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Historical Reenactments with Ferrets Series: Liberace brings down the house at Radio City Music Hall, June 9th, 1978.

Three blogs in as many days have trackbacked to a post at INDC without actually linking the post. This is bad form, essentially using another blog as a simple billboard for your post without the gesture of reciprocal traffic. All trackbacks of this nature will be deleted.

The genocide in Darfur has spread:

The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world's worst refugee crises.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Kevin Drum frets:

I don't think that any force smaller than about 40,000 troops would be able to contain the violence in Darfur. Where are 40,000 troops going to come from?

Well, if certain outspoken quarters of the left, the international community and the US State Department weren't so historically opposed on principle and could ethically fine-tune the option, the answer might be private military firms. "Mercenaries" would deploy faster, cost exponentially less than UN or US deployments and represent a much more effective stabilizing force than any multi-national UN peacekeeping operation (though probably not moreso than an American-led force) at a force structure of much less than 40,000 troops.

One only has to review the late-90's history of the now-defunct private South-African military contractor Executive Outcomes to assess the utility of a well-trained and directed private force:

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Hank: Wow, those cartoon protests are really awful, huh?

Dale: Yeah. You know, I don't got nothin' against Muslims, it's just that Islam is an evil religion. It just inevitably breeds terror.

Hank: Huh. Isn't that kind of odd, though? To say that Muslims are ok, but Islam isn't? Considering the definition of "Muslim" is "A believer in or adherent of Islam"?

Dale: ...

Hank: You know, like sayin' Islam is the problem, but not necessarily it's followers, they could be ok?

Dale: ...

Hank: You know, like the inherent contradiction between believing an entire religion is evil, but the class of people whose defining characteristic is that they follow that religion, that you have no problem with them?

Dale: ...

Dale: How about that American Idol? That Taylor Hicks is something, ain't he?

It seems that HBO and the creators of the televised adaptation of Band of Brothers are working on a World War II miniseries set in the Pacific Theatre. Production started on the "The Pacific War" in the summer of 2005, with an unspecified release date:

11/30/05 To answer a lot of veterans who felt left out by Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, HBO, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are teaming up again to present a ten-part miniseries about the Pacific War. Partly based on E.B. Sledge’s compelling autobiography about his participation in the campaigns of Peleliu and Okinawa, it should be another really accurate portrayal of WWII combat.

Considering that Band of Brothers is the best miniseries ever made, this is exciting news. I'm a bit concerned that internet updates on the progress of the series drop off last year, however ...

Related: I just finished the third person Biography of Dick Winters "Biggest Brother : The Life of Major Dick Winters, The Man Who Led the Band of Brothers," and am working on the first-person "Beyond Band of Brothers : The war memoirs of Major Dick Winters." Both are highly recommended, despite natural redundancy in the material. Dick Winters animates the phrase "Giant among men."

The lesson I draw from the books? Quit complaining and "do."

Jim Geraghty e-mails:

A couple of days ago, I remarked that we had been "snookered" on the details of this Dubai Ports World deal -- it was not "outsourcing homeland security duties" as Chuck Schumer had described it.

Well, all weekend long, just about every Democrat - and more than a few Republicans - continued to describe the deal in ways that were just flat-out false. This is no longer a matter of being misinformed or sloppy with the wording. This is an intentional effort to make sure the public thinks we're going to have UAE citizens with ties to al-Qaeda in charge of port security.

This is an organized, coordinated, disinformation campaign designed to stir up fear and hysteria, quash the deal (and any behind-the-scenes intelligence-sharing aspect), hurt the president, and ruin our relations with the UAE.

I can't begrudge somebody having qualms or questions about the deal, but I can't abide somebody lying to the public to hurt our national interests. (And I trust the judgment of guys like Tommy Franks and Peter Pace.) In the long history of Democratic malfeasance, rarely have they so deserved to get beaten.

Is rhetorical malfeasance by Democrats worse than Republican hysteria? Close, but probably. It's amusing watching "tolerant liberal" politicians ideologically contort themselves by stoking irrational xenophobia and rational fear of terrorism into a National Security issue that attacks the President's right flank.

Did I write "amusing?" I meant "depressing." Maybe "resignedly exasperating" would work best.

Read his piece, "AN ORGANIZED DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN ON THE PORT DEAL."

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is on the same page:

What's interesting -- and what supports Geraghty's point -- is that Democratic politicians who have generally opposed "racial profiling" are nonetheless opposing the ports deal because, basically, the company involved is an Arab company. It's funny that it's the Bush Administration that has -- not least because it's traditionally been too friendly to the Saudis -- been very careful not to cast the current war as a war against Muslims or Arabs. (It was forever before Bush even admitted that his war against terror was actually a war against fundamentalist Islamic terror.) Obviously, however, the Democrats, and judging by the polls, a lot of other people, feel otherwise.

I think that's unfortunate. Osama and the Islamists want to see an all-out war between Islam and the West. If this happens, Islam will rapidly become a tiny remnant of its current self. You can worry about port security if you want (I did, though I feel better about the port deal now -- though in part because it appears that port security in general is so very bad that this deal can't make much of a difference) but casting this in terms that suggest that we're at war with all Arabs, or all Muslims, just buys into the Islamists' apocalyptic scenario. I don't like to see people in America, by pandering to stereotypes, doing that.

*** I saw Moby at the DC Whole Foods on P Street yesterday. Which was somewhat surprising, until I considered the fact that I was at the Whole Foods, and that's where the fey little neohippie cosmically belongs, somewhere in between the Eco Lips Organic Lip Balm and the granulated kelp condoms.

It's sort of like running into Keith Richards at the liquor store, or Paris Hilton at the talentless multimillionaire whore shop.

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SAPPY!

(via red)

*** Congratulations to previous Picture of the Week winner Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey; this coming week it looks like the contest will be Naked Rubber Chicken Man versus The HYPNOCAT! Who will win? I... think... it will be... the HYPNOCAT!

Bill Adds: That first link is amazing.

Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim:

In a direct challenge to the international uproar over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, the Jordanian journalist Jihad Momani wrote: "What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras, or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony?"

In Yemen, an editorial by Muhammad al-Assadi condemned the cartoons but also lamented the way many Muslims reacted. "Muslims had an opportunity to educate the world about the merits of the Prophet Muhammad and the peacefulness of the religion he had come with," Mr. Assadi wrote. He added, "Muslims know how to lose, better than how to use, opportunities."

To illustrate their points, both editors published selections of the drawings — and for that they were arrested and threatened with prison.

Why were they sent to prison? "In Jordan, a spokesman said the king felt especially obligated, because his family is a direct descendant of the prophet." Others disagree:

In the end, political analysts around the region say that governments have resorted to the very practices that helped the rise of Islamic political forces in the first place. They have placated the more extreme voices while arresting and silencing more moderate ones.

...

Many of the king's supporters said he felt the need to respond as firmly as he did partly because of the rise of Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in Gaza, and to strip the Islamists in Jordan of an issue to rally around.

...

"This has become a game between two sides, the extremists and the government," said Tawakkul Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Constraints in Sana, Yemen.* "They've made it so that if you stand up in this tidal wave, you have to face 1.5 billion Muslims."

It's the same game they've been playing for decades. And it's Reason #3,647 for liberalizing the Middle East.

The article also points out why those of you who have been reading the Arab press and looking for consistantly enlightened writing in Arabic newspapers might have had some difficulty.

"I keep hearing, 'Why are liberals silent?' " said Said al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian judge and author of books on political Islam. "How can we write? Who is going to protect me? Who is going to publish for me in the first place? With the Islamization of the society, the list of taboos has been increasing daily. You should not write about religion. You should not write about politics or women. Then what is left?"

* Tawakkul Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Constraints in Sana, Yemen, does not exist. Neither does this article she "wrote". Or maybe she's just not a Muslim. Not a real Muslim, anyway. LIES! ALL LIES! IT'S.....

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a

If you're in the Washington, DC area:

Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading "Stand By Denmark" and any variation on this theme (such as "Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego")

Related: Buy Danish. Or Danish music.

*** Daniel Drezner has a huge roundup of links on the UAE port deal. The takes on the deal are generally positive, like this from a Christian Science Monitor story:

Other who work within the port communities agree. They note that P&O will not be "managing" the ports, as many news organizations have reported. Instead, the company is one of many that leases terminals at the port.

"I've never quite seen a story so distorted so quickly," says Esther de Ipolyi, a public-relations executive who works with the port of Houston. "It's like I go to an apartment building that has 50 apartments, and I rent an apartment. This does not mean I took over the management of the whole building."

*** Normal lightbulbs draw between 100W to 120W. An iMac draws 80-85W. (95W using 100% of the CPU.) Pretty amazing.

*** Picture of the week: Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey.

The string "..." was in the blacklist. So hopefully "..." was in the comments that were being blocked. They should be working now.

*

Buy German:

U.S. real estate investors are descending on Germany, Europe’s largest economy, hoping to find deals in apartment, shopping mall and office buildings.

There are bargain prices because of over-building, high unemployment and declining population.

I wonder what a nice home in the German Alps would run ...

*** Dean Esmay reasserts that "the cure for irresponsible speech is more speech," as does Goldstein:

Speech is defeated by speech�and should be, up until the point where that remedy is no longer plausible or effective, and a turn toward violence is inevitable.

In most cases, ancillary acts carried out as a result of the beliefs themselves are enough for law enforcement to involve themselves in what is otherwise a speech issue (the desecration of graves or synagogues, the harrassment or assault on Jews, etc.); which is why so long as the belief remains a fringe belief in the west, I can see no reason at all to fight it with bans and prison time (though I understand the impulse, and recognize the peculiar history that makes such a choice seem wise).

*** Regarding the United Arab Emirates port security administration controversy, I'm undecided. While my instinct leans towards Robert Ferrigno's position ...

Bush is going to take some ugly political flak for a better cause. The USA needs to strengthen ties with Arab nations. Period. The UAE is not Switzerland, but it's not Afghanistan either, and yes they recognized the Taliban government. They're politicians too. If we can do business with Pakistan, and we must, the UAE is as good an Islamic business partner as we're going to get.

To take away the deal from the UAE now, for no other reason than their religion, would rightly insult all Muslims, and do irreparable damage to our long term interests. This would not even be an issue if the ports were secure. That should be the focus of conservative attention, not who gets the deal to run the port.

