Compare and Contrast

Reagan vs. Clinton.

Smoking Guns

While readers of Buttle’s World have known for a long time about Iran’s part in the war, there are now literal smoking guns which should prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Mullahs are helping to kill Americans.

Captain Ed has more.

Well. I’m impressed.

Hillary’s new diet is really working. I hardly recognized her in the photo!

More Deep Thoughts

Of course, frothing Imams don’t have the corner on idiotarianism. My guess is that this bundle of earnestness is a victim of US public education.

If the future is in his hands, kiss our civilization goodbye.

Meltdown

As if setting out to prove single-handedly that “Islamic thought” is an oxymoron, Imam Husham Al-Husainy drives the point home with the sledgehammer that is his dizzying intellect. Take a listen, and savor the subtlety.

English is the Lingua Franca

I just love saying that, because it’s a tri-lingual joke now. I’m reminded of it because the prissy busibodies in Brussells are campaigning to make French, the dying tongue of an irrelevant country, the de facto legal standard in the EU.

“Currently we have 23 official languages in the EU, that’s a true Tower of Babel. We need to chose a benchmark language for all judiciary texts, and we believe it should be French, for its precision and rigor,” said Maurice Druon, a French academic and a former Culture Minister.

I wonder if that was translated to English.

There’s little hope that this means they’ve rejected multiculturalism.

Selective Enforcement at YouTube

There’s a man from the Atheist religion who posts videos critical of other religions. YouTube, apparently being cowed by Islamic pressure groups, pulled down the anti-Islam videos and also cancelled his account. The anti-Christian videos? Oh, they’re just fine. I suppose the Christians need to start beheading people and strapping bombs to their kids or something.

Squeeze Iran

Kenneth Timmerman says that even our baby steps toward smacking down Iran’s influence in Iraq are having an effect.

“In Tehran, they are now referring to the United States as mar-rouye domesh vastadeh – the Cobra standing on his tail,” says Shahriar Ahy, an Iranian-born political analyst who helped build the post-war broadcasting network in Iraq.

The sea-change began on January 10, when President George W. Bush announced that the United States would no longer tolerate Iranian and Syrian intelligence officers using Iraq as a playground for their murderous games.

The difference between a Jihadist and a mule is that the mule responds to the carrot, too.

Recycling: Just Because It Feels Good

Everybody feels good about recycling. Right? Well, not all of us. I have long suspected what Penn and Teller have exposed here.

The LGF page I linked to has a language warning. This means you, mom.

For those who don’t want to hear the bad words, the bad news is:

Recycling has a net cost of $8 billion annually – just in tax dollars.

It costs about three times as much to recycle as to just dump it in a landfill.

It doesn’t save trees.

It uses more energy than making the products new.

It pollutes the environment.

There is one exception: Aluminum. That’s why bums with stolen shopping carts go through garbage cans looking for aluminum cans. The day recycling actually makes sense, those bums will be taking your plastic bottles, too.

So the bottom line is that the only reason to recycle is because it makes you feel good. Which it won’t, once you know the truth. And assuming you’re not a moonbat.

Terrorism Awareness

David Horowitz is trying to educate Americans, especially college students, about the threat we face. It seems absurd that he should have to, or that it should be so difficult, but you have to go in knowing that most universities have completely given over to the enemy.

Readers of Buttle’s World, being well-informed, rational folk, already know of the links between Jihad and Naziism. Nice to know the word is being spread, though.

Spread the word: terrorismawareness.org.

Infantile Passive-Aggression

VDH is, once again, on the mark. Why do they hate us? Wrong question. Why do they hate us but love our money?

Funny on so many levels

LGF just posted this image of the Palestinian version of a “polite request“.

What I find especially funny, and telling, is that the thug – I mean requestor – in the foreground is carrying an Uzi. That’s made in what country, pal?

Too bad he couldn’t get one of those fine small arms of Middle-Eastern manufacture.

I keep having Footfall flashbacks.

A Good Start

That’s the punch line to a classic lawyer joke, and a good description of the latest al Qaeda news from Iraq.

Coalition forces in Iraq have delivered a series of stunning blows to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last 48 hours.

