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If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a white supremacist, who, say, walked into an African-American church and started shooting, we would easily identify him for what he is. However, if a muslim walks on to a military base and starts shooting, what do we call him?
Well evidently, anything except: An islamic supremacist.
Islam is a supremacist ideology. It is very much akin to Hitler's nazism. One did not have to man the death camps to subscribe to the ideology. Plenty of Germans stood by approvingly or turned a blind eye. I suppose we could say that those people were "moderate nazis."
Hasan's rationale comes straight from the teachings of islam. The fact that most muslims don't run around killing infidels says nothing whatsoever about their beliefs or the teachings of islam.
Islam reveres muhammad and teaches that he led the "perfect life." A life that all good muslims should emulate. And yet, he was a warlord, a rapist, a pedophile, a misogynist, and a polygamist. One could go on and on. But, in short, he was an evil man. So islam reveres evil. If one subscribes to islam, one subscribes to evil.
So, so-called "moderate muslims" are like those "moderate nazis." Do not let them off the hook for their vile beliefs just because they did not pull the trigger.
Now, the politically correct crowd argues that we should be tolerant of islam. But this is like saying we should be tolerant of racist white supremacists. I mean they don't all run around lynching people right? To paraphrase Bruce Bawer, tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance at all. It's suicide.
Hugh Fitzgerald asks:
There is no way that those so-called..."moderate" Muslims can suggest that no, it is the "extremists" who are untrue to Islam. They aren't untrue. They are perfectly loyal Muslims, good and righteous followers of that exemplar Muhammad....[I]f one really knew what Islam contained, as not all Muslims born or raised in the West may quite realize, then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?
So, before you brand me a simple-minded bigot, I urge you to go do a little research on the basic tenets of islam. After that, you can call me whatever you like.
Linkage:
Harry Stein on The Boys Who Cry Racism.
Neville Chamberlain crossed with Chauncey Gardiner: "Amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity...the stuff of Nobels."
So Israel is a dynamic democracy surrounded by thugs, theocrats, dictators, and 7th century barbarians. But according to that great intellect, Roger Cohen, Israel is not exceptional.
The ultimate insult: "Here was a company [Google] that once prided itself on simplicity; Wave is so bloated it could have come from Microsoft."
Rabbi Jon Hausman:
[I]t is clear that the university suffers from the malaise of relativist truth and the multicultural ethic. There are no universal truths any longer. When I was in college, it seemed that the point of education at the university level was to use the subject matter under study to encourage independent, critical thinking. Today, all truths are equal. I abjure this notion. In the final analysis, I believe that the university is lost.
Linkage:
Andy McCarthy: "Barack Obama wins Yasser Arafat Prize."
The suicide of western civilization continues....
In an update to this post, note that Penelope Cruz now seems to have quietly disappeared from this list. Again, was it soul searching Penelope? Or just bad PR?
Breitbart on The New York Times:
No daily publication can capture the essence of the cultural elite -- good, bad and ugly -- like The New York Times. The paper has its merits, no doubt. But when it comes to the political scene, its ascent into monolithic partisan hackery in its news pages -- never mind the op-ed experience -- is worthy of exploration granted its self-identified motto "all the news that's fit to print" is disproved day after day when the news that hurts the political left is either ignored or distorted to sate its diminishing readership's need for political conformity.
Linkage:
More evidence that Penelope Trunk is an idiot, regardless of what she calls herself.
Ron Lipsman writing on the American Thinker website:
In the one place in society at which there should be diversity of thought, exploration of conflicting ideas and a propensity to challenge conventional wisdom, we have instead a mind-numbing conformity of opinion and a complete unwillingness to entertain any thought or idea that deviates from the accepted truth.
Linkage:
Thomas Friedman is a hypocrite. If you need proof, go here.
Krauthammer on the Chicago Olympic bid: "[T]his was the perfect audience for [Obama], a collection of global Euro-trash who love all this anti-American stuff, and it didn't even work on them."
America's Smartest Cities [via Newmark's Door]
NO COUNTRY FOR YOUNG GIRLS
Three days ago, on Wednesday, Contrarian Journal linked to one of the pro-Polanski petitions online. Today however, while there are some new names, notice also that some individuals seem to have removed themselves from the petition. For example, what happened to Ethan Coen and Harvey Weinstein? Was it soul searching guys? Or just bad PR?
Big Hollywood recorded a list of signatories on September 29th. Again note, some names have been removed (e.g. Elsa Zylberstein).
There are, in fact, two pro-Polanski petitions. So as to preclude any future revisionist history, signatories of both petitions are recorded below.
SACD Petition
Read the petition in French and English here.
