Syria, Iran and Hezbollah terror

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon, originally published in February 2005, it's just as timely today. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

U.S. Blames Syria, Iran For Israeli Soldiers' Kidnapping

..."The United States condemns in the strongest terms this unprovoked act of terrorism, which was timed to exacerbate already high tensions in the region and sow further violence. We also hold Syria and Iran, which have provided long-standing support for Hezbollah, responsible for today's violence. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of the Israeli soldiers," reads a statement released by the White House press secretary...

(bold emphasis mine) This has been comming for a while now. The seeds were planted long ago. You don't always get to pick and choose the battles you want to fight.


Related links:

Iran, Hezbollah and Terror

Iran, Syria and the Hamas government -- sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century?
   
 

Children as human shields

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for today's cartoon, titled "Palestinian Body Armor". You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

I also did a post about this subject last April. The Cox and Forkum site has some good excerpts from articles and many links, including some photos at the Little Green Footballs blog.

One of the articles linked to is Robert Tracinski's examination of
The Suicide Bomb Morality. Tracinski put's it succinctly:

The West's conflict with Islamic terrorism is more than a "clash of civilizations." It is, at root, a clash between two world views and two moral models, a clash much wider and more important than any political conflict...

The Palestinians show us a society based on sacrifice in its purest, most fanatical form. It is a society built around a single moral model: the suicide bomber, who is lionized on billboards, on television, in popular songs. And this is not just the propaganda of the corrupt Palestinian rulers...

...For the great mass of Palestinians this worship of sacrifice is sincere. By rejecting every chance at peace and coexistence with Israel--breaking every truce and turning down every peace offer--they have lost everything and gained nothing. Taking the suicide bomber as their moral model, the Palestinians seek to emulate his fate: in their lust to destroy Israel, they are willing to accept the utter destruction and collapse of their own society.

Look to the other side of the security barrier and you see a very different society. While the Palestinians raise their children on visions of blood and murder, the Israelis are largely preoccupied by the business of producing, creating, making a living. Consider, for example, the vast Gaza greenhouses handed over from the departing Israelis to the Palestinians. In the hands of the society that "made the desert bloom," these greenhouses produced millions of dollars worth of produce. Under Palestinian control, they were looted and their products have literally been left to rot. As with the Cold War examples of East and West Berlin, Gaza and Israel offer side-by-side laboratories for opposing moralities.

The contrast to America--a nation founded on the right to "the pursuit of happiness"--is even more vivid...

The distinctive model for American culture is not the suicide bomber but the "self-made man": the entrepreneur who achieves prosperity by hard work and ingenuity. Implicitly, we recognize that the proper business of life is not sacrifice but achievement. This is the actual code by which most Americans live.

The tragedy is that we don't recognize it.

We are still too morally intimidated by unquestioned traditions, or by the confused invocation of the "sacrifice" of our courageous soldiers--which fails to recognize that it is an act of the most profound self-interest to resist the rule of tyranny and terror. And so we pay lip service to the nobility of sacrifice.

This lip service undercuts our certainty and moral clarity, not only in dealing with terrorism, but also at home...

...Ayn Rand remains a controversial figure, scoffed at by both left and right. But this phrase, "perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing"--could there be a better description of the Palestinians' suicide bomb society?

Look at the horrific plight the Palestinians have chosen, and you can observe the real meaning of a culture of self-sacrifice. Look at America, by comparison, and you can see the life-affirming benevolence of a culture of rational self-interest...

(bold emphasis mine) This is an excellent article, not very long and well worth reading the whole thing.





Related links:

Children raised in a murder-suicide culture

Palestinian Human Shield Watch

Those Poor, Victimized Palestinian Civilians

 

Ann Coulter is a Grateful Dead Fan!

I found this link in Nealz Nuze, to an interview with Ann Coulter:

"Deadheads Are What Liberals Claim to Be But Aren't"

This interview by Taylor Hill for Jambands.com is full of fun suprises. A few excerpts, starting with the introduction:

When I called the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, whose chairwoman gives speeches on topics with titles like "The Failures of Feminism", and told the gatekeeper there that I wanted to do an interview with Ann Coulter solely about the Grateful Dead, there was a small pause. Then she recovered and politely told me to send her an e-mail, which she would forward to Ann. That, I expected, would be the end of it.

When I got home that night, and saw an e-mail in my box from Ann Coulter, I thought "how polite of her to send a rejection letter rather than simply ignoring my proposal." Instead, I found that she had somehow written "I'd love to! Good website!" While she was delayed by a round of speeches to make up due to strep throat, and other events life throws out, we kept shooting e-mails back and forth and I discovered a secret that I will reveal despite the damage to her reputation that it may cause: Ann is really cool and really funny. The few friends I talked with about this said "What? You of all people are getting along with Ann Coulter?!" It was easy and simple to do: we never talked policy. It was a joy talking with her, even if we don't agree on everything (most politics, and "Alabama Getaway" sucks).

What followed was the most surreal interview I have ever done in my life. It involves smearing oneself with purple Crisco, Kanye (Ann's a fan), slews of Reagan and Bush appointees leaving the Justice Department to go to Dead shows, lamentation for the neglected "Pride of Cucamonga," getting inside info on the Monica Lewinsky scandal by being a Deadhead, and saying goodbye to Jerry in Golden Gate Park. Some of her answers WILL piss people off, but there's no doubting her tie-dyed credentials – even if the dye is much more red than blue. Her latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, was published earlier this month...

Now just a few excerpts from the interview (bold emphasis mine):

TH: What exactly do you love about the Grateful Dead?

AC: The tie-dye of course. Truth be told I hated tie-dye, though I finally broke down and would wear tie-dyed Dead shirts to concerts solely as a tribute to my fellow Deadheads.

Oddly enough, I like the music. No one believes that I never took drugs at Dead shows (except for the massive clouds of passive marijuana smoke) but I went because I really liked the music. There are various groups I get enthusiastic about for awhile, but of all the music I've listened to over the years, the Grateful Dead is the one band I never grow tired of. Apparently, the same is true of me for ski-lift operators.

Moreover, I really like Deadheads and the whole Dead concert scene: the tailgating, the tie-dye uniforms, the camaraderie – it was like NASCAR for potheads. You always felt like you were with family at a Dead show – a rather odd, psychedelic family that sometimes lived in a VW bus and sold frightening looking “veggie burritos.” But whatever their myriad interests, clothing choices, and interest in illicit drugs, true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren't: unique, free-thinking, open, kind, and interested in different ideas. Also, excellent dancers! Watching a Deadhead dance is truly something to behold.

Somewhat contrary to the image of Deadheads as hippies, the Dead were huge in my hometown of New Canaan, CT, which is a pretty preppie town... We toyed with the idea of making "Truckin'" our prom song with a "Long Strange Trip" theme, but we ended up with some dorky rainbow theme instead. I tend to associate the Dead with lacrosse players and my favorite fraternities, Fiji and Theta Delt.