A key aide to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the man who replaced Abu Musab al Zarqawi as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, has been captured south of Baghdad. As A.J. Strata notes, the trail to the al Qaeda leader is fresh: the captured aide admitted to meeting with al Masri yesterday.

There’s more good news. Read the whole thing.

Update:

Michelle Malkin rounded up a bunch more.

This Just In

Edwards is a boob.

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday he was personally offended by the provocative messages two of his campaign bloggers wrote criticizing the Catholic church, but he’s not firing them.

I wonder just how offensive one has to be to be fired by the Breck Girl.

This is great news, of course, because this idiotic decision will haunt him through what remains of his campaign. But for a guy who is supposed to be in tune with what juries want to hear, this strikes me as spectacularly tone deaf.

Journalistic Malfeasance

It took four guys to write this article for the Financial Times and not one of them knows the difference between DRM (Digital Rights Management) and copyright.

Apple’s demand that record companies do away with copyright protection for songs they sell online has set up a bitter battle between the two camps as they prepare for broad-ranging contract negotiations.

Lordy, where does one start? Maybe by reading what Jobs actually wrote and noticing that he never mentions the word copyright?

Nah. Too much research to expect from four guys in three countries.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I love hearing Muslims who talk like this. It gives me hope that there’ll be a future. Here he is talking about my mom’s favorite TV show:

Most of the terrorists represented in “24” through the years have been Arab Muslims. Why? Well, probably because most terrorists today are, in fact, Arab Muslims. As a descendant of Syrian Muslims, I am very well aware that the majority of Muslims world-wide are peaceful, hard working, and law abiding. That still does not change the fact that the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. today comes not from the ETA, the IRA, etc., but from one group: Islamic terrorists.

And this is what makes “24” a compelling drama every week. Instead of pretending Islamic terrorists don’t exist, the show presents frighteningly real worst-case scenarios perpetrated by Osama bin Laden’s followers. So CAIR thinks it’s over the top for the terrorists in “24” to blow up Los Angeles with a nuke? Please, if bin Laden and his crew had nukes, most of us would be way too dead to argue over such points.

Option 3!

Skywriting

Done up big.

Nasty Little Man At It Again

Just when you think he’s hit bottom, he finds a new low.

Religious Racism

Rich Lowry posts about the credo at Barak Obama’s church.

In an interview late Monday, Obama said it was important to understand the document as a whole rather than highlight individual tenets. “Commitment to God, black community, commitment to the black family, the black work ethic, self-discipline and self-respect,” he said. “Those are values that the conservative movement in particular has suggested are necessary for black advancement.

So the wunderkind flavor-of-the-month leftie is an authority on “conservative” values, is he?

Once you start talking about a “black work ethic” or “black community” or “black” anything, you’ve entered racist territory. The easy test is to replace “black” with “white” and see how it reads. (Ditto with “man” for “woman” in feminist screeds.)

That whirring sound is MLK in his grave.

This is Not the Right Stuff

I remember when Astronauts were real men. Not Fatal Attraction fangirls.

A steel mallet, several feet of rubber tubing and hand-written directions to Shipman’s home were recovered from Nowak’s car, which was parked at a nearby LaQuinta Inn, reports show.

So can we retire the stupid Shuttle now?

Things Heating Up in Baghdad

Mudville Gazette rounds up reports of the impending action. Even al Reuters has noticed. (No, they don’t get a link.)

Expect more, big, desperate attacks in the near future.

Here’s hoping that Sadr’s little gang gets surged.

Pleased to meet you. My name is Ayn.

Which Sci-Fi writer are you?

Wonder where all the Soviet scientists went?

If you lived through the cold war you are probably inured to wild claims of scientific progress. So where did those super-scientists vanish to after 1989?

Iran, apparently. They even have an herbal cure for AIDS!

Letter from the Front

Blackfive has a letter from someon stationed “about three inches” from Pakistan. Must be high up in the mountains, because he has a real clear view of the situation.

Rambo the Afghan

Another day-brightener for you. Read about Rambo on Blackfive, and be sure to click through for the whole story. We could use more like him, but men like that will always be rare.

Ready for some good news?

There really are anti-jihadist Muslims. Brave ones, at that.

Two British Muslim soldiers targeted by the alleged beheading gang were used in an extraordinary “sting” operation to snare their assassins, it has emerged.