Erika Abrams, Fatih Akin, Yves Alberty, Stephane Allagnon, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Gianni Amelio, Wess Anderson, Michel Andrieu, Roger Andrieux, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Tomas Arana, Frédéric Aranzueque-Arrieta, Alexandre Arcady, Fanny Ardant, Asia Argento, Marie-Hélène Arnau, Darren Aronofsky, Olivier Assayas, Alexander Astruc, Gabriel Auer, Zdzicho Augustyniak, Alexandre Babel, Vladimir Bagrianski, Lubomila Bakardi, Fausto Nicolás Balbi, Eleonor Baldwin, Jean-François Balmer, Alberto Barbera Museo nazionale de Torino, Luc Barnier, Christophe Barratier, Ernest Barteldes, Carmen Bartl, Pascal Batigne, Anne Baudry, Juan Antonio Bayona, Xavier Beauvois, Liria Begeja, Matthieu Béguelin, Gilles Behat, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Marco Bellochio, Yannick Bellon, Florence Bellone, Monica Bellucci, Véra Belmont, Jacqueline Belon, Jean-Marc Benguigui, Djamel Bennecib, Luc Béraud, Jacob Berger, Alain Berliner, Gael Garcia Bernal, Pascal Berney, Xavier Berry, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Jean-Marie Besset, Marlène Bisson, Arnstein Bjørkly, Lucien Blacher, Virginie Blanc-Brude Bard, Jean-Marc Bloch, Léa Bloch, Catherine Boissière, Anne-Sylvie Bonaud, Olivier Bonnet, Thierry Boscheron, Renata Bosco, Freddy Bossy, Patrick Bouchitey, Cédric Bouchoucha, Paul Boujenah, Frédéric Bourboulon, Katia Boutin, Ian Brady, Jacques Bral, Sophie Bramly, Paulo Branco, Patrick Braoudé, Guila Braoudé, Edwin Brienen, Adrien Brody, Isabelle Broué, Max Brun, Merima Bruncevic, Anne Burki, André Buytaers, Emilie Buzyn, Anthony Byrne, Marco Cacioppo, Gerald Calderon, Monica Cannizzaro, Peggy Carajopoulou-Vavali, John Carchietta, Christian Carion, Henning Carlsen, Jean-Michel Carré, Esteban Carvajal Alegria, Lionel Cassan, Bryan Cassiday, Miss Catadler, Mathieu Celary, Teco Celio, Muriel Cerf, Dabiel Chabannes, Thierry Chabert, Chagi, Jean-Yves Chalangeas, Daniel Champagnon, Christophe Champclaux, Georges Chappedelaine , Fabienne Chauveau, Claire Chazal, Patrice Chéreau, Brigitte Chesneau, Michel Chevalier, Mishka Cheyko, Catherine Chiono, Catherine Chouchan, Elie Chouraqui, Elie Chouraqui, Souleymane Cissé, Jean- Pierre Clech, Henri Codenie, Robert Cohen, Catherine Colassin, Suzanne Colonna, Jean-Paul Commin, Anne Consigny, Alain Cophignon, Alain Corneau, Jérôme Cornuau, Guy Courtecuisse, Miguel Courtois, Antoine Courtray, Guillaume Cousin, Morgan Crestel, Rudyard Cretenet, Dominique Crevecoeur, Penelope Cruz, Alfonso Cuaron, Estelle Cywje, Frédéric Damien, Sophie Danon, Olivier Dard, Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Isabelle Dassonville, Bruno de Almeida, Bruno de Almeida, Marion de Blaÿ, François de Lamothe, Hervé de Luze, Artus de Penguern, Valérie de Saint-Do, Virginie De Wilde, Olivier Debert, Viviane Decuypere, Guillermo del Toro, Benoît Delmas, Michel Deloore, Jonathan Demme, Nicolaine den Breejen, Ruud den Dryver, Louisa Dent, Edwin Dervaux, Dante Desarthe, Romain Desbiens, Sophie Deschamps, Thomas Desjonquères, Alexandre Desplat, Chris Devi, Rosalinde et Michel Deville, Guillaume D'Ham, Christelle Didier, Kathrin DiPaola, Claire Dixsaut, Julien Doger, Xavier Dolan, Ariel Dorfman, Jean Douchet, Jean Douchet, Fabrice du Welz, Marina Duarte Nunes Ferreira, Danièle Dubroux, Marc Dufrenois, François Duhamel, Sissi Duparc, Jean Dusaussoy, Georges Dybman, Daniel Edinger, Arne Eickenberg, Yaniv Elani, Gerónimo Elortegui, Gerónimo Elortegui, Elrem, Sam Enoch, Peter Lucas