... I don't think that contracting our port security administration out to a Middle Eastern company is merely about "religion," and I also don't have the answers to certain relevant questions:

What are the protocols in place to prevent a jihadi terrorist from insinuating himself into the relationship and facilitating an attack on the US?

What are the specifics regarding the UAE's historical alliance with the US?

To what degree - a la Saudia Arabia and Pakistan - is the UAE's government and/or populace comprised of individuals that are overtly supportive of radical elements?

I confess that I'm simply not informed enough to render definitive judgment. On its face, denying a contract to Middle Eastern company simply because of geography, religion, race, association is a bad precedent that sends a terrible message to a needed political ally, but there are important practicalities to consider when we're talking about our national security, specifically our already porous ports. For example, I have a better idea of how I'd feel if the company was based in Saudi Arabia, as the ties between any corporate entity and the government, and the government's penetration by individuals with sympathetic ties to terror would probably carry unacceptable risk.

On the domestic political front, two thoughts:

1. The administration - specifically Bush, who, fairly interpreted or not, is telegraphing simple obstinance - is doing a terrible job of communicating the rationale behind its resistance to scuttling the deal.

2. The negative political implications for support from the GOP base are made worse by Bush threatening to finally use the veto over something like this, as opposed to the myriad pork-laden items that have come across his desk, for example.

The round-up at Instapundit leans towards supporting Bush on the issue.

Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Some of the answers to my "relevant questions" are partially addressed in a WaPo article:

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Frontline featured an excellent program on the Iraqi insurgency tonight, which is due to be rebroadcast on the web Friday at 9PM and on TV at various times. The footage and perspectives - including realistic, mixed assessments from competent and optimistic yet cautious US military personnel - were very good; highly recommended.

The web site features expanded interviews with individuals that appeared in the report. Col. H.R. McMaster's interview is particularly interesting, as he describes the security see-saw in the city of Tal Afar (I've bolded some passages that reinforce some of the ideas that I've been pushing over the last few weeks):

What was the experience then for the people of this city during this year?

The life was literally choked out of the city. The terrorists had everyone living in abject fear. I mean, people didn't want to come out on the streets; they were afraid for their children to go to schools; the marketplaces closed. What the terrorists did that was very effective for them in terms of giving them the freedom of action they wanted in this city is they [incited] violence … between the Turkmen Sunni, who are the majority population here, and the Turkmen Shi'a.

We've had tremendous success. People come to us spontaneously, thank us for the operation, our continued security efforts. But we also recognize the situation here generally is very fragile.

They attacked the Shi'a, and it was based on this attack … ideology that anyone who does not believe in their narrow definition of Islam is a rejectionist, and it's their duty to wage jihad against them. There were kidnappings and murders and beheadings. These armed camps developed, and the communities fell in on themselves and defended themselves behind what were essentially tribal militias, and one of the tribal militias here in Tal Afar was the police force.
...
And how do you effectively roll that back?

Well, we had to take a very deliberate approach to this problem. One of the things that the enemy did was they tried to cast our intentions here as actions against the Iraqi people and against the Turkmen Sunni population in particular. They've cast our intentions as [those] of crusaders and occupiers who wanted to exploit the Iraqi people rather than help the Iraqi people get their feet under them so this country could succeed and prosper and have security such as they deserve so much. So we had to defeat that disinformation campaign, and it took some time to do that, because you just don't tell people, "Hey, you know that my intentions are pure." You have to prove to them your intentions through your deeds and through building relationships, and we were able to do that over a period of a few months.

It was also important for us … to separate these terrorists and insurgents from the population. It was important for us to address some of their local grievances, and it was important for us as well to show them that we were a force to be reckoned with, … that we had the capability and the determination to defeat these terrorists, because they wouldn't throw their lot in with us … if we didn't demonstrate that commitment to win the fight.

We had some initial actions against the enemy which were devastating to the enemy. [We] were killing 30, 40, 50 of the enemy at a time. I think that helped us; people thanked us for that. Intelligence came in at a much higher level after those very sharp engagements with the enemy within the city. … With the intelligence we were receiving, we could conduct very precise offensive operations to capture them. We had people who were willing to come forward and tell us exactly what these people did and to testify against them in court, because people were really desperate to return to normalcy and to bring security to the city and to their children.

The enemy then tried to deny us that access by attacking the people in an indiscriminate manner, and a very determined and brutal manner. … It became very clear to us that based on the nature of this enemy, based on the strength of the enemy here, that we would have to conduct an offensive operation to defeat the enemy's operation and then immediately transition into getting Iraqi army and police into position throughout the city to prevent the enemy from returning.
...
We're at the stage now where we have established permanent security in the city, so we're accelerating the development of a reconstituted police force.
...
The enemy preyed on this community to such a degree, it became increasingly clear to the people that the source of all of their problems and all of their grievances were the terrorists themselves, whether it was the lack of basic services, the employment situation. But we couldn't do reconstruction here because the contractors would be shot at; the new water pipe would be blown up; the new power line would be destroyed. And so a precondition for progress along any line in any area was the removal of this terrorist organization within the city.

Read the rest, and try to catch one of the rebroadcasts on TV or the web.

And answer me: given the words about the importance of building relationships and gaining Iraqi trust from a US Army counterinsurgency expert risking life and limb in the field, do obnoxiously bigoted attitudes like this (see update) ...

Who gives a shit what Hugh Hewitt, Dean Esmay, Bill Ardolino, and their 1.2 billion Muslim friends think.

... support or undermine the actual methodology behind the war effort? As Reynolds recently opined about Ann Coulter's recent "raghead" remark, people that express such universally hostile sentiments about Muslims are "objectively pro-terrorist."

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Does Paul Rodgers (of Bad Company fame) do a ...

A. Fantastic

B. Good

C. Adequate

D. Poor

F. Miserable

Other

... job filling in for the late, great Freddy Mercury on Queen's current world tour?

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Beastie Boys: Brass Monkey (Live Remix)

Warning: Rap!

Radiohead: Street Spirit

Because there's no such thing as too much Radiohead.

*** Donnah (aka Florida Cracker) posts her original recipe for an exotic dish she christens "tunst," and a violent Miracle Whip vs. Mayonnaise war busts out in the comments. As I wrote over there, Miracle Whip is just like mayonnaise ... that's been sitting out in the sun for three days and peed on by feral cats. Cracker's family may slather the vile substance on Florida swamp rat kabobs, but we only ever used to put Miracle Whip on the rims of our garbage cans to keep the raccoons away.

*** I'm still scratching my head over this story about a man that claims to have survived 33 years of unbroken insomnia:

You�d think going without sleep for that long may have its drawbacks, but not for the man in central Quang Nam province who has never been ill after decades of insomnia.

His inability to sleep has not only made him famous, but also represents a �miraculous� phenomenon worthy of scientific study.

Sixty-four-year-old Ngoc, known as Hai Ngoc, said he could not sleep at night after getting a fever in 1973, and has counted infinite numbers of sheep during more than 11,700 consecutive sleepless nights.

�I don�t know whether the insomnia has impacted my health or not. But I�m still healthy and can farm normally like others,� Ngoc said.

"Miraculous phenomenon" indeed; not merely because Thai Ngoc had a fever that rendered him unable to sleep (inflammation wrecking his pineal gland might have done the trick), but that he's been able to maintain health without the sleep-induced metabolic repair and regulation, especially up to such an advanced age:

However, the function of sleep is mysterious. For instance, sleep-deprived rats eat more even as their body weight falls. As sleep deprivation continues, the animals lose their ability to maintain body temperature. Their immune systems weaken, and they are overwhelmed by infection. Thus, sleep is entwined with feeding, thermoregulation, and immunity.

Get that guy into a lab, stat.

*** We're on the cusp of a paradigm shift in life expectancy that has difficult implications for the world economy (among other huge implications):

The age of retirement should be raised to 85 by 2050 because of trends in life expectancy, a US biologist has said.

Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University says anti-ageing advances could raise life expectancy by a year each year over the next two decades.

That will put a strain on economies around the world if current retirement ages are maintained, he warned.
...
"It might be possible to go through two mortgages, for example, or even have 50-year or 75-year mortgages," Dr Tuljapurkar explained.

In the US, the cost of social security and medical care would almost double if people retired at 65 under Tuljapurkar's scenario.

85 by 2050? I think he's being conservative, given the possibility of seeing nearly limitless (or at least exponentially longer) lifespans within this century.

Tonight, one night only, your chance to meet the man behind INDCJournal: Dorkafork. Yep, the man responsible for... how INDCJournal is today. At the Breckenridge Brewery & Pub by Coors Field in Denver.

In addition to needing a Chinese translator, I also need a Moveable Type/Typekey expert, as my comments are going wonky. Apply via the e-mail address on the right. Thanks.

I've noticed a bit of traffic coming from a link to INDC that's featured somewhere on this blog, which appears to be written in Chinese. Now, while I can't be certain of this - as I don't read a lick of Chinese and don't actually know what the guy is linking to - I get the feeling that the author is flaming me, what with all those menacingly gooney squiggles and lines. And I'm very, very angry about it. Furious, in fact. Livid. So if any of you read Chinese and would be willing to translate a bilingual flamewar, so that I might teach this ChiCom bastiche WHAT'S WHAT and drop a few rhetorical nukes across the Yalu River, please let me know. Thank you.

UPDATE: ARGGHHH! YOUR WORMY ALPHABET MAKES MY BRAIN SWIM!

A stunning example of media deception, if true:

The FBI translator who supplied the 12 hours of Saddam Hussein audiotapes excerpted by ABC's "Nightline" Wednesday night now says the network discarded his translations and went with a less threatening version of the Iraqi dictator's comments.

"What you heard on ABC News was their translation," former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity on Thursday.

"They came up with something different on a key element regarding terrorism in the United States," Tierney insisted.

In the "Nightline" version of the 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C., would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would have nothing to do with the attack.

Tierney says, however, that what Saddam actually said was much more sinister. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," he told Hannity.

In a passage not used by "Nightline," Tierney says Saddam declares: "Terrorism is coming. ... In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?"

Again, if verified, I'd say that this deserves some serious attention from the blogosphere.

