as six. Dame Pauline Neville Jones, who is also a former BBC governor, is infuriated at the stance the corporation's Newsround programme took on the September 11 attacks. She accused the flagship children's news bulletin of feeding an "ugly undercurrent" which suggests the terrorist outrage was somehow justifiable. Newsround is aimed at viewers aged between six and 12. On its website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."

What do you expect? That's what the European left thinks. They rarely if ever deign to talk to anyone who disagrees with them (why would they bother, since their superior sophistication has given them unique insight?) So you can see how they wouldn't know that you're still not supposed to say things like that in polite company. Academia, yes. Polite company, no.

Also, quick reminder: the BBC lies.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

BILL RICHARDSON: AHMADINEJAD IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, WE SHOULD ENGAGE IRAN

Perhaps putting his faith in Jimmy Carter's well-known abilities to analyze and deal with Iran, Democratic foreign policy expert and former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson wants you to know that Ahmadinejad is nothing to worry about:

Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador, said that as president he would use his diplomatic experience to engage Muslim clerics, students, university professors and business leaders in Iran. He would leave Iranian President Ahmadinejad out of the loop, calling him "a minor player" in that nation's politics. "Forty percent of the vote in Iran in that last presidential election went to a moderate candidate," he said. "And I do believe that it makes sense to engage in a dialogue with Iran, knowing that it's going to be very difficult."

Forty percent? That's more than halfway to being more than half of the population! Sweet. Almost half of the Iranian population don't support the guy trying to start an apocalyptic war and thereby bring about the end of the world. If that's not a population ripe for engagement, we simply don't know what is. As war looms over the entire Middle East, it's worth revisiting this diplomatic gem from a few months ago:

Dismissing claims that Hizbullah has returned to its former strength in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL commander Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview on Thursday that the guerrilla group was practically non-existent south of the Litani River and that if the peacekeeping mission continued, the threat of war would be completely removed within three years.

There's never a threat that justifies American or Israeli concerns. Hezbollah? Israeli concerns about how they've rearmed are just excuses to criticize UNIFIL - except for those Katyushas that hit Israel two days later. Opps. Hamas? Israeli concerns about their growing strength are just excuses not to give Abbas security concessions - except for how Hamas rolled over the Gaza Strip right afterwards.

Ahmadinejad? He's powerless. And if he's not powerless, then he's being mistranslated by evil neocons. It's like the Simpsons joke about USA Today: nothing to worry about, everything is OK. And if diplomats are wrong and a concession really does end up costing thousands of Israeli lives - eh, at least they meant well. That's the great thing about being a left of center foreign policy expert - no one remembers how often you're wildly wrong.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

MY TALK WITH SEAN HANNITY!

When I heard that Dobson was going to be on Hannity's show yesterday I knew I had to call in. Amazingly, I got through pretty quickly. I got to talk to Sean about Dobson and his lack of support for both Rudy and Thompson & his possible 3rd party support. I got to express everything I've talked about here on this blog. At the end Hannity quoted this poll that obviously, has both of us concerned. He said he would convey my comments to Dobson during the interview.

I then listened intently while Hannity interviewed Dobson for about 45 minutes. I'm glad I got through when I did because there were no phone calls during their interview. I have to say that I was extremely proud of Hannity and once again disappointed in Dobson.

Dobson refuses to support Rudy because of abortion and yet when Hannity pointed out the strict constructionist judges and all the moral issues that Rudy stood up for while Mayor of New York, Dobson was not impressed. He also refuses to support Fred Thompson because Thompson supports State Marriage Amendments instead of a Federal Marriage Amendment. I find this to be incredulous. He is willing to almost guarantee Hillary the presidency because of a minor disagreement like that. First of all, a Federal Marriage Amendment is very unlikely. The U.S. Constitution rarely has amendments added to it and for good reason. I'm not against a Federal Marriage Amendment but as long as Thompson is for traditional marriage this isn't worth quibbling over.