Erixon, Ernest, Ann Eyckmans, Jacques Fansten, Joël Farges, Gianluca Farinelli (Cinémathèque de de Bologne), Etienne Faure, Maud et Romain Ferrari, Michel Ferry, Jean Teddy Filippe, Aurélie Fiorentino, Alan Fischer, Martine Fitoussi, Sebastian Fleischhacker, Joy Fleury., Michael Flynn, Hugues Fontenoy, Scott Foundas, Werner Fraai, Jean-Robert Franco, Stephen Frears, Marion Frelat, Thierry Frémaux, Marc Freycon, Nadine Fruchard, Sam Gabarski, Jean Francois Gaillard, René Gainville, Sara Gandolfi, Matteo Garone, Yves Gasser, Tony Gatlif, Catherine Gaudin-Montalto, Jean-Marc Gauthier, Costa Gavras, Nathalie Geiser, Lizi Gelber, Isabelle Gély, Jean-Marc Ghanassia, Alain Gil, Véronique Gillet, Terry Gilliam, Christian Gion, François Girault, Stéphane Gizard, Nelson Gonzalez, Carlos Miguel Bernardo González, Christophe Goumand, Michel Gras, Eric Gravereau, Martin Gregus, Thierry Grizard, Philippe Gruss, Florent Guézengar, Marc Guidoni, Marta Gutowska, Mikael Håfström, Ronald Harwood, Dimitri Haulet, Geert Heirbaut, Buck Henry, Nicole Herbaut de Lamothe, David Heyman, Laurent Heynemann, Joshua Highfield , Dominique Hollier, Isabelle Hontebeyrie, Frédéric Horiszny, Robert Hossein, Jean-Loup Hubert, Wendy Hudson, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gilles Jacob, Eric et Veronique et Nicolas Jacquelin, Just Jaeckin, Thomas Jahn, Olivia Janik, Jean-Baptiste Jay, Anne Jeandet, Marie Jergan, Alain Jessua, Renate Jett, Sébastien Jimenez, Arthur Joffé, Pierre Jolivet, Kent Jones (World Cinema Foundation), Peter Josy, Alexandra Julen, Paola Jullian, Roger Kahane, Pierre Kalfon, Elisabeth Kalinowski, Reena Kanji, Nelly Kaplan, Wong Kar Waï, Nicolas Kermel, Darius Khondji, Ladislas Kijno, Muriel Kintziger, Richard Klebinder, Jonathan Klein, Harmony Korinne, Jan Kounen, Chantal Krakowski, Sylvia Kristel, Diane Kurys, Elzbieta Kusak-Majchrzak, Emir Kusturica, Irene Kuznetzova, Jean Labadie, Eliane Lacroux, Eric Lagesse, Michel Laigle, Stéphane Lam, John Landis, Claude Lanzmann, David Lanzmann, André Larquié, Pauline Larrieu, Jacques et Françoise Lassalle, Marc Latil, Carole Laure, Christine Laurent-Blixen, Pierre Laville, Emilien Lazaron, Eric Le Roy, Pierre Le Scouarnec, Fábio Leal, Vinciane Lecocq, Patrice Leconte, Linda Lefebvre, Béatrice Lefoulon, Delphine Legros, Claude Lelouch, Ann Lemonnier, Julieta Lencina, Alain Lenglet, Gérard Lenne, Les Nanaqui, Larry Levine, Charlotte Levy, Lorraine Lévy, Pierre et Renée Lhomme, Katarzyna Lipinska, Jean-Claude Irving Longin, Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Michael Louis Wells, Boris Loundine, Rachel Lowenstein, Catalina Lozano, Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski, Flore Luquet, Laurence Lustyk, David Lynch, Bania Madjbar, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Laurent Malet, Tim Malieckal, Guy Malugani, Erling Mandelmann, Michael Mann, Yvon Marciano, François Margolin, Jean-Pierre Marois, Tonie Marshall, Alain Martin, Sandrine Martin, Danielle Martinetti, Florent Martinez, Didier Martiny, Mario Martone, Thierry Mathelin, Christine Mathis, Esmeralda Mattei, Nicolas Mauvernay, Yannick Mazet, Christopher, Spencer et Claire Mc Andrew, Natalie Mei, Guillermo Menaldi, Mathieu Mercier, Muriel Mercier, Frédéric Mermoud, Laura Metaxa, Allison Michel, Radu Mihaileanu, Jean-Louis Milesi, Claude Miller, Lionel Miniato, Nelly Moaligou, Jean - Marc Modeste , Mario Monicelli, Jeanne Moreau, Frédéric Moreau, Sarah Moreau-Flament, Gael Morel, Omayra Muñiz Fernández, Stephanie