(Via AoS)

UPDATE: Via commenter Foster, it looks like Tierney may be a bit ... friggin' wacked. The ostensible "full" Hussein translations are due out soon, so I guess I'll still take a (skeptical) wait and see approach, despite Tierney's, er, alleged barking mad insanity:

Tierney's methods of ascertaining this location were rather unconventional. "I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it," he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend's clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. "Everything she said lined up. This place meets the criteria," Tierney said of a power generator plant near the Tigris River that he believes is actually a cover for a secret uranium facility.

Between this guy and Scott Ritter, where do they find these UN Weapons Inspectors?

Dorkafork and I have been tapdancing our little hearts out for you people all week, and frankly, we're tired. But you can serve up a little reciprocal entertainment by answering the following question:

Which United States Senator would you least like to sit next to on a cross-country flight?

I'll go first:

Something about Charles Schumer (D, NY) bothers me at an instinctive level; aside from suffering the occasional chill of his probing reptilian gaze, I imagine that he'd smell a bit like wet Cheerios.

And though it may come as a surprise, I'd be delighted to share a row with Senator Kennedy. Delighted. Why? Aside from the remote but possible threat of him honking up a swirly blend of scotch and clam chowder in my lap, think of the upsides: big hits off of his monster flask ("no baby bottles for TK!"), the opportunity to play Iceman to his Maverick when he makes an unsteady bombing run on any attractive flight attendants, and, if he passes out, free creative reign with a sharpie marker, followed by the giggling satisfaction of watching Kennedy deliver a bleary-eyed post-flight press conference with "I *HEART* balls" and a handlebar mustache drawn across the blotchy red canvas of his meaty mug.

Now you go.

UPDATE: Another inane hypothetical: "Dick vs. Jack?"

You're close to the truth, Mr. Marshall. Closer than you know.

I was in New Zealand 20 hours after the shooting. And there was no mention of it in any of the newspapers. Not one. If I had been in the press office I would have sent out a press release immediately. We wouldn't have told the ranch owner to release the news, we wouldn't have waited an hour to inform the President and never would've have waited another 17 hours to hold a press conference.

Why wasn't the press informed immediately? That's the real question, isn't it? Why? The how and who is just scenery for the public: birdshot, the ranch owner, quail... Keeps them guessing and prevents them from asking the most important question. Why? Why was there a delay in informing the press? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

I wondered about that myself, too many problems with the official story. Was there ...

... a second shooter?

Well, thank you Mr. X. We may have a break in the case. We picked up a guy we think was involved. Claimed to be quail hunting in Texas on the day in question. Maybe we'll get him to testify.

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Hugh Hewitt again cracks me up with this latest merciless badgering of UPI curmudgeon Helen Thomas, also known as "La Volpe Sporca" in these parts. This bit is great:

(Helen Thomas): Where did...yes, it's...it's very important to me. Where did you work?

(Hugh Hewitt): PBS for ten years.

HT: PBS?

HH: Yes.

HT: Well, that's a good credential.

HH: There you have it. See? I'm...

HT: But then you decided to switch over?

HH: To switch over to what?

HT: God knows what you are.

Another interesting snapshot from Iraqi Kurdistan:

Iraqi Kurdistan is more pro-American than America. People there refer to George W. Bush as “Hajji Bush” (meaning he made the Muslim pilgrimage, the hajj, to Mecca), an incredibly high honor for a Christian...

Dave Price has the Michael Totten round-up.

More ammunition for contextual critique of the "Islam is evil, Clash of Civilizations" crowd.

Radiohead: You (Live)

Motorhead: God Save the Queen

*** ABC's Nightline features tapes of disturbing pre-war talk from Saddam Hussein.

Let's have a listen. (Brief but damning Wave file)

Wait ... that might have been South Park. This is definitely the real deal:

Saddam Hussein told aides in the mid-1990s that he warned the United States it could be hit by a terrorist attack, ABC News reported in the US.

The report cited 12 hours of tapes the network obtained of the former Iraqi dictator's talks with his cabinet.

One of Saddam's son-in-laws also explained how Iraq hid its biological weapons programs from United Nations inspectors, according to the tapes from August 1995, the television network reported.

The coming terrorist attack Saddam predicted could involve weapons of mass destruction.

"Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans," Saddam is heard saying, adding he "told the British as well."

"In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" Saddam said.

Read the rest for equivocating context. My interpretation of Hussein's message?

"Nice country they got there. Be a shame if something ... happened to it."

*** Hugh Hewitt kicks Lawrence O'Donnell up and down the block like a meaty tin can regarding the MSNBC analyst's outrageous intimation that Elmer Cheney was drunk:

LO: I'll tell you. Let me make it clear to you. The person who suggested this question to me was not a lawyer. The person who suggested this question to me was an alcoholic, okay? That's who suggested the question to me. And then I raised the question with other lawyers, and they said oh, yeah. That's why you avoid the police after an accident. I ask you and your audience, Hugh, please tell me why did Ted Kennedy avoid the police after his accident on Chappaquiddick? Do you think alcohol and inebriation had something to do with it?

HH: Lawrence O'Donnell, I don't believe you. I don't believe you talked to lawyers who told you that Cheney was too drunk to talk. I just don't believe you.

LO: All right. Don't. Don't.

HH: Do you have any name you'll give me that we can double check?

LO: Listen, Hugh, my entire family are lawyers. Every one of them, okay?

HH: Could I talk to one of them?

LO: No, it's ridiculous. I talk to lawyers all the time.

HH: Did you talk to them yesterday?

LO: What...tell me what difference that makes? Let's pretend...

HH: Well, you wrote it. I want to know about your...

LO: Let's assume that I talked to no one. Let's say that's a lie.

HH: Okay. So you did lie about this?

It's probably worth noting that a younger Larry O'Donnell had a hot girlfriend in the 7th grade that lived far, far away ... FAR away. Like, in Montana. A SUPER-HOT girlfriend, whose name may or may not have been "K-Mart Picture Studio Sample Photo." Honest, guys. Cross his heart.

Read the rest, it's fantastic.

FLASHBACK: Lawrence O'Donnell explains it all for me.

*** Ok, between Brokeback Mountain, Dorkafork IMing me pictures of himself naked except for a cowboy hat and this, I may need to rethink Sergio Leone's entire oeuvre.

*** Colossus: The White House Press Corps Plays "Clue." This was my favorite bit as well:

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Connie.

Q Is it proper for the Vice President to offer his resignation or has he offered his resignation --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's an absurd question. Go ahead, Ken.

David Gregory, in the conservatory, wearing a chicken suit.

The Dream City of the Kurds:

In no country are Kurds closer to realizing their dream of freedom and independence than they are in Iraq. They are wrapping up the finishing touches on their de-facto sovereign state-within-a-state, a fact on the ground that will not easily be undone. And they’re transforming the hideously decrepit physical environment left to them by Saddam Hussein – a broken place that is terribly at odds with the Kurdistan in their hearts and in their minds – into something beautiful and inspiring, the kind of place you might like to live in someday yourself.

The heart of the new Kurdistan is soon to be known as the Dream City, a massive construction site going up on the outskirts of Erbil.

Sullivan Loses Last Marble

(Via Allah, who adds, "Sullivan embraces conspiracy theory. His Kos-ification is now complete.")

Ace contributes:

When he left Kos, he was but a student. Now he is a master.

But only a master of beagles.

2004 FLASHBACK: INDC "interviews" Andrew Sullivan.

*** Time for our old game: Andrew Sullivan or DKos?

Entry A serves up some questionable media analysis:

In this case, we have Cheney and the entire Bush Administration foreign and domestic policy in a nutshell. Especially in Iraq and Katrina.

There is no way to play the usual equivocating politics with a story about the vice-president actually shooting someone.

And that's why I guarantee you this story isn't going away: It's a perfect way for the press to indict the entire Administration through the perfect metaphor.

Entry B features breathless royalist/papist comparisons:

Dear Mr Cheney,

Just a word, if I may. You are employed by the American people. You are not a monarch; and you are not a Pope. You have seriously wounded another human being. The news was kept from the public for a day. ... Who are you hiding from? And who on earth do you think you are?

Answer at the bottom. No peeking.

(One link via Ace)

*** Speaking of DKos, quotable:

I'm not a big fan of the Olympics, but I almost prefer reading about the last place finishers than the winners. More personality in the cellar. -- Markos

Go ahead. Go on. You don't need me, I'll let you make the joke on your own. Go on.

...

(prefers the cellar? more personality in losing? Howard Dean chained up like the gimp?)

The possibilities, man, the possibilities!

*** MSN: "Obituaries from the TV graveyard." Two of my favorite series as a kid are on that list, Sledgehammer! and Voyagers!

My cop brother informs me that Sledgehammer! has greatly influenced his "personal law enforcement philosophy and style." Between that and his exhortations about the remarkable accuracy of "Reno: 911!," I advise one and all to skip the state of Florida.

*** Identity politics run amok at the University of Washington:

The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.

Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government's meeting last week, said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."

Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."

No more "rich white men," eh? In addition to shooting down 28 enemy aircraft, winning the Medal of Honor and enduring 20 months as a POW, Boyington was "half Sioux" and "hardly ever had two nickels to rub together in his entire life," as noted by Donnah.

Never let facts get in the way of some quality racism ...

*** ... nor the innocent flower of youth, for that matter: racist babies!

You should judge someone not by the color of his skin, civil-rights leader Martin Luther King declared 43 years ago, but by the content of his character.

Yet new research suggests that to achieve this ideal, you may have unlearn years’ worth of mental habits—a daunting number of years. Such as your current age, minus three months.

That’s because new studies have found that by this age—three months—many babies start to prefer faces of people from their own race to those of another race. This early favoritism may represent the first glimmers of racial prejudice, psychologists say.

On the bright side ...

But don’t start fretting about racist babies yet. On the bright side, researchers also found that babies raised with frequent exposure to people of other races don’t develop this early bias. This discovery may help guide future research on how to counter racism, they suggested.

... there may be hope for certain members of that UW student council yet. I suggest "rich white man" immersion therapy at the Pi Kappa Alpha house's "Spring Hawaiian Luau."

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An amusing order of headlines over at Drudge:

DOW BACK OVER 11,000 ON SALES SURGE...

$$$ Hits 6-Week High Against €€€..

OIL FALLS BELOW $60...

Kerry: Economy faltering under Bush...

Not bad, but the editors should have tossed in an ...

Unemployment rate drops to a 4 1/2-year low (4.7%)

and a ...