The one time I missed not being able to go to Dead shows more than any other since Jerry died was during the Clinton impeachment. There was so much viciousness - killed cats, punctured tires, threats, investigations and slander against those of us favoring impeachment. (Anthony Pellicano, you'll recall – the Hollywood private investigator now accused of criminal conspiracy, attempted murder, and making criminal threats – was working for the Clintons during the Monica Lewinsky investigation.) I don't really care what people say about me – I'm a Christian so there's nothing anyone can ever do to me – but I kept thinking: “Boy, would I like to go to a Dead show and dance with happy, friendly deadheads for just one night!”

"Deadheads believe in freedom – not a government telling people how much water they can have in their toilets or where they can smoke or whether they should be allowed to own a gun."

TH: It's time to name names. Who are the other Deadheads who have infiltrated the conservative movement?

AC: As a Deadhead and a freedom-lover, I am wounded to the bone that you think the two do not naturally go hand in hand. The Deadheads I just met casually and not through conservative politics were almost always right-thinking, whatever they called themselves. Deadheads believe in freedom – not a government telling people how much water they can have in their toilets or where they can smoke or whether they should be allowed to own a gun. (Remember the photos of Jerry testifying before some Congressional committee while chain smoking? Yeah, he'd really bond with Henry Waxman.)

One of my Dead friends I met at Vail made candles for Grateful Dead merchandizing. His daily routine consisted of waking up, smoking a bowl, and turning on the Rush Limbaugh radio show while he made his candles. (It's true. He's so far out there he practices this weird, freaky ritual known as “commerce.” Don't try telling me pot is harmless!)

Also there was a big Deadhead Christian group that handed out terrific pamphlets at Dead shows. Admittedly, many of them found God staring into a puddle while high on LSD, but whatever the path, they were very serious Christians – they made Jerry Falwell sound like a secularist.

Either Bobby or Jerry was asked by a Rolling Stone interviewer to denounce all the Young Reaganites attending their concerts in the 80's, and whichever one it was not only refused to attack the young Republicans, but said he liked some of those “rightist” ideas. Consider that when the Dead decided to do something to save the Rain Forest, they didn't harangue poverty-stricken Third Worlders to give up washing machines and electricity. They did it the free market way: buying up parts of the Rain Forest, parcel by parcel.

And they provided the Lithuanian basketball team – recently liberated from the Soviet yoke – with totally cool uniforms so they could play in the 1992 Olympics.

After Jerry died, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) gave an incredibly touching tribute to Jerry Garcia and the good work the Dead's Rex Foundation had done promoting the arts privately – in contradistinction to millionaire actresses standing up in $50,000 gowns at the Oscars and demanding that hardworking waitresses and truck drivers be forced to support the arts through government taxation. You can look it up in the Congressional Record.

But to answer your question, Senator, I personally have loads and loads of friends who are right-wingers and Deadheads. I couldn't possibly name them all. For starters, obviously, there's Angela Lansbury. She gave me my first psychedelic tie-dyed tube top at a Dead show just outside Tucson. Just kidding. There are: ...

Now, I can't give the whole thing away! You'll just have to read the whole article. Regardless of wether or not you are a Grateful Dead fan, I think it's pretty interesting, and reveals a side of Ann Coulter I haven't seen before. It makes for a facinating and fun read.

Just how dhimmi is England?

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon, "Perils before Swine". You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

A British town council bans pig toys and images, because they are offensive to Muslims. The Church of England is considering getting rid of St. George as the Patron Saint of England because he is too offensive to modern day Muslims. One might well ask how dhimmi is England.

British Author Melanie Phillips, in her blogpost State of denial, gives us some shocking revealations about the state of dhimmitude in Britain today.

Today marks one year since the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London. What have the British learned in that time? Melanie tells us:

...We learn from the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Anti-Terrorism Branch, Peter Clarke, that no fewer than 70 further such terrorist plots are currently under investigation. That is a simply astounding number. This is not terrorism as conventionally understood, but a war.

Meanwhile an opinion poll reveals that, while the vast majority of British Muslims do not support terror, a horrifying number do so; while even more harbour the kind of extremist views which create the sea in which terrorism swims.

Many thousands of British Muslims are patriotic, law-abiding citizens. Indeed, last weekend saw the death in action of a British Muslim soldier, Jabron Hashmi, who was killed fighting for his country against the Taleban in Afghanistan.

Yet according to the Populus poll, 13 per cent of Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims believe the 7/7 bombers should be regarded as martyrs; between seven and 16 per cent per cent think suicide attacks on British targets can be justified; and two per cent would be proud if a family member joined al Qaeda, with a further 16 per cent who would be indifferent.

That represents hundreds of thousands of British Muslims who either justify or support the murder of their fellow citizens. These numbers are utterly appalling.

Moreover, they are consistent with many other similar findings. Only last week, a Pew opinion poll across Europe revealed that, while Britain was more sympathetic to its Muslim minority than was any other country, British Muslims hated their own country, the west and the Jews more than Muslims anywhere else...

Britain bends over backwards to accomodate Muslims, and yet they have the angriest Mulsim population? Could it be that British multi-culturalism encourages and feeds that anger, causing radical Muslims to believe they have the RIGHT to be angry and to strike back at the enemy with impunity?

13 percent of 1.6 British Muslims is 208,000 people who approved of the London subway terrorist attacks. Sounds to me like 208,000 people need to be deported.

...The essence of the problem is that it is not enough — necessary as it is — to detect and thwart terrorist plots. Just as crucial is to address the hatred and lies that are driving this murderous violence.

In particular, what needs to be combated with the utmost vigour is the Muslim culture of grievance, the paranoid belief that the west is engaged in a conspiracy to aggressively attack and destroy the Islamic world.

This delusion has meant that many Muslims misrepresent Islamist aggression as self-defence, and the west’s attempt to defend itself as aggression. This double-think means that Britain is itself blamed for the attacks mounted upon it...

And where do these ideas come from? How are they perpetuated, and why are they not opposed? Here are some clues:

...Saudi Arabia has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting this agenda of holy war against the west throughout the world. This money funds extremism in many British Muslim institutions, and has helped produce a climate of such irrationality that many British Muslims actually believe that 9/11 was an American or Zionist plot.

But instead of fighting these warped ideas, many in the British establishment are appeasing them...

...the establishment — which, in the name of multiculturalism, has a long record of appeasing minorities — is terrified to identify the cause of this terrorism as religious fanaticism, because it fears this might tar all Muslims with the same brush...

The government has created committees on extremism to advise them on how to deal with extremists, but the committees themselves are packed with Islamic extremists. Quite naturally, all the solutions they offer are appeasment at any cost. It's insane. Multi-culturalism gone wild.

