My inner geek loves this.
24 May, 2007
The Film PBS Doesn’t Want You To See
Apparently a deal has been brokered between CPB and OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) to make Islam vs. Islamists available to any PBS stations wanting to air it.
It’s a partial victory. Let’s see how many stations choose to actually air it. Any near Dearborn willing to risk it?
Faster, Please!
I don’t know how I missed it for so long: Michael Ledeen has a blog.
Michael has been way out in front on Iran for a long time now. I only wish someone at the White House had been reading him these past few years.
It’s been duly added to the Honor Roll here at Buttle’s World. Read it often.
Torture
The Smoking Gun has posted the Pentagon’s release of an al Qaeda torture manual. (Warning: Graphic images)
Standing by for the outrage from all those who think the pranks at Abu Ghraib were “torture”…
Indoctrinate U
Stanley Kurtz has a review up.
Indoctrinate U explores the Kafkaesque nightmares that befall students and professors who run up against the P.C. behemoth: A woman with two brothers — one an adopted Guatemalan orphan — writes a letter to her school paper saying she wouldn’t want to see one brother favored over the other because of skin color. A professor questions the fairness of a panel on which all seven speakers favor reparations for slavery. A representative of the College Republicans posts a flier at the campus multi-cultural center advertising a lecture by a conservative black speaker. A student writes a column complaining that the school’s “issues committee” invites only left-leaning speakers to campus. A professor is accidentally revealed to be a Republican. A student from Kuwait writes an essay praising the role of the United States in world affairs. Everyone knows that such actions fly in the face of campus orthodoxy, yet few will be prepared for the enormity of the punishment these nonconformists face.
Trailer here. Sign a petition to help it get distribution here.
23 May, 2007
Pep Talk
Just when I’ve been feeling glum about the (apparently abbreviated) future of our civilization, along comes VDH to buck me up.
In the last 60 years, we have been warned in succession that new paradigms in racially pure Germany, the Soviet workers’ paradise, Japan Inc., and now 24/7 China all were about to displace the United States. None did. All have had relative moments of amazing success — but in the end none proved as resilient, flexible, and adaptable as America.
As Churchill said, “Americans eventually do the right thing after trying everything else.”
Nasty Little Man Update
Click the thumbnail to go to Cox & Forkum.
(America’s worst ex-president is never called by name here in Buttle’s World.)
So here’s the deal
Apparently women on their side are obnoxious, overweight and incapable of rational thought, while women on our side are pretty, coherent, and relatively smart.
OK, I can live with that.
Spinning Our Way Into Our Graves
That’s what the MSM is doing by desperately waving their hands in hopes we won’t notice that roughly one of every four young Muslims in America want to kill us. Ace has a good roundup of headlines.
Poll: US Muslims Feel Post-9/11 Backlash Despite Moderate Outlook
Psst: Some of that “backlash” you feel may be due to the 26% of young American Muslim males who would like to kill Americans. Just a thought. Sometimes people take a little thing like murder personally.
Also, I don’t know if support for murder is technically “moderate.”
Damn bigoted Americans. Giving us dirty looks and harrassing us just because an alaramingly high number of us support random mass murders against our fellow citizens. The very nerve.
Derb points out potential flaws in the poll which would skew the results. One is that “under 30” isn’t all that youthful. Another is that Nation of Islam members were included, and likely to make exaggerated remarks.
The upside, though this is impressionistic, is that N.o.I. types seem to be interested mainly in encouraging black racial solidarity and sounding off about the wickedness of whites, not in “martyrdom operations” (like blowing yourself up in a crowded shopping mall). Giving unpleasant answers to questions asked by pollsters like the Pew Research people, comes under the heading “sounding off” and probably shouldn’t be taken very seriously. Excluding N.o.I. respondents from the poll figures would likely give a clearer picture of the actual danger.
Derb sounding the note of optimism? There’s a fine how-do-you-do. So let’s be real Pollyanas and say they were off by a factor of two. Do you feel safer knowing that only one in eight young Muslims in America want you dead?
Update:
VDH weighs in, also.
I think someone should make it clear to the Muslim-American community that despite all the spin following the disturbing Pew Poll, most Americans are appalled at the findings for a variety of unspoken reasons.
…
But why worry about 25% of Muslim youth in America when you can go to the moronic “View” and hear Rosie et al defend jihadism through moral equivalence and argue that because someone blows himself up he must de facto have some sort of legitimate reason (akin to Nathan Bedford Forrest’s logic that superior Confederate zeal was proof of the inherent righteousness of being left alone to hold slaves.)