U.S. Economy: Retail Sales May Spur Faster Expansion

... for good measure. In related news, Kerry urges investors to buy Google.

Is it possible for TV journalists/pundits/etc. to show just a little dignity?

UPDATE: Oh for heavens sake...

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"Robble, robble!"

The contest is taking place at the Commissar's joint, so submit your entry there. And try to come up with something a bit more original than ironic "religion of peace" quotes.

Could this be part of McDonald's new advertising strategy?

(Via Dave Price)

Family fun!

(Warning: video of terrified 9 year-old, but detail says "Everyone had a good laugh after it was over (Justice & Chad).")

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Glenn Reynolds remarks on Ann Coulter's latest rhetorical offense and the key to winning the war:

But there are more serious reasons to be unhappy with Coulter, reasons that, as so often happens, are actually obscured by the theatrics of angry lefties. And though I've been a bit distracted this weekend, and I don't generally like to give Coulter's attention-getting efforts more attention, it's probably worth mentioning them now.

I didn't attend the event (I didn't actually attend any events except the book stuff in the Exhibition hall; I was supposed to be on a panel about online media but had to cancel) but as I understand it, Coulter made the raghead remark, and then a Muslim attendee -- perhaps the guy from "Muslims For America" that Helen interviewed for our podcast -- got up to object to the "raghead" remark, and she put him down. And that's what's really bad. In fact, Ann Coulter is guilty of doing what Ann Althouse and Stephen Green note that the lefty bloggers tend to do: Someone stretched out a hand, and she spat on it. And her ongoing treatment of Muslims has followed this general pattern of fostering alienation. The result of this sort of behavior is aid and comfort to the enemy.

To win this war, we need to kill the people who want to kill us. But we need to win over the rest. The terrorists of Al Qaeda want to polarize things so that it appears to be a war of Christianity against Islam, of America and the West against all Arabs and Muslims. With remarks like those, she's helping their cause, not ours. Call it "objectively pro-terrorist."

A familiar theme to readers of this site, though more clearly and succinctly stated.

*** Netflix refuses to send me copies of "the 40 Year-Old Virgin" and "Cinderella Man," despite an eager placement at the top of my queu. "Police Academy 6: City Under Siege" and "Critters 3," however, came right on time. Now I know why.

*** Robert the Llama pans the current Olympic mascots. Heh.

*** Tim F at Balloon Juice notes Josh Marshall's diligent investigative reporting skills on the Cheney birdshot SCANDAL:

Josh Marshall has devoted 14 of his last 15 posts to the topic so if there’s a scandal in there somewhere he’s bound to run into it eventually.

Keep digging for THE TRUTH, Josh!

He's like a 21st Century, bespectacled Woodward and Bernstein hybrid, a sort of transhuman "super-reporter," if you will. I see Kevin Spacey playing him in the movie version.

*** What have we learned from the Cheney shooting incident? It makes for great comedy: wisecracks about Cheney's inept aim are hilarious. So is an earnest David Gregory from NBC, clucking at Scott McClellan like an agitated hen; bobbing, pecking and using his fearsome chicken mojo to suss forth THE TRUTH:

The most heated public moment occurred during McClellan's off-camera "gaggle" with White House reporters yesterday morning. It featured NBC's David Gregory, one of McClellan's most persistent inquisitors over the last year, who raised his voice while asking a question about the incident.

"Hold on," McClellan interrupted, pointing out that "the cameras aren't on right now. You can do this later."

"Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras," Gregory replied. "Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question."

"You don't have to yell," McClellan said.

"I will yell," said Gregory, jabbing his finger in McClellan's direction. "If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don't appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that's wrong."

"Calm down, Dave. Calm down," said McClellan evenly.

Priceless. Later, as the cameras roll:

"Let's just be clear here," Gregory said. "The vice president of the United States accidentally shoots a man, and he feels that it's appropriate for a ranch owner who witnessed this to tell the local Corpus Christi newspaper and not the White House press corps at large or notify the public in a national way?"

"Well, I think we all know that once it is made public, then it's going to be news and all of you are going to be seeking that information," McClellan replied.

Several questions followed, including three variations on "When did the president learn that the vice president had shot someone?"

In the course of the session, reporters made seven references to Cheney having "shot" someone, with four to a "shooting."

Bless our Fourth Estate.

So, what's this big hubbub I hear about a "hunting accident," or something?

What, did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad uncork a medium-range ballistic missile at Israel and accidentally hit Jordan?

I've previously criticized the nutritionist-parroted refrain that the key to losing or maintaining weight is as simple as a "calories ingested = calories burned" equation, citing other factors like positive hormone control, the relative influence of certain types of exercise and the relative influence of the types of calories ingested. It now appears that, in addition to the aforementioned factors consigning the "it's only calories in = calories out" maxim to the remainder bin of overly-simplistic scientific wive's tales, we've got a new dimension: human adenoviruses:

A growing body of obesity research focusing on human adenoviruses and brain hormones may prove that being fat is not your fault.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that chickens infected with human adenovirus 37, or AD-36, packed on up to three times more fat than normal chickens. "This is a novel concept as far as a cause for obesity.

If these viruses are contributing to obesity, as we get to the point of developing a vaccine, there may be a way to help combat the obesity epidemic," said Leah Whigham, the study's lead author and an associate scientist at the university.

Another human adenovirus, called AD-36, has already been linked to obesity in animals and humans. Whigham inoculated chickens with AD-2, AD-31 and AD-37, three of about 50 human adenoviruses known to exist. She made sure the animals' blood contained antibodies, which means the virus had infected them.

After four weeks both the inoculated chickens and a control group were analyzed for their weight and fat content. AD-2 and AD-31 showed no effect on the animals, yet AD-37 dramatically fattened the animals. The virus works directly on fat cells, increasing their adiposity, or fat content.

Neither the inoculated group nor the control group differed in their food intake, ruling out the possibility of overeating as a cause.

Wow, some cases of obesity may have a viral component. (Put down the twinkie, chico, we're talking "some.")

Also interesting is the research focus on hormones and brain chemicals:

In a second study, researchers in England identified a brain hormone, or a peptide, not previously known to cause obesity in children. The hormone, beta-MSH, is produced by a protein called proopiomelanocortin, or POMC, which is located in the hypothalamus of the brain. The beta-MSH hormone, along with alpha-MSH, control appetite and satiation, or the feeling of being full. When this hormone mutates, it can not work properly to monitor appetite.

But the article makes a direct error here:

Researchers know another POMC peptide, called alpha-MSH, causes obesity, but beta-MSH was the "neglected sibling" -- largely because it is not expressed in rodents, said Stephen O'Rahilly, a professor of medicine at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in England.

Alpha-MSH (alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone), is a substance produced in the pituitary gland that does a bunch of interesting things, primarily famous for causing you to tan ("melanocyte stimulating"). It also has the effects of increasing libido, reducing inflammation and serving as an appetite supressant, maybe working on an alternating axis with the aforementioned beta-MSH to regulate appetite (perhaps "on-off" switches; I'm guessing on the interaction, as I don't know beta-MSH well). So alpha-MSH does not "cause obesity" as the article states, rather the opposite: a lack of the substance (or gene that makes it) causes obesity.

Interesting to note: two drugs are currently in development that synthetically mimic and augment the action of alpha-MSH; one focusing on tanning by drug, another focusing on enhancing libido equally well in men and women (Full disclosure: I own stock in both companies). Each of the drugs has been developed with the goal of isolating the primary actions (tanning and libido), but appetite suppressant side effects remain, and a melanocortin-based anti-obesity treatment may be closer than you think.

Bring on the future.

(Original article via Dean)

Previous Somewhat-Related Posts:

The Real "Atkins Hesitation:" Inflammation

Why The Dermatologists In This Story Are Wrong

A Cautionary Note on Obesity

Fighting Populist Instinct and Oversimplification

View larger (Photo: INDC)

Burn the Witches!

4) Do Ginger Kids have Souls?

Unfortunately no, Ginger Kids are born without souls. A common misconception is that you need a soul to survive. This is completely false. Ginger Kids are people just like everyone else, even if they don’t have souls. Many Ginger Kids live happy, healthy, productive lives devoid of any sort of soul.

Via Ace. One of his Ginger-headed commenters rebuts:

Speaking as a Ginger Kid: we're accustomed to the hate and fear of the lesser tribes. Historically, jealousy has always caused people to respond with intolerance.

I just never expected to see Ace promoting it so openly.

As soon as we perfect SPF 5000 sunblock, we're coming for you, Ace.

*** What would you give for internet access? This much?

Don't take it for granted.

*** From fighting oppression in Cuba to fighting oppression in Yemen, Jane Novak continues to shine a light on the Yemeni government's battle against reformers:

This is the story of Hafez al-Bokari and Rahma Hujira, two leaders of Yemeni civil society who have struggled for years for journalists rights.

*** Dean features another interpretation of Islam that contradicts the "immutable evil" theory.

*** Can this guy hit ONE BILLION page views?

(Via Dean)

*** The South Dakota legislature attempts to set the stage for a challenge to Roe. Aside from the fact that the newly comprised conservative wing of the SCOTUS probably still doesn't have the mojo, I think I spy a wrinkle that may doom the effort (via precedent):

Amendments aimed at carving out exemptions for rape, incest and the health of women were rejected.

We'll see, I guess.

*** If you think that I reject previously-mentioned teutonic criticisms of blogging just because I poked fun at the critic, you're partially wrong. Case in point: Poorman aims a low blow at Goldstein, labeling him a "failed academic" because he left teaching and the PhD track to - wait for it - take care of his kid. Why would Poorman employ the nasty characterization? Because he vehemently disagreed with Goldstein's political argument and wanted to undermine it. It's also possible that the lefty blogger wasn't miminally socialized as a child - theoretically raised by rabid marmosets, wild baboons or the Hilton family.

As another example, in addition to the regular racist attacks thrown at Michelle Malkin, I've been particularly confused by the energy critics expend on trying to intimate, prove and/or assert that Michelle's blog is partially ghost-written by her husband. It's an oddly nasty and conspiratorial line of attack, made worse by repeated claims that she admitted the offense via writing that her husband "helped me with a handful of blog posts out of the estimated 3,000 I've written since June 2004[.]" Putting up with such an Orwellian interpretation ("helped" = "wrote") of a sentence in a post explicitly rebutting the charge has to be frustrating to Malkin, I'm sure.

