March 2005 Archives

This article has more info on the "Saudi Princess" I posted about yesterday. She appeared yesterday in court sporting a striking set of shackles:

Forced-labor charges for Saudi prince's wife

You don't say.

I've read it, and it's about what you'd expect. It's more critical of the interference of "outsiders" like Campus Watch and the David Project than it is of anyone's classroom behavior, although it is (very) mildly critical of Joseph Massad who ends up coming out quite well overall. To their credit, they seem not to have prepared separate private and public reports, but have instead kept it all public.

The bulk of the report is dedicated to addressing Columbia's failure to have a coherent system of dealing with student complaints which has lead to providing a wedge issue for outside groups to come in and do what Columbia has failed to do. Oddly, in spite of acknowledging a deficiency in their procedures, it's hard to imagine what difference it would make anyway, since the committee heard from scores of witnesses and doesn't seem to have found all that much in the way of what it thought were legitimate grievances. In fact, in my opinion the only people who come out as victims here are the professors themselves who seem to be the victims of outside agitators, overly-sensitive students and (and this is legitimately disturbing) outside unregistered "auditors" who sit in on their classes and disrupt them. It seems to me that all that Columbia is seeking for is a smoother system of dealing with student complaints so they can be brushed aside more expeditiously.

Did anyone expect anything different? The committee specifically does not touch on the specifics of what is being taught in Middle East Studies (to take off on something various speakers at the recent conference remarked on - are they teaching there that 2 + 2 = 5?) - the issue is purely style here, not substance. The committee was interested in whether the professors were behaving badly, not teaching correctly - an admittedly far bigger and more sticky subject.

In the end, the fostering of change within the university is going to have to come from pressure outside the university culture. The academics simply don't have the means or the desire to police each other.

Here is the text of the report.

Update: Via LGF is this New York Sun article with some very interesting tid-bits.

Here's a new one:

I just heard a TV news report that a "Saudi Princess" has been arrested in my old home town of Winchester, Massachusetts for keeping two Indonesian workers as slave laborers. Will post more when I can find details.

Update: Here it is. They had houses in Arlington and Winchester. Not bad (Winchester particularly is an affluent Boston suburb).

Saudi princess charged with forcing women to be domestic servants

Daniel Pipes will be giving a talk at the University of Toronto tonight. Here's from him:

The referenced letter from 80 Professors and grad students is a remarkable piece of dreck that screams out for comment.

This is typical of the Academic Ivory-Tower elites. They believe that academic freedom means freedom from criticism. They don't mind the silencing of dissenting views, as long as it is they who are doing the silencing - as they are trying to do here. Campus Watch is concerned with preventing the silencing and intimidation of what are minority views, and shining light on the campus thought-police. Not surprisingly, this is an uncomfortable situation for the PC deputies. Pipes's legislative efforts, so far as I know, are aimed at bringing accountability back to the academy, and accountability back to the tax money they receive. No shock that this is resisted by those who don't know where the line is between their teaching and their political-advocacy.

The first quote is so badly out of context and mischaracterized that someone should check the academic credentials of the people who signed on to this letter. In fact, Pipes, in that quote, is rendering a description of European attitudes, not a prescription for what they should be. You can read the entire article here. It is as fresh today as it was when it was written 15 years ago, reinforcing the fact that Pipes is someone to seek out, not to shun. The second two quotes are hardly even controversial, are they? Describing the truth is no longer acceptable speech at the modern Canadian University, it appears.

The best is saved for the wrap-up, of course:

Can anyone translate that for me? Are they trying to silence Pipes or not? We believe in freedom of speech and affirm Pipes' right to speak, but hate, prejudice, and fear-mongering - all of which they are presumably ascribing to Pipes - have no place here. Huh? They excoriate Pipes for supposedly trying to silence views he finds objectionable, and the fact is that they'd like nothing more than to silence him, but of course, they can't come right out and say that. The entire contradiction and dishonesty in their own position leaves it bearing no substance and no sense. These are politicians with axes to grind and turf to protect, not academics.

If you're in the Toronto area, go give the guy your support.

From the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:

(Jewish parasites, get the hell out of Serbia!!! Serbia to the Serbs)


(David's Star, "Rex" is promoting disease, dirtiness and immorality!!! Serbia to the Serbs)


(Fuhrer = David's Star)

I am informed that there will be a hearing by the Boston City Council concerning Boston's subsidization of religion via the bargain-basement land sale to the Islamic Society of Boston for the construction of their new Mosque. Here are the details as I have them:

Date: Thursday, April 14, 2005

Title: Post Audit & Oversight Committee

Docket #0162

Order for a hearing re: a 1.0 acre parcel of land on Malcom X Boulevard

Location:

Iannella Chamber - 5th floor
City Hall ~ Government Ctr.

Time:

1:30 PM-3:30 PM

Nearest T Station: government center

I do not know the nature of this type of hearing, nor if statements are allowed.

Here's Caroline Glick with an important response to the Norman Podhoretz piece linked below. Podhoretz supports the disengagement plan as consistent with the Bush Doctrine. Glick answers from the Right.

JPost: Column One: Sharon and the Bush Doctrine

I understand the publisher needs help. Here's a Muslim who's out campaigning for democracy, publishing columns by Daniel Pipes and isn't afraid to confront the painful issues in his own culture. Here's Tashbih Sayyed's bio:

If you're a blogger, keep in mind to link to their stuff once in awhile (although the site is one of those good ones that could maybe use a little design help), and if you've got the extra scratch, a subscription to the print edition might not be a bad idea.

Stephen Vincent, author of the most-excellent blog and book, In The Red Zone, has tagged me in this latest chain-meme to sweep the blogosphere. OK, I give. I'll do it, but God do I hate these things. I can never decide on my answers. I'm so fickle!

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

I'm embarrassed to say that I've never read Fahrenheit 451...I know, I know, I will eventually, and I do love Bradbury's writing. Anyway, I understand that people preserve the books from destruction by memorizing them? Is that right? But people seem to be choosing books they hate because they lose out in the end or something...Hmmm...this is a tough one. I'll answer straight - what book would I memorize? I guess I'll go for one that's short but magical - W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe...no wait! Animal Farm...OK, Shoeless Joe...no changies!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Listen...I'm all man, baby. I can get a crush on two sticks that happen to be leaning up against each other at just the right angle, y'know? OK, how about Maryanne, or maybe Daphne?

The last book you bought is:

My last shipment from Amazon included:

Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B. C.: A Historical Biography by Peter Green
H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian
Orientalism by Edward W. Said [I know, I know]
The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky
Carnage and Culture : Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power by Victor Hanson

The last book you read:

The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky

What are you currently reading?

Orientalism by Edward W. Said - I know, I know, but you've gotta read it eventually if you're interested in the state of the Academy and the discourse on the Middle East. Believe me, this one's gonna take awhile. It ain't exactly a page-turner.

Five books you would take to a desert island.

This is the toughest. I mean, why take books I already read? Let me do this quick without much second-guessing. OK, how about:

Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William L. Shirer
Fear No Evil: The Classic Memoir of One Man's Triumph over a Police State by Natan Sharansky
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Stand by Stephen King [I love end of the world stories]
and...uh...I dunknow...how about Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Weekend Pundit, because he lost his hat giving me a boat-ride once.
Nathan Hamm, because I want to make sure the University of Solomonia has global reach and diversity, and
Gerard VanderLeun (I butchered that) because I can say I "knew him when" and he was in publishing and I want to read what I'm sure will be creative answers.
(Hopefully no one already got those guys. I wish I could tag everyone as I hate leaving anyone out!)

Interesting profile of the EU's new envoy to Israel, Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal. It must be frustrating for the Israelis (and their supporters) with all the lessons learned of recent history - all the mistakes of Oslo, the errors of coddling Arafat and appeasing the terror groups - to have an envoy step in who admits he doesn't know that much about the region and comes on stage with the same old lecturing postures. Interesting contrast to the story of the French Ambassador given. It tells you much about the nature of the French position that their Ambassador had to actually deny the positive things that he said in private to continue to be in line with his government's stance.