That’s why the “View” is so valuable, because it is our window on the moronic affluent American mindset, the perfect result of abject ignorance colliding with unchecked affluence.
Another Update:
Iowahawk nails it: Midwest Lutherans Largely Reject Violence
Give A Little
I just made a small donation to Michael Yon. If enough people do the same, we’ll keep getting his invaluable reporting from the war. The MSM just isn’t going to fill his boots.
22 May, 2007
Naming the Enemy
Melanie Phillips has a must-read essay on the threat of Islamism.
First of all, let me define my terms and say what I mean by Islamism and liberalism. Islamism is the politicised version of Islam which mandates jihad, or holy war against the infidel and conquest of the non-Islamic world for Islam. I’m well aware of the argument that there’s no difference between Islamism and Islam: that’s a theological argument for others to have.
By liberalism I mean the commitment to a free society, founded above all on the separation of secular government from religious worship — from which follow the concepts of equal respect for all people, freedom of conscience, tolerance and the rule of law.
These two concepts, Islamism and liberalism, are currently engaged in a fight to the death. My argument is that liberalism is in danger of losing this fight because it has so badly undermined itself and departed from its own core concepts that it is now paralysed by moral and intellectual muddle.
It’s a long article, but as vital as it is clear-eyed.
In the fight to defend the west, true liberals should face down the mind-twisting manipulation and say this: that Muslims are welcome and deserve respect for their way of life, but on the same terms as everyone else. There can be no discrimination, after all, as even multiculturalists must agree. And these are the terms laid down for everyone since the Enlightenment: that minorities are welcome to form communities of faith or culture, but they must accept that where there is a conflict with the host culture, the minority gives way. If they do not accept this but insist that the host society must change to accommodate their values, then they are by definition not moderate but extremists; not citizens but colonisers; not Muslims seeking religious freedom but Islamists seeking to destroy freedom.
I use the terms Jihadist and Jihadistan. I think Islamism is another word for the same enemy. A rose by any other name would be as thorny.
Her chilling conclusion:
Liberals also think they are superior in intelligence to everyone else. So they don’t understand that the Islamists are actually playing them for suckers, exploiting the intrinsic weakness of a liberal society they correctly assess as decadent: no longer prepared to fight for its values because it no longer even knows what they are.
What we are living through in the west is nothing short of a repudiation of the Enlightenment, a repudiation of reason; and its substitution by irrationality, obscurantism, bigotry and clerical totalitarianism — all facilitated by our so-called ‘liberal’ society, and all in the name of ‘human rights’. Western liberalism now embraces its Islamist mortal enemies and attacks its American and Israeli allies in the fight to defend civilisation.
We are giving the Islamists the message that we are theirs for the taking. This is how liberalism may disappear up its own backside.
All The News That Fits, We Print
You heard the big news about yet another province in Iraq, Maysan this time, being turned over to the Iraqi government, right?
If not it was, in part, due to competing news about a nutcase shooting up students at Virginia Tech. That much, as Michael Yon says, was Murphy’s part. To be fair, there were some MSM outlets coverin the event. But this sort of news doesn’t get near the coverage it should.
We can’t count on the Drive By Media to get the word out. And this war is as much a war of perception as of kinetic action.
21 May, 2007
Sowell on Amnesty
Imprisoning known and apprehended lawbreakers for the crime of illegally entering this country (in addition to whatever other punishment they receive for other laws that they have broken) and then sending them back where they came from after their sentences have been served would be something that would not be lost on others who are here illegally or who are thinking of coming here illegally.
Just as people can do many things better for themselves than the government can do those things for them, illegal aliens could begin deporting themselves if they found that their crime of coming here illegally was being punished as a serious crime, and that they themselves were no longer being treated as guests of the taxpayers when it comes to their medical care, the education of their children, and other welfare-state benefits.
Here’s a thought – Has Sowell ever gotten something wrong? I assume me must have, but I’ve missed it.
Are you angry?
To be angry is to be human. To be angry all the time is, as Thomas Sowell points out, “progressive“.
Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the left, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is a way of life.
How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans? How often have conservative students on campus shouted down a visiting speaker or rioted to prevent the visitor from speaking at all?
Important Letter From Petraeus
Michael Yon has a letter sent by the General to all forces in Iraq. It is a powerful reminder of what sets our guys apart from the enemy.