And therein lies the kernel of truth in the aforementioned German journalist's argument about blogging: in a heated environment of consequence-free rhetorical political warfare, any ammunition is fair game, and many of the tactics drift towards distracting personal attacks that diminish or exclude actual analysis.*

Don't get me wrong, professional journalists and commentators certainly hold grudges and biases - and act on them in their own special or analogous ways - but blogging suffers from a comparative lack of professional restraint or subsequent responsibility (shame, even) that sometimes successfully restrains journalists. Sometimes - we're talking about a human dynamic augmented by impersonal online communication, not a blogger or journalist-exclusive dynamic. (Exhibit A, Exhibit B)

It's just the cost of playing the game, I guess; we're gunslinging in the World Wild West, but no one ever gets shot. To wit, recall Hubris's brilliant theory of blogging dynamics.

UPDATE: Also see Amy Ridenour's entertaining exercise in restoring justice to the internet, one obscene Canuckian at a time.

* Don't mistake my condemnation of Poorman's slam or overall critique of blogging for a claim of my own perpetual innocence regarding the tactic, though I endeavor to avoid blows that are quite so ... untrue. I also try to keep superficial attacks in the realm of humor, rather than earnest vitriol as a pillar of critical analysis. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes not (often when harassing these chumps).

"Can someone please make Michael Badnarik put his pants back on?! What is he doing here, anyway?"

"Barr!"

UPDATE: Told ya.

A German broadcaster analyzes bloggers in Spiegel Online:

It is often about narcissistic egocentrists who want to satisfy the urge to express themselves.

I can't argue with that. But in all fairness: fish gotta swim, bears have to crap in the woods and Germans have to reclaim the Sudetenland and robotically tweak their nipples to crazy-ass techno.

Many blogs are filled with hostility, accusations and systematic provocation. For example, others are deliberately put down without the blogger ever having personally met them.

Again, correct. I'd prefer to do all of my wet work up close, but who's got the time?

Through that, however, he directs attention to himself and enjoys the hype that develops around him. For the majority of bloggers it is not seriously about clarifying the subject matter or analyzing an event. Most of them just present a private table dance.

Aside from the metaphorical quibble that a "private table dance" is, by its overtly descriptive nature, "private," Herr Leif hits the mark again. Though I must admit: the mind's-eye visual of a naked Marcos Zuniga vigorously gyrating his sex machine to a sped-up version of "99 Luftballons" for a rapt, greedy-eyed John Aravosis makes me want to scour my brain pan with a lye-coated wire brush.

But sometimes the truth is an unkind thing.

Neunundneunzig Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt Man für Ufos aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
'Ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben, wenn's so wär
Dabei war'n da am Horizont
Nur neunundneunzig Luftballons

"Guy, I know I'm drunk, but listen, listen: the outsized Islamophobia I can maybe stomach; I get where that comes from. Love JC but don't dig 'the ghey?' That's totally your business, except ... maybe sometimes when it's not. And I can even maybe come to ignore the whole 'you're a modern murderin' Mengele!' schtick whenever we try to rap abortion and stem cell research. Totally cool. But between you and me? No foolin'? I will never, and I mean never, get this NASCAR crap. I mean, heh, you fools drooling over Rusty Earnhardt zipping around in circles - over and over and over and over again - reminds me of a group of mangy redneck housecats mesmerized by a Lionel train set whizzing laps around a Christmas tree. Heh. I mean, it's like a scene from-"

BLAM!

*** Chuck Norris Facts, the T-shirt! According to the CEO of the T-shirt company, "Essentially, everyone and their mother started selling items with the sayings using his likeness and name without his consent. He was cool with it at first but it got out of control. He started seeing obscene sites carrying the items, etc. and wanted to get some measure of organization. So he went to the people that were making the bootleg items and hit them with a kick so hard it killed their parents. We are happy to work with Mr. Norris to prevent future carnage." (You gotta read between the lines, people.)

*** (Non-silly link) In case you missed it, scientists discovered what they called a "Garden of Eden" in New Guinea with hundreds of new species. National Geographic has a handful of pretty amazing photos.

*** (Silly link) Of course, that story is an example of a Creator's Designer's hand/alien space tentacle in action. Just take a look at the "Intelligent Design Society of Kansas" FAQ:

How do you recognize when something is Irreducibly Complex?

Something is Irreducibly Complex when proponents of Intelligent Design can't imagine how natural selection could have produced it.

Does natural selection ever work?

Sometimes maybe, but not when we can't imagine it working.

*** Best headline of the year: Monkey Police Provide Social Stability. Yeah, sure, until they hit you with the firehose. It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE! (via Gary Farber)

*** How do you improve a long running newspaper comic? In Garfield's case, you edit out his thought balloons. Result: surreal absurdist masterpieces. This one made me laugh so hard I cried:

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Hank: "Man, it sure has been a remarkable few years for the cause of freedom, hasn't it? I mean, George Bush has freed 25 million people from the yoke of a cruel tyrant in Iraq, and another 25 million from maniacal fundamentalist oppression in Afghanistan. Despite a hostile press and defeatist Democrats, our brave men and women in uniform have gallantly risked their lives to liberate over 50 million people!"

Dale: "You got that right, brother. There's nothing more heartwarming than the sight of a newly free bloodthirsty Muslim death cultist. Especially the wee ones, bless their savage little Islamic hearts."

Hank:

Dale: "God bless America!"

Hank:

Dale: "You want another beer?"

"Jesus, who invited all these freakin' Buchananites? They're hoarding like, ALL of the finger sandwiches, and we had to peel one dude off of a terrified Lebanese parking valet. Guy started screaming at the swarthy sap about 'intolerance,' and then threatened to 'nuke Mecca, especially if' his 'electronic seat settings' had been 'disturbed.' I mean, Christ."

"Ooh, deviled eggs!"

The scales have fallen off of my eyes. Islam is bad. It is by nature incompatible with the West. The 99.9% of Muslims not protesting are not coming out against the violence. They are the silent majority and their silence is damning.

(I mean, besides this statement. But besides that, silence.)

(And except for this one, too, silence.)

(All right, besides the first statement, the second one, and this one there's been nothing, just silence.)

(SILENCE! Total and complete except for the aformentioned statements and this one.)

(Look, just give me a mulligan on this one.)

(So another "prominent" Muslim scholar condemned it. The guy heads some Dublin based group. Try and find me a major religious leader in the Middle East who is against the violence.)

(Besides Sistani. Silence! Try and find me another Iraqi that feels that way.)

(SHUT UP! Put it this way, how many rallies have Muslims held that took a stand against the violence? None.)

(Doesn't count. Hasn't happened yet. The point is Islam is incompatible with Western ideals of democracy or freedom.)

(Besides the Islamic nations that are becoming more free. And what the heck does Fouad Ajami know anyway? Look, if 99.9% of Muslims are against violence like this, how come no Bangladeshi farmers have taken out full page ads in the NYT? They need to make more of an effort. I'm home, give me a call or something. Knock on the door.)

(That had to be a coincidence. Granted, the pizza delivery guy's nametag said "Abdul", but I didn't get a chance to ask him about his religious beliefs so he might not be Muslim. I just sort of shouted, "I will not accept a Caliphate formed because of your SILENCE! I AM NOT YOUR DHIMMI!" Even if he had shown some basic human decency and apologized for the embassy burning, it's only one guy compared to the 10,000 in Syria. He should come over with 9,999 of his Muslim friends and maybe build a Danish embassy on my front lawn to even it up.)

(UPDATE: Silence!)

Muslim cartoon protestors apparently suffer from "scope-creep:"

KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 8 -- Like tens of thousands of protesters this week, the crowd that gathered Wednesday in the southern Afghan town of Qalat came to speak out against cartoons in European newspapers mocking the prophet Muhammad.

But the protest soon took a much different direction. Afghan demonstrators began chanting against the hiring of Pakistanis to do reconstruction work. Pakistanis in the crowd began chanting against the United States and tried to force their way into the local U.S. military base. When the crowd encountered Afghan security forces, a suspected Taliban member fired a weapon. Afghan police returned fire. By the time the smoke cleared, at least three protesters were dead and more than a dozen people were injured.

"They forgot all about the cartoons," said Gulab Shah Alikheil, the regional governor's spokesman.

Furor over the caricatures of Islam's most revered figure may have triggered the wave of recent demonstrations among Muslims worldwide. But as the protests escalate, they are morphing into an opportunity for individuals, groups and governments to push agendas that often have little or nothing to do with defending Islam. Rallies ostensibly held for religious reasons have become chances to vent economic frustrations, settle local scores or gain political leverage.

The list of suspected ringleaders using the controversy to their own benefit here is a long one, from al Qaeda and the Taliban to local militia commanders and former governors. All are believed to have something to gain by steering otherwise peaceful protests into melees.

"Ordinary Afghan citizens who are protesting do not walk around with hand grenades in their pockets," said a U.S. military spokesman, Col. James Yonts, referring to a protest Tuesday in which demonstrators lobbed grenades into a NATO base. "That leads us to believe there is something else behind this."

The autocratic Syrian government was widely believed to be behind protests Saturday that resulted in the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. In Lebanon, where the Danish Embassy burned a day later and Christian landmarks were targeted in violence, local news organizations reported that Syrian agents had protesters bussed in to help stir up trouble.

Read the whole thing.

RedStaters, Wizbangers, Fred Barnes - do you really want to be Syria's sock-puppet?

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities asks the million-dollar question.

And this blogger answers:

There are extremists who play this controversy for their advantage, and by turning the west against all Muslims, they win. We don't.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty at TKS:

You realize we’ve reached a point where if a Muslim denounces violence in protesting the cartoons, two groups of people will step forward to insist that this individual is no longer an “authentic Muslim.” One group is the Muslims who believe violence in the name of defending their faith is justified… and the other group is critics of Islam who believe all practitioners of the faith are inherently violent.

And he adds in an e-mail:

A strange agreement, but I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising. Both sides agree that coexistence between the West and Islam is impossible, and that a clash of civilizations is inevitable. But what really unnerves me is how enthusiastic each side is for this grand conflict.

As mentioned earlier:

For some perspective, these are not isolated, small protests. They involve tens of thousands of Muslims around the globe. A single Palestinian protest was said to have involved over 10,000 demonstrators and several have involved more than 5,000. They spread from Indonesia, to the Middle East, to Europe.