Melanie has some sensible ideas for how to deal with the extremists:

...Instead of appeasing extremism, the government should be seeking out, promoting and protecting the growing number of truly moderate Muslims — many of them young professionals — who are wholly opposed to their radicalised institutions and desperate to rid their community of the extremism that so disfigures it.

The Government should send Muslims the message that they are welcome and respected members of the community who are free to practise their faith — but that the abuse of that faith to incite violence or hatred will not be tolerated.

That means finding out what is being taught and preached in mosques and madrassahs, on campus and in prisons, and where this is inciting violence or hatred ensuring that those responsible will be prosecuted or thrown out of the country.

And at the same time, it must also end the cultural cringe of multiculturalism and reassert British national identity rooted in the particulars of this island’s history, laws religion and culture...

(bold emphasis mine) It was hard to choose excerpts, breaking it up into excerpts just doesn't do it justice. There's a lot of good stuff in this article, I recommend reading the whole thing.

Melanie is currently on tour, promoting her latest book:



"Londonistan"


Related links:

7/7: REMEMBRANCE & DHIMMITUDE

“I am still incensed that the Muslim community spends more time whingeing about “islamophobia” than they do trying to route out extremism. I am incensed that whenever question about terrorist attacks by young British Muslims is posed Muslim representatives seem to be far more keen to blame Pres. Bush, Blair, Sharon or anyone else than the evil in their midst.”

Remember the 7/7 Victims

Did these people deserve to die?


UPDATE 07/14/06

Steven Emerson interviews Melanie Phillips

 

"Honor" killings of Muslim women in Europe

Another good article from the Brussels Journal blog, is about "honor" killings of Muslim women in Europe, and a recent case in Denmark:

Danes Sentence Entire Clan for Honour Killing    

An excerpt:

This week, for the very first time, a court in Europe sentenced nine members of the same family for the honour killing of a female relative. Honour killings, where a woman is murdered for the shame that she is said to have brought on her family, are a growing phenomenon in Western Europe...

...Last Tuesday in Denmark, however, a jury of the Østre Landsret ruled that not only the man who pulled the trigger was guilty, but every family member who collaborated in “punishing” Ghazala Khan, an 18-year old Danish-born woman of Pakistani origin, who was shot by her brother, 30-year old Akhtar Abbas, on 23 September 2005, two days after her marriage.

Ghazala had married an Afghan man, 27-year old Emal Khan, against the wishes of her father. An aunt, the youngest sister of Ghazala’s mother, who had told the young couple that she would try to reconcile them with her family, asked them to come to Slagelse train station. Her brother Akhtar shot her dead in front of the station and wounded Emal Khan, who survived the murder attempt.

On Wednesday a Danish judge sentenced Akhtar Abbas to 16 years in gaol, and the father, 57-year old Ghulam Abbas, to life imprisonment (which, if one behaves well in gaol, is reduced to 16 years). The aunt and two uncles were given 16 years as well. Other members of the family and friends who had helped to track down Ghazala received sentences of between 8 and 16 years. Two Pakistanis who do not have the Danish nationality will be expelled from Denmark after serving their prison term.

The Danish verdict is historic, not only because the entire clan was punished but also because the head of the family, who ordered the killing, was given a heavier sentence than the actual murderer...

(bold emphasis mine) The full article has many embedded links. One of those links is to a case in Germany, of a murdered Turkish women named Hatin Surucu. Here is her photo, and a link to the article from Der Spiegel:



THE DEATH OF A MUSLIM WOMAN
"The Whore Lived Like a German"   An excerpt:

...The shots came from nowhere and within minutes the young Turkish mother standing at the Berlin bus stop was dead. A telephone call from a relative had brought her to this cold, unforgiving place. She thought she would only be gone for a few minutes and wore a light jacket in the freezing February wind. She had left her five-year-old son asleep in his bed. He awoke looking for his mother, who, like many Turkish women in Germany, harbored a secret life of fear, courage and, ultimately, grief. Now her little boy has his own tragedy to bear: His mother, Hatin Surucu, was not the victim of random violence, but likely died at the hands of her own family in what is known as an "honor killing."

Hatin's crime, it appears, was the desire to lead a normal life in her family's adopted land. The vivacious 23-year-old beauty, who was raised in Berlin, divorced the Turkish cousin she was forced to marry at age 16. She also discarded her Islamic head scarf, enrolled in a technical school where she was training to become an electrician and began dating German men. For her family, such behavior represented the ultimate shame -- the embrace of "corrupt" Western ways. Days after the crime, police arrested her three brothers, ages 25, 24 and 18. The youngest of the three allegedly bragged to his girlfriend about the Feb. 7 killing. At her funeral, Hakin's Turkish-Kurdish parents draped their only daughter's casket in verses from the Koran and buried her according to Muslim tradition. Absent of course, were the brothers, who were in jail.

The crime might be easier to digest if it had been an archaic anomaly, but five other Muslim women have been murdered in Berlin during the past four months by their husbands or partners for besmirching the family's Muslim honor. Two of them were stabbed to death in front of their young children, one was shot, one strangled and a fifth drowned. It seems hard to fathom, but in the middle of democratic Western Europe -- in Germany, a nation where pacifism is almost a universal mantra -- murderous macho patriotism not only exists but also appears to be thriving. It may even be Germany's liberalism -- and its post World War II fear of criticizing minority cultures -- that has encouraged ultra-religious families to settle here...

(bold emphasis mine) The story is just tragic... and all too common. Other links in the Brussels Journal article show that in Great Britian, as many as 100 cases of suspected Honor Killings are under investigation.

A religion that can survive only by killing people who leave it, needs to be reformed or destroyed. The last thing we need is a lot of Multi-Culti clap-trap and moral-relativism about how all cultures are equal and need to be respected. How much respect did these murdered women get?

The Spiegel article has a lot more information, photos and stories about other Mulsim women, it's a great resource on this topic.


Related links:


Islamic Terror and Sexual Rage?

...Rushdie told German weekly magazine Stern that his latest novel, "Shalimar the Clown," dealt with the deep anxiety felt among many Islamic men about female sexual freedom and lost honor.

When asked if the book drew a link between "Islamic terror and damaged male honor," Rushdie said he saw it as a crucial, and often overlooked, point. "The Western- Christian world view deals with the issues of guilt and salvation, a concept that is completely unimportant in the East because there is no original sin and no savior," the author said, in comments printed in German.

"Instead, great importance is given to 'honor.' I consider that to be problematic. But of course it is underestimated how many Islamists consciously or unconsciously attempt to restore lost honor."

(bold emphais mine) This is a topic I have seen come up again and again. I think that in the West, we fail to understand just how important this is.

