National Post reported French Jews are leaving the country in ever-growing numbers, fleeing a wave of anti-Semitism. They are moving to Israel, the United States, and increasingly, Montreal -- where the mostly English-speaking Jewish community is preparing for its greatest demographic change in decades. In the first of three stories, Mireille Silcoff examines the fear in France that is driving the emigration.
I am not surprised. Even before the Muslim youths started burning cars, the French have been very anti-Semetic, and also very anti-religious. Christians were not allowed to wear large crosses, Jewish skullcaps were forbidden, as were several items of Muslim dress.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Barricaded in Paris
Angry AOL bloggers now push boycotts
BusinessWeek Bloggspotting blogged The anger over banner ads on AOL Journals is reaching a fever pitch. Bloggers are organizing boycotts of advertisers, presumably including Bank of America, whose ad appears on the Journals I've seen today
Here is an example of one of their posts: To ALL Interested Parties!
This is the letter being sent to all the advertisers, all the Execs, Every single Possible person who will listen!
CAN YOU TELL THAT WE MEAN BUSINESS?????
To whom it may concern,
A significant number of AOL paying-customers were recently ambushed by America On Line with advertising from your organization on OUR paid journal/blog sites.
Paid journal/blog sites? Does AoL charge you extra for a journal/blog site, or is it something they have added as an additional freebie to their customers? The monthly fee you are paying is for internet connectivity. I will agree you are paying a lot more than you should ($23.90 a month); that is why Netscape (owned by AoL) can afford to provide their web accellerator for free for $9.95 a month, when they are competing against independent NetZero, since AoL customers are paying so much excess for their internet access they are a cash cow that subsidizes Netscape's much lower rate.AOL chose to break our trust by invading our paid-for sites and there is a significant gathering of journalers, soon to be joined by nationally syndicated reporting, who are aggressively fighting this invasion of our AOL JOURNAL sites.
As one of the agencies whose advertisements appear on these Journals, we are calling for a boycott of your organizations and affiliates until the unwanted advertising on our AOL JOURNALS is permanently removed.
Other blogging sites PAY the host for the advertising.
AoL is the host for your blog, and I suspect that Bank of America, Free Credit Report, Classmates.com, Elidel, and Kodak/Nascar, as well as any other advertiser whose ads are appearing in your blog, are paying AoL for running those ads. There are a number of blog providers that charge you a monthly fee to host your blog, and then you are free to either accept advertising, for which you will be paid, or to not accept advertising, in which case your blogs will have no ads. But when you get your blog for free, the company providing it may well decide to show ads on it. The same is true for free websites.AOL doesn't even give us the courtesy of warning us that advertising will appear on our blogs, nor do they offer any semblance of an option regarding these highly intrusive ads.
We are calling on each and every one of your organizations to protect your integrity, despite the lack of AOL's own integrity, and immediately remove your advertising from AOL JOURNALS.
Sincerely,
Armand T
Tacoma, WA
AoL Users are usually regarded as clueless, and there is nothing about this that would change that notion. They should realize that TANSTAAFL still applies: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
Muslim fanatics terrorise a nation
The Australian reported Islamist murders and threats have transformed the once-tolerant Netherlands into a place of armed bodyguards and fear, writes Anthony Browne. A film about gay rights should hardly raise an eyebrow in The Netherlands, which for centuries has prided itself as a beacon of freedom of expression and was the first country to legalise gay marriage. But when Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee turned Dutch MP, started making a new film about the oppression of homosexuals under Islam, the threat to everyone taking part was deemed so great that she decided there would be no faces shown on screen and no end credits and that the entire production team would remain anonymous. Ali, a "lapsed Muslim" who revealed this week that she had finished the script, lives in a safe house under 24-hour protection. The precaution is as wise as the courage is extraordinary: Theo van Gogh, the director of Ali's previous film, about domestic violence under Islam, was killed -- repeatedly shot and almost decapitated in broad daylight in the streets of Amsterdam by an Islamic extremist. Impaled on a knife in van Gogh's chest was a five-page note declaring holy war on The Netherlands and threatening death to other public figures deemed "enemies of Islam".
If a person chooses to move to Israel, he should expect that the country will be very Jewish, and that he might or might not feel free to practice his religion if he is not a Jew. (Actually in Israel Christians and Muslims are free to practice their faith, but they might be somewhat uncomfortable when the country celebrates Jewish holidays). If a person chooses to move to an Arab country, he should expect that the country will be very Muslim, and he may find either severe restrictions or even (depending on the country) outright inability to practice his own religion. This is something he should consider before deciding to move there.
A muslim moving to The Netherlands should be aware of the liberal nature of that country, and if he finds that sexual liberation uncomfortable, he should move to a country more attuned to his sensibilities. He should not kill, or threaten to kill, someone that says something, or even makes a movie about something, that offends him.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
New climate deal
Guardian reported Britain is to open the door for other nations to abandon setting compulsory targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions: the principle at the heart of the Kyoto agreement to tackle climate change. Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, has told The Observer she is prepared to accept voluntary targets - a move hinted at this autumn by Tony Blair.