Murat, Christian Mvogo Mbarga, Anna N.Levine, Charles Nemes, Juliette Nicolas-Donnard, Sandra Nicolier, Rachel Noël, Rui Nogueira, Olivier Nolin, Alejandra Norambuena Skira, Fabrice Nordmann, Fabrice O. Joubert, Marc Obéron, Michel Ocelot, David Ogando, Mariana Oliveira Santos, Szentgyörgyi Ottó, Martine Pagès, Eric Pape, Abner Pastoll, Alexander Payne, Nicola Pecorini, Richard Pena (Directeur Festival de NY), Lindsey Pence, Olivier Père, Suzana Peric, Jacques Perrin, Cesare Petrillo, Thomas Pibarot, Michel Piccoli, Arnaud Pierrichon, Stéphane Pietri, Anne Pigeon Bormans, Samuel Pinon, Claude Pinoteau, Michele Placido, Sabrina Poidevin, Agnès Catherine Poirier, Jean-Yves Potel, Stéphane Pozderec, Harry Prenger, Jean et Marie Prévost, Gilbert Primet, Marie-Hélène Raby, Philippe Radault, Tristan Rain, Florence Raphaël, Florence Raphel, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Joseph Rassam, Rolandas Rastauskas, Brett Ratner, Raphael Rebibo, Carol Reid, Jo Reymen, Laurence Reymond, Yasmina Reza, Christiane Rhein, Jacques Richard, Dominique Robert, Margarita Robski, Jean-Jacques Rochut, Christian Rogler, Yannick Rolandeau, Paul Rondags, Avital Ronell, Frank Roozendaal, Graciela Rosato, Elisabeth Roudinesco, Kontochristopoulou Roula, Laurence Roulet, Joshua Rout, Paolo Roversi, Isabelle Ruh, Martin Ruhe, Sonia Rykiel, Anita S. Chang, Esteban S. Goffin, JOAQUÍN Sabina, Marc Saffar, Ludivine Sagnier, Gabriela Salazar Scherman, Walter Salles, Jean-Paul Salomé, Jean-Frédéric Samie, Marc Sandberg, Léo Scalpel, Jerry Schatzberg, Richard Schlesinger, Daniel Schmidt, Georg Schmithüsen, Julian Schnabel, Pierre Schoendoerffer, Barbet Schroeder, J. Neil Schulman, Pierre Schumacher, Pierre-Alexandre Schwab, Ettore Scola, Luis Gustavo Sconza Zaratin Soares, Martin Scorsese, Carole Scotta, Steven Sedgwick, Andrea Sedlackova, Frank Segier, Michèle Seguin-Sirhugue, Guy Seligmann, Elis Semczuk, Lorenzo Semple Jr, Julien Seri, Joël Séria, Catherine Sermet, Ken Seton-Vyhnal, Sophie Sharkov, Boris Shlafer, Antoine Silber, Pierre Silvant, Charlotte Silvera, Noel Simsolo, Christophe Sirodeau, Abderrahmane Sissako, Beatrice Sisul , Petter Skavlan, Marcin Sokolowski, Loïc Sorel, Paolo Sorrentino, Vassilis Sourapas, Roch Stephanik, Karen Stetler, Denise Stieglitz, Guillaume Stirn, Bernard Stora, Gérard Stum, Jean-Marc Surcin, Tilda Swinton, Piotrek Szymanek, Jean-Charles Tacchella, Radovan Tadic, Mickael Tanguy, Danis Tanovic, Bertrand Tavernier, André Techiné, Cécile Telerman, Harold Alvarado Tenorio, Marie-Ange Terrier, Alain Terzian, Christian Texier, Jean-Paul Thaens, Valentine Theret, Virginie Thévenet, Pascal Thomas, Jeremy Thomas, Marc Thomas Charley, Cyril Thurston, Giuseppe Tornatore, Serge Toubiana, Daniel Treichler, Nadine Trintignant, Julie Turcas, Mitja Tušek, Tom Tykwer, Alexandre Tylski, Stephen Ujlaki, José Antonio Valdés Peña, Jaques Vallotton, Phil van der Linden, Betrand van Effenterre, Leopold van Genechten, Christophe van Rompaey, Dorna van Rouveroy, Elbert van Strien, Vangelis, Alessio Vannetti, Lucília Verdelho da Costa, Christian Verdu, Jean-Pierre Vergne, Sarah Vermande, Julien Veyret, Francesco Vezzoli, Régine Vial, Vivien Villani, Marc Villemain, Jean-François Villemer, Daria Vinault, Verde Visconti, Alain Vorimore, Thomas Vossart, Gilles Walusinski, Eric Watton, Monika Weibel, Dominique Welinski, Wim Wenders, Andy Whittaker, Anaïse Wittmann, A Wolanin, Margot Wolfs, Peter Woltil, Arnaud Xainte, Steve Yeo, Paule Zajdermann, Christian Zeender, Terry Zwigoff.