Dobson says he will support a 3rd party if either Rudy or Thompson get the nomination. This will be disastrous and almost ensure Hillary a win. My only thought is that even though the poll says that 27% would vote for a nameless 3rd party I'm not sure that would really translate once a 3rd party person was running. It would have to be someone very charismatic and inspiring to get anywhere near 27%. I also think that Rudy might very well be a problem if there is a 3rd party but not necessarily with Thompson. There is no way that people would follow Dobson in his lack of support for Thompson over a difference in federal and state issues.

I would also like to know who this 3rd party candidate is going to be that Dobson would be able to support 100%. When I've looked at Thompson's conservative record the only thing I disagree with him on is his support for the National Endowment for the Arts. You aren't going to find a better candidate than that, especially at this stage of the game.

The other thing that I just couldn't get over was that Dobson thinks that by sabotaging Rudy and Thompson he is going to get one of the 2nd tier candidates to become viable. He said that there were other lower candidates that he might be able to support and who knows what could happen. He has been involved in the political game much longer than I and he knows that is extremely unlikely.

I was proud of Sean because Dobson was somewhat implying that by Sean and others like me being willing to support Fred or Rudy that we were only interested in winning politically. Sean said that couldn't be further from the truth, this was about right and wrong and that he just couldn't allow Hillary to become president for the sake of this country and the moral issues that he holds dearly. To that I say Amen!!

I think that by supporting a 3rd party candidate you will be indirectly electing Hillary Clinton. More babies will be slaughtered during her presidency, marriage will be in more jeopardy and this country will be far less safe, I have no doubt about it.

Someone recently accused me of being willing to vote for someone just because they have an R by their name. That couldn't be further from the truth. I've never supported Specter, Warner, McCain, Hagel or many other Republicans just because they have an R next to their name. It is a worldview and philosophy on life difference. Rudy may be liberal on some issues but he has a drastically different world view than Hillary Clinton. He would pick stellar supreme court justices and would keep this country safe and I do think he would continue to stand up for what is right including moral issues like he did in New York.

Bottom line: those of us who care passionately about moral issues cannot hand the reigns of the presidency over to Hillary. Bill Clinton did a lot of damage in his 8 years. We cannot allow Hillary to do worse just because of disagreements in our party.

COMPLETE VIDEO: THE HISTORY OF THE ACLU - AND WHY THEY MUST BE STOPPED

In case you missed them: Part I
Part II and III
Part IV
Part V

And now...the final...Part VI

Ignore Pacific Climate Shift - Just Blame Humans

Hardly a day goes by without a new claim about a human influence on climate. In the last 18 months we've been told, not once but three times, that the air circulation across the tropical Pacific is slowing down and it's all our fault.

The problem is that the scientific papers making those claims have somehow managed to completely ignore the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976 despite this being well-known to climatologists. The changes caused by that climate shift can account for the altered circulation pattern. Despite what the three papers say we don't need to include any human influence.

Was the omission of the Climate Shift deliberate or accidental through ignorance? Neither is particularly palatable in such a controversial field where we expect, but don't always get, impartial and accurate science.

Of course such an omission in peer-reviewed papers doesn't reflect well on the reviewers and journals in question, but many of us are used to that bias by now.

See the full analysis here (PDF)

Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

When & why I left the Democrat party

Post below excerpted from The Anchoress. See the original for links


My turn from left to right began with the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas debacle, and Captain Ed does a great job of demonstrating in this post exactly how despicable and underhanded was the behavior of the left in that circumstance.

Ed has been writing about Clarence Thomas for several days now, and all of his posts are worth reading, but do read that first one I've linked to, because I remember watching that exchange and becoming more and more frustrated by what I saw members of my party doing. I remember watching this "high-tech lynching" and knowing that Thomas was correct; that was exactly what it was. I remember people testifying on behalf of Thomas and both the press and the congress simply dismissing them (in much the same way Democrats dismissed Gen. David Petraeus, recently) before they'd opened their mouths. I remember the whole sense of bared-teeth salivation coming from my party, and I remember thinking, "wait.this isn't right." It was like a coming of age.

I remember reading my local newspaper and finally canceling it, because the writing had clearly and distinctly moved from "reportage" to "propaganda" in the space of what seemed like a few weeks. When I called to cancel the subscription they asked why and I told them pretty much this: "I'm very interested in these hearings, and I look to the paper for information and instead I'm being served something very different from what my own eyes are seeing, what my own brain is receiving. Instead of unbiased information that allows me to decide for myself, I'm getting something very unbalanced, and I don't want it."