Murder-Suicide, Islamic Terror and Women



Look at this woman's eyes, then read her story. Did she WANT to die as a martyr, or was she entrapped, manipulated and coerced?

Palestinian Rheim Al-Riyashia, a mother with young children, blew herself up in a suicide bomber attack. When you look at the details of her situation, I think it's quite possible she was facing death by "honor killing" for committing adultery, and was given a choice; death with shame (honor killing), or death with glory (martyr), and a large financial payment to her husband and children. Some excerpts:

...Al-Riyashi was not poor and, before her marriage, not particularly religious. She came from a prosperous family and lived comfortably with her husband and two children. There had been some sort of quarrel among her family before the attack, and rumors have circulated that she was actually moved to murder-suicide because she had committed adultery...

...IDF sources said that the investigation has already revealed that Al-Riyashi's husband, an activist in the HAMAS organization, not only knew about his wife's plans in advance, but even encouraged her to carry out the homicide attack. And that the person who recruited Rheim to carry out the homicide attack and equipped her with the explosive belt was none other than the lover with whom she cheated on her husband. The Sunday Times (London) reported that the husband drove his wife to Erez Crossing...

...Sources said Riyashi was forced into such a terrible act because she had brought shame on her family by cheating on her husband. So-called honor killings are common among the more conservative elements of Arab societies. In the event of rape, adultery, or other serious indiscretion, the woman's male relatives will kill her to restore the family honor. Some jails in Jordan are full of women, who having committed no crime, hiding from the probability of being killed for a slight, real or imagined, to the family honor.

In the present situation becoming a suicide bomber allows family honor to be restored and supplies recruits for politically and psychologically effective actions...

Was she "set up" by her husband and the Hamas recruiter? Her parents and siblings did not approve of her death and the way she was used.

The notion of honor among Muslims is an important factor in our dealings with Islam that should be further scrutinized.

Can Europe save itself by re-discovering it's own roots in America?

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for this cartoon, published December 2003. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

Regarding the subject of Europe saving itself, I just read an excellent article at the Brussels Journal blog, called Europe Must Find its Roots in America. Some excerpts:

...American society is a society whose culture and view of mankind resembles that of the old mediaeval Europe from which it organically evolved. It puts man before the state because it accepts that man should come to God as a free being. Europe, having lived through the perversions of the Modern Age, has absorbed much of the absolutist and totalitarian spirit. Though the state was rendered democratic in the second half of the 20th century – an event, moreover, that would not have been possible without American assistance – it has in fact developed into a totalitarian democracy. Europeans still tend to put the state before man, still see the government as a god (a benefactor who feeds and supports his people), while the real God – He who wants people to come to Him freely because otherwise their “choice” for Him is no choice at all – has almost totally disappeared from present-day European society.

Americans have never lost the vital understanding that freedom has to be indivisible in order that man may lead a virtuous life. Democracy and freedom of expression represent only the political and moral-cultural fields of life. There is a third important field of social life: economics. In this field the Americans have adopted a system that allows citizens the greatest possible economic freedom and severely restricts the power of the government. It is called capitalism, which to most Americans is something positive, while to most Europeans it appears deeply repulsive...

...Western Europe's economy stagnates while America’s keeps growing. This causes jealousy, which reinforces the political frustration Western Europe already has towards its Atlantic partner. Many Europeans compensate for their frustration by feeling culturally and morally superior to the Americans, whom they regard as backward. Though the Americans live in the so-called new continent, they represent the old, pre-modern Europe: They believe in God, they refuse to realise that the state can be a benevolent institution and subsequently distrust it. Large parts of the West European population consider Americans to be naive, simple, unsophisticated, even dumb – a nation without any real culture or significant history. Such views are held not only by ordinary West Europeans (who get their political education in state run schools and from state run and/or state controlled media), but also by many intellectuals who ought to know better.

Europe, however, is being overrun by barbarians. Its populations are dwindling, its welfare systems are collapsing and its old religion, Christianity, which the Europeans had cast aside, is being replaced by another one: Islam. If Europe is to be saved it must return to its old heritage which has survived in the land across the Ocean. We need to bring America’s values to Europe. These values are our own lost heritage. To survive as Europeans we have to become Americans. It is time to save ourselves by establishing a Society for American Values in Europe.

(bold emphasis mine) The rest of the article goes into an very good explanation of what Europe and America's common roots are, and where, how and why they diverged, to the point we are at now. It's not a long article and one very much worth reading, I enjoyed it for it's clarity.

God Bless America

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

I've heard leftists complain about the statement "God Bless America". They like to say "Why SHOULD god bless America?" They believe America is evil, and that anyone who is patriotic is a brainwashed fool.

A great deal of this is learned in our public schools, where not only do they not teach American history anymore, they teach disrespect for our country. Many of our teachers consider patriotism to be an outdated idea at best, a dangerous one at worst. They prefer to think of themselves as "citizens of the World", with no allegience to any specific country. They believe nationality and patriotism are evil concepts, and that citizenship and the vote should be granted to anyone within our borders, regardless of how they got here or why they came, and they teach these ideas to their students.

Thomas Sowell's article Is patriotism obsolete? touches on this. An excerpt:

...Patriotism is not chic in the circles of those who assume the role of citizens of the world, whether they are discussing immigration or giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime.

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was as much due to the internal disintegration of the ties that bind a society together as to the assaults of the Romans' external enemies.

The pride of being a Roman citizen was destroyed by cheapening that citizenship by giving it to too many other people. The sense of duty and loyalty eroded among both the elites and the masses.

Without such things, there could be no Roman Empire. Ultimately, without such things, there can be no United States of America. In neither case have tangible wealth and power been enough to save a country or a civilization, for the tangibles do not work without the intangibles.

(bold emphasis mine) Any American who says "Why SHOULD god bless America?" clearly has no appreciation for what America is about. It isn't about geography or ethnicity, as much as it is about an idea. Individual liberty, as expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers; the Scottish Enlightenment.

There are those in our country who wish to disintigrate the ties that bind our own society together, so that they can replace it with their own ideas, like socialism and communism, which are the antithesis of the American idea. Socialism is the stepping stone to Communism, which has no use whatsoever for individual liberty.

So I say God Bless America indeed. May it's idea live on and prosper, here and throughout the world.




Related links:

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2006

CELEBRATING THE FOURTH OF JULY

And I saw this on TammyBruce.com:

If The NYT Had A Time Machine



God Bless America: The Song
Did you know it was written by Irving Berlin in 1918, and revised in 1938? Here are the Lyrics:

"While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. "

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

The first part, the first four lines, I don't recall having heard before; don't think they taught us that in school. Yet those storm clouds seem to be there now as much as ever. According to Wikipedia, it was originally written as a victory song, but ended up evolving into a peace song.

You can read about the history of the song by Wikipedia Here.

How much longer?