Lévy Petition
French celebrity pseudo-intellectual, Bernard-Henri Lévy has started a second pro-Polanski petition (English translation) with the following names:
Isabelle Adjani
Valerie Alati
Antoine Aronin
Benjamin Arseguel
Paul Auster
Sebastien Azzo
Idris Babur
Morgane Beauverger
Candice Belaisch-Goldchmit
Yamina Benguigui
Clément Brua
Pascal Bruckner
Emmanuel Carpentier
Catherine Chouchan
Sandrine Clarac
Jessika Cohen
Olivier Cohen
Gilles Collard
Suzanne Colonna
Philippe Corbé
Jean-Luc Cosotti
Antoine Courtray
Estelle Cywje
Jean-Paul Dayan
Cynthia Derolez
Katarina De Meulder
Romain Desbiens
Arielle Dombasle
Caroline Dormagen
Marc Dufrenois
Nathalie Faucheux
Claude Fichard
Corinne Figuet
Julien Fontaine
Pierre Forciniti
Harrison Ford
Barbara Frei
Louis Garrel
Albert Gauvin
Johanna Gozlan
Taylor Hackford
Davide Homitsu Riboli
Frédéric Horiszny
Isabelle Huppert
Siri Hustvedt
Jeremy Irons
Laurence Jacquemin
Marine Jamet
Neil Jordan
Paola Jullian
Alexandre Kha
Thierry Kamami
Milan Kundera
Gaelle Lancien
Valérie Lang
Claude Lanzmann
Pierre Laville
Raphaël Le gall-Kerrain
David Leroy
Veronique Lestrade
Rachel Lévy
Raphaël Lévy
Saskia Lévy
Yvette Lévy
Jacobo Machover
Dominique Maisonneuve
Carlo Mancini
Camille Marcault
Georges Mazilu
Sam Mendes
Camille Meyer
John Milius
Patrick Mimouni
Yann Moix
Evelyne Mollet
Laurits Munch-Petersen
Nadine Nahmias
Bernard Nahmias
Mike Nichols
Sandra Nicolier
Marie Nieves Perez Neël
Claude Nunzy-Valery
Lucien Obellianne
Sigrid Obellianne
Luis Ospina
Catherine Paganessi
Marc Paris
Monique Perez
Maya Pijnappel
Natalie Portman
Françoise Ratajczak
Salman Rushdie
Yannick Rolandeau
Daniel Salvatore Schiffer
Patrick Samama
Carine Sarna
Ysabelle Saura Del Pan
Léo Scalpel
Sophie Schmit-Flageollet
Kristin Scott Thomas
William Shawcross
Olivier Soares Barbosa
Steven Soderbergh
Nil Symchowicz
Danièle Thompson
Nathalie Traube
Arnaud Trichet
Marziano Francesco Valentino Fontana
Eugenia Varela Navarro
Jean-Pierre Vergne
Jean Villard
Diane von Furstenberg
Henri Wajs
Margaret Walker
Other supporters
Anne Applebaum
Whoopi Goldberg
Update
5 October 2009:
I notice that Elsa Zylberstein has made a re-appearance on the Lévy list. Also, new to the list:
Emma Thompson
Linkage:
Great Islamic Insult: Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a gay Jew?
More Obama: U.S. Abandons the Internet (to the UN). Why is this so bad? Well, you have to understand it in this context.
Linkage:
Kyle-Anne Shiver: "Honey, when the president of France -- a country known more than a century for the world's wimpiest foreign policy -- calls you 'weak,' then you ought to know it's more than high time to man up a bit."
Charles Krauthammer: "When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom."
Michael Gerson: "Israelis look at the North Korean crisis and see an example of meticulous, multilateral cooperation resulting in spectacular counterproliferation failure. Why, they wonder, is Iran going to be different? Weak American credibility on North Korea has strengthened the argument for direct Israeli action against Iran."
Lloyd Brown: "I think newspapers would have a larger niche today if they just had been fair with their customers."
Legal scholar Whoopi Goldberg: "I know it wasn't rape-rape."
Eugene Robinson: Hollywood's Shame
In a long-ish article ostensibly about music, Fjordman discusses the decline of Western Civilization:
Our university system once represented a great comparative advantage for Europe vis-à-vis other civilizations. Today that same system is undermining the very civilization that gave birth to it.
...
Young Westerners are at best taught indifference, at worst outright hatred, toward their own cultural heritage and civilization. The irony in this is that it is precisely the more educated groups who are the most anti-Western ones because they have spent many years absorbing anti-Western teachings.
...
Marxists and other anti-Western forces have been far more successful at staging a slow, “permanent” revolution in the West than they ever were at staging an armed revolution. They have partly succeeded in their goal of eradicating Western civilization from within and are now working hard to physically eradicate the European peoples who created this civilization to ensure that it cannot be rebuilt in the future, either. They achieved this feat not by gaining control over the means of production but over the means of indoctrination, the mass media and the education system.