Tens of thousands? There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world.

Let's start with, say, 50,000 protestors. Midrange "tens of thousands". And we'll even go further to increase this number: we'll say that for every person that showed up to protest, there are 100 supporters who couldn't show up but feel the same way. Wow, that gives us 5 million Muslims who feel that way. That is very disturbing, and a serious problem.

But 5 million Muslims is only 0.5% of the entire Muslim population in the world. One-half of one percent.

Now we can play around with the math a bit to try and increase that percentage, if we want to try and paint Islam with a broad brush. Let's try and get that percentage up to 10%, shall we? First, we'll start over and say there were 100,000 protestors (anything higher would mean hundreds of thousands of protestors instead of tens of thousands). In order to get just 10%, that would mean that each protestor would have to represent the views of 1,000 other Muslims. But that's somewhat problematic, isn't it? It means that only 1 out of 1,000 muslims that feel this way are willing to protest it. That's 0.1%, one-tenth of one percent. Kind of puts us back where we started, and we're just trying to show that a mere 10% of Muslims feel that way.

Bill Adds: I'm even willing to hypothetically grant higher numbers than some of Dorkafork's above scenarios; but nevertheless, the cautionary perspective is still compelling at double and triple the "actually protested:support the protests" ratios mentioned here.

Amir Taheri, an Iranian terrorism expert often approvingly cited in right-wing circles, launches an assault againt both those inciting violence and those extrapolating such incitement to malign an entire religion as the definitive cause:

"The Muslim Fury," one newspaper headline screamed. "The Rage of Islam Sweeps Europe," said another. "The clash of civilizations is coming," warned one commentator. All this refers to the row provoked by the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper four months ago. Since then a number of demonstrations have been held, mostly--though not exclusively--in the West, and Scandinavian embassies and consulates have been besieged.

But how representative of Islam are all those demonstrators? The "rage machine" was set in motion when the Muslim Brotherhood--a political, not a religious, organization--called on sympathizers in the Middle East and Europe to take the field. A fatwa was issued by Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Brotherhood sheikh with his own program on al-Jazeera. Not to be left behind, the Brotherhood's rivals, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party) and the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba), joined the fray. Believing that there might be something in it for themselves, the Syrian Baathist leaders abandoned their party's 60-year-old secular pretensions and organized attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut.
...
The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads as the answer to satirists. Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade. Both Arabic and Persian literature, the two great literatures of Islam, are full of examples of "laughing at religion," at times to the point of irreverence. Again, offering an exhaustive list is not possible. But those familiar with Islam's literature know of Ubaid Zakani's "Mush va Gorbeh" (Mouse and Cat), a match for Rabelais when it comes to mocking religion. Sa'adi's eloquent soliloquy on behalf of Satan mocks the "dry pious ones." And Attar portrays a hypocritical sheikh who, having fallen into the Tigris, is choked by his enormous beard. Islamic satire reaches its heights in Rumi, where a shepherd conspires with God to pull a stunt on Moses; all three end up having a good laugh.

Islamic ethics is based on "limits and proportions," which means that the answer to an offensive cartoon is a cartoon, not the burning of embassies or the kidnapping of people designated as the enemy. Islam rejects guilt by association. Just as Muslims should not blame all Westerners for the poor taste of a cartoonist who wanted to be offensive, those horrified by the spectacle of rent-a-mob sackings of embassies in the name of Islam should not blame all Muslims for what is an outburst of fascist energy.

Read the whole thing. The nature of the religion itself is not the key to defining this situation.

Yet we still have this not-uncommon sentiment from one RedState contributor ...

The longer this cartoon controversy goes on, however, I'm more and more in the "nuke Mecca and be done with it" camp, and I regret getting closer to that position -- but I find the hordes of angry Islamists willing to be swept up into a fury over cartoons to be appalling and, most likely, a harbinger of worse things to come.

... and this from another:

For some perspective, these are not isolated, small protests. They involve tens of thousands of Muslims around the globe. A single Palestinian protest was said to have involved over 10,000 demonstrators and several have involved more than 5,000. They spread from Indonesia, to the Middle East, to Europe.

"Tens of thousands?" If that's all it takes to define a culturally homogenous trend, then surely hundreds of thousands of protestors on any given topic are also enough to classify the characteristics and opinions of an entire people, right? No? I didn't think so either.

"Perspective," indeed.

(Via IP)

Leopold Stotch headlines "Pass the Prime Rib" in response to the latest media interpretation of a study that green-lights higher-fat diets.

Flashback: Not so fast.

"Fat" is not "good," or "bad," per say, though a diet that is very, very low in fat is certainly bad for you. It's all about the types of fat you eat, and in what proportions.

*** This may be Jeff's best drug-induced spot of writing this year:

A speck of rain on a windshield, disinterested, refracting a benign and glistening slaughter in twitchy oblong curves bleeding all the colors of the rainbow…

Drugs get a bad rap, but some folks are just destined for them.

*** I'm much classier than the absinthe-swilling Cana-dandy Ghost of a Flea, so I don't typically blog about Hollywood cheesecake photos. But since this is all artsy and such, well ... hot damn.

*** ETHEL ROSENBERG VS. ETHEL MERTZ. Shoulda zapped 'em both, I say.

*** Like a beaming toddler after his first successful trip to the Tinkle Toonz's Musical Potty Chair, Robert the Llamabutcher is tickled pink that some anonymous guy on the internet is laughing at him. Bravo, sport.

In the spirit of continuing the yuks ...

Hey, ever wonder what Steve and Robbo the Llamabutchers do on the weekends?

(scroll down to the very bottom clip titled "The Whipping Game: Llama")

(Though originally broadcast in primetime on MTV, NOT SAFE FOR WORK. VERY DISTURBING, but take comfort in the knowledge that your teenaged kids have surely seen it 10 times by now.)

Hey, I don't make the Llama news, I just report it.

Note that the Llamas' weekend activity is very similar to their blogging efforts, in that the two of them constantly fight each other to be the "ass."

*** I wish that I'd written this line:

Thankfully, Sheehan was able to escape Bush’s torture chambers by fashioning a makeshift raft out of CodePINK leaflets and sailing away on a river of her own tears.

Heh.

(Via FC)

*** RIP, Grandpa Munster: Al Lewis died last Friday. I met the guy at his restaurant in New York about 10 years ago, and "amusingly cantankerous" could be etched on his gravestone.

*** Wuzzadem uncovers the real source of those ultra-violent Muslim protest signs.

*** Kevin Drum notes an evaluation of economic voting patterns:

The conclusion of the paper is fairly simple: in poor states, income is a major predictor of whether you vote for Republicans or Democrats. In Mississippi, for example, the rich are far more likely than the poor to vote for Republican presidential candidates. But just the opposite is true in high-income states. There, although the rich are still more likely to vote for Republicans, the difference is quite small.
...
I'm not quite sure what to make of this or how to take advantage of it, but knowledge is power, right? Maybe someone smarter than me will figure out what this means and how to use it.

I can't say for certain, but might it have something to do with "the real source of those ultra-violent Muslim protest signs?" I kid, I kid. Maybe.

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, an employee of a German newspaper that republished the Mohommed cartoons, pens a column that doesn't directly contradict my position, though it causes me to carefully consider its distinctions:

When the cartoons were first published in Denmark in September, nobody in Germany took notice. Had our publication been offered the drawings at that point, in all likelihood we would have declined to print them. At least one of them seems to equate Islam with radical Islamism. That is exactly the direction nobody wants the debate about fundamentalism to take -- even though the very nature of a political cartoon is overstatement. We would not have printed the caricature out of a sense of moderation and respect for the Muslim minority in our country. News people make judgments about taste all the time. We do not show sexually explicit pictures or body parts after a terrorist attack. We try to keep racism and anti-Semitism out of the paper. Freedom of the press comes with a responsibility.

But the criteria change when material that is seen as offensive becomes newsworthy. That's why we saw bodies falling out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's why we saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. On such issues we print what we usually wouldn't. The very nature of the discourse is to find parameters of what is culturally acceptable. How many times have we seen Janet Jackson's breast in the course of a discussion of the limits of family entertainment? How many times have we printed material that Jews might consider offensive in an attempt to define the extent of anti-Semitism? It seems odd that most U.S. papers patronize their readers by withholding cartoons that the whole world talks about. To publish does not mean to endorse. Context matters.

Indeed, context matters. Kleine-Brockhoff goes on:

Much of the U.S. reporting about the fracas made it appear as if Europeans just don't get it -- again. They struggle with immigration. They struggle with religion. They struggle with respect for minorities. And in the end they find their cities burning, as evidenced in Paris. Bill Clinton even detected an "anti-Islamic prejudice" and equated it with a previous "anti-Semitic prejudice."

The former president has turned the argument upside down. In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe's supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules. Does Bill Clinton want to counsel tolerance toward intolerance?

I don't assume that Bill Clinton's position (if it echoes mine, and I don't know the full context) counsels "tolerance towards intolerance." It's true that much of the Western media, specifically the US media in this case, treats both repellant actors and Western audiences like children; assigning disproportionate respect to those who commit violence, when they happen to have the cover of a different culture. This destructive relativism deserves sound rejection. But at the same time, there's a point where our reaction to the actions of those grabbing easy headlines by burning and threatening falls into the trap of viewing an entire religion or people as a monolithic evil. This arbitrary line, where appropriate revulsion for terrible acts, upholding the concept of free speech and a practical evaluation of the Islamic world's systemic problems morphs or extends into easy bigotry, is murky and sometimes difficult to spot. But it's happening.

And my very specific point is this: to the extent that this line is enthusiastically crossed - especially among a right-wing pundit class that's politically fueling the altruistic and strategic portions of our foreign policy in the war on terror - we're undermining ourselves, and the job of those fighting for us.

UPDATE: Rick Moran voices similar thoughts.

"...Inquire Within. Wording Of Inquiries Must Be Exact To Apply. Deviations From The Allowed Inquiry Format Are Forbidden In Order To Comply With Federal Regulations".

UPDATE: Looks like the Fortune writer got this all wrong. I should've realized that earlier.

Friends, be warned: If you're hoping to find a new job through a job board or other online channel -- or if you're an employer seeking candidates on the Web -- the world just got a little bit more difficult.