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. This cartoon is called "Unrequited War". You can read their related commentary and links about it HERE. A brief excerpt from the Washington Times:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday [June 22] that covert Iranian troops are training brethren Iraqi Shi'ites on how to attack U.S. and coalition troops.

The disclosure by Army Gen. George Casey is the most pointed Pentagon criticism of Iran's militant regime, which is embroiled in a debate with the United States because Washington demands an end to Tehran's uranium enrichment.

This is hardly new, this sort of thing has been going on for quite some time. For more links to damning evidence, visit the link above.

Farm Report 07/01/06

Maria the singing chicken
Pat named her "Maria" after the opera diva Maria Callas, but I'm starting to wonder if she isn't really...



... Maria Von Trapp? The eight oldest fledglings adore her. The little ones have even started to make some trilling noises, similar to what Maria does. Is she teaching them to sing? Am I one day going to hear the chicken version of "Doe a deer" when I go into the coop? And it seems she's not content to stop with just eight. I think she is actively recruiting:



Like that song from the Sound of Music says, "What do you do with a chicken like Maria?" I guess you just let her do her thing. The Coop is Alive, with the Sound of Music.

Not all the fledglings are ready to join. Some are still quite young, and still growing their feathers in, like this scruffy group:



Some of them still want "Mommy". Fortunately for them, Turandot the Chinese Coachen-Bantam is no longer sitting on eggs. She was down to eight, but we candled them and they were all stale, so we took them away. Since then, she has been offering herself as Mommy to the smallest ones:



None of the chicks are her biological offspring. She is the only Bantam that lays brown eggs. There were only two brown eggs in the clutch, and neither hatched. Bertie had attempted to mate with her, but she is much bigger than him, and I suspect their plumbing fixtures never matched up right. But she is very maternal, and she hatched out most of the chicks, even thought they weren't her eggs.



Turandot likes looking after chicks, which is a good thing, because we have plenty more still in the incubator that will be put into the coop soon. Nights and mornings along Oregon's coast can be quite cold even in summer, so having a Mommy for the littlest ones to snuggle with is a good thing.

On the other side of the partition, the pecking order has sorted itself out:



No more Roosters terrorizing the hens! Well, there is still little Bertie the Bantam Rooster, but being only 8 inches tall, he doesn't inspire much terror. The Bantams and the Pullets seem to get along just fine, despite the size differential.

It was big Roosters like Cecil that were creating difficutlies. Cecil made his last appearence at dinner last Sunday, with gravy and roast potatoes:



He was a one tough bird when he was alive, and unfortunately, he continued to be the same on the dinner table too. He was practically inedible:



Pat said that when he was a kid, and his mother would butcher and serve an old hen or rooster, that his father would make jokes, comparing it to that Charlie Chaplin movie where he "dines" on an old shoe. Well I can see why. The skin was as tough as shoe leather. The meat, while tasty, was extremely chewy.



The French, who regard chicken as a favorite food, have special ways of dealing with mature roosters. I suspect we should have used one of their recipies, such as Coq au Vin (Rooster in Wine). We shall have to try that next time.

That wraps up the Farm Report for this week. The next Farm Report will feature the new Duck House. There will also be a special feline report, called:

Catz:



The Lady is a TRAMP



 

"Crime" in Europe... or War?

“Youths” Kick Man to Death on Crowded Antwerp Bus

The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. On Saturday afternoon Guido Demoor, a 54-year old Flemish train conductor on his way to work, was kicked to death by six “youths” on a crowded bus near Antwerp’s Central Station. The incident recalls the rush-hour murder ten weeks ago of Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, in a crowded Brussels Central Station on 12 April.

Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six “youths” got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate passengers. There were some forty people on the bus. Demoor asked the “youths” to calm down, whereupon they turned on him, savagely beating and kicking the man. At the next stop thirty passengers fled the bus. The thugs kept beating Demoor. They then pulled the emergency brake and jumped from the bus leaving their victim to die.

Three Moroccans, two of whom are minors, were arrested today...


...Belgians do not have a constitutional or legal right to bear arms, not even purely defensive arms such as peppersprays. With the police and the government failing to protect law-abiding citizens the latter are, however, totally unprotected. Saturday’s murder has shocked bus drivers and train conductors, but they stress that they are not in the least surprised. Violence on public transport has become a fact of life.

“You see what happens if you intervene,” one of Guido Demoor’s colleagues at Belgian Rail is quoted in the newspaper De Morgen today. “If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive. [...] He was a good man. I would not have dared to do what Guido did. I was beaten up once and since then I have become very careful.”

Another colleague told the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: “After the Van Holsbeeck murder some whined that no-one had intervened. Guido did intervene and paid with his life.” After the assassination of Joe Van Holsbeeck Belgium’s Cardinal Danneels had said that Joe was a victim of “the indifference in Belgian society” because no-one had come to his rescue when two youths stabbed him to death for not handing over his MP3 player...

...Problems occur not only in major Belgian cities, such as Antwerp and Brussels, but also in provincial towns, such as Sint-Niklaas. Last week bus drivers in Sint-Niklaas refused to drive out in protest against the aggressive behaviour of immigrant youths on the buses. In today’s De Morgen drivers, who have all asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, relate experiences of “buses being demolished while en route” and of “youths harassing girls, who beg the driver to protect them.” One of the drivers said: “If they refuse to buy a ticket I leave it. I do not want to be beaten up for one and a half euros.”


Another driver said: “Last week an old man was beaten up on my bus. The youths were angry because he did not put away his luggage fast enough. They hit him on the eye and threw the luggage on his lap. [...] A bus drive lasts forty minutes. Sometimes they pester and provoke you for a full forty minutes. I remain calm, but some of my colleagues are not able to do so and get into trouble. If I ever get into trouble, I will do as one colleague did recently. He left his vehicle at the bus station and got off, never to return to this job.” Guido Demoor never even got off the bus.

In another article about crime in Europe, Sweden in particular, interviews were conducted with Muslim youths about why they committed crimes. They talked about themselves as if they were soldiers in a war. Crimes committed by Muslims have been increasing at an alarming rate all over Europe. The author of this next article makes a case for "crime" as an act of war by an invading force:

Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War

...It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such. This is completely in line with what I have posited before. The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or from foreign parents. The phenomenon is not restricted to Sweden. The number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants in Western nations is so extremely high that it is difficult to view these rapes as merely random acts of individuals. It resembles warfare. This is happening in most Western European countries, as well as in other non muslim countries such as India. European jails are filling up with Muslims imprisoned for robberies and all kinds of violent crimes, and Muslims bomb European civilians. One can see the mainstream media are struggling to make sense of all of this. That is because they cannot, or do not want to, see the obvious: this is exactly how an invading army would behave: rape, pillage and bombing. If many of the Muslim immigrants see themselves as conquerors in a war, it all makes perfect sense...

