David Warren sounds the pessimistic note on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. He doesn’t see a way to stop the regime from getting nukes. (*)
The Iranian regime has frequently stated it will totally destroy Israel, Europe, and the United States.
The Iranian regime currently has nuclear-capable missiles that have enough range to hit Israel. It is working on longer ranged missiles.
Theo van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker. (*) He was a great-great-grandnephew of the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh. He recently made a film about the plight of women under Islam. (†)
On November 2nd, he was shot by an Islamic radical on the streets of Amsterdam. He died. (‡) His murderer plunged a dagger into his chest. It had a note attached with a death threat addressed to two Dutch legislators. (§)
Van Gogh’s film is available online. (**) It has a small amount of adult material.
A spate of violence has broken out in the Netherlands. (††) The Dutch government is raiding terrorist nests in Holland. (‡‡)
Theo Van Gogh was 47.
Update: 4 December 2004. In a blow against freedom, the company known as “IFILM” as removed the movie, Submission, from its web site. Charles Johnson at LGF has a link to another site that has it. (§§)
US Marines and Iraqi soldiers have “broken” the Enemy terror stronghold of Fallujah, Lt Gen John Sattler says. (*) Operation Dawn is a success.
The efforts of American fighting men and women in the Fallujah engagment has been incredible, valorous, and distinctive. Fallujah is nearly free of the terrorist menace.
Our troops are ahead of schedule. They have devastated the Enemy even as they have strained to protect innocent lives. They have taken casualties when they didn’t have to, just to show respect for mosques and civilians.
Now we must send in the rebuilding crews. The example of Fallujah must serve both as a warning to those who would do harm, and as an incentive to those who would choose freedom.
Convincing the Sunnis they are better off with the new government is absolutely key.
Finally, let’s not forget the Americans killed in Fallujah several months ago, dragged through the streets, and hanged from a bridge. The Marines have now left a handwritten message on the bridge. (†)
This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004. Semper Fidelis.
3/5
P.S. F*** you.
God bless the US Marines.
She was born in Ireland. For the past thirty years she has performed humanitarian work in Iraq. A converted Muslim, she married an Iraqi man and became an Iraqi citizen. A month ago, Margaret Hassan was kidnapped by the Enemy in Iraq. She was videotaped crying and begging for her life. (*)
CARE International has suspended relief operations in Iraq due to Margaret’s kidnapping. (†)
Leonard Steinhorn believes Democrats need not worry about the “values voters.” Younger voters lean Democratic on social issues. The more time passes, the more values issues will favor Democrats. (*)
Fred Barnes’s analysis diverges, however. His Republican heart warms to signs that a grand realignment has begun toward conservative social mores. (†) Mirror.
If it bears out, what Barnes observes would nullify the current Democratic youth demographic advantage among values voters.
For years, the Democratic Party hung on despite voters favoring the GOP on foreign affairs and the military. The Dems were on the majority side of social issues, from affirmative action to abortion. Now those healthy Dem margins have slipped. In the future they look uncertain at best.
If the Democratic advantage on social issues fully slips away, the Dems will lack a cachet, a narrative, a single big reason for people to vote for them.
Unless something changes, we are seeing the decline and fall of the Democratic Party.
Debra Saunders points out that though John Kerry was against gay marriage during the campaign, no one ever called him homophobic. (*)
There is reason to believe that the Democratic Party stands a better chance when it nominates a Southerner to the top of the ticket.
Democratic candidates for President who were Southerners: (*)
Those who won:
Those who lost:
Note: William Jennings Bryan was a northerner. (†)
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit and high muckity-muck of the blogosphere, rolls out the artillery against the MSM ground assault. (*)
In the wake of the bloggers’ successful campaigns against Howell Raines, who once condescended upon the red states from high atop the New York Times, and Dan Rather, anchor of liberalism, the old guard media has been licking its wounds. Eric Engberg of CBS fired a few shots at the pajama-wearing and generally unwashed battle host of the blogs with his scornful comparison of 21st century web logs to CB radio. (†) Engberg’s volley only drew, however, a few murmurmings in response by the usually talkative bloggers.
The full MSM counterattack began with a snarling feint to the blogosphere’s center. Several liberal web sites ran exit poll results on election day without providing any context. The gaping gulf between the exit polls and reality caused great shock and awe upon the blue states when Bush captured the Ohio flag. By equating the rumor-trading liberal blogs with blogs as a whole, and then smearing their credibility as a whole, the MSM appeared to have made its last stand. (‡)
The conservative and libertarian blogospheres reacted with unconcern at the MSM’s light infantry charge, deflecting it as another Battle of the Bulge. The MSM then launched a surprise flanking maneuver, bombarding the weak point of the blog lines. The MSM chastised bloggers for unsubstantiated rumor mongering of election fraud and an actual Kerry victory. The dogs of war came unleashed.