The courageous pair agreed to act like “tethered goats” in an attempt to catch the extremists plotting to kidnap them.

The soldiers – who are not thought to have told their families that they were potential targets – were placed under unprecedented surveillance for weeks as officers waited for the terrorists to strike.

I hope they are well rewarded, and their identities remain safe from the Jihadist moles in British government.

Yes, I want you to watch something on PBS

One of the many great things about the place I work is the chance to see movies, and presented well. Some films go in one eye and out the other. Today’s has the studio in a buzz. Those of us who saw Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple will never forget it.

Producer/Director, Stanley Nelson and Writer, Marcia Smith were there to present it and answer questions afterward. I told them I wasn’t sure I should thank them for making me cry over lunch.

I was living in the Bay Area in the 70’s and remember Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. And of course I recall the shooting of Congressman Ryan and the ensuing mass suicide. I went to the screening expecting only a journeyman effort, since the film was made for PBS and their American Experience series. I was not expecting to be socked in the gut this way. If you can see this film and not cry, check yourself into a morgue.

Nelson and Smith managed to interview several survivors, including two of the small handful who escaped the Jonestown massacre. The interviews were beautifully handled. As Nelson explained, he told each interviewee he was going to ask questions about the whole ride. Each was asked to “be in the moment” and only talk about what they felt then. So we get a picture of the giddy enthusiasm at the start, while they really felt accepted into an integrated community. They speak of an instant sense of belonging and purpose. Many kicked drug habits and got straight.

Then our journey as viewers parallels theirs. Gradually the darkness falls. We learn about Jim Jones who, even as a five year old kid was seriously messed up, and watch a man who starts out crazy just get worse and worse with the drugs, adulation and isolation.

By the time we get to that fateful November 18, we are crying with them, looking into the eyes of men who had their wives die in their arms, and one who watched his infant son being poisoned.

The movie is rich with irony. One member still laments, “Maybe it didn’t work out. But at least we tried.” Even with the benefit of hindsight there’s a fascinating willful blindness to what went on. And what was it that was going on?

I was struck by how Jonestown recounts the history of every attempted socialist utopia in history, only on fast forward. The arc that took the Soviet Union the better part of a century, the People’s Temple managed in just over ten years. From the euphoria of their “we’re changing the world” hubris to children turning in their parents for dangerous speech was only a few short steps. Jones is every Stalin, Hitler and Castro: energetic, beguiling, charismatic, and ultimately a crazy mass murderer. It’s as if the Stalinist purges played out in about an hour.

The filmmakers may not have meant to draw that parallel. It’s not the sort of thing that PBS is noted for, after all. You can also watch this movie, quite correctly, as the story of religious fervor taken to its deadly extreme. Yet the words “socialist” and “utopia” are right there in the interviews. I never knew that Jones had promised them they could move to the Soviet Union until hearing the voice of a woman, arguing that they should be allowed to live, ask “What about Russia?” And Jonestown was a textbook Marxist experiment.

This is an outstanding documentary in terms of source material. Jones obsessively documented himself, and even had a tape recorder rolling on that last day as he urged his followers to first give cyanide-laced Kool-Aid to their children, and then take it themselves. It airs on PBS April 9, 2007. Today (Friday, February 2) it opened in Washington, D.C. and will, I gather, have a limited theatrical release. It is well worth seeing. Note to families with small children: I don’t know if the broadcast version will bleep all the profanity. There isn’t much, and it’s all quite appropriate. But images of dead toddlers are hard enough on adults.

Most stunning of all the ironies, was the hand-lettered sign prominent in the footage of Ryan’s fateful visit. Looming behind him was the warning, “Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.” It was Jones’ most accurate prophecy.

And a Hearty F**k You to the New York Times, too

As observed on LGF, the MSM clearly don’t care anymore what rules they have to break, nor whom they have to hurt in their rush to make sure we lose the war. Michelle Malkin covers this well.

In this case it’s hard to blame the reporter. But the editors responsible for this outrage should be asking folks if they’d like fries with their meals. If not breaking rocks.

Take That, Algore!

I happen to think that this prize long ago descended below meaningless. But Mark Levin has a great idea anyway.

Class

Something San Francisco mayors seem to have in spades. Yup. Even after becoming senators.