Déjà-Vu: Pedophile Murders Shock Belgians

...Two weeks ago the police arrested 38-year old Abdallah Aït Oud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin. He was seen near the little girls prior to their disappearance. Aït Oud denies having murdered Stacy and Nathalie. Though the police has not been able to prove otherwise, he is a major suspect. He has already been arrested twice for pedophilia, once in 1994 and once in 2001, and he has no alibi for the night and the day after the disappearance of the girls, who are stepsisters.

In 1994 Abdallah Aït Oud was convicted to five years imprisonment for the rape of his 14-year old niece. He had regularly abused his sister’s daughter since she was six. Three years later, however, in 1997, when the Belgians were still recovering from Dutroux’ atrocities, the Belgian authorities, though they had promised the citizens that pedophiles would have to serve their sentences, released Aït Oud from prison prematurely. On 7 September 1997 he was arrested for theft and sent back to prison, where he remained until 2000. In March 2001, shortly after his release, he abducted and violently raped a 14-year old girl.

This time the negligent Belgian authorities decided not even to give the pedophile a prison sentence...

...Belgium’s capital, Brussels, has a murder rate about five times higher than Paris and two times higher than London. The murder of the two children in Liège is the latest in a series that started last February in Brussels with the assassination of a 16-year old black boy, whose throat was cut by five “youths” who have not yet been found. This atrocity was followed by the murder last April of 17-year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, stabbed by two underaged Polish gypsies during rush hour in Brussels’ Central Station. Barely a month later, last May, there were the murders of a two-year old toddler and her black nanny and the shooting of a Turkish woman in broad daylight in downtown Antwerp by an 18-year old Flemish boy playing out a violent computer game in real life. In a crowded public transport bus in Antwerp last Saturday a passenger was kicked to death by six youths, described by some as “five Belgians and one Spaniard,” referring to their nationalities, and by others as “six Moroccans,” also referring to their (dual and original) nationalities...

(Bold emphasis mine) This article is also interesting because it goes into some detail about the unique political situation in Belgium, and it's increasing failure to protect it citizens.

The crime stats, when looked at objectively, seems like an invasion to me.

How to negotiate with terrorists

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. An excerpt, from Caroline Glick (Israel's rude awakening):

...In 2000, the public realized that Barak's terrorist empowering peace plan had brought us war. Yet rather than discard the policy of empowering terrorists, our political leaders simply repackaged it. What had formerly been called "peace" was called "separation" and "disengagement" and now is called "convergence" or "realignment." These euphemisms are sold to the public in turn as new quick-fixes that spare us the need to recognize the reality of war...

Related Links:

From Tammy Bruce:

Terrorist 'Microsurgery'?

...Israel has always done its best to avoid 'civilian' casualties. And what did it get them? Those civilians voting in a terrorist government.

Now in a piece for the Wall Street Journal (HT PJM), Michael Oren calls for Israel to return to "targeted" killing. But let me ask you, What worked best--Israel terrorist microsurgery or our WWII carpet-bombing of Dresden and the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

History has made clear that a savage enemy understands nothing less than total vanquishment, complete and without question. That complete destruction is the only thing that has made Germany and Japan functional and civilized some 60 years later...

...Being 'delicate' with today's enemy means condemning them and the civilized world to decades-more despair and war. It's time we stop this questioning whether or not civilization, and Jews who are very much responsible for the cultivation of the civilized world, are worth fighting for.

Israel: Taking Care of Business

...And this piece of politically correct "pussy"-footing which is what gives terrorists the encouragement to do as they please.

US Urges Israel Not to Harm Civilians in Gaza Raid

Oh, shut up. It was "civilians" who elected the terrorist group Hamas to "govern" their pit. Let them see what embracing terrorism brings them.

Bottom line: It's time the U.S. stops telling Israel what to do.

From Michelle Malkin:

ELIYAHU ASHERI: MURDERED;
NOAH MOSCOVITCH: MISSING

...Notice how many media outlets took the terrorists' description of their brutal murder of Asheri--"executed" (as if the teen were a criminal)--and played it straight in their headlines without the quotation marks they always use around the word "terrorist?"...

Update: LATEST FROM GAZA


From Nealz Nuze:

ISRAEL CRACKS SOME HEADS

...So what has Israel so upset? The Islamic terrorists of Hamas have been holding an Israeli soldier for 4 days. So the tanks are rolling in and the planes flying overhead. Israeli troops are also making arrests. But the Palestinians are upset about all this. According to one of their negotiators, "I think that Israeli attempts to bargain through bombardment of power stations and bridges and arrests of parliamentarians and ministers is just adding to the complexities." Adding to the complexities? What? Aren't they the ones who took an Israeli soldier hostage? In what context is that not an act of war? Bargaining? How about this bargain? Give us our soldier back or we're going to kill a whole mess of you Islamic terrorist bastards.

The White House is responding to this by saying Israel has a right to defend itself, but should be careful about hurting civilians. All of this points out why the "Mideast peace process" is a fantasy. The only time you truly have peace is following a military victory. It's time to fully unleash Israel...and bring the terrorists in the Palestinian territories to their knees...

(bold emphasis mine) Yep! Strength is all some people understand.
 

Loose Libs Sink Ships

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. What the NY Times did is criminal. Have we become a nation that no longer enforces it's laws?





Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for these posters, you can click on the link to see more.



UPDATE 09:50 am, Related links:

GOP Acts Against New York Times

Tammy Bruce:
...Fox's David Asman did ask me if I thought execution was an appropriate penalty for treason and espionage--and yes I do. I think this nation is worth defending. Anyone who puts this nation at risk by assisting the enemy, as the enemy continues to murder our soldiers as well as innocent civilians, should face the most severe punishment...

Bush Should Welcome a Fight with the Media

Jack Kelly:
...Prosecuting the Times also could be good politics. Americans are, at best, ambivalent about the war in Iraq. But solid majorities support the steps the president has taken to protect us in the broader war on terror. For instance, shortly after the Times exposed the NSA intercept program, a Rasmussen poll indicated 64 percent of Americans supported it. Only 23 percent were opposed.

Ordinary Americans are furious with the Times both for what it has done, and for its arrogance in doing it. And journalists don't have much popularity to lose. In a Harris survey in March, only 14 percent of respondents expressed a "great deal" of confidence in the press, while 34 percent had "hardly any."

In picking a fight with journalists over leaks, President Bush would be picking on one of the few groups in America less popular than he is, on the issue where he is on the firmest ground with the public...

The terrorist-tipping Times

Michelle Malkin:
The New York Times (proudly publishing all the secrets unfit to spill since 9/11) and their reckless anonymous sources (come out, come out, you cowards) tipped off terrorists to America's efforts to track their financial activities.

Guess what? It isn't the first time blabbermouth journalists have jeopardized terror-financing investigations since Sept. 11, according to the government...