New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors -- and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.

In the new system, federal regulators will be checking to see that companies are keeping diversity data on all applicants, according to a new, more uniform definition of "applicant."

According to this definition, an applicant must "express interest" in the job, whether by sending in a resume, applying on the company's site, or whatever other means the company requests, says Gerry Crispin, founder and principal of CareerXRoads and a long-time Internet job hunting expert.

That "expression of interest" must show that he or she has all the qualifications for the job listed in the company's job description (not just some or most of them) -- and those qualifications must be specific and measurable.

What this means:

For instance, if a job description includes the words "three years of credit accounting experience," put "three years of credit accounting experience" on your resume. "Don't just list a credit-accounting position with the dates you had it and assume someone will figure it out," Crispin advises. This may mean you have to rewrite your resume for each job opening you apply for.

Here comes the irony:

To comply with these new rules and get the most diversity, employers will have an incentive to keep the pool of applicants for each job relatively small and as random as possible.

(Emphasis added). Fewer Applicants = More Diversity!

(Ugh. I'm going to have to rent this movie again, because at some point in my life I think I'm going to have to hire a renegade air conditioning repairman, and I'd like to know how.)

CONTINUING THE UPDATE: The main thing the article gets wrong is the idea that companies will disregard resumes not written in a specific way. The DOL press release makes it look otherwise. It looks like it only deals with federal contractors who are subject to the provisions of the laws enforced by OFCCP. Basically it tells them which applicants they have to include for diversity data. Far from adding red tape, it reduces it: "The lack of guidance for federal contractors as to the department's interpretation of the recordkeeping rules for Internet applicants meant contractors could potentially have to ask everyone who has a resume on a commercial resume databank service for his or her race, ethnicity and gender whenever the contractor searched the databank to find candidates for a job. As a result, OFCCP's enforcement was hindered because it was often difficult to get the necessary data to effectively determine whether discrimination exists within a contractor's selection process."

W. Thomas Smith, Jr. conducts a fantastic interview with U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, commander of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team in Iraq. His thoughts on the "Arab mind" are certainly relevant in light of recent sweeping condemnations of Islam itself:**

BOLGER: I do not subscribe to an Arab mind or ‘an Oriental mind’ – with apologies to the late General of the Army Douglas MacArthur – or anything like that. The daily lesson I get is that Iraqis are individuals. Sure, they have cultural views based on their upbringing. Who doesn’t?

In Iraq, years of isolation and repression have made a lot of people here especially insular, magnifying this region’s tendency to value strong extended family ties. When you can’t trust the government – Ottomans, British mandate, Ba’athist socialists, and then the ultimate Ba’athist dictator, Saddam – you go with whom you can trust. People here rely on the family, writ large, sometimes called “tribes” in recognition of their size: thousands of relatives claiming kinship.

What has impressed me is how willing most Iraqis seem to be to look at other points of view. For so long, they got one way – Saddam’s way – shoved down their throats. I have seen a genuine interest in other ways, and it is not unusual to find your conversation with an Iraqi private, sergeant, or captain drift into all kinds of areas. Things like: Do Americans believe in God? What is success in private business? What is federalism in America? Why do Americans care about Iraqis? Do Americans have weapons in their homes? Why don’t Americans seem to like soccer? These are reasonable questions, as are many others. The fact that they get asked, tells me that the minds here are very much open to new possibilities.

Bolger goes on to voice confidence in the mission:

BOLGER: We have a great mission, the one all of us put on a uniform to do. When our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, our people spoke through their elected representatives. They gave us the mission to defeat these terrorists and the countries that harbored them. That’s what we’re doing today in Iraq, and thank God we have about 27–million strong supporters by our side as we track down and finish off these ruthless Al Qaeda types and their local henchmen. We aren’t tired, or broken, or losing heart. We’re going all the way on this one.

WTSjr: How about the Iraqi people? I understand they are warming to our presence in their country. Any truth to that?

BOLGER: The Iraqi people know who liberated them. I have been personally thanked time after time, out in very poor rural villages and in the streets of Baghdad. Iraqis wave to us and talk to us while we are on foot patrol. The little children love the ‘high five.’

To me, the best thanks we’re all getting involves watching the Iraqis take charge of their own destiny. They are choosing freedom. They are fighting for it. They’re dying for it. They are not turning back.

WTSjr: What would American readers be surprised to learn that they don't already know?

BOLGER: That Iraq is not Arabic for Vietnam.

Read the whole thing.

Also check out Part I of the interview.

** Yes, I'm aware that "the Arab mind" and "Islam" are not the same thing, but Arabs are tied more closely to terrorism and violence than non-Arab practitioners Islam, and if Islam is indeed the immutable force for negativity that many claim, it would certainly impact any Arab mindset. In addition, the same brand of repression previously felt by Iraqis is also the spark for insular thinking, radicalism and violence in other Islamic countries run by oppressive governments. I present this as a much larger factor in radical and violent Islamic expression than the very nature of Islam itself.

Let Dean prove it to you.

*** In light of recent discussions here on Islam, you might find the posts here and here extremely interesting. They're long but well worth reading.

*** Yet more leaked info on our nation's intelligence methods for the whole freaking world to see.

My thinking has been going back and forth between "the progam is probably illegal" and "it may have been legal" for a while now. One of the reasons I haven't made any further posts on the subject is that I don't think it's clear one way or the other, and won't be for some time. (Other reasons are that even if it is illegal, I'd say it's only because of the how the statute is written and don't think it necessarily should be illegal. And I really, really, really don't like the very public discussion of our intelligence capabilities and methods.) The WaPo report has some info that supports possible legality of the program:

FISA, passed in 1978, was ambiguous about some of the president's plans, according to current and retired government national security lawyers. But other features of the eavesdropping program fell outside its boundaries.

...

According to surveys by TeleGeography Inc., nearly all voice and data traffic to and from the United States now travels by fiber-optic cable. About one-third of that volume is in transit from one foreign country to another, traversing U.S. networks along its route. The traffic passes through cable landing stations, where undersea communications lines meet the East and West coasts; warehouse-size gateways where competing international carriers join their networks; and major Internet hubs known as metropolitan area ethernets.

Until Bush secretly changed the rules, the government could not tap into access points on U.S. soil without a warrant to collect the "contents" of any communication "to or from a person in the United States." But the FISA law was silent on calls and e-mails that began and ended abroad.

Even for U.S. communications, the law was less than clear about whether the NSA could harvest information about that communication that was not part of its "contents."

As I've mentioned before but would like to make more clear: if the program was not in direct violation of FISA, if it falls outside the boundaries of FISA or is even in an ambiguous area under FISA, then the program is the sort of thing that would be, should be, and has been (under court precedent) held as part of the President's power under Article II of the Constitution (in my very amateur opinion).

So there's that, then on the other hand there's the creator of "The Magic Bullet" theory calling the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic"* (As previously mentioned). So basically I'm thinking: Probably definitely maybe illegal. Or not.

Hope that helps.

*Joke. Oswald shot Kennedy.

*** The Commissar is offended, and claims that he has no plans to burn down any embassies. But do I really believe him? Do you?

*** I'm surprised that the violence over the cartoons has shown up in Lebanon:

Thousands of Muslim protesters, enraged over the publication of caricatures of Islam's prophet Muhammad, set ablaze the Danish Embassy on Sunday and rampaged through a predominantly Christian neighborhood, escalating sectarian tensions in a country whose melange of faiths can sometimes serve as a microcosm of the world's religious divide.

The unrest, which involved as many as 20,000 protesters, was some of the worst in Lebanon in years, and leaders from across the political and religious spectrums appealed for calm. In vain, some Muslim clerics tried to step into the hours-long fray to end the clashes, which news agencies said left at least one demonstrator dead and 30 wounded.

To clarify this weekend's posts for those that did not fully appreciate my distinctions condemning the condemnation of Islam itself: nothing in my argument excuses or culturally infantilizes (a la much of the Western media) the ludicrously violent behavior by certain groups of Muslim protestors; the original post specifically advocates confrontation with extreme elements, as well as endorses the sanctity of a free press (though it's not an American press). Please note these overarching preconditions before debating me.

*** Arlen Specter drops a bombshell (to me, anyway):

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Dorkafork came to a similar conclusion awhile back, but no one listened ... because who listens to a guy who calls himself "Dorkafork?"

Don't get too excited, lefties: despite the apparent illegality of the program, there will be little political fallout. With public support for the program's ends, the administration and legislature will move forward by working within the FISA to arrive at a similar solution.

*** Inside-Blog Rivalry Joke: You do realize that this means I need to join the intifadah.

I'd call this a good post.

NRO's Jim Geraghty writes from Turkey:

Want some good news on those infamous Danish cartoons?

The reaction in my neck of the woods has been pretty mild – certainly nothing like the attacks on the Danish embassy in Syria.

Of course, the cartoon has been denounced, by those inside the Turkish government and out. But the government statements have also said “the matter is settled” – no calls for further action, or “days of anger” or other escalations of the issue. The vibe is “this is terrible, we denounce it, now let’s move on.”

Jim goes on to celebrate consistency:

After noting that my reaction is one of a man for whom the Muslim world starts at his doorstep and extends for hundreds of miles in every direction… while I am appalled by the violence and threats of violence by those who claim to be so offended, I have a hard time mustering much vigor for a defense of the cartoonists. Yes, they have a right to say it, but must we defend these cartoons as if they were a good thing? I don’t like Kanye West comparing himself to Christ, or Serrano’s “Piss Christ” art, or that idiotic Jesus-was-gay play “Corpus Christi”, or other efforts to poke at Christians’ sensitivities; I’m not sure why I should be cheering when someone else makes an effort to poke at Muslims’ sensitivities.
...
The Syrian reaction is intolerable. But the Turkish reaction is honorable. I hope the world can see the difference.

Will some of you call him an apologist for Islamofascism that just doesn't understand how bad Islam really is? After all, what would he know? He's merely a right-wing American Christian currently living in the midst of about 70 million Muslims ...

Turkey illustrates the sort of secular stability and moderation that the rest of the Islamic world can achieve. Ask yourself: what's the difference between Syria and Turkey?

Hint: it's not the mere presence of Islam.