A few hours later a woman from that newspaper actually called me up and asked me if it was true that I had canceled my subscription because of their coverage. I said yes, and she said, "you mean you actually believe him?" I was stunned. "Yes, I do," I said. "And I can't believe you're calling me like this. Your job is supposed to be about informing, not persuading." She sputtered but by then I was hanging up.

The Clarence Thomas hearings were the beginning, for me. They were when I began to open my eyes and see something happening within my party - the Democrat party my entire family had been loyal to for as long as I could remember - that I really did not like.

I didn't leave the left just then. But I started paying more attention to everything, and trusting the press and my own party a bit less.then a bit less.then a bit less. When it got to the point where I felt I was no longer allowed to dissent from the "Democratic position" without being thought of as a "bad person," when it began to feel like I was simply supposed to "fall in line," and parrot the party, when I began to feel completely disrespected by other Democrats for daring to think for myself and form my own opinions, (when I was essentially made to feel that I was not entitled to those opinions or to full respect for them), and when it became clear to me that the word "liberal" no longer meant "open-minded, respectful and broad" but quite the opposite, that's when I finally left the left.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

CHAVEZ CUTS OFF VENEZUELA'S NOSE TO SPITE U.S. FACE

More on the Muslim/Communist alliance emerges as Chavez, ever willing to allow the people of Venezuela bear the brunt of his far left cause, commits the country to a possible loss of $3.7 billion per year.

So much does Chavez despise the U.S. that he is negotiating a deal to export oil to China (with a shipping time of 30 days) rather than ship it to the U.S. which takes only five or six days. The cost of the oil will have to be slashed considerably to offset the cost of the shipping, which could result in a loss of $5 to $10 million per day.

NYTIMES: TEXAS PROVES THAT CAPPING MALPRACTICE AWARDS INCREASES SERVICE

NYTIMES:

In Texas, it can be a long wait for a doctor: up to six months.

That is not for an appointment. That is the time it can take the Texas Medical Board to process applications to practice.

Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.

The influx, raising the state’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical board’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.

• THE DEMS OPPOSE THIS, EVEN THOUGH THE LACK OF CAPS - THE STATUS QUO - HAS A VERY NEGATIVE EFFECT.
• FOR EXAMPLE, IN NY THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH OBE-GYN'S WHO'LL PERFORM NORMAL CHILDBIRTH BECAUSE OF THE COST OF MALPRACTICE INSURANCE (COURTESY OF LAWYERS LIKE JOHN EDWARDS).

FREE BURMA!

I have been very concerned about the situation in Myanmar/Burma. Incognito has done some excellent research and written several very comprehensive posts on what is going over there. Please take the time to read them.

In her first post, "Living In Fear in Myanmar fka Burma- and the Buddhist protests", she explains the history of Burma and how they've gotten to the place they are now. In her second one she gives the details on the Free Burma Blogger Campaign. I encourage everyone to go to their site and join the list of participants and to grab one of their graphics and put it on your blog. I've got a smaller version of this graphic in my sidebar.


The above video is one that was smuggled out since there has been a major crackdown there on any communication. It gives just a glimpse of some of the violence that is going on there.

Here are Incognito's posts and other bloggers who have also posted on this important issue, take the time to check them out:
October 4th, Free Burma blogger campaign!
Living In Fear in Myanmar fka Burma- and the Buddhist protests
Gateway Pundit
Horrible Violence in Burma Caught on Tape!--Gateway Pundit
Sister Toldjah
Big Girl Pants
Real World Libertarian
Born Again Redneck

Articles on the Crisis:
Burma: UN envoy meets top general as regime blames foreigners for violence

A SOLUTION TO AYAAN'S SECURITY PROBLEM

LGF:

the claim published by Expatica that the United States had “refused” to pay for her security was not correct; as a Dutch citizen, she does not qualify for protection under US law. It’s the Dutch government who has refused to pay for her security.

According to corrected reports,

they’re [ the US Gov't] legally unable to do so for anyone who isn’t a citizen. Which prompts the question: Why didn’t they grant her citizenship instead of permanent residency?