Linkage:
Kathleen Parker is back in form: "The American commander in chief is a cat in a dog-eat-dog world."
KPC asks: "Is Thomas Friedman the stupidest man alive?" Undoubtedly close. But that distinction belongs to his colleague, Roger Cohen.
This is a very impressive list. Details here. If Woody Allen is anything to go by, the men on this list must see no problem with Polanski's actions. But my real question is for the women signers: I suppose none of you were raped before you could drive...Hey Penelope Cruz, just wondering...?
From Amazon's product description:
Did you know that Mohammad was a drunken, imbecilic pimp? Mohammad's very intelligent and beautiful daughter Fatima was the brains and moving force surrounding the founding of Islam. Mohammad, Mecca's village idiot and town drunk, did not have the brains or sobriety to run his saloon & brothel right; never mind a religion. Fatima was the puppet mistress who controlled her father and set up the lucrative new religion. This religious satire is at odds with orthodox Islam in a very humorous way.
Prediction: Amazon will pull this book off its website any day now. I notice it is not available at BarnesandNoble.com
[Via Islam Watch]
Christopher Hitchens explains:
In case you don't follow this very toxic debate between contending schools of militant Islam, there are those who maintain that Jews are the spawn of the pigs and monkeys into which Allah turned the heretics, and those who take the more moderate view that the heretics turned into pigs and monkeys were further cursed by being made barren and sterile. The latter view leads to the slightly more lenient and broad-minded conclusion that, bad as today's Jews are, they at least cannot be in a direct line of descent from the original condemned beasts. These fine distinctions are worth knowing.
It should come as no surprise that this comes from naïf Roger Cohen:
President Obama...likes to leave hawkishness to Europeans.
And of course, Cohen is right about Obama. But they both seem to accept the idea that there is any such thing as European hawkishness. Cohen goes on to explain why sanctions won't work against Iran:
One: Iran is inured to sanctions after years of living with them and has in Dubai a sure-fire conduit for goods at a manageable surtax. Two: Russia and China will never pay more than lip-service to sanctions. Three: You don’t bring down a quasi-holy symbol — nuclear power — by cutting off gasoline sales. Four: Sanctions feed the persecution complex on which the Iranian regime thrives.
Totally agree. Which of course, leaves softer or harder options. Take your pick.
Linkage:
Well, this site is one for three on web design: "The three design elements most likely to attract our attention are plain text, faces, and cleavage and other 'private' body parts."
Evidently, journalists have opinions.
Paul Graham on the evolution of publishing.
Mark Steyn: We are defined by our differences.
William Safire is dead.
The New York Times hides behind its phony ethics...
...And Malkin responds to their maneuvering.
This will be the death of the Republican party.
On British libel law: Michael Arrington vs. Paul Carr.
By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find one, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Ayn Rand, 1957
Let's have a look at two well-known truths which apparently form a contradiction:
- Women like the bad boys
- Women want to partner/marry/have-children-with nice guys
On the face of it, this is clearly a contradiction. Perhaps some women want one or the other. But in my experience, many women want both. Quite the conundrum.
So is it possible to construct a scenario where women can want and have both without the existence of a contradiction?
What if a woman believes that she can change him? Him being the chosen bad boy. Well, people do believe all kinds of crazy things.
Or, what if the woman knows she cannot change him, but what she really wants, what she secretly desires, is that he will voluntary give up his bad boy ways - for her. Then she can have both her bad boy AND a nice partner sans contradiction. Hey, she might even let him keep his Harley.
Both of these scenarios go a long way towards explaining why otherwise smart women continuously date cads.
Let me tell you a happy/sad story about my friends, Mr. & Mrs. G. Now, when Mr. G. was a young man, he was a first class bad-ass. We'll leave it at that, but we all know the type. He met the future Mrs. G. in school and they dated on-again, off-again through high school and college. While Mr. G. was a real jerk, future Mrs. G. thought he was just dreamy. Dangerously dreamy. Okay, first rule above: Check.
Today, Mr. & Mrs. G. are in their mid-forties, have been married twenty-plus years, and have two teenage daughters. Now, here's the thing: Mr. G. is one of the nicest guys I know. Second rule above: Check.
What happened to the jerk? Well I'll tell you. He changed. I know this couple pretty well, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he changed for her. And, he's not faking it. He wanted to make her happy and hold on to her long term. They will both tell you so.
So what is the point of this story? That women can have both? No, absolutely not. Because Mr. & Mrs. G. are the exceptions. Sure, they exist (this is a true story) and we might all know similar people, but here's the thing - they are not the rule. That is why this is a sad story. Women believe that this is, if not the rule, at least possible. And that they too can be the exception. Women over-estimate their ability to have both.