Continuing my companion series for those with challenged reading comprehension, I offer the following summary version of the above post, "But ... Isn't Turkey an Islamic Nation?" I call it, "Turkey GOOD, Syria BAD:"

Read More »

It's nigh impossible to make a simple, specific argument, when a certain portion of the population has the reading comprehension of a dyslexic and clumsy retard who's high on crank, his eyes swollen shut from spraying himself with RAID (having mistaken its inviting purple cylinder - in his eager retard haste - for a can of delicious whipped cream). So, from now on, I'll offer an abridged version of long, detailed posts; a short companion piece that attempts to avoid ambiguity and sidestep frame of reference distortions via the simplest language possible.

I now present the first edition, a summary of my recent post titled, "Those Mohammed Cartoons." I call it, "WHAT BAD?"

Ahem.

Islamic radicals, BAD. Islamic radicals threatening people, VERY BAD. Censorship, BAD! But right-wingers calling ALL Muslims Islam BAD because Islamic radicals BAD or other Muslims BAD, BAD TOO. BAD, BAD, BAD. Especially when US in a war to free Muslims from BAD dictator, now to fight radical Muslims. Who, remember, are BAD, and kill the OTHER Muslims, the ones who it is BAD to assume are BAD too, when they are not necessarily BAD.

RAR! BAD!

Wake me up when the effing singularity hits. Meanwhile, you all just slap it out like angry chimps.

UPDATE: An honored day! The first fisking of my retarded, dyslexic chimp-friendly companion piece series! According to Pierre LaGrand, it seems that the retarded, dyslexic chimp-friendly companion post lacked specificity, and he called me on it, oh yes he did.

Bravo, sir. Bravo, indeed.

Neil Stevens authors a must-read post on the Islamic cartoon blogburst gripping the right-wing blogosphere:

When I look around the Internet, and around the world, at the reactions to the now-infamous parodies of Muhammed by some previously-obscure Danish cartoonist, I can't find much that I like.

Welcome aboard, Neil.

This could have been what some people call 'a teachable moment,' in fact, were it not for the perplexing responses by the American right, even from usually-reliable conservatives. People like Michelle Malkin, who can usally be counted on to expect a certain amount of dignity and respect in our culture, are waving around the cartoons like they're wonderful things to see, while not showing much recognition of how hateful they really are. She's not alone, either. I just single her out because I read her site every day.

If only I still found it "perplexing." The right is full of people that like to boil down the complexities of the war against Islamic radicalism into a much simpler fight than it is, paradoxically agitating for a war of civilizations by continually maligning an entire religion, while ostensibly claiming support for neoconservative policies that attempt to strategically diminish Islamic radicalism by democratizing the larger Muslim world, effectively turning a majority against the radicals in their midst. Which is why, whenever Islamic radicalism raises its ugly head, you get several hundred right-wing pundits mocking President Bush's description of Islam as a "religion of peace" in the headlines of their blog posts, like a pack of chortling magpies apparently unable to recognize that it is not in our nation's or President's interest to attack an entire religion of a billion people, but rather quite the opposite, in service of the strategic foreign policy aim of ushering the greater Islamic world into a pluralistic 21st Century. Talk the walk, and all.

Stevens continues:

I understand the logic, and the reasons, for this 'blogburst,' but I think the enthusiasm is misplaced. We can celebrate freedom without holding up the worst of it as an example. We can even go farther than that, and condemn trash when we see it, while we mutter to ourselves that tolerating it is the price of freedom.

We can show solidarity with the Danes, in support for western values, without endorsing and integrating the 'art' at issue. These cheap scribbles, drawn up by a smirking 'artist' for the shock value, aren't worth the paper they were printed on. I think it'd do us more good if we remembered that in discussing this issue.

As appealing as it is, we can't fall into the trap of supporting the enemy of our enemy. The fact that the radical Islamists don't like these cartoons, doesn't imply that these cartoons are something that should be celebrated. If we want to celebrate somebody, how about paying tribute to Theo Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali, for making more honest portrayals of the worst of Islam, without slamming the whole, varied Islamic tradition in the process?

Exactly. Yes, the violent nature of threats from relevant quarters of Islam do need to be confronted, but celebrating and expanding to pointed attacks on the entire religion once again betrays the dual interests of large portions of the right-wing blogosphere:

1. To simplify a complex conflict into chest-thumpingly combative black-and-white terms.

2. To slake personal desires to express cultural and specifically religious triumphalism.

No, one cannot make a ridiculous comparison (that leftists are wont to make) that Western Christians defending their religion from blasphemy are analogous to Muslims, as no Western Christians issued death threats or set anything on fire when Kanye West posed as Jesus on the most recent Rolling Stone cover, for example. But at the same time, gleefully celebrating cartoons that incite and condemn an entire religion like they're merely glorious banners of free speech is hypocritical. And it's a shame that quarters of the right-wing consistently overreach in reaction to the very real threats and actions of Islamofascist radicals, their hyperaggressive words undermining the very ends that they claim to support. Unless they mistake our ends as "converting or killing 'em all," I suppose.

Hugh Hewitt understands:

The cartoons were in bad taste, an unnecessary affront to many of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, just as Joel Stein affronted the military, the families and friends of the military, and as Toles did the same to the wounded, and their families, friends and admirers. Of course each of them had the absolute right to publish their screed, and the Danish (and now Norwegian) governments must reply to demands that these papers be punished with a steely refusal to be dictated to as to their culture of free expression and the protection of the vulgar and the stupid.

But don't cheer the vulgar and the stupid.

There are hundreds of thousands of American troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe among Muslim peoples who they are trying to befriend. The jihadists like nothing more than evidence that these troops represent a West intent on a new crusade and a new domination of Muslims. Idiot cartoonists make our troops' jobs more difficult, and the jihadists' mission easier.

Aziz P, a Muslim writing at Dean's World:

You can print, say, or draw whatever you want. Just don't be surprised when - and let's frankly admit this - the people you are deliberately trying to provoke conclude that you're a complete jafi. A jafi, whose soaring rhetoric about freedom and respect for Islam and the sacredness of the cause to bring liberty to the middle east as a grand antidote for tyranny and oppression, just came off looking a lot less sincere. A lot less.

And if someone chooses to be offended at these cartoons, I say to them lakum di nakum valaya din. Or in a more vernacular sense: get over it.

See Also:

Right-Wing Compare, Contrast - Make Your Choice

"Immovable Islam" vs. Irresistible Force

UPDATE: Particularly frustrating about my position is that it apparently lends itself to outsized and distorted interpretations, specifically exemplified by "corvan" in my comments. Also, I can read Jeff Goldstein's post and agree with large portions of it, without feeling that his point contradicts the thrust of my argument.

I suppose this is what's called "nuance."

And Christopher Hitchens makes the case for mocking religion. But Hitchens is certainly consistent in this point, and his case against religion forfeits the practicality of its pervasive influence in human affairs for personal philosophy.

UPDATE: A simple addendum.

At it again: NAACP Chairman Julian Bond labels Republicans "Nazi(s)" and drops racist rhetoric about black members of the administration, including arguably the most powerful woman - of any race - in the world:

"Civil rights activist and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond delivered a blistering partisan speech at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina last night, equating the Republican Party with the Nazi Party and characterizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, as "tokens."

"The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," he charged.

This rhetoric is so nonsensical, hateful and tired, silly mockery is the only relevant response. Thankfully, Wuzzadem has it covered.

*** Dean authors an excellent post about artificial wombs, scoring points against those who doubt that a market for the technology exists. I agree with Dean: the development of working artificial wombs could change the pro-life/pro-choice dynamic, as the concept of fetal viability advances out of the realm of a political/legal compromise and into practical application. As Dean concludes in his summary:

Once we have it working well, it's going to fundamentally alter the abortion debate in ways that neither hard-line pro-choicers nor hard-line pro-lifers are going to be fully comfortable with.

*** In an e-mail exchange, Slate's William Saletan challenges Katha Pollitt's left-wing strawman about opposition to abortion equalling puritanical opposition to sex:

Don't these numbers refute your conflation of opposition to abortion with opposition to sex? You say it's impossible to make contraceptive diligence a moral issue because contraception comes from the "anti-Puritan side" of our culture, and people who oppose abortion, being Puritans, also oppose birth control. How, then, do you explain the 30 percent to 35 percent of respondents in this poll who joined the majority for reducing abortions but also joined the majorities for government-funded contraception and contraceptive education? Given that they control the majority on all three questions, wouldn't you like to have them on your side?

Bingo. The argument that all (or most) of those opposed to abortion do so out of a desire to control women or diminish sexual freedom are marinating in ideology, cherry-picking a slice of the opposition and presenting it as a representation of the whole. And pro-life absolutists that ignore the fact of significant majorities in favor of legal access to early abortions have analogous issues with the realities of the debate.

*** Kevin Drum looks at gender differences in school achievement, and politely shoots down an attempt to underplay the gap between male and female college enrollment:

Hulbert has a point, but she also glosses over some very real differences. The chart on the right shows the NAEP data she relies on for her conclusion (see page 28 in this report for a bigger version), and although the trendlines are indeed pretty stable, it's worth noting that NAEP test results are extremely sensitive: 10 points is roughly equal to one grade level. This means that in 1985, 17-year-old girls were about one grade level ahead of boys in reading and in 2001 they were about 1.3 grade levels ahead. That's a pretty sizable difference, and I think Hulbert is wrong to dismiss it so casually.

This isn't the first time that an interested party has situationally underplayed statistics to diminish an uncomfortable narrative about men falling behind women in education.

One quibble I have with Drum's post:

Overall, I'm inclined to agree with Hulbert that viewing educational differences through a gender lens has limited utility, regardless of whether those differences are caused by biology, culture, or anything else. It's not the biggest problem on our plate, and it's not at all clear that gender-specific teaching styles would accomplish very much anyway. Still, facts are facts: high school girls read at a significantly higher level than high school boys, and as other barriers against women have dropped over the years, it should hardly come as a surprise that this advantage has transformed itself into higher college graduation rates. Whether it's our biggest problem or not, it's probably one worth paying attention to.

I wouldn't overestimate the reading gap as the sole or necessarily dominant reason for boys falling behind in college enrollment; it's also a reflection of how males vs. females tend to learn, among other factors.

Plus, you'd be surprised at how hard it is to write new political metaphors using squirrels.

Though Dave Price makes it look easy ...

UPDATE: All joking aside - piss off, Tom Toles.