JPost: Editor's Notes: A candid new EU voice

Aye, there's a rub for you. If Israel imprisons the terrorists, they become nothing but pawns and excuses for more terror prior to their inevitable release. If the PA imprisons the terrorists, it's a revolving door joke. We'll know Abbas is serious about cracking down on the terrorists when the EU needs to petition him to commute the death sentences of bombers instead of the death sentences of the "collaborators" they do now.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. The US Ambassador raised some eyebrows the other day with some remarks about whether there were or were not understandings between the Americans and Israelis about issues like settlements. Clarification has come...sorta. After all, the devil is still in the details, but the overall American position is sound - the Palestinian Arabs have to get over the idea that they're going to inundate Israel with millions of "refugees" (and the Arab States generally have to stop keeping these people in perpetual limbo as part of their war against Israel), and if we've said it once, we;ve said it a thousand times - a final settlement will not include a full withdrawal to the 1949 borders, but will be adjusted to take into account security issues and demographic reality. Of course, the final American position heges a bit, which is too bad.

JPost: The Kurtzer flap

Roger has a bit of a scoop:

The rest is here.

Frida Ghitis in the Boston Globe:

It's a great piece, but here's your problem - who's going to do the scrubbing? The halls of the UN are filled with people who don't even know what dirt looks like. I believe the UN is systemically incapable of meaningful change. Continued American moral authority and leadership as well as some motions toward reform are currently putting that to the test.

This Globe article contrasts sharply with much non-MSM reporting out of Iraq that indicates the sectarian divide looks much stronger to those outside Iraq than inside. No surprise given the source. It's worth reading, although I cannot help but be left skeptical by the fact that the type of people the Globe chooses to hold forward as representing Sunni opinion are the type of people angry that those sympathetic to "the resistance" might be purged from the security forces. This sounds like more of a dwindling fringe than anything else - despite the Globe's portrayal.

The Boston Globe: Fractured Iraq sees a Sunni call to arms

Now, I'm sure the professor doesn't mean any harm in this - she presents, I feel certain, the issue as a purely academic exercise.

But I have heard of everything from terrorism, to car bombings to plane hijackings to whatever else you can think of given Jewish origins and that used as an excuse or mitigation for it being used against Jews and others today. "Martyrdom" has very clear, immediate meaning, with causes far more proximate than the Book of Maccabees. Does it really do any good to be providing people with what will certainly be used as more excuses for very bad behavior (to put it mildly)?

Psychiatric News: Martyrdom May Be Modern Crisis, But Origins Go Back Centuries

Here's a link to an official UN web-page on the "History of the Palestine Problem." Of course, any resemblance between what's on that page and real history are purely coincidental. Unless you happen to get your history from places like Electronic Intifada (unlike, say, Human Rights Watch) you should get your bucket ready. Sometimes we complain that the UN can't distinguish between an agressor and their victim. Sometimes its worse.

I've avoided this for a long time. You can skip this post if you like. No hard feelings. I'll understand completely. There are a few things I won't feel right about unless I get them down, though, so here goes.

First of all, I have not delved into all the details of the case - the science, the testimonies, the legal issues and events. In fact, I've been studiously avoiding it. I've just never felt willing to dedicate the hours necessary to really get a grasp on the issues here and do them justice. I regret that somewhat now, but not too much. My feeling is that this issue has gotten so much attention, so much has been written, there have been so many people stepping forward with both overt and unknown agendas that my personal time-expenditure early-warning radar sounded and indicated that there were hours to be spent with still no good conclusion to be had.

But the fact is the issue has been impossible to ignore. First in the blogosphere for months, and now on radio and TV...there hasn't been a radio talk show in the Boston area over the past week that hasn't had the case front and center all day long. Even the local sports station morning guys can't get enough of it. Consequently, it's been impossible not to at least take in some data via osmosis, or at least react to the people voicing their reactions.

As I've been reading about, or hearing about, the case at this point I may have lasted a few minutes or a paragraph or two before tuning out and moving on. No meaning there in my reaction, no anger over the fact that people are interested in this - on the contrary, I think it's completely natural and even a good reflection on our society that people are so interested in this one case. As I said though, I've personally had my fill early and move on.

However, a good way to assure that I not only tune out or click on, but that I tune out or click over with disgust, is to start vilifying the people on the other side - whichever side they're on. There are plenty of reasons and plenty of data for people to feel justified on either or any side here. I wish I had saved the front-page photo from the Boston Globe a couple of days ago - the Globe staff loves to show religious people in the most unflattering poses possible, and there they were, praying their hearts out in as ugly a way as possible. That's our lovely liberal-establishment's preferred portrayal of people of religious faith - as though you need to be some sort of religious fanatic to feel just a little bit horrified that this woman is being slowly starved to death. Horrified that a woman who is apparently suffering no pain and has others who are ready and willing to take care of her is going to be intentionally starved to death anyway.

That's not to judge whether what's being done is right, wrong or indifferent. It's an imperfect world. Life is imperfect. Our choices are imperfect. But you don't need to be super-religious to come down on one side of this question or the other, you just need to be human. Sometimes life is a horror.

I've been hearing a lot about the Founders lately, and of the system they set up. Now I'm a big admirer of the Founders and their system. And again, I'm going to say the following while acknowledging that there may be arguments that the system as geared worked flawlessly without being interfered with, or it may not have, but I want to make a couple of observations.

No system is going to be perfect. That's just one of those realities of living in an imperfect world. No system set up to govern all can possibly render perfect justice (if any such thing exists) in every individual's case. Sometimes you have an occasional injustice (and again, let me emphasize that I'm not concluding there's an injustice here, I'm just holding forward the possibility) in order to avoid the anarchy of endless individual exceptions. That situation would bring on its own suite of problems - maybe worse than the first.

But that doesn't mean we can't lament that truth. That doesn't mean that when this great, huge, society actually has an individual case that actually manages to catch its attention that there's something necessarily wrong with that. It doesn't mean that when the Congress of the United States manages to focus its attention on one individual - in spite of the fact that the polls show that doing so is widely unpopular (so much for a pandering charge) - and that they try to find some way within the system to do something...it doesn't mean that's such a horrible thing. You can't blame people for feeling that their job description doesn't include standing by and doing nothing as a woman is starved to death in front of them.

The Founders understood the importance of a State based on secular law. They didn't necessarily want God personally in the courtrooms of Men, but they also were certainly not against God. And I cannot help but feel that standing back and watching a woman slowly killed when there are people ready to provide for her care...that the Founders would recognize that as being against God. So don't put this on old John Adams's shoulders. I think if any of those old boys were called before God to justify this right now, and saw that people were transferring their own personal responsibility on to them and the system they put into motion, that they would stand up and look God straight in the eye and shout, "We didn't mean THAT!"

I can't help but feel that all this talk about Constitutional tradition, judicial procedure, appeals and the like...that to the person suffering and their family, it must all be some much talk of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...that they must be ready to shout, "OK, but where am I in all that?!"

No matter what happens, there will be no happy ending. This is why the word "tragedy" was invented. It's that - a tragedy...a fucking tragedy. If she's not turned over to her parents she'll be dead, and not just dead but starved to death. If she is, she'll still be living a questionable existence from which, well, she won't be waking up in the morning.

It doesn't make you evil to want to see she and her family moving on. It doesn't make you a fanatic to want to see her cared for.

As ever, all that's left for most of us mere-mortals to do is to plead for some semblance of reason and understanding of the impossible...

...and scream into the face of God.

New York Times: U.N. Cites Syria as Factor in Lebanese Assassination

But if only we were nicer to the Syrians, they'd be more cooperative with us...

Fools like Norman Finkelstein try to argue that Jewish groups like the Simon Weisenthal Center will fight tooth and nail against any comparison of the historical Holocaust against the Jews with what's happening in present times. Of course, the fact is that that's false. The fact is that there are just very few good comparisons to be had. Here is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Abraham Cooper discussing the situation in North Korea:

Washington Post: Toxic Indifference to North Korea

This lengthy Washington Post interview with Condoleezza Rice covers a lot of ground. Read it and take notes if you get the time. I like this lady.

Here is the summary: Rice Describes Plans To Spread Democracy

Yes, yes, YES! The status-quo in the Middle-East (and elsewhere) has been a murderous, grinding repetition that's given us nothing but instability, insecurity, new enemies and 9/11. There is very little to be lost or risked by continuing to shake up the pot. The people with the most to risk are old State Department fossils and campus clowns who've spent their careers studying the status quo and are afraid things will change too fast for them to keep up with their expert status.

The transcript of the whole interview is here. Much ground covered. Travel the world with Condi!

Here's something that needs a thorough fisking by someone qualified to do so (and with the time to do so). The PCUSA has a collection of resource sheets to advise people of some of the background behind the Israeli-Palestinian issues.