I GOTTA BETTER SOLUTION:

I suggest that the PM of Holland appoint her a special Ambassador to the USA, then the Diplomatic Security Service (DS) Service MUST provide her security - as they did for Ahmadinejad. This might be easier than granting her citizenship - or it could be a bridge until she gets US citizenship.

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE WEBSITE:

In the United States, Diplomatic Security personnel protect the Secretary of State and high-ranking foreign dignitaries and officials visiting the United States,

WILL SOMEONE CALL AYAAN AND THE DUTCH PM AND CONDI RICE AND TELL THEM THIS, PLEASE.

VIDEO: WHY THE ACLU MUST BE STOPPED - PART 5

Why we must Stop the ACLU - Part V:


MORE HERE:
ACLU and National Abortion Federation Criticize Decision by U.S. Supreme Court Upholding Federal Abortion Ban
Justice Ginsburg: Watchdog Plan 'Scary'
Ginsburg And Foreign Law In Interpreting Our Constitution
The Problem with the Culture of Drive-Thru Abortions
ACLU Loses Court Battle to DoD and Boy Scouts

WHAT FLAG DOES OBAMA WEAR ON HIS LAPEL?

DOUG ROSS HAS THE ZOOMED IN ON OBAMA'S LAPEL.

BIRD FLU HAS MUTATED: NOW MORE TRANSMISSABLE TO HUMANS

REUTERS/VIA BREITBART:

The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday.

The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans," said Kawaoka, who led the study.

"The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus," Kawaoka said.

Recent samples of virus taken from birds in Africa and Europe all carry the mutation, Kawaoka and colleagues report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens.

THIS IS THE STEP BEFORE THE ONE WE MUST SHUDDER TO THINK ABOUT: H2H. STAY TUNED...

GAZAN KIDS FLUNK MATH AND ARABIC - BUT I BETCHYA THEY PASS JIHAD

HAARETZ/AP:

High number of students in Gaza UN-run schools fail math, Arabic

Large numbers of students in United Nations-run schools in Gaza have flunked achievement tests in math and Arabic, the agency said Thursday, attributing the poor showing to violence, overcrowding and poverty.

More than two-thirds of students in grades four through nine failed math, and more than one-third did poorly in Arabic, said the UN Relief and Works Agency, which runs schools for more than half a million children of Palestinian refugees across the Arab world. Ninety percent of Gaza sixth-graders failed the math test, UNRWA said.

I SAY:

• CHILDREN ARE WHAT THEY ARE TAUGHT.
• THESE CHILDREN ARE DUMB, GENOCIDAL HATE MACHINES.
• PITY.

WONDERFUL ESSAY ON THIS FROM THE BRILLIANT PAT SANTY.

UPDATE: VIDEO OF JIHADI CHILD ABUSE HERE.

A RECAP OF QUOTES FROM DEFEATIST DEMOCRATS SLANDERING OUR TROOPS

A DOZEN DIRECT QUOTES IN WHICH LEADING DEMS SLANDER THE TROOPS AT POWER LINE.

I SAY:

• THE DEMOCRAT PARTY - AS IT'S NOW CONSTITUTED - HATES THE TROOPS AND HATE THE PENTAGON AND HATE DEFENSE SPENDING.
• THE SO-CALLED LEADERSHIP OF THE DEMS HAVE MORE IN COMMON WITH THE KOSSACKS AND THE MOVE-ON'ERS THAN FDR, TRUMAN, JFK OR SCOOP.
• TODAY, IT'S THE PARTY OF LAMONT, NOT LIEBERMAN.
• 40% OF THE DEMOCRATS WANT AMERICA TO LOSE IN IRAQ, OR DON'T CARE IF WE LOSE IN IRAQ.
• THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE GREAT AND GOOD NATION.
• THEY ARE NOT FIT TO LEAD AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH THE DEFENSE OF THE FREE WORLD.
  

UPDATE: CONFEDERATE YANKEE SUGGESTS THAT THE DEMS RENAME THEIR PARTY, BUT KEEP THEIR APT SYMBOL.

I HAVE A SUGGESTION:

• THEY SHOULD CALL THEMSELVES THE AMERICAN BAATH PARTY.