I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know first hand the bonds between members of the ” brotherhood of the close fight. ” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arrns—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.
Consider it required reading.
Outrage OTD
Michael Chertoff, as we say in Spanish, se pasa.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: You know, Wolf, first, I understand there’s some people who expect anything other than capital punishment is an amnesty. The reality is the proposal here requires people who came in illegally who want to stay to pay a penalty. Like a fine. That’s a punishment. That’s not an amnesty.
If we get this kind of Orwellian violence to the language from someone in a supposedly Republican administration, I shudder to think what a Democrat would say.
¡Di no a la amnestía!
20 May, 2007
Little Mermaid Latest Misogyny Victim
Or is she? This is one of those “protests” which could go either way. It could be a clueless Islamist trying to make a statement about Copenhagen’s loose morals or, just as easily, it could be someone with a sense of humor poking fun at Islamists. Odds are on the former, I suppose. I’ll root for the latter. It’s fun when your enemy shoots himself in the foot.
Is your blood pressure too low?
This ought to raise it. Michell Malkin has the story of a big business that preys on underage girls, flaunting the law all over the country.
Fake Soldier, Fake Purple Heart, Fake Accusations
No, John Kerry isn’t back in the news. It’s a different coward, not quite as famous, but you may have heard of him. Michelle Malkin has the wrap-up.
Oh, the Irony
Bush finally decides to emulate Reagan, but by repeating his worst mistake.
Local Girl Makes, uh…
One of our illustrious state senators illustrates, uh, something.
Update:
The original link expired. Let’s see if this one stays up. As long as it doesn’t have a State Senator driving behind it, it should be fine.
Remember Global Cooling?
I do. The planet was doomed to become an inhospitable block of ice. That was about thirty years ago.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who remembers.
10 May, 2007
Don’t Steal
The Government hates competition.
An utterly insidious practice now spreading across California is the “private transfer fee.” It is a new invention of developers who want to build housing tracts, but are faced with hysterical opposition by the usual suspects. In order to buy off the opposition, the developer agrees to sell the homes with a condition that every time the property is sold, a percentage of the sale price will be paid to the pet causes of the opponents. (Funny how a little cash can melt away the most fervent and heartfelt objections of Leftist activists). The first funds have been used to line the pockets of environmental and homeless advocates, but anyone can play. These “private transfer fees” have already gone as high as 1.75 percent of the sales price – or $8,700 for a $500,000 home – each and every time that home is sold. Ka-ching.
I think I’m going to swoon
Fred Thompson not only likes the Second Amendment, he’s quoting Kates.
From the enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1791 until the 20th century, no one seriously argued that the Second Amendment dealt with anything but an individual right — along with all other nine original amendments. Kates writes that not one court or commentator denied it was a right of individual gun owners until the last century. Judges and commentators in the 18th and 19th century routinely described the Second Amendment as a right of individuals. And they expressly compared it to the other rights such as speech, religion, and jury trial.
Buttle’s World now officially wants him in the race.
9 May, 2007
Eye on Pakistan
Troubling reports, on The Tank, that it may be “coming apart at the seams.”
Science is Conservative
Even if scientists aren’t. That’s the gist of an email response to a post Jonah Goldberg made.
“For all science cares, scientists could as well be numbered as named.”
In this imperfect world there is, in fact, too much importance accorded to personalities in science. But I think most scientists on some level would acknowledge that Mansfield’s remark describes an ideal to which we try to live up. Valid science is valid science no matter who studied it; crap is still crap no matter how famous the scientist peddling it (though fame can certainly hinder its identification).
Something in that strikes me as profoundly conservative, even though most academic scientists tend lopsidedly toward left-liberalism. Thus you get a self-proclaimed proud leftist like the physicist Alan Sokal, tired of the politicized notion that everything can be deconstructed, publishing a hoax article titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermaneutics of Quantum Gravity,” and commenting later, “anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”
That paper can be found here. Pretty funny — and you don’t have to read it all to get the idea.
Hoping for a Tsunami
McClintock waxes wistful after the “debate”.
I do wish they’d stop calling these performances debates. Even calling them “joint press conferences” demeans press conferences. Maybe “dog and pony show”. Except I haven’t got it in for dogs nor ponies, either.
There are saltier terms, which shant appear on Buttle’s World today, which may be more accurate. Use your imagination.
In any case, I hope McClintock is right about the wave.
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