So because women cannot change him and because most-often he will not change for her, we get a lot of sad, sometimes even abusive, relationships. And to make it worse, many times these same women bring this same mindset to their next relationship and it happens all over again. Different jerk, same result. Imagine that.
So my dear women readers (if I have any left), would it not be easier (and better odds) to just start with the nice guys? Yes, yes, I know: Too safe, too boring; where's the danger, where's the excitement? Besides, you are clearly the exception.
Have a nice day.
Linkage:
Peter R. Kann: Charge for online news.
George Joyce: America's Relativist in Chief.
Eugene Robinson gets schooled on John Edwards.
The growing ambitions of the food police.
Read the Koran: It's a question of self-protection.
Why the UN loves President Obama.
Radley Balko: Photo of the Day.
She has a system
Complex and fragile
A mystery to others
Foreign to me
She told me as much
She is dependent on the system
It structures her life, their life
Acceptable because she built it,
Herself
She tweaks it
It’s hers
She casts a wary eye at this outsider
Could I handle her system?
Even understand it?
Would I challenge it?
Am I to be trusted?
Others have failed...
Others have failed her
Am I a potential disruption?
Not to be permitted
Or, would I give as much as I take?
Would I give more than I take?
Would I give all? And take nothing.
Am I worthy?
In a follow-up to a recent post, Fiction Need Not Be Boring, it is interesting to note all the pompous criticism of Dan Brown's writing. For just a few examples, see here, here, and here. Grisham jumps into the fray here, with a predictable response here.
Look, this highbrow distaste for plot produces a never-ending series of novels that, A. Don't live up to the authors' literary aspirations, and B. No one wants to read. Sure, you can legitimately criticize Dan Brown's writing. But I choose to criticize the lack of plot in modern literature.
The lesson here is that great writing is a distant second to having a great story to tell.
And, let's take it a step further: Writing is a teachable skill. There are creative writing classes on every college campus. They may not make you a great writer, but they certainly inculcate an academic sense of what is "great writing." Personally, I'm not at all convinced this is a good thing. These classes surely can't give you an imagination. The best writer I know, by far, has a comfort with the English language which I envy, but more important, she has a story to tell. Truly great writers always have a story to tell. Pretenders write lyrically about the wallpaper. And endlessly develop psychologically complex characters who never get around to doing too much.
Bottom line: Having something to say is infinitely more important than how you say it.
[Via Jason Kottke]
Harry Stein writing on the City Journal website:
Indeed, it’s an excellent bet that the liberal journalists now wringing their hands about Beck, decrying his malign influence, would never have reported on the Acorn controversy...were it not for Beck and others on Fox—just as ABC’s Charlie Gibson, in his patrician above-it-allness, claimed ignorance of the story even after conservative viewers and listeners had been following it closely for more than a week.
Linkage:
Michael Arrington: Basic social interaction advice.
Hugh Fitzgerald: Kruse Control.
I've never heard of Max, but this story is so not surprising.
Two by Spencer:
First he takes apart "journalist," Michael Kruse,
Then on to child marriage in the Islamic world.
Evan Coyne Maloney on our "objective press."
Shiver: Truth trumps the race card.
Craigslist isn't broken, but that's no reason not to fix it.
Schwartz: Deconstructing Maureen Dowd.
Cohen unintentionally makes the case: Bomb Iran Now.
In an unusually unconvincing op-ed (for her), Kathleen Parker does manage to make one good point:
It's worth noting that Obama's approval rating was nearly 70 percent in January, dropping to 45 percent early this month. Did all those people suddenly become racist?
Michael Goldfarb is absolutely correct: "Serious people don't read The Daily Beast." Writing on The Weekly Standard's blog, Goldfarb continues:
So conjure the image -- the Obama administration sending U.S. aircraft up to protect Iran's airspace and it's nuclear installations from an attack by a democracy that is one of America's closest allies. ... And given Obama's (literally) submissive posture to the Saudis, his indulgence of the Iranians, and his simultaneously hard-line approach to Israel, it seems even some of Obama's supporters can savor the possibility of a "reverse Liberty."
[Via Pamela Geller]
Kim Stanley Robinson:
[T]he literature that best expresses our time, that speaks to our time, is science fiction. How could it be otherwise? Our world is a science fiction.
More here.
[Via Reading Copy]
Sully asks for our help.
While I profoundly disagree with Andrew Sullivan's position on torture and Mark Bowden's position on journalism (both in the October issue), I believe The Atlantic is the finest magazine publishing today. Closely followed by City Journal and National Review. Support all three.
Josh Olson does not want to read your script. My guess is neither do your friends, really. I suppose you could send it off unsolicited to various production companies. Good luck with that. The same goes for aspiring novelists. Sure send your manuscript off to Knopf and two dozen other publishers. That'll work.