(bold emphasis mine) This leaking of information will only continue, and get worse, if there are no consequences to those who commit these crimes. We are at war. The NY Times NEEDS to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, if the law is going to continue to mean anything. Laws that are not enforced are not respected and simply ignored... much to our great peril.

 

Multiculturalism:Fertilizer for Islamic Terror

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. An excerpt, by Keith Windschuttle:

Cultural relativism claims there are no absolute standards for assessing human culture. Hence all cultures should be regarded as equal, though different. ...

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Since the 1960s, academic historians on the left have worked to generate a widespread cynicism about the nature of Western democracies, with the aim of questioning their legitimacy and undermining their ability to command loyalty. ...

The anti-Westernism of which I am speaking is not only about the past but has as much to say about current affairs.

The aftermath to the assaults on New York and Washington on September 11 2001 provided a stark illustration of its values. Within days of the terrorist assault, a number of influential Western intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag and youthful counterparts such as Naomi Klein of the anti-globalisation protest movement, responded in ways that, morally and symbolically, were no different to the celebrations of the crowds on the streets of Palestine and Islamabad who cheered as they watched the towers of the World Trade Centre come crashing down. Stripped of its obligatory jargon, their argument was straightforward: America deserved what it got. ...

Enclosed by a mindset of cultural relativism, most Westerners are loath to censure Muslims who go on violent rampages, burn down embassies and threaten death to their fellow citizens. Many of us regard this as somehow understandable, even acceptable, since we have no right to judge another religion and culture. ...

Their real aim is not religious respect but cultural change in the West. They want to prevent criticism of its Muslim minority and accord that group special privilege not available to the faithful of other religions. Instead of them changing to integrate into our way of life, they want to force us to change to accept their way of life...

(bold emphasis mine) I cannot stress enough the importance of multiculturalism in the cultivation of Islamic terrorists. Islam hasn't changed since the 7th century. What has changed, is that Islamism senses weakness in the west, and that has emboldened them. Multiculturalism is their favorite weapon.

Tammy Bruce, in her book "The New Thought Police", has an entire chapter devoted to Multiculturalism. Says Tammy:

Multiculturalism is not about exotic restaurants and charming street fairs. Accepting the notion that all ideas and systems are equal precludes a willingness to think critically about what surrounds us.

Multiculturalism isn't about culture, it's about power. It's about stopping assimilation, and segregating people into mini-cultures as power bases for the left. The left elite who promotes multiculturalism does not value true diversity, which would embrace ALL cultures. They exclude European, western cultures as "criminal" and promote "victimized" cultures exclusively, using political correctness to shield non-European cultures from moral judgements.

What an incredibly useful tool for our enemies. Is it any wonder Islamic terrorists feel emboldened to destroy us? Multiculturalism encourages, aids and shelters them.
     

Collectivism, the internet and the "hive"

I know that in my searches for information and content, I often come across sources like wiki pages and Wikipedia entries. At first I had some reluctance using them, as they can be edited by visitors, so how accurate are they? Yet entries often have connecting links to sources, which is reassuring. But are there embedded pitfalls or dangers in such collective information sources?


I have come across an interesting essay written for Edge, by computer scientist and digital visionary Jaron Lanier. The title is:

DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

Here are some excerpts, starting with the opening of the article:

(JARON LANIER:) My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.

In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie.

Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career. The fantasies of the goblins have entered that portion of the world that is attempting to remain real. I know I've gotten off easy. The errors in my Wikipedia bio have been (at least prior to the publication of this article) charming and even flattering.

Reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure. In my particular case, it appears that the goblins are probably members or descendants of the rather sweet old Mondo 2000 culture linking psychedelic experimentation with computers. They seem to place great importance on relating my ideas to those of the psychedelic luminaries of old (and in ways that I happen to find sloppy and incorrect.) Edits deviating from this set of odd ideas that are important to this one particular small subculture are immediately removed. This makes sense. Who else would volunteer to pay that much attention and do all that work?

The problem I am concerned with here is not the Wikipedia in itself. It's been criticized quite a lot, especially in the last year, but the Wikipedia is just one experiment that still has room to change and grow. At the very least it's a success at revealing what the online people with the most determination and time on their hands are thinking, and that's actually interesting information.

No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous...

I think it's a scary idea that people you don't even know can define you and your work for purposes that suit THEM, regardless of how it affects you or regardless of if the information is really true. If the collective or the "hive" decides you are a filmmaker, then you are, regardless of what you have to say about it? Being called a filmmaker when you aren't isn't the biggest tragedy to be sure, but think about how many other erroneous ways an individual or one's work could be ill defined by people with alterior motives?


The author also laments the loss of individual personality and authorship when information is taken out of the context the author published it in, and used as content by aggregator websites:

...Accuracy in a text is not enough. A desirable text is more than a collection of accurate references. It is also an expression of personality.

For instance, most of the technical or scientific information that is in the Wikipedia was already on the Web before the Wikipedia was started. You could always use Google or other search services to find information about items that are now wikified. In some cases I have noticed specific texts get cloned from original sites at universities or labs onto wiki pages. And when that happens, each text loses part of its value. Since search engines are now more likely to point you to the wikified versions, the Web has lost some of its flavor in casual use.

When you see the context in which something was written and you know who the author was beyond just a name, you learn so much more than when you find the same text placed in the anonymous, faux-authoritative, anti-contextual brew of the Wikipedia. The question isn't just one of authentication and accountability, though those are important, but something more subtle. A voice should be sensed as a whole. You have to have a chance to sense personality in order for language to have its full meaning. Personal Web pages do that, as do journals and books...

...The Wikipedia is far from being the only online fetish site for foolish collectivism. There's a frantic race taking place online to become the most "Meta" site, to be the highest level aggregator, subsuming the identity of all other sites.

The race began innocently enough with the notion of creating directories of online destinations, such as the early incarnations of Yahoo. Then came AltaVista, where one could search using an inverted database of the content of the whole Web. Then came Google, which added page rank algorithms. Then came the blogs, which varied greatly in terms of quality and importance. This lead to Meta-blogs such as Boing Boing, run by identified humans, which served to aggregate blogs. In all of these formulations, real people were still in charge. An individual or individuals were presenting a personality and taking responsibility.

These Web-based designs assumed that value would flow from people. It was still clear, in all such designs, that the Web was made of people, and that ultimately value always came from connecting with real humans.

Even Google by itself (as it stands today) isn't Meta enough to be a problem. One layer of page ranking is hardly a threat to authorship, but an accumulation of many layers can create a meaningless murk, and that is another matter.

In the last year or two the trend has been to remove the scent of people, so as to come as close as possible to simulating the appearance of content emerging out of the Web as if it were speaking to us as a supernatural oracle. This is where the use of the Internet crosses the line into delusion...