Israel and Palestine Resource Sheets

My emailer writes:

It's not a surprise that Jewish/Presbyterian relations are strained. While these sheets hide behind an impartially sourced veneer, from the quick flip-through I've taken, what they really contain is a clear agenda to delegitimize the State of Israel. This is propaganda to justify the PCUSA Board's politics. Little more.

You think only Universities outside Israel are hot-beds for the radical-fringe? Boy are you wrong. Here's a sort of Campus-Watch for Israel: Israel Academia Monitor

Hat tip to Mal for the pointer to this lengthy article by Norman Podhoretz on the state of the disengagement plan, the roadmap and how much the process still hinges on the personalities of three men - Abbas, Sharon, and most pivotal of all, George W. Bush. Worth reading in full if you have the time.

Commentary: Bush, Sharon, My Daughter, and Me

Via the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Update: Sorry, back to full posting soon, I promise. I really need to learn to eat my food slowly, taste every bite and make sure I'm not consuming anything I shouldn't be.

Little under the weather. Back to bloggin in earnest soon. Check back early and often.

This would be funny if people didn't actually believe it.

Arafat Killed By High Tech Laser Attack - Envoy

The case of DePaul University Professor Thomas Klocek, who was removed without a hearing after challenging and running afoul of a protected group on campus (see these two posts for background: DePaul Professor Offends Muslim Students - Suspended Without Hearing and Klocek and DePaul - It gets worse) is finally gaining a little bit of play. It was curious how this story, which seems to have many angles of interest for various watchdog groups, seemed to be going along so very quietly.

Now, "big bloggers" Roger L. Simon and Little Green Footballs have taken an interest, and there is a lengthy article at the Chicago Jewish News and columns in the Manchester Union Leader and Naples Daily News (both linked at Marathon Pundit) on the case.

Lots of links to this. I'll add one more.

Democracy in Iraq (Is Here!): 2 Years

I wonder how the Globe (or the LA Times) would cover a home for aging Fascists? You don't think there would be a few questions to the oldsters about any lingering guilt over backing murderous movements?

Aging leftists may lose their home - Empty rooms, fading memories

The Boston Globe has a graphic with the results from this poll showing that 62% of Iraqis are optimistic about the future (higher than here in America). Now, there are several ways of taking these results. One is that things aren't nearly as bad there as some would have us believe and the situation is very much looking up - a job well done. The other is that things are so bad there now that Iraqis believe it couldn't possibly get worse. Let's take a look at the article that accompanies the graphic - a profile of two "typical Iraqis" - and see how they frame it.

Boston Globe: In land of fear, hope takes root - Nation looks to future, though violence rages

From grim police state to daily hell...yeah, that's quite a gamut of experience the Globe sees fit to report. Not "liberation," but only "the promise of liberation," and in spite of the balance of the article being a bit better than the start, the entire section of the article that appears on the front page is uniformly negative.

LGF: MoonbatsHorrifiedByBolton.org

See if you can spot the editorial voice in this AP report (through CNN) on the President's weekly radio address:

Bush: Toppling Saddam inspired democracy in MIddle East

Oh yeah, that.

Update: Speaking of the Democratic response, take note of how CNN reports it in this story - utterly uncritically, simply passing on the story of the speech (as they should). What liberal media?

A rare bit of sensibility in today's Globe. Sometimes their "conservative" tokenism results in something good. A critique of the ACLU:

The ACLU is out of line By Anil Adyanthaya

I can't wait for the letters to the editor on this one. I'll make a prediction, one of the themes will be that the ACLU ought to be involved in this, because our freedoms are directly tied to how we treat others - something along those lines, y'know? Remember the refrain of the freedom riders who went down from North to South back in the day? When asked why they said, "Because if my brother isn't free, then I'm not free..." they understood how it was all tied together back then. Today's ACLU and their allies aren't really interested in that. As the author points out, they're just playing politics - domestically and internationally. If they were really interested in the cause of freedom, they'd show a little interest in freedom in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria...but they don't. In fact, their interest is in fighting and trashing the people who are helping freedom's march in all those places (and making us safer along the way). They are now in the role of the old southern cop with a firehose in hand, doing what they can to keep history in check.

There are a lot of people out there in need of free legal services (hell, I'm one of them!), but protecting the interests of terrorists is how they choose to spend their resources instead.

Either the Turks have taken a sudden interest in checking out the primary sources the history books are based on, or something else is at work. Many have pointed to this story of gangbuster sales for Mein Kampf in the old lands of the Ottoman Emperor.

Some disappointment, but no big surprise, for those who recall this entry about the hold of far-Left anti-Americanism on the Turkish public at the moment. Now, there's no sin in owning and reading the book. I have a copy. But it's not exactly the type of thing that you'd expect to be a mass-market success. Something else beyond a purely intellectual interest in history is likely at work, no?

Tigerhawk puts the numbers into perspective:

The Daily Star article gets the reporting right to start:

Note my emphasis - on perception. It's no surprise people may be interested in re-examining Hitler in a different light, considering how badly twisted the reporting and analysis is - from Iraq to Israel - how dictated by opportunity politics. The article gets it dangerously wrong just two paragraphs later, here:

It's not the policy, it's the perception. Iraqis are more positive than ever, and still, there are those who insist on marching against "the war" even at this late date. What a world they must live in. What a world they are creating for those who don't hear anything different...different form the unceasing drumbeat of negativism and "Bush is Hitler" comparisons. Some people need to look in the mirror and see if perhaps some of their own - let's be charaitable and say well-meaning - rhetoric has anything to do with this...for excusing hatred and for conflating perception with reality.

There is some controversy over what has become an exceptionally popular program on Iraqi TV - Terrorism in the Hands of Justice - where captured terrorists are put on camera to confess their crimes. The show is not only popular with the viewers, but it is also having the desired effect of galvanizing public opinion against the terrorists by showing in stark detail that the "insurgents" are not admirable holy-warriors, but are instead exposed as the lowlifes they are.

The controversy stems from questions involving the degree to which the confessions are coerced, how accurate the information is, and whether any torture is used. Such programming would certainly be a worry here in the States, but desperate circumstances and the number of lives at stake mean the putting on hold of some civil liberties and the stretching of the niceties and specifics of due-process. These people are fighting a war against a blood-thirsty crowd that shows no mercy. That means the circumstances are a bit different than the circumstances under which some international civil rights organizations' standards are geared-up to account for. This ain't Kansas, kid.

Boston Globe: Confessions rivet Iraqis - Fight for minds uses a TV show as battleground

People are drawing parallels to a previous episode in Iraqi television history. You decide whether the comparison is correct or not. In 1963, Abd al-Karim Qassem was ousted in a Ba'athist coup. Some segments of the population didn't believe he was really dead, and waited for him to come lead the counterrevolution. From Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear...

Note that important distinction. Previous TV displays by the Iraqi authorities were meant to instill fear and obeisance into the people. The new programming is meant to instill fear in the terrorists and rally support from the people - a government accountable to the people is showing them it is doing its job to protect them.

Apropos of the entry below concerning the history of the Jews in Iceland - a history involving occasionally open anti-Semitism on the part of some Icelanders - a reader emails a pointer to this story on the fact that Iceland will be granting Fischer a passport and possibly citizenship. This appears designed to give the Chess Master cum lunatic an out from his Japanese exile and extradition fight.

BBC: Iceland to give Fischer passport

I mentioned below that the Icelanders I've known were "Rastafarian dabblers" - their other joy was chess. Long, dark winters and cold days make for lots of people looking to perform serious brain exercise. "Protocolistic" conspiracy-theories never came up.

For background on Fischer, his life and his figutive status, see the links in this entry. The article in The Atlantic is now behind a pay screen, but may be found here in full.

This story is alread old in blog years (meaning hours) I guess, but I did want to mention it. Hizbollah's TV station is now banned Europe-wide, which ought-to, but probably won't, cause extreme cognitive-dissonance in European capitals as they continue to deride America's unnuanced insistence on resisting separating Hizbollah the terror group from Hizbollah the political entity - while at the same time they admit that the group's main communications channel is too hateful and dangerous to be broadcast.

"Ah, but they run social services!" Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Somehow the Italians managed without him.

[Update: Heh. I have been informed by a reader that Mussolini did not actually make the trains run on time, which is fitting, as Hizbollah does not actually contribute to a healthy Lebanese civil society, either.]

Watchdogs Take Hizbollah TV Off European Satellites

And here I was under the impression that I had thought of it first. That's only because I hadn't (and haven't) read Irshad Manji's book yet, I guess. Cori Dauber points to this story of a woman scheduled to lead a Muslim prayer in New York and notes:

Some others are none-too-pleased (I can sympathize with the backlash concern, especially, but the fact is that you've got to start somewhere.).