My advice: Start a blog.
If you are not-such-a-good writer, no one will notice. But if you're any good at all, someone will.
[Via Craig Newmark]
LOVE PAMELA GELLER She does basic shoe-leather reporting that no one else in the country is doing. No one. Take the Rifqa Bary case. Not one so-called journalist bothers with the necessary legwork to accurately report this story. Like it or not, there is only one source for this story: Pamela Geller. What's more, Geller does not subscribe to the delusional and deceptive premise that journalism must be neutral.
HATE PAMELA GELLER But Geller has a problem: She presents poorly. There's just no other way to say it. Geller does not present herself well and people, regardless of their own ideological convictions, often have a hard time taking her seriously. Ordinarily I couldn't care less. But the problem is, like I said above, Geller is the ONLY source for accurate reporting on Rifqa Bary. If she is not taken seriously, and she is not, then the story suffers. And, the truth is dismissed with the messenger.
While Geller should clean up her image, the real tragedy here is that so-called journalists are not doing their job. Undoubtedly part of the issue is that one cannot turn to Muslim preachers or Islamic scholars for accurate information. The preachers practice Taqiyya, which is beyond the comprehension of journalists, and the scholars have a vested interest in portraying Islam in a positive light. The easy solution: Just go read the Islamic texts. Is that so difficult?
Here's a brief article on apostasy from Islam.
Linkage:
Newmark: Purported News Stories.
Gawker proves itself worthy.
Islam should be abhorred by all persons of conscience.
The Obama Doctrine: American Contrition.
Why do Jews vote against their self-interest? More here.
Ed Husain: We Have Given In To The Fanatics.
The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions.
Word of the Day: Typomaniacs.
Parker: A political era of uninhibited belligerence.
Andrew Klavan on Ideas.
Public Education: Spending versus Achievement.
Joke of the Week: Roger Cohen lectures about journalism.
Fjordman on Human Accomplishment.
Barbara Kay: Where's the Islamophobia?
Tribute: U.S. Coast Guard Photo, September 2004 - Click to enlarge
Andrew Breitbart's new website, BigGovernment, debuted yesterday with quite a splash: An Acorn takedown.
Don't miss it!
Click to enlarge
See all photos from today's release here. Interesting to note that these dramatic photos have been "professionally visualized."
Mark Bowden, writing in October's Atlantic, questions the motivations and ethics of conservative bloggers, Morgen Richmond and John Sexton. After all, these guys are not professional journalists. According to Bowden, "the honest, disinterested voice of a true journalist carries an authority that no self-branded liberal or conservative can have."
Well, that is the theory. And it might even be true if there was such a thing as a disinterested true journalist. Personally, I question the motivations and ethics of so-called professional journalists and their publishers. As I wrote in an earlier post:
Journalism is not, and has never been, neutral. The idea of neutral journalism is, at best, delusional, and at worst, deceptive. Proclaiming neutrality and objective reporting does not make it so. Rather, it simply engenders public distrust.
As a long-time blog reader, what is refreshing about the medium is the best bloggers, on all sides of any issue, don't pretend to be neutral. Readers are invited to engage with the writers or free to seek alternative viewpoints.
Sexton calls for reporters to play the role of trial attorneys presenting their evidence rather than judges deciding which evidence gets to be admitted. In the internet world, rest assured, the reader-jury will decipher it all, and even bring in more experts and analysts if need be. After all, they're just a click away. Sexton calls it "open source journalism." I like it.
Updates
22 September 2009:
Happened to catch the pompous Bowden on NPR's Talk of the Nation today, again making the point that "activisits" lack the ethics of "journalists." Does this clown never ask himself why the public has such little respect for journalists? At least we know where activists stand; we can make up our own mind on their "reporting" perhaps keeping their agenda in mind. Bowden's premise is based on the assumption that so-called professional journalists do not have an agenda. Again, he is either delusional or deceptive. I'm learning towards deceptive.
23 September 2009:
Jack Shafer writing about Andrew Breitbart, but concerning this same issue:
That Breitbart comes swinging a political ax should bother nobody, unless the journalism published in Mother Jones, The Nation, the Huffington Post, Salon, the New Republic, the American Prospect, Reason, the Weekly Standard, or the National Review gives them similar fits. Viewing the world through an ideological lens can sometimes help a journalist to discover a story.
Excellent point. Clearly it's too much to expect Bowden to question the ethics of The New York Times or hmm, The Philadelphia Inquirer, but does he question the ethics of The Nation? What a hypocrite.
Robert Spencer:
Remember the easy principle: reporting about Islamic jihad activity is just as bad as Islamic jihad activity. Reporting about beheadings, stonings, bombings, etc., is just as bad as beheadings, stonings, and bombings. Got it?
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