Voluntary targets will not do any good. You need mandatory targets, but you cannot exclude China and India. They must sign on and it must be verifyable before any of the western nations join in.The news caused consternation among green campaigners last night. 'Voluntary targets are not worth the paper they are written on,' said Stephen Tindale, head of Greenpeace UK. 'Without mandatory targets [the Kyoto Protocol] is effectively dead.'
It is dead anyway. No western nation is going to destroy their economy when China and India are not included, because they will add more emissions than everyone else put together cuts back.
Journalism Versus Reality in Iraq
Strategy Page blogged American troops are developing a hate-hate relation with journalists.
Just as conservative bloggers do.The basic problem is that soldiers and marines in Iraq have access, usually via the Internet, to what the mass media is saying about what they think is happening in Iraq. These news reports, all too often, do not reflect what the troops experience. It gets uglier when the troops realize that reporters are spending most of their time in the Green Zone or some well guarded hotel, leaving it to local Iraqi stringers to collect information and photos for the reporters stories. Relations are a bit better with the few embedded journalists who still travel with the troops out in field. But even the embeds are often mistrusted and disliked, because some of them are blatantly out for dirt, not an accurate story.
That is because that is all the MSM wants to print. They are in the pocket of the Dems, and the Dems don't want any good news from Iraq. They can't hurt the Bush administration with Good News from Iraq.Few of the troops understand that the news business is driven by dramatic events, not the tedious kind of process the troops go through every day to defeat the terrorists. To the troops, the war is being won. They see bad guys killed in large numbers, and few Americans getting hurt (it’s fairly common for their to be about twenty enemy dead for each American loss). The troops see tangible evidence, every day, of Iraqis having a better life. The troops cannot understand why that is not news, and why journalists always seem to be looking for a negative angle. To the average G.I., the attitude is, “what are these reporters looking for?” They are looking for a story, and bad news is a story. Good news is not.
It should be. If the Democrats held the White House the MSM would be printing every Good News item it could find.As a result of this clash of cultures, reporters are increasingly seen as a potentially dangerous enemy. For the troops, this is already accepted as true for many Arab journalists. Some of those have been arrested for hostile activity, or later revealed as al Qaeda agents. European journalists are seen as particularly clueless, so wrapped up in their anti-American fantasies, that communication is nearly impossible. But after watching a CNN clip on the net, or viewing an online story from the New York Times or Washington Post, it’s hard to view U.S. journalists as fellow Americans.
Al-Zarqawi's Jordan Family Renounces Him
Yahoo! News reported Family members of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi renounced the terrorist leader Sunday after his al-Qaida in
Iraq group claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 suicide attacks on three Amman hotels that killed 59 people.
He has killed many more than 59 Muslims in Iraq, and they said nothing, but killing Muslims in Jordan must somehow be worse than killing Muslims in Iraq.The family of al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, reiterated their strong allegiance to Jordan's King Abdullah II in half-page advertisements in the kingdom's three main newspapers. Al-Zarqawi threatened to kill the king in an audiotape released Friday. "A Jordanian doesn't stab himself with his own spear," said the statement by 57 members of the al-Khalayleh family, including al-Zarqawi's brother and cousin. "We sever links with him until doomsday." The statement is a serious blow to al-Zarqawi, who no longer will enjoy the protection of his tribe and whose family members may seek to kill him.
Al Zarqawi, would you like to take a vacation, and go home to visit your family. <grin>"As we pledge to maintain homage to your throne and to our precious Jordan ... we denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," the family members said. "We announce, and all the people are our witnesses, that we — the sons of the al-Khalayleh tribe — are innocent of him and all that emanates from him, whether action, assertion or decision." The statement said anyone who carried out such violence in the kingdom does not enjoy its protection. The al-Khalayleh tribe is a branch of the Bani Hassan, one of the area's largest and most prominent Bedouin tribes, which help form the bedrock of support for the royal family's Hashemite dynasty.
With all due respect Sir, I completely disagree
Major K blogged Congressman and Col John Murtha, USMCR - Ret. is by all accounts a bona fide American Hero. He has bled for this nation in a foreign land and shown great courage. He has now called for the establishent of a rapid timetable for the withdrawal of US Troops from Iraq, stating that we “have done all we can do.” Colonel, I could not disagree more. Unlike the mudslingers in Washington D.C. and the Media, I don’t believe that Col. Murtha has anything but the best of intentions and the welfare of the troops at heart, so I will not slight the man’s character in the least.
Your point is well taken. When I first heard what Congressman Murtha said I said that he had sold out to Al Qaeda, but I retract that. I believe that he has just been unduly influenced by the extreme left in his party to make a foolish statement.I do, however, believe he is making a critical error. The case has been made many times, and well, by others that establishing a timetable for withdrawal merely tells our enemies how long they need to go underground to conspire and train their thugs before unleashing them on the people full-scale. I will not bother with repeating that argument.