IS AYAAN ALI HIRSI A LIVING SUDATENLAND?

JIHAD WATCH:

"How many days will he give Ayaan? Another week to live? A month? And then it would be time for the butchers of fundamentalist Islam to move in?"

By now, while I have been swamped with other work and haven't been able to post anything about it, you have no doubt heard that the courageous ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali has returned to the Netherlands -- whether temporarily or permanently is unclear -- as the Dutch government stopped paying for her security detail in the United States. That seems to be rather an odd arrangement in the first place, particularly after the Dutch tried to revoke her Dutch citizenship, but she still retains that citizenship. And this story explains that "as a Dutch citizen, Ayaan does not qualify for protection in the United States under US laws and regulations." ...

This sort of protection is expensive. Society bears the costs because freedom of opinion, a cornerstone of our culture, is on the line. The extremists, for their part, are prepared to risk their own lives to kill those under government protection.

The costs of protection are completely disproportionate to the outcome: the continued existence of our values and norms.

IF WE LET THE ENEMY MURDER HER IT'D BE LIKE LETTING HITLER GET AWAY WITH KRISTALNACHT AND TAKING THE SUDATENLAND.

EARLIER POST HERE.

REAL STORY BEHIND HIRSI ALI'S RETURN TO HOLLAND

Little Green Footballs finds that the Expatica article from earlier was inaccurate - it wasn't that the US authorities had actually refused to pay for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's protection, but that she didn't have the proper legal status to receive it, and the Dutch government was the one refusing to pay for her security:

There are exactly five people that the Dutch government has to protect against death threats from radical Islamists.

This sort of protection is expensive. Society bears the costs because freedom of opinion, a cornerstone of our culture, is on the line. The extremists, for their part, are prepared to risk their own lives to kill those under government protection.

The costs of protection are completely disproportionate to the outcome: the continued existence of our values and norms.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the sixth person granted protection by the Dutch government. She began receiving threats when, as a Dutch citizen and member of the parliament, she spoke out critically against political Islam. After the so-called “passport scandal,” when the Dutch minister of immigration and integration threatened to confiscate her passport after Ayaan had been accused of lying about her name and birth date when she first arrived in the Netherlands, she moved to the United States, which precipitated a sharp upswing in her career within only a few months. She wrote a bestseller and landed a job at the American Enterprise Institute. But as a Dutch citizen, Ayaan does not qualify for protection in the United States under US laws and regulations.

Contrary to what many in the Netherlands believe about the success of her autobiography, she is not wealthy. She could not pay for the kind of protection she needs out of her own pocket — no matter how much she would like to do so. Besides, the Dutch government apparently failed to find the right US officials with whom they could have reached an agreement. Under a decision by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Balin, the protection paid for by the Dutch government expired on Oct. 1. Ayaan returned to the Netherlands, because without protection she doesn’t have a day left to live.

I think the subject for debate now is to provide Hirsi Ali with proper legal status within the US that can enable her to get protection from US security sources, if she wants to continue to work and live in America. She should be given legal status, even if she does want to return to work in Holland.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN ATHEISTS ARE JUST ANTI-SEMITES AT HEART

Virulent anti-Semitism is very often a manifestation of anti-Christianism. Militant anti-Christian atheists hate the Jews because Jesus was Jewish, and because Christianity is based on the foundation of the Jewish Scriptures. The usual obvious example is the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS' Party, which attempted to create a non-Christian German paganism to replace the Christianity they considered a Jewish religion.

Today we learn of another example. The militant atheist Richard Dawkins, who is very proud of his scientific skepticism, believes and spouts the usual anti-Semitic line about Jewish domination of American politics:

"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see," Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist who advocates atheism, told the Guardian newspaper.

Mearsheimer & Walt, David Duke, nor Joseph Goebbels could have said it better.

"SUN STILL APPEARS TO BE MAIN FORCING AGENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE"

Reply to Lockwood and Froehlich - The persistent role of the Sun in climate Forcing

In a recent paper (ref. [1]) Mike Lockwood and Claus Froehlich have argued that recent trends in solar climate forcing have been in the wrong direction to account for "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures". These authors accept that "there is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century." But they argue that this historical link between the Sun and climate came to an end about 20 years ago. Here we rebut their argument comprehensively. [...]