(Bold emphasis on above excerpts is mine) Lanier has some other interesting insights into such things as the popularity of prematurely embracing the concept of AI (artificial intellegence), and the resulting lowering of standards; about the collective "hive" mind vs the individual, the dangers inherent in that and what might be done about it. Some good food for thought, as so many of us these days turn to the internet for information.


Related Link:

Wiki page entry for Jaron Lanier
   
 

Burden our soldiers; an anti-war strategy

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. One of their links is an editorial in Business Day. An excerpt:

...The grisly deaths of two American servicemen show how hard it is to fight a war in which the enemy knows no rules and civilians can't be distinguished from combatants. Maybe it's time to make it easier.

There's a method in the madness of those who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Pfcs. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas Tucker, 25, who were manning a Baghdad checkpoint with a comrade who was killed in the assault.

The jihadists want to give momentum to those in the U.S. such as Rep. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry who want to bring the boys home either now or by a certain date. ...

This is a war where terrorists routinely kill innocent civilians and booby-trap their bodies so others will die as well. They use civilians as shields and masquerade as civilians, hoping overly cautious Americans will become their next prey. They follow no rules. They wear no uniforms. They could be behind any door. They could be the next person you see. They could be the last.

As war critics mourn three jihadist suicides at Gitmo, we have three dead soldiers who might have met their fate simply because, after Hamandiyah and Haditha, they took too long to determine if their kidnappers were friend or foe. If they'd killed their assailants, would they now also be accused of killing "innocent" civilians?...

(Bold emphasis mine)Our anti-war movement in the west is perhaps the enemies most potent weapon. How long can a house divided against itself stand?



DON'T FORGET THE FALLEN

     

Democrats inability to recognize the enemy

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. And Congrats to Cox & Forkum for their Noah Bee Award, which called my attention to this 2005 cartoon. You can visit the post to find links for their other two winning entries.

I like this cartoon a lot, because it captures so well the lefts inability to perceive dangers that are painfully obvious to the rest of us. It's this very tendency towards self destruction that is draging the Democratic party down, destroying their ability to be an effective opposition.

We're at war, and they want to focus on socialism. In France, the communists embrace the Jihadists as allies agains the status quo. Socialists all over Europe have tended to do the same, not understanding that the people they embrace as allies do not share their goals.

They should heed the example of Iran. The Ayatollah Khomeini came to power with the aid of a coalition of socialists, communists and assorted liberals. They believed he would continue with a secular government. He also promised to provide Iranian citizens with free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their door steps. The leftists could not resist.

But of course Khomeini kept none of these promises. In fact when he achieved power, he abolished secular government, created an Islamic Theocracy and made Sharia law the law of the land. He crushed or liquidated his gullible coalition partners, who had been far too willing to believe what they wanted to hear.

The old adage that people who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, is as true now as it ever was.


Dee at the Chatterbox Chronicles is having good rant today:



For some more good pics and links, check out her post:

Traitors!!!!!!




Both the Democrats withdrawl resolutions they submitted today failed. Get the latest updates HERE. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for the link and photo.

Enabling Terrorism

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE. An excerpt (from Caroline Glick):

...[E]very cent transferred in "direct aid" to the Palestinians is money that will prevent Hamas from failing. Every well-fed Palestinian welfare case will be a vindication for the Palestinian people's decision to vote Hamas into power. Every penny of Western and Israeli aid tells them that they may both escalate their war against Israel while officially joining the global jihad and eat well on the Israeli/ American/ European dole...

I've been saying this for ages. WE, the west, enable terrorist groups like Hamas by giving them money to live on, so they can then devote their time and resources to terrorism. The rest of the Islamic world can give them welfare if they want to. Why should we? If they had to WORK for a living, they might find they have less time for terrorism, and more incentive to co-operate with Israel and work to build a future where they can support themselves.


In Other News:

THE POODLE JOINS THE INSURGENCY

...This isn't the first time we've heard such talk from The Poodle. But the fact that he wants the United States to fully surrender to the Islamic terrorists in Iraq can mean only one thing: John Kerry has joined the insurgency in Iraq. OK, so he's only an affiliate member without full Terrorist Club privileges, but, after all, their goals are his goals...the anti-American rantings on Islamic websites sound just like Democratic Party talking points.

Democrats are desperate. They are absolutely and fully invested in our defeat in the War On Terror. They not only don't want the United States to win, but they're rooting for the other side. It's all they have this fall. Take away the war in Iraq at the polls in November, and the Democratic Party has nothing else save for their big-government agenda. What do they stand for? What is their vision for America? All we hear about over and over is that the troops should be pulled out of Iraq. And they act like our successes in Iraq never took place...

ISLAMIC TERRORISTS MURDER U.S. SOLDIERS

...But pay special attention to the media coverage of this incident, while it lasts. You will absolutely never hear the words "Islamic" or "terrorists." All the press will call them is "insurgents." But that's really not true. The killers of these men were Al-Qaeda terrorists...which we know are mostly foreign fighters. There just seems to be a great reluctance on the part of some of those who bring us the news to actually admit that Al Qaeda is active in Iraq! Remember ... the party line has long been that there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Some don't want that party line blurred with facts.

I predict an early demise of the story about these two savaged Americans. This is the kind of news story that would make people good and mad about the Islamic terrorists we're fighting in Iraq. This is also the kind of story that might make people second-guess their opposition to the war in Iraq. After all, if this is how our boys are being treated, we absolutely need to stay and finish business. Leftists in the media want to run stories that encourage us to run ... not to stay and kick some jihadist ass. Let's see if there's anything in the news about these two men on Friday...

THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING

An excerpt (from Military vet Jeff Emanuel):

...Interestingly silent on this and other atrocities carried out by the insurgents in Iraq are the “human rights” groups who seem to spend every day accusing the United States of torture, war crimes, and various human rights violations. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the Iraq war “illegal,” and John Pace, former UN chief of Human Rights for Iraq, has said that human rights conditions are “as bad now as they were under Saddam,” but was it America that filled mass graves with hundreds of thousands of murdered Iraqi civilians? Last month, Human Rights Watch again accused the US of “brutalizing Muslim suspects in the name of the war on terror,” but how many times have Americans strapped bombs to their own chests and purposely detonated themselves in a large crowd of civilians? Amnesty International’s website highlights America’s use of “torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” against terrorist captives, but how many prisoners—Muslim or otherwise—have Americans brutally beheaded?...

Bold emphasis mine. Hat tip to Nealz Nuze and Michelle Malkin for the links.


But there is more... lets not forget the GOOD news:



Hat tip to The Chatterbox Chronicles for the Cartoon. Be sure and vist Little Miss Chatterbox's good news post:

The Good News Just Keeps on Coming!!

It has some great links, and may add a lift to your day. It has to mine!