Interesting article on the history of the Jews in this Nordic Wonderland. I've known a few Icelanders, but most of them were simple practitioners of the ritual portions of Rastafarianism...if you get my meaning.

Iceland, the Jews, and Anti-Semitism, 1625-2004 by Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson

Update: IsraPundit and Hatshepsut comment on this article. Also, see this later post on Iceland and Bobby Fischer.

Ukraine sold cruise missiles to Iran, but don't worry, they didn't include the nuclear warheads they were designed to carry. This reminds me of when I get food from the takeout place next door and they ask me, "You need utensils?" and I say, "No thanks, I have my own..."

Ukraine says exported long-range missiles to Iran

Another object lesson in the differences between the behavior of Free and Fear Societies (see the other below).

Israel only within the past week finally got around to re-arresting proven traitor Mordechai Vanunu...

BBC: Vanunu arrested by Israeli police

...while Abu Mazen, has now OK'd the executions of 15 "collaborators" (just as soon as the Mufti of Jerusalem gives his blessing) as you can read through this proposed "Early Day motion 919" in the British Parliament (BTW, UK citizens can encourage their MP's to sign on by visiting FaxYourMP.com.) No, all is not dark in Blighty.

Update: Meryl has a worthwhile fisking of an IHT piece on Vanunu. Check it out.

Krauthammer puts some great sentences together in his column today. (Linked at FrontPage)

What's Left? Shame.

The following description is more than the description of life in PA society. The following is really a description of why positive change is nearly impossible in a Fear Society. Individuals who want to help themselves and their neighbors by reporting the terrorists who make their lives miserable to the appropriate authorities (the Israelis, who are responsible for order) can't for fear of death - whether true or not, suspicion is enough - families turn their children out, no one speaks up on the accused's behalf for fear that they'll be next, and even the religious authorities - the final line of some semblance of civilization - are coopted and cooperative with hate and death and murder. Rational decision-making, change for the positive and choices made for the betterment of the people are nearly impossible under these circumstances.

IMRA: STATEMENT REGARDING MURDER OF MUHAMMAD MANSOUR

Take a look at this Instapundit post for a link to an interesting StrategyPage entry and a really good email from Iraq. While the MSM, reactionary Leftists, Euro-elites and others are astoundingly still clinging to the "Iraq is a disaster/what hath the neocons wrought" line of pap, those of us on the right side of history can continue to use the blogosphere to inform and educate ourselves on what's really going on out there in the world. I shudder to think of what kind of world the people who rely on The Guardian, The NYT, The LA Times, the Boston Globe and so many others must live in.

Bruce at mASSBackwards has the first in a series of insider's views of the problems with the Big Dig.

The Inside Dirt - Vol. 1 Stories from the Big Dig they don't want you to hear.

Lynn has some more info on the entry below. David Irving has posted portions of his email correspondence with a stomach-churningly obsequious C-Span staff.

Update: Lipstadt on her own blog (Main page here.). Quite a picture of the C-Span attitude she paints:

Norm points to the story of an Arab-Israeli who seems to understand the significance of real Holocaust study:

YNet: Khaled's Holocaust institute:

This man seems to get it, and that's positive. This effort looks different than other, similar "Arabs discover the Holocaust" day-trips - a little holding of the nose and a bit of hand-wringing for the cameras really staged to gain sympathy for themselves - Mahamid sounds like one of those who is NOT a Holocaust minimizer.

It's not just a lack of information that's the problem - and not just amongst Arabs. It's a lack of information coupled with the wisdom to take home the appropriate lessons. I know a guy (British) who loves to post messages on a discussion board I used to frequent - his favorite subject to start threads about? How the Israelis are behaving just like the Nazis toward the Arabs, that you'd think they'd have learned from the Holocaust and now they're doing the same thing, blah, blah...you know the type. We all understand that when people make such comparisons there are several possibilities - that you have no clue what's actually happening today, that you have no idea what happened back then, or you know very well and don't care because you're willing to lie for any of a number of reasons.

There's another possibility, of course. I was surprised to find out that when asked what one indispensable book this person would choose to make sure everyone in the world should read, he chose a particular book about Auschwitz (I don't recall the name)! He has the data. He knows the facts - but somewhere along the line no one's managed to teach him the lessons. He doesn't really understand a word.

I think for all the volume of Holocaust films and videos, books, museums and activist groups, there's been something amiss in the quality of the message. I'll leave that post for another time...

Here's hoping Mr. Mahamid's project is a success. Here's also hoping his lessons reach a wider audience than just the Middle East.

I love this President. First Bolton to the UN, now this. I admit, though, that like Pieter, I'm disappointed to see him leaving the Pentagon, but that could just be because I don't understand the workings and importance of the World Bank well enough. Hmmm...Bolton to UN, Wolfowitz to World Bank, Condi to State, democracy growing in Iraq and elsewhere...I like the way this chess game is going.

The press is of course selling their story line on the basis of upset Europeans still angry over Iraq. Well they were wrong and Wolfie was right. Boohoo.

"You want the ears? You can't HANDLE the ears!"

Update: Very good post from Roger.

A few quotes from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:

"Lebanon is not Ukraine."
(03/08/2005) Sheik Hassan Nasrallah

"We made a big mistake when we didn't vote. Our votes were very important."
(02/20/2005) Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, Representative from Northern Nineveh (Iraqi Sunni)

"There are all kinds of complexities. But... the point is, there is a main enemy in the theater, and it is al Qaeda-inspired, [with an] ideological desire to dominate the region."
(02/28/2005) Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command

"Here's a tip for budding Arab-world political figures: If you don't talk about imperialism and Zionist agents, the Western media will think you are too Westernized and ignore you; if you want attention, wave an automatic weapon in a reporter's face, and he will write about the social services and educational programs your nice organization offers to the community."
(03/08/2005) Lee Smith, Author

"Sixty years of western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export."
(01/11/2003) President George W. Bush

According to the latest Palestinian Media Watch report. (No permalink yet - As an aside, please, for the love of all that's holy, would some kind web designer please offer to re-design the PMW web site? One of the most important sites on the web hiding behind one of the worst page designs ever.) Abbas still has some work to do...if he chooses to. Here's some of the report.

It's not just the Chinese. The Marmot has an interesting article reprinted in full from the dead-tree Wall Street Journal. (Typed in by a reader!) The South has been laboring to keep the North afloat for fear of the extreme costs of integrating the North should it collapse. Their interests are different than ours on this. They will labor for years appeasing, paying off, propping up and keeping their fingers in the dyke for however long it takes to prevent potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in reunification costs at bay, while we're concerned that in the mean-time, the North will export technology, weapons - even nuclear - or just decide they've had enough of waiting and try to take it all. We can't wait forever. Oh, and neither can hundreds of thousands of starving, gulag and execution threatened North Koreans.

Read the article here: The Marmot: S. Korea working to keep KJI afloat: WSJ — MUST READ!!!

Get this: Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, who won a defensive libel suit against racist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denier David Irving by proving him to be so in a British court of law, has been told that C-Span will not cover a lecture of her's promoting the book she wrote on the episode unless they also cover an Irving presentation for "balance." That's right, in order to get herself coverage, she must also agree that Irving should be given a voice as well.

Imagine you want to have a panel on the Holocaust, would it be necessary to include a panel of Holocaust-deniers as well? Or, as Cohen says in the op-ed below, "For a book on the evils of slavery, would it counter with someone who thinks it was a benign institution?"

There is often a fine-line between editorial responsibility and the simple squelching of unpopular views. Academic freedom on and off the campus is important and all such decisions must be made carefully, but that doesn't mean that we can never make them. I want to know where the grownups are? Who is going to be the responsible party and say that conjecture, opinion and exploration of even controversial subjects is acceptable, but we will not be a party to spreading lies. That is beyond the acceptable. What is wrong in the heads of the producers at C-Span? To me it is clear that this is nothing more than a selfish decision. Selfish? Yes, for it provides the perfect opportunity to show how supremely fair and openminded they are, "You see?" they can say, "We even give equal time to a Holocaust denier." Don't hold your breath waiting for a pat on the back, C-Span staff. There is nothing brave about your decision.

Let me stretch this one more paragraph and then you can read Cohen's piece. If C-Span were interested in covering an Irving lecture, it would certainly be the responsible thing to balance his lies and misrepresentations with another view, but the coverage is not occurring for Irving's sake. C-Span is interested in Lipstadt, and it is the height of absurdity to believe that Lipstadt's truth needs to be balanced with Irving's lies.