By Lockwood and Froehlich's own data, solar magnetic activity is still high compared with 100 years ago. As to when the recent easing of activity began, counts of cosmic-ray muons at low altitudes were historically low when the muon record-keeping ended in the early 1990s (ref. [7]). That implies an increase in relevant solar magnetic activity continuing till that time. A scarcity of muons can be linked to elevated global temperatures by a reduction in low cloud cover (ref. [8]) and low cloudiness was indeed at a minimum around 1992-93. By other solar indicators, like those cited by Lockwood and Froehlich, the minimum muon counts may well be a little higher in the current solar cycles. That would explain the pause in global warming evident in our Table as well as in Lockwood and Fr”hlich's own Fig. 1e.

That would explain the pause in global warming evident especially in the ocean (Fig. 1) and the troposphere (Fig. 3). The continuing rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentrations during the past 10-15 years has apparently been unable to overrule the flattening of the temperature trend as a result of the Sun settling at a high, but no longer increasing, level of magnetic activity. Contrary to the argument of Lockwood and Froehlich, the Sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change.

FULL PAPER here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Crazy General Appoints Himself Chief Censor

In response to Rush Limbaugh's criticism of the phonies that Democrats have often used to criticize the war in Iraq, the Congressional Democrats and their allies insist on misrepresenting Rush as saying that ALL military critics of the war are phonies. One of the critics concerned is retired General Wesley Clark -- well-known for giving an order to oppose Russian troops in Kosovo that his British subordinate (General Jackson) fortunately refused to follow. As we see here, the mad general accuses Rush of "censoring" critics of the war by his comments. Leftists always see any challenge to them as "censorship".

So does the mad general object to any such censorship? Not at all. He wants to censor Rush and all like him. He wants to get Rush off the air. He says Rush stepped over the line. Aren't we lucky to have a mad general telling us what is allowable speech and what is not? More background and comments here and here and here

The mad general is also a seething antisemite. He blames the "New York money people" (rich Jews) for pushing America into war. But the Left still love him all the same. They were antisemitic in Hitler's day and they have gone back to that -- "like a dog returning to it vomit", as the Bible says. (Proverbs 26:11).

Fortunately, the owner of the company that airs Limbaugh's show is not buying any of the nonsense.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

THEY DON'T MEAN MORAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT

In the aftermath of the September Eleventh Atrocities, Harvard University in June, 2002, featured a graduation address by student Zayed Yasin which he called "My American Jihad." In his speech, Yasin claimed:

Jihad, in its truest and purest form, the form to which all Muslims aspire, is the determination to do right, to do justice even against your own interests. It is an individual struggle for personal moral behavior.

Does he really think so? Maybe. But many Muslims don't share that view. They think jihad means a military struggle against infidels.

Latest example? Hizb Ut Tahir, not-yet-banned in Britain, is exhorting British Muslims to fight in the worldwide Islamist war:

Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to overthrow democracy and establish a worldwide Islamic theocracy, distributed leaflets to young Muslims inciting them to resist the occupation of Islamic lands, according to a TV documentary by a former group member.

One leaflet read: "Your forefathers destroyed the first crusader campaigns. Should you not proceed like them and destroy the new crusaders?

"Let the armies move to help the Muslims in Iraq, for they seek your help." Another leaflet, handed out last August, pours scorn on the UN and tells followers to embark on a Jihad, or "holy war".

Nor do they intend to fight only in the Middle East:

Maher, a former friend of the bombers who tried to blow up Glasgow Airport in June and the organisation's north-east 'director' until he left in 2005, claims its aims are the same the world over.

He says its British disciples believe they will eventually fight on these shores.

"Hizb ut Tahrir despises democracy and believes Shariah law must be imposed over the whole world, by force if necessary," he said.

"I think unless we challenge this we are sleepwalking into a very dangerous future."

Sleepwalking over a cliff.