Field Marshal Reynolds let fly the cannonade in his furious reply. The long-toothed MSM only made an issue of this to put down the young, innocent, and ethically pure blogosphere so that the public would keep reading the Times and watching the evening news, instead of logging on and tuning out. Furthermore, only the liberal blogosphere trades in rumor. The libertarian and conservative blogs never do.
In the wake of Reynolds’s devastating fusillade we shall see what if any ammunition the MSM has kept in reserve.
And so the battle rages. Will there ever be peace, or are these two groups destined to continuously wage war upon their journalistic brethren? Will there come a day when blogs feel a little shabby for parasitically providing fourth and fifth-hand information as if they were personally present for the events in question? One day will bloggers scrub most of the fallacies from their opinions? Will the MSM ever rejoice to reformat the news so it appears in chronological order?
We don’t know if there can ever be true peace. We only do know that this war will rage for decades—unless, of course, this is not a “war,” but is instead a mere imperialistic adventure that will surely end in quagmire and in regards to which there should have been many more allies before going in.
Bronagh Cassidy composes a thoughtful essay. She writes in part:
My mom was in a same-sex “marriage” for about 16 years. What I want to point out is that it’s so much harder for someone to overcome the gay lifestyle when they are in love. I think they still might be together today if Pat hadn’t died. My mom has told me that at times she had felt she needed to get away from it, but that it was so hard because Pat would cry and they were so dependent on each other. That’s why I think it is very important that we fight same-sex marriage being legalized. It will encourage people to stay in those relationships even if they come to a point where they feel they want and/or need to change.
The difference between classical marriage and gay marriage is that only one is potentially reproductive. Only that one is essential to the continued existence of the human race.
A used book I bought a few days ago had the following as an introductory quotation.
Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this?
Albert Camus
The book is To Seek a Newer World by Robert F Kennedy, published in 1967.
Harvard professor Alberto Adabie has studied the causes of terrorism. He concludes that there is no link between poverty and terrorism. (*) Instead, there is a link between lack of freedom and terrorism, though extremely tightly controlled societies have low incidents of terrorism.
It makes sense. In free societies with responsive and accountable governments, grievances can be resolved peacefully. Without the rule of law, they cannot. Both the poor and the rich benefit from the rule of law, and suffer from the lack thereof.
I don’t know if you might have heard, but John Kerry is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Henry Kissinger gives advice to the President and the country on how to proceed in foreign affairs in the critical stage that is the next four years. (*)
Daniel Drezner has the latest from Iran. The evil regime has sent in the stormtroopers against the bloggers. (*)
In solidarity.
Charles Johnson of LGF unearths a disreputable attempt to censor a book critical of Islam. (*)
Craig Winn wrote Prophet of Doom, available online. (†) It is also at Amazon. (‡)
A petition demands that Winn’s book be removed from “all bookstores” because it criticizes Islam. (§)
A counter-petition exists, citing the First Amendment. (**) Yet, the First Amendment only applies in the USA. The freedom of expression is a worldwide human right held by everyone, including individual Muslims.
The best way to fight censorship is to draw attention to the would-be censor, and to increase circulation of the target text.
It is critical to fight censorship. In response to the petition calling for censorship, here is a quotation from Prophet of Doom web site. (††)
Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur’an -not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it’s “God’s Book,” and that it’s written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam’s interests.
If Muslims were to shed their yoke of ignorance, they would discover that the real reason those who indoctrinate them, control them, suppress them, fleece them, and abuse them want them deceived is that the actual message contained in Allah’s Book is horrendous. It is more intolerant, racist, punitive, and violent than Hitler’s Mein Kampf. There are one hundred vicious verses for every nice one. The book inspires infinitely more terror than peace.
They would also discover that the Qur’an is poorly written. There are countless meaningless words, foreign words, and missing words which is why translations differ so significantly-everyone is guessing as to what Muhammad thought Allah was trying to say. This is why Gerd Puin, the world’s leading specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Qur’anic paleography, studying the oldest manuscripts, speaks with disdain about the willingness of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to accept Islamic dogma. He says: “The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you just look at it, you will see that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’an is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxietyregarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid.”