OK, now read Cohen.

Washington Post: C-SPAN's Balance of the Absurd by Richard Cohen

Reuters: Iraqis hold anti-Jordanian protests over bombing

Y'know, there have been an awful lot of really nasty terrorists that have come out of Jordan. It sort of makes you wonder why anyone would take the War on Terror advice of "moderate" Kind Abdullah seriously.

Well, it's nice to see the Iraqis out protesting against terrorism. BTW, Reuters' caption for that photo is "Iraqis prepare to burn Jordan's national flag during a demonstration in the holy city of Najaf." But if you go to the Reuters article and click on the picture for the larger version, you'll see that it isn't exactly the Jordanian flag.

It appears that "the Jews" will continue to be the generic villain of choice for awhile yet. There's still a ways to go.

BTW, it doesn't look like the media over there helps much:

Al Jazeera: Hariri assassinated to make way for U.S. air base:

(Conspiracy Theory link via Steven Vincent)

Via Chrenkoff, another blog to take a peek at: Jihad Pundit, "The Arab Street Neoconservative." I just skimmed the posts on his front page (especially this one) and it's looking good.

Busy, busy, busy...and having a bit of fun making new site banners in the time in between work. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where the snakecharmer picture is from and how I Photoshopped it (aside from adding the text).

A couple of students from the School of Oriental and African Studies have commented in the thread below. I suppose you can call my last comment (I hope it's the last) a "Letter to a young anti-Zionist."

Note: The image in the upper-left corner of the default page style is now set to rotate randomly. I expect to have a bit of fun with that. (Feedback is always welcome.)

Iraqi merchants are boycotting Syrian goods (good!), and the Kurds may be over-playing their hand (bad). I can actually understand the Kurdish impulse to retain as much power and autonomy as possible until they see how this whole thing works out, but it could also become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Very, very good article about what they're like, what's at stake, and what the Italians risk paying off terrorist criminals. Well worth reading all. (via Common Sense & Wonder)

Washington Post: Checkpoint Iraq: A Tactic That Works

Norm has some thoughts on that piece that appeared in the student magazine of London's School of Oriental and African Studies I posted on a couple of days ago. He puts it well why the piece is so urgently disturbing, and why violence tends to follow-on so quickly when certain ideas infect a place. Read all, but here's a snip:

Scientific American has an interesting article about the subject. I admit I still don't completely understand it - and I thought I had a better grasp before reading the piece, so I guess it was needed.

Every time I read stuff like this I wish I could be like this silver guy and go out there and take a look. How about you?

I'm sure I'm not alone in figuring that the recent across the board hardline on Syria with the US, EU and UN seemingly on the same page in delivering ultimatums (for once) is a sort of quid-pro-quo tradeoff with the US agreeing to show some flexibility on Iran. You help us keep the screws on Syria and we'll play ball with you on Iran...What's good about this is, of course, that the Administration knows quite well that due to the nature of the regime in Iran, it will not give up its quest for nukes and will, once again, show its true nature, thus costing uis very little. The Administration will be left in the position of having shown its flexibility, willingness to "play well" with others, and will have left the Europeans with one less excuse to continue appeasing the unappeasable. Is it too optimistic to wonder if we may be on the cusp of certain beret-wearing European powers realizing that it's better to get on the side of a stalwart America rather than continue to try to counterbalance same by cozying up to and supporting dictators - dictators who are disappearing or in danger of disappearing one-by-one? I don't think so.

Something to keep an eye on. "Waheed" blogs here at Afghan Warrior.

(Via Big Pharaoh)

Big Pharaoh on the latest suicide murder in Iraq:

...wearing the green trunks, we have Hizballah, Syria, and Islamic Jihad... Anyone ever tell them you can tell a lot about a person by who his friends are?

YNet: Thousands attend pro-Syria rally in Gaza

And in the other corner, wearing the blue trunks, we have...the US, the UN and France...what the?

He didn't really say that, but that's kinda what I'm taking from it. I'm posting this here because Marmot's anti-spam protections somehow won't let my second comment through, and I strung some pretty good sentences together, damnit! (Some pretty poor ones, too, which will no doubt grow in number as my coffee wears off, but nevermind that...) Email just isn't the same.

BTW, The Marmot is one of the tip-top "American in Korea" bloggers. Read him for all your Korea news.

So anyways, Marmot says:

This get's me goin'.

This guy must be a hell of a speaker.

I got an email announcing that the local Islamic High School is having to a fund-raising dinner featuring old friend Siraj (or Seraj) Wahaj. You may remember Wahaj from a previous post in which we learned about Mr. Wahaj's plans for America (he wants to re-establish the Caliphate from here), his feelings about Homosexuals (hates 'em would be putting it mildly) and he served as a character witness for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik" convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Is it unfair to be concerned that this is a man held out as a role-model to young people?

Posted in the comments to this post at CampusJ by a student who believes he is defending the University:

This from a student accusing others of having a political agenda. If that doesn't tell you all you need to know about what those who are fighting the campus orthodoxy (everywhere) are up against I don't know what will.

I have seen the students who appear in Columbia Unbecoming speak twice now. In each case and from every student they have tried to make it clear that they believe Columbia to be an excellent school in spite of the controversy. Further, and perhaps most importantly, they have emphasized that the answer to Columbia's ills is NOT more professors with an opposite slant in the hopes that the truth may be somewhere in the middle, but simply good, respectful scholarship and instruction and let the truth fall where it may. I think that's an admirable attitude.

The air at Columbia and at campuses across the nation is stale. Time to raise the shades, throw upen the windows and let the light shine in!

What's going on lately at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London? Let's see, first they tried to prevent the school's Jewish Society from having a speaker from the Israeli Embassy, and I hear it was quite a show when the speaker did appear after the schools Student Union (who wanted the ban) was overruled by the school's director. It may be illuminating to note some of the speakers the students don't seem to have a problem with hosting, BTW:

Indeed. Then, of course, we recall that the school's Student Union has voted to make London Mayor Ken Livingston their honorary President - this on the heels of Livingstone's controversial hosting and defending of Sheik Yusef Qaradawi and his likening a Jewish reporter to a Nazi prison camp guard. It is not unreasonable to see this move as a defense and an endorsement of the Mayor's views.

Now, published in the school's student magazine, Spirit, is a "spirited" defense of Palestinian terrorism written by one, Nasser Amin. My emailer speculates he is a student at the school. He may also be this Egyptian "Human Rights" lawyer. (He may be both! :) A few excerpts:

Davids Medienkritik has some of the reaction of the German press as well as a few choice Bolton quotes. Good stuff.

Wonderful nomination. No appeasement for tyrants and no appeasement for the UN. Bolton will work with the UN because he has to, he'll be part of the system, but he'll do so while vigorously representing American interests, not going along to get along. If you're going to hire a lawyer to represent you, who do you hire? Some namby-pamby guy who doesn't want to offend the opposition and argues "sort of," but not tooo strongly on your behalf, or someone who's just a little bit cynical about the whole process, who takes nothing for granted, who's ready to kick ass in your name and make sure that everyone understands that you and your interests are numero uno and doesn't let anyone forget it? I'll take the latter.

Some terrific reports on the conference at Columbia reported on below by Judith here and here - by Mary here with some pics and by AtlasShrugged here, here, here and here.

I was going to ask for requests for which speaker people would like me to post the video of, but I see that Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is going to be making the video available, so I'll wait on it as it may not be necessary.

Last Tuesday I posted about the Daniel Pipes/Richard Landes talk I had attended. I mentioned that Pipes was sounding a cautionary note against the euphoria that seems to be grabbing ahold of a lot of people. This latest Pipes column continues that theme:

A Neo-Conservative's Caution

In an update to the post Scottsdale Public Schools Adopt Anti-Israel Textbook, in which I re-posted a call to action concering a pseudo-history text being considered for the public schools there, we learn the following (also see the comments to the post above):

I think that can be counted as a victory.

JAT-Action is calling for further effort, however.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the 129th edition of Bigwig's Carnival of the Vanities, where bloggers from all around the blogosphere submit their own under-appreciated postings, rather than waiting for others to notice them.

As your host, I hope you stop by again some time and check out my regular postings. Don't be put off by the "A View New" banner - I've been toying with a blog name change, so I suppose you'd call it a marketing test. This blog's name is still "Solomonia." After over two years, old habits die hard. If you don't like the color-scheme, Firefox users can change stylesheets, while others can use the style picking page linked in the right side-bar.