Years before the September Eleventh Atrocities, in 1997, Douglas Streusand published an article discussing the meaning of the word "jihad." It is well worth reading in its entirety. He concludes:

Muslims today can mean many things by jihad-the jurists' warfare bounded by specific conditions, Ibn Taymiya's revolt against an impious ruler, the Sufi's moral self-improvement, or the modernist's notion of political and social reform. The disagreement among Muslims over the interpretation of jihad is genuine and deeply rooted in the diversity of Islamic thought. The unmistakable predominance of jihad as warfare in Shari'a writing does not mean that Muslims today must view jihad as the jurists did a millenium ago. Classical texts speak only to, not for, contemporary Muslims. A non-Muslim cannot assert that jihad always means violence or that all Muslims believe in jihad as warfare.

Conversely, the discord over the meaning of jihad permits deliberate deception, such as the CAIR statement cited above. A Muslim can honestly dismiss jihad as warfare, but he cannot deny the existence of this concept. As the editor of the "Diary of a Mujahid" writes, "some deny it, while others explain it away, yet others frown on it to hide their own weakness."

The term jihad should cause little confusion, for context almost always indicates what a speaker intends. The variant interpretations are so deeply embedded in Islamic intellectual traditions that the usage of jihad is unlikely to be ambiguous. An advocate of jihad as warfare indicates so through his goals. A Sufi uses the term mujahada or specifies the greater jihad. Bourguiba clearly did not advocate violence to improve education and development in Tunisia. When ambiguity does exist, it may well be deliberate. In the case of Arafat's statement about a "jihad for Jerusalem," he intended his Muslim audience to hear a call to arms while falling back on the peaceful definition to allay concerns in Israel and the West. Only his later actions reveal whether he was co-opting Islamists by adopting their rhetoric or duping Israelis by hiding his violent intentions.

Context.

When you've got pipe-bombs, remote-controlled model boats, and videos you made showing would-be jihadis how to make remote controlled terror bombs, the jihad you're talking about probably isn't moral self improvement.

THE "ABU-GRAIHBING" OF BLACKWATER CONTINUES AT THE NYTIMES

• THE NYTIMES HAS RUN 44 STORIES ON BLACKWATER SINCE 9/17.
• EVERYDAY, THE FRONT-PAGE HAS HAD A LEAD STORY ON SOME ASPECT OF IT.
• THEY HAVE DONE EDITORIALS, AND THEIR LEFT-WING HATCHET-MEN/COLUMNISTS HAVE DONE COLUMNS.
• OBVIOUSLY, THEY'RE ON A CAMPAIGN TO DISCREDIT THE IRAQ WAR ANY WAY THEY CAN, AND SINCE THE MILITARY NEWS IS GOOD, THEY'RE GOING AFTER THE PRIVATE FIRM WHICH PROTECTS OUR BUREAUCRATS WHO WORK THERE.
• I GUESS THEY FIGURE IF THEY CAN'T GET BUSH TO WITHDRAW, MAYBE THEY CAN HURT OUR SIDE BY GETTING BLACKWATER TO WITHDRAW.
• THE NYTIMES: WORKING NON-STOP FOR THE ENEMY.
• EARLIER POST HERE.

ANN COULTER: WILL ROGERS - ONLY SEXY

ANN COULTER:

Liberals are hopping mad because Rush Limbaugh referred to phony soldiers as "phony soldiers." They claim he was accusing all Democrats in the military of being "phony."

True, all Democrats in the military are not phony soldiers, but all phony soldiers seem to be Democrats.

I LOVE HER; SHE'S GREAT.

I GOTTA GET THIS BOOK!

CLEAN WATER, BAD PIPES AND GOOD FILTERS

Today, there's a fascinating op-ed in the NYTIMES. RTWT.

Basically, it shows that water is dirtier than ever, and that we need to treat it before we drink it, but that it is foolish to treat the ALL water before it goes into the general mains and pipes because there are so many leaks (most repeat MOST of it leaks), and because most of the water we use is not for drinking.

I'm not sure he has the right solution, but it's worth debating. If everybody/every building bought and used good filters, then we wouldn't have to redo the nation's pipes. Makes sense. The thing is - still and always: WHO PAYS? If water is a utility than the utility pays. But maybe it'd be better if this was a private and personal responsibility. Something landlords and homeowners are required to do.

Dunno.