By reading the Qur’an in a language they actually understand, Muslims would find that there is no semblance of order in the central book of Islam either. The Qur’an is a jumbled mess without context, chronology, or rational transitions. It is only by rearranging the Qur’an in the order it was revealed and infusing it with the context of the chronological Hadith narratives, that the book begins to make sense. But by so doing, it becomes obvious that the Qur’an was simply a reflection of Muhammad’s demented character and of his misplaced ambition. The more you know, the more you will come to despise the fraud Muhammad perpetrated on his fellow Arabs and they on human kind. To know the Qur’an is to reject Islam.
Supporters of Islam who do not agree with such critiques should make reasoned arguments against them.
Secularist Christopher Hitchens turns in another scorcher. (*) He rips the Left for criticizing fundamentalist Islam less than it criticizes conservatives.
In this country, we have (mostly) civil arguments about whether a religious reference should be in the Pledge of Allegiance. In theocratic Islamic states a single word spoken in private against the dominant religion can mean execution.
The Christian Science Monitor gives an overview of the fight for Fallujah. (*)
The Coalition objective is not to level the city, but to convince the residents of Fallujah that they are better off with the Iraqi government and elections than they are against them.
After Fallujah is subdued, Ramadi and Samarra will make their choices.
Michael Barone provides historical perspective on Bush’s attempted historical shift. (*) The reelected President has the best chance of passing his program into law in the first or second year.
In the wake of Tuesday’s election, the Democratic Party has no leader. Kerry is just a Senator again. Daschle is ousted. Bill Clinton is sick. Al Gore is angry. Terry McAuliffe has announced he is stepping down as Chairman of the DNC effective in February. (†) Harold Ickes and Howard Dean are rumored as possible successors. Harry Reid will be the new Senate minority leader.
That leaves Nancy Pelosi. CNN reports: (‡)
House Democratic leader Pelosi put it another way. “Quite frankly, I think the table is set for us in the next election,” she said. “We have lost just about everything that we can lose.”
Meanwhile, President Bush deftly held a major news conference Thursday. He performed with great confidence and skill. (§) President Bush stated he will push (conservative) judicial nominees, partial privatization of Social Security, an overhaul of the tax code, and so on.
In response, the Democrats have nothing to say, even if they had a recognizable leader. The Democratic Party has committed itself to deeply unpopular positions against the war, for gay marriage, and for lax enforcement of immigration laws. I don’t see any plan so far to keep the Democrats from falling to permanent minority party status.
President Bush’s path to reform is clear. What can the Dems do?
Law professor and television commentator Jonathan Turley argues in USA Today for the legalization of polygamy. (*) In a time when Muslim immigrants stream into the country, when polygamous splinter groups from the Mormon church grow unhindered, and gay marriage challenges bedrock principles, Turley’s argument strikes at the heart of the matter.
He extends the logic of gay marriage—if this is a free country, I should be free to marry whomever I want—to plural marriage.
Yet, this is not a completely free society. This is a society of law and order, not one of anarchy and barbarism. As a free and good society, we have a right to continue to exist as a society.
Critical to the continued existence of society is society’s internal structure. Cultural anthropologists have found that every society, including ours, bases itself on organizing principles.
If in the name of freedom we deny ourselves the right to organize ourselves into a society based on certain principles, we deny the continued existence of society. Nothing less is contemplated by the would-be gay marriage and polygamy revolution.
Ultimately, the reason is simple why polygamy, gay marriage, and the other challenges to marriage are wrong. Society gives us some freedom, and in return we agree to society’s fundamental rules. One of the fundamental rules is the definition of marriage. If you don’t like the fundamental rules, either endure it or move away. There is no exception for anyone.
Leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky was the subject of the criticism of City Journal back in 2002. Let’s scrutinize a passage listing some of Chomsky’s views. (*)
Here’s a small but representative sample. The goal of America, Chomsky charges, “is a society in which the basic unit is you and your television set. If the kid next door is hungry, it’s not your problem. If the retired couple next door invested their assets badly and are now starving, that’s not your problem either.” Prisons and inner-city schools, Chomsky maintains, “target a kind of superfluous population that there’s no point in educating because there’s nothing for them to do. Because we’re a civilized people, we put them in prison, rather than sending death squads out to murder them.” Another example: “When you come back from the Third World to the West—the U.S. in particular—you are struck by the narrowing of thought and understanding, the limited nature of legitimate discussion, the separation of people from each other.”
Assume that Chomsky speaks absolute truth. American people are savages, brutes.
The only natural conclusion to Chomsky’s thought is that American people are sub-human, or animals, and ultimately that American people deserve nothing less than death.
Chomsky has given the world a warrant for genocide of Americans.
The current poverty of left-of-center thought resides in part in its lack of subtlety. Take it at face value and an absurd conclusion results, such as a warrant for genocide.