If I left out your post, I assure you it was nothing personal, just an error. Leave a comment and I'll hook you up ASAP. Please also inform me of any broken links.

Now, ladies and germs, without further ado...I give you...the Carnival...of...the...Vanities!!!! hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

That's a half of a giant and otherwise healthy pine tree that broke off in the wind storm last night and collapsed into my neighbor's yard. It's a LOT bigger than it looks in the picture. This is one serious tree. It rolled off their house and only scratched up their cars a bit, fortunately. We were worried all night that the rest of the now compromised tree would fall and do some real damage but it hasn't happened. Now we wait for the insurance company's people to arrive and decide what to do which could take up to 48 hours. I hope the wind doesn't blow too hard in the mean-time.

Fear not bloggers, I am working on the Carnival of the Vanities and expect to have it up this afternoon some time. Thanks for your patience.

A couple of months back, a luncheon/talk was held here in Boston featuring Palestinian Arab "moderate" politician, Sari Nusseibeh. The event, and particularly the Jewish press's reporting of the event raised a few eyebrows. Many felt that Nusseibeh was given the kid-glove treatment - that some questionable things in Nusseibeh's past were glossed over in what some might say was a whitewash in favor of reconciliation over reality - a path we've trod before. Critics of Nusseibeh's record felt that their concerns were given short-shrift, particularly by Boston's major Jewish weekly, The Jewish Advocate. Although The Advocate did publish a critical response by David Bedein, his efforts were labeled a "smear campaign," and Nusseibeh's critics felt the exchange should not end there.

I have been sent a copy of a letter to the editor sent to The Advocate and not published by them, despite indications to the contrary. Personally, on the issue of "the true face" of Sari Nusseibeh, I am an agnostic. I need to read as many well-founded opinions on the subject as possible.

Here is the letter that didn't make it to print:

I'm really tickled by this nomination. There's something really pleasant about having a guy who probably doesn't hold the place in very high regard representing the US there. Sounds about right. If "effective" and "UN Ambassador" aren't mutually exclusive terms, I bet he'll be one of the most effective UN Ambassadors we've ever had.

Bolton Tapped to Be Next U.N. Ambassador

Regarding the story of DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek posted about below, there is another twist I learned from watching the Columbia conference that makes the story even worse. A representative of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) disclosed during his speech that not only was Klocek denied a hearing and speak in his own defense, but the student newspaper which did a story about the situation was forbidden from taking a statement from Klocek's representatives. Talk about railroading and silencing. Wow.

Regarding the conference I posted about in the entry below...I was out most of the day but managed to capture most of the web feed to disk. There are some gaps where I was futsing with figuring out my stream capture software, and where the feed timed-out but I didn't notice to re-start it for what may have been...well, I don't know how long. I think I missed Brigitte Gabriel completely, for instance, and that's a real shame because she's a great speaker. Since the video probably totals about 700 megabytes, posting it may be problematic.

If there's one thing I like more than a good essay, it's a good speech, and this conference was an embarrassment of riches in that regard. I've not watched back most of the first...oh, about 4 hours, yet, but the final couple (yes, it was a long conference) were chock-full of good performances. If you were worried that you were alone out there as a voice for truth, don't worry, there are many people standing with you.

LKrutt emails:

I may do some editing and see if I can extract some of the better speeches from what I have. We'll have to see.

As a side note, sorry for the lack of updates which may remain light (but not non-existent) for the next couple days. I was busy yesterday and then watching video, next I've got the Carnival of the Vanities to get together, and finally, between work and some of the quality emails with pointers that I've been receiving, sometimes my brain is being pulled in a dozen directions but somehow very little ends up hitting the page.

For those following the goings-on at Columbia, today there will be a live web cast of a conference by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East featuring Elie Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz, Natan Sharansky, Martin Kramer, Phyllis Chesler, Laurie Zoloth, Nat Hentoff, Rachel Fish, Martin Peretz, Charles Jacobs and others broadcast from Columbia from 10am to 5pm.

Here is the link to the live webcast.

Update: Past 10:30 and still no feed. Sorry. Maybe someone forgot to flip a switch. I was hoping to start a recording before I need to go out.

Update2: It's up. Sound is good. Video is strangely washed out.

Is this really base-jumping, or something more? Wow.

Via the Flea.

Here's a good concise recap of the Mohammed al-Durra story so far - the allegations, the hoax, France 2's reaction.

Blood Libel; Chirac Should Acknowledge that Israelis didn't Kill Mohammed al-Durra

Give it a read if you've been skipping over the multiple times I've posted about this story here.

Via Roger L. Simon who has a challenge for France 2 of his own.

Thursday night I attended a talk by noted Islam scholar Bat Ye'or. She is out promoting her new book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.

Attendance was pretty good - about 100 people, although not many young people. The content of the talk was very similar to the previous Ye'or appearance I attended, reported on at length here. If you are interested in an in-depth description, I'd suggest reading that post.

Ye'or covered the broad concepts - how the elites of Europe have aligned their future with the interests of the Arab States through the Euro-Arab Dialogue as a way of countering the power of the United States. As a result, they have failed to achieve any result, but have (perhaps) sealed their own fates as Muslim immigration, low native European birth-rates and an inability or unwillingness to confront the problems they've created have taken hold.

Ye'or is a very important thinker with a very important message at this moment in history. I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with her message.

She was ready to answer questions and seemed to enjoy answering them at length.

Following are three links to the audio of the talk. A few notes on the audio:

1) Everything was recorded on my little hand-held recorder so the quality is poor by professional standards. Ye'or herself speaks with a very thick accent and doesn't always speak into what was a very finicky microphone which makes it even more difficult to understand. Download at your own risk.

2) The first part of the recording is particularly poor because, unbeknownst to me, the recorder was set at that super-slow speed that uses less tape but makes the recording sound even worse than it should. I noticed this and corrected it so it does get better for parts 2 and 3.

3) Fortunately, the first voice you will hear is Charles Jacobs of the David Project. He annunciates well as he vamps for a few minutes waiting for Ye'or to arrive. As always with Jacobs, I recommend giving him a listen.

Right click...Save as...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I like to post stuff like this because of the number of people who try to argue that anti-Zionism does not necessarily equal anti-Semitism. It doesn't, it's just that most often...it does. British Muslim groups (and more and more the Mayor of London himself) are always a good source for examples. (via LGF)

MPACUK: Zionists out for revenge!

Here's an interesting article critiquing the National Museum of the American Indian's handling of Native American history. I think it sounds a common theme where the the way a culture's history is presented is handled uncritically in a historically sloppy manner so as not to give offense and to avoid controversy. What you end up with is not only bad history, but fabricated history, self-identifyers who not only don't understand that their own background is not what they may honestly believe it to be, and outsiders who neither understand their own or others' stories.

This would be a shame in purely academic matters where the loss of real history, or the narratives told are taken as fact when they are not such is a true shame, but in situations where history dictates how we deal with today's problems - as with issues surrounding Native Americans and other groups - can be truly dangerous and run counter to finding real, working and just policies. In such cases, no one's interests are served.

Here's an interesting article about the resumption of official executions in the PA. Interesting on a number of levels. Now, I'm not against the death-penalty per se, and I can certainly understand the need for some harsh justice for a society trying to institute the rule of law on the quick, but of course, some of the people who they're going to be executing are the usual "collaborators" - people who perhaps were just trying to do something to stand up to the terror gangs who were destroying their neighborhoods. So what's happening is just a continuation of the "enforcer's law" with a veneer of legality. Further, you also have an Imam taking a look at the cases and making sure they're consistent with Sharia - so much for a secular state that protects the rights of all citizens. Where are these so-called "Progressives" now that the Palestinian State is showing what it's really all about?

Middle East Online: Palestinians to resume executions of prisoners

IsraPundit's Joseph Alexander Norland has an interesting interview with Professor Paul Charles Merkley concerning the decision of the World Council of Churches to join the Presbyterian Church USA in divesting from Israel. My previous posts on the issue are here, here and here.

IsraPundit: Interview with Prof Paul Charles Merkley concerning the WCC divestment decision

Arrests have been made in the murder of the family of New Jersey Coptic Christians I last posted about here and here. Robert Spencer has an update. The crime appears, for the moment, to be a robbery gone bad, and is not related to Jihadist activity.

Final note on the New Jersey murders

Here's where I'm planning on being tonight:

Here's a link to my write-up on the last talk by Ye'or I went to.

If you're in the area, I highly recommend attending this important event.

A letter the latest Jewish Advocate paper. Have no doubt there's more where this came from. A quick white-wash will not suffice to stem this tide:

I happen to know a certain impoverished blogger who does a lot of uncompensated pro-Israel advocacy and who could probably put the proceeds from a home sale to some very, very good use - maybe even to putting a daughter through, if not Columbia, at least somewhere similar. I would even be willing to show the lady a good time - perhaps not six year's worth, but a very good time nonetheless. Ah well...

So says a former Janjaweed leader. (via Mick Hartley)

BBC: Darfur attacks 'led by Khartoum':

I have updated the post below. Thanks to Mick Hartley for finding Oxfam's announcement which makes no mention of any boycott campaign. Sounds more like the boycott loonies are just taking credit for something scheduled to happen anyway. That doesn't affect their moral standing at all, but it does affect Oxfam's. See the update.

Captain's Quarters is all over some remarks Senator Byrd made comparing the Republicans to Nazis here, here, and here. So is, to their credit, the ADL, who's attention will make the ageing Senator's remarks a bit more difficult to ignore. The ADL is pleasantly consistent on this. Though Jews lean primarily Democrat, the ADL recognizes and stays true to its central mission - preventing the sort of Holocaust minimization (denial-lite) that comparisons such as ex-Klansman Byrd's represent. This is in contrast to a lot of other groups that seem to suffer mission amnesia if they perceive it's their partisan ox that's in danger of being gored.

Apparently, telling the truth about the Middle East, or at least stepping out of the norms of the campus politically correct straightjacket is grounds for immediate suspension. DePaul University professor Thomas Klocek had the audacity to argue with the representatives of Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead. They sent letters to the Dean. Two letters.

Klocek was suspended.

There are allegations that the professor made some...impolitic comments [Edit: As an emailer points out - Arguing with students at a tabling event? C'mon professor...], but I'm sure I don't have to belabor the absurdity of this event, given the extreme anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-American vitriol we all know is de rigeur on college campuses, and how even the most obscene abuses are routinely winked at in the name of academic freedom (Ward Churchill anyone?). Ironically, DePaul is the home of one of the worst of the self-abrogating Jews - Noam Chomsky clone, Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein considers America an imperialist terror-state - don't even ask about Israel - honors the heroism of Hezbollah, etc., etc...He is, apparently, still teaching.

Here is what appears to be the professor's press-release, as well as a TV news piece (with link to video) and an article from the student paper. The article from the student paper is perhaps the most illuminating, as you can see that the campus orthodoxy is the "Palestinian Narrative" swallowed whole. Here's the skinny.:

ABC7: Suspended DePaul professor gagged and bound at news conference (video available at link)

Press release:

Finally, here is a link to the named article in the student paper. This one takes the cake for affirming the student's victimhood and helplessness. The pandering is priceless. A snip:

Loop professor takes heat for conduct

It appears that at DePaul, Muslim students who attack Israel and Jewish self-determination are a specially protected group. Dissenting non-Muslims (and Muslims, presumably), who's own environment is rendered hostile need not apply.

The talent pool among the ladies is definitely weaker than the guys by an order of magnitude. I can't believe that Aloha is gone but Mikalah stays on. Anyone but Mikalah. Bleh. And Celena...why did she have to go? Think I should send her a note and...y'know...tell her I'm available if she needs to be...comforted in any way? Or would that be sick and weird? Don't answer that.

The guys are a complete toss-up. Lots of talent there. I think it's time for Constantine to say good-bye, but alas, David Brown and Joe Murena were voted down. David did give a pretty bad performance Monday night, but I voted for Joe. He deserved to stay. Bummer.

An excellent fisking of Juan Cole via In Context.

Mere Rhetoric: Juan Cole - Fraud

Worth reading it all.

Jane at Armies of Liberation has a letter by an imprisoned Yemeni newspaper editor smuggled out of the jail there.

Read.

Here's an interesting article by a journalist who pretends interest in joining a White racist group and meets up for...I guess you'd call it a recruiting dinner. Applebee's can't be happy with this article. The banality of evil meets boneless buffalo wings.

Particularly timely given the potential tie of World Church of the Creator's Matthew Hale to the recent murder of members of a federal judge's family. I used to listen to Hale's show on the Hal Turner internet radio "network" back when Turner (halturnershow.com - you'll have to copy and paste) was still broadcasting.

My Dinner at Applebee's With White Supremacists! (hat tip: Soy)

Update: Michelle Malkin has a number of links on the Judge Lefkow/Hale case.

Natan Sharansky says that prior to any conflict with a Fear Society, there was a long period of appeasement during which nations strengthened their inevitable enemy.

From IranPressNews:

If only the EU (and Russia) were interested in finding a way to substitute a dissident for that Mullah.

Here's an excellent and important item from the JAT-Action crew on the indoctrination creeping in to our public schools.

Here's an excerpt from the suggested sample letter (always come up with your own POLITE note if you decide to send something) that gives some idea of the issues:

Here's an interesting article featuring Al Qazzaz. Sounds like he's the kind of guy who has his doubts that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. At least, there's nothing here indicating these aren't his own views:

A Separate Peace

And I mean that literally. Check out the rogue's gallery of groups crowing over the fact that they got Oxfam to refuse to continue a £100,000 relationship with Starbucks Coffee. The reason for Oxfam's action? Starbucks chair Howard Schultz supports Israel and Starbucks itself supports the troops.

What's one of the things that has these groups angry at Oxfam? Apparently "[a] couple of years ago Oxfam turned down a £5000 donation from Prof Honderich because he defended Palestinians right to resort to violence to fight occupation." That's right, they turned down a contribution from a man who openly supported Palestinian Terrorism ("Terrorism For Humanity"). That really got 'em angry.

I'm sure the people in East Harare are happy that they have the privilege of suffering for the sake of the Palestinian Arabs and their "supporters."

Oh, and on this page, we see another image that has the terror groups really angry at Starbucks:

Yes, Starbucks supports the troops.

Good job, Oxfam. You picked a great gang to cave in to.

Update: Mick Hartley finds this announcement on the Oxfam page. Sounds more like the Oxfam/Starbucks relationship was a one-year thing anyway and the boycott crowd, good little toothless and opportunistic terrorists that they are, took credit for it.

Says Mick:

Good point.

Right here:

Isn't "starless galaxy" an example of an oxymoron? Anyway:

Scientific American: Starless Galaxy Said Found

Not to disappoint, here's a little more conventional galaxy picture, courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Sometimes I really question my ability to communicate.

I've been getting referrals from this now defunct blog. It appears to be some sort of Noam Chomsky tribute blog and the author links approvingly to this post I wrote on the MIT professor. Says he: "Here's a Blog entry that expresses my opinion better than I could. It's always gratifying to find out that someone else out there agrees with you."

I'm thinking he didn't read the post through to the end.

"Most of us pass through this experience as little more than a stage on the way to maturation as we realize at some point that the Chomskyan view is a constructed reality that is less than satisfying for explaining the more real, consensual reality the rest of the world inhabits.

Sadly, some people never grow up."

To be clear, I don't care much for the likes of Noam "The American Dissident" Chomsky. As Natan Sharansky points out, you can get a good idea of the nature of a country by how it treats its dissenters. In Stalin's Russia there were no dissidents - they were all dead.

Noam Chomsky, on the other hand, is a tenured professor at one of the world's top universities. He is published in more editions and in more languages in more countries than he, by his own admission, can keep track of. He routinely speaks to packed houses protected by the State's police - the State he spits on. He has never spent a day in prison for his views and travels out of and back into the country at will. He has become a wealthy man who wants for nothing.

Such is the horrible fate of the brave American Dissident.

The unquestionably best blog for "fact checking Chomsky's ass" is Oliver Kamm's site, here. Grab a beer, search the archives and enjoy.

This will air on the Peter Jennings news cast.

ABC News:

In another era, under another SecState or President, they'd know this stuff and they wouldn't say anything. Times are changing...in a good way.

This is an update to the note below about the talk I attended at BU the other day. I know I said I would post the audio, but after listening to it back, I don't think I'm going to bother. The recording has a strong echo and is not really very audible. If anyone is really interested, let me know and I'll upload it. It's not a big deal to do so, but I don't want to disappoint anyone by posting it, having them download it and then have them find they can't hear it.

To sum up, Pipes spent the evening sounding a cautionary note about the "Peace Process." He particularly noted that wars - and this is a war - have a tendency not to really end unless one side wins and one side loses - and really feels like they lost. See Germany after WW1 which was left with its army and cities intact and thus could delude itself into imagining they didn't really lose, leading directly to WW2. WW2 would be the opposite example, where Germany and Japan were unquestionably defeated and felt so, so that a further war was rendered highly unlikely.

He is skeptical that the Palestinians feel defeated, further that Abu Mazen's rhetoric is simply couching the same old "anti-Zionist" rhetoric and thus that it's still likely the war will continue despite the best intentions of outsiders. He made it clear that he could be wrong - he wasn't hoping this is the case, but merely trying to inject a realistic note to what's been a bit of potentially irrational exuberance.

Richard Landes did the "response." Landes is the BU Professor who's been pursuing the Muhhamad al-Dura hoax. His portion of the talk really focussed on the importance of listening to Pipes's viewpoint. Landes - who grew up with Pipes - considers himself a "man of the Left," and seemed to be there to speak in Pipes' defense to the predicted protesters that seem to follow Daniel Pipes from place to place. The only thing was, there were no protesters there.

That's the sad part. In a way, the "terrorists won." The talk was held in a large hall - Morse Auditorium - but it was no where near filled, and there were clearly very few students in attendance. The reason, I am told, is that the event was not very heavily publicized. Why? In order to "fly below the radar" of the people who have a tendency to show up and disrupt talks of this nature. Sadly, they did too good a job and almost no one - friend or foe - knew about it.

Which is too bad. Pipes can handle himself, and I predict Richard Landes would have done a good job in guiding the discussion. One of the best parts of the talk was Landes's closing remarks, in which he remarked on the Left's potential to have something important to contribute to the resolution of the conflict due to their emphasis on human rights and humanitarianism - if they would only remain true to their values and apply them to both sides equally instead of the rabid, myopic, hyper-critical way they only apply them to the West and Israel now. Maybe I'll extract that part of the talk from the audio and post it.

Is that what we're beginning to see? The Bush Administration, in the person of front-woman Condi Rice is definitely making the right noises, and that's a great sign.

NYT: Rice Urges Palestinians to Dismantle Terror Groups

The time when the psychological approach of "feeling the Palestinians' pain" along with the dispatch of envoys to attend hand-wringing meetings and imagining it was sufficient to affect change seem to be coming to an end, or at least cracking. Even "the Quartet" is calling for the Palestinians to take action:

JPost: Quartet demands PA take action after Tel Aviv attack

While the Quartet's statement contains the usual equivocation, this something is better than the usual nothing when it seemed to be the prevailing view that the ball was 100% in the Israelis' court - when the converse has been more the truth.

Thanks to an emailer who sends along a link to this NPR interview with a British Historian who's written a new book on the Crusades. The linked page includes the audio.

A New Examination of the Crusades

An interesting interview with Iranian activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and her husband Elio Bonazzi in today's Frontpage. It's amazing how so many ex-Leftists (Bonazzi was a Communist) understand the nature of totalitarian terror-regimes so well.

The Tears of Iran

What interesting times. I honestly never thought I'd see the UN, with France's agreement, passing resolutions against Syria. I knew that the Iraq invasion and move - slow though it may be - to an at least freer society would be paying dividends across the region, but I didn't imagine that they would pay off so soon. A popular uprising in Lebanon and Syria's puppets showing a little independence? Surprising.

Elections in Egypt are another positive sign, although if Mubarak were serious, he'd have opened his society up first and allowed a little freedom of speech and association for a few years to give the secular alternatives to the religious parties a chance to get organized. He should be stirring the soup of the free market of ideas and letting it stew a bit instead of serving it up before its time.

Let's pause to take a look at this for a moment. We needed multi-year occupations in Germany and Japan following World War 2 because that was a total war against an entire civilization. Victory meant we were re-shaping their societies - particularly Japanese society - from the ground-up. No more feudal caste system, no more divine Emperor. We could stay and do the job right, seeding and prepping the ground for however many years it took until the conditions were right so that those Fear Societies were ready to be Free Societies. We could take our time in doing so because we faced no international pressure, and no pressure from international terror groups hurrying the job.

The situation in Iraq, for instance, is different. The war was not total, and not seen as being against the population itself. This was, after all, a liberation, not a conquest. We have not been there with the intention of re-shaping Iraqi society from the foundation - merely removing the inhibitor - the regime - and allowing the society to flourish. Remember that we were told before the war that Iraq's strong middle-class and its urbanized and secular-leaning population had blunted tribalism and Islamism sufficiently to make Iraq a fertile ground for democratization without much prepping. Problems with international diplomatic pressure and terrorism have also caused problems for the reconstruction. So, essential to getting Iraq going was to hold elections as soon as possible while American firepower coupled with as much Iraqi internal desire and organization as could be mustered jump-started and forced the existence of as much of a Free Society as possible for long enough to hold elections and get the Iraqi people themselves even more involved - involved and on board, their own society and what institutions that didn't rely on the old regime still intact.

January 30th was an earthquake, and the waves are sweeping the Middle East.

Back to Egypt. So Mubarak is feeling the pressure. As I said, if he were serious, he'd start loosening up his society first in preparation for an election at some future date. The First Amendment to the US Constitution is the sine qua non of American democracy. Without freedom of speech, association and the press - there is nothing. I'm sure he'd rather have the kind of faux democracy they have in places like Iran - where free exchange of ideas is impossible, association is curtailed and the current regime vets the candidates. There is a legitimate concern in places like Egypt that freedom will bring to power one man, one vote, one time-style Islamist forces. The religious and terror-front groups have an organizational head-start, after all. That's why freedom is so important in advance of regime-change. That difference in head-start must be mitigated.

But he also knows that once unleashed, freedom may gather momentum and be impossible to control. Elections envisioned for five or even ten years down the road may be demanded for far sooner, and that is a scary proposition for any Arab strongman.

Take a look at what's happening in Lebanon. Once upon a time, Syria would have been able to play by Hama Rules, they would have been able to crack down on and smash a nascent freedom movement like what we're seeing. But now the world is watching. Now the United States is sitting on their doorstep in Iraq, waiting for Assad to give them an excuse and make a false-move. Iraqis, suddenly free of the dictator and none-too-pleased with Syria's support for the terrorist murder-spree plaguing their country aren't likely to protest any action. Suddenly, playing the distraction game of blaming Zionists for the region's ills isn't going to work. Syria's feet are being held to the fire. Conditions have completely changed and a space has been created. Just as life has a tendency to fill any gaps it can find in an ecosystem that can possibly support it, so freedom finds any space - no matter how tenuous - to sink its roots and grow.

Boston Globe: Protests force out Lebanon's government

Of course, terror nations always behave true to form - that's why they are always a danger. Syria still wants to use the entire nation of Lebanon as a hostage to the last.

Update: I think Stephen Pollard has it just exactly right...here.

The family of the recent Tel Aviv suicide bomber isn't receiving the usual accolades. (via Norm)

Guardian: Tel Aviv bomber's family shunned

This strikes me as a good use of money. We've heard a lot of complaints about the Administration not doing enough to get the American point of view out - and not just the American POV, but the point of view of Iraqis and others who are desperate to get the truth out about what's happening in their lives that doesn't appear in the Arab press or the Leftist-strangle-held European press. Two million dollars is short money to add another choice to stir into the meme-battle pot.

CNN: U.S. to beam Arabic-language channel to Europe - Government-funded Alhurra is meant to compete with Al-Jazeera

An English-language version might not hurt, either.

I will be hosting the March 9th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities. That's where bloggers from all over submit one of their posts from the previous week (or thereabouts) that they feel deserved a bit more attention.

If you are a blogger who would like to submit one of your posts, please email your entry to me at solomon =at= solomonia =dot= com and put "Carnival" or "CoTV" in the subject line. Please also include the following info:

Your Blog's Name:
Your Name:
Your Blog's URL:
Your Entry's Title:
Your Entry's Permalink:
Your Entry's Trackback Link (If you do trackbacks and want one.):

A short description is optional but may be helpful (I haven't decided how I'm going to lay it out yet).

I must receive your entry by 9PM EST on Tuesday the 8th to guarantee inclusion. Hopefully you can get it here before that.

Thanks, and don't be shy. Contribute!

Update: Note that I will reply to your email to let you know your entry was received. If you don't get a reply within a day, you can assume I didn't get your submission (maybe it got stuck in a spam-trap or something). Just leave a comment on this post.