It is an extremely important point however. Not only should no timeline be established, but we need to be vague about the conditions that must exist before we withdraw, so that the insurgents will believe that we will be there forever.I wish to explore a few other points instead.
We are far from having done all we can do. Part of the US Military Culture that makes us so effective is our qualitative approach. This is especially the case in combat units. In my 13 years in the service, I have heard: “We work to a standard, not to a schedule” a countless number of times. Quitting time comes when the task is accomplished to standard, which is almost never 5pm. We have our objectives to meet:
- Kill or capture terrorists
- Restore Infrastructure and Services
- Establish and protect a functional Iraqi version of Democracy
- Establish better respect for individual human rights
- Train the Iraqi Security Forces to do/facilitate the same
All of these objectives are intertwined. And from my view, we are not done yet by a long shot. The killing and capturing of terrorists has slowed down the progress of all the other objectives. Americans seem to have a “microwave popcorn mentality” about these things. I know that most Americans will forego the 10-minute popcorn on the stove for the 2-minute popcorn in the microwave oven. This is one of the many nice things about living in an industrialized nation. The problem is that war is not popcorn and countries are not appliances. Instant gratification is not on the menu.
This country has a culture with different sensibilities from our own. Like many others in the world, this has never been a full-scale first world nation. When it was growing, starting to move toward that end and prospering, it was taken over by what can only be called a mafia family and driven into the ground by 3 horribly destructive wars leaving its people in fear, it’s infrastructure destroyed, and the landscape crawling with thugs and criminals formerly employed by the government or recently released from prison. The land mass is about the size of California and population is greater than that of Texas. What has happened to this country makes hurricane Katrina look like spit on the sidewalk. THERE IS A HUGE MESS TO CLEAN UP AND A CULTURE TO REHABILITATE, not to mention an army to rebuild. Three years, with fighting continuing, is a blink. It took over a dozen years to get from the declaration of the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the US Constitution, and there were still several rebellions and a horribly bloody civil war to follow. The Iraqis are way ahead of the power curve on a historical basis.
We left this this job half done before, and the vipers’ nest remained. Thousands of Shia in the south were murdered because they thought we would help them in their uprising.
Thanks to George HW Bush (41). But the errors of the father are being fixed by the son.Our aircraft enforcing the UN mandated no-fly zones were fired upon daily - read: Acts of War. And this remained a preferred retirement home/vacation spot/training academy/financial endowment for terrorists. It was not the only one, but it was a prominent one. Now the terrorists have been put out of the government and into the shadows, where for three years they have been hunted. We have culled the herd, but the population is still large enough to warrant keeping the guard dogs busy. If we leave or give notice, we will, like in Somalia, leave the power to be restored to the vermin. Saddam will have been replaced, but it will be the same vermin surrounding the new boss. If you ask me, I really don’t care if my cement shoes are made by Gambino or Gotti. Iraq was not a peaceful place before we came here, it will be worse if we leave before we have met the standard. It’s going to take a few more years. If I have to do another tour, so be it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it because it needs to be done.
More and more Islamoterrorists are coming in to Iraq to kill innocent Iraqi citizens, and we are confronting them there. Would you not prefer that we confront them in Iraq rather than here at home, and if innocent citizens are going to be killed, would you prefer that they be American citizens or Iraqi citizens. Our military is confronting the Islamoterrists in Baghdad and Basrah rahter than Broken Arrow, Boston, or Beumont; in Mosul rather than Muskogee, Memphis, or Mesquite; in Karkuk and Karbala rather than Ketchum, Kansas City, or Kilgore; in Tall Afar and Tikrit rather than Tahlequah, Texas City, or Texarkana.I have to give Congressman Murtha credit in yet another regard. Of all of the carping, nitpicking and fault-finding I have heard from those complaining about how badly this is going, he is one of the few with the guts to offer another idea. Many have said, “well we never should have gone there.” Nice sentiment from a Monday-morning quarterback, but no longer relevant. The question is, what now? Unless you are going to step up and suffer the backlash of those who call for a pull out, shut up if you don’t have a better idea. Again, I think a pullout or notifying our enemies, who may yet be pursued elsewhere, of our pullout date is a horrible idea. But empty nit-picking is worse. Our military has always been strong, but our national will seems constantly in doubt.
We have a standard to meet, and if allowed to do so by our people and our leaders, we will.
Hat Tip to Deb at EIMC
This was a fabulous post
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Mr. Woodward's Sources
WaPo editorialized We've said from the start of the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity that if administration officials deliberately set out to unmask a secret agent, they should be punished.
That never was the case. Some low level CIA employees decided to attempt a coup, and affect the outcome of an election, and blame the VP's office at the same time, and the VP's office was just making it clear that they did not send Wilson to investigate something he had no expertise in.But we've also said that, absent evidence of such behavior, criminalizing communication by officials to journalists would run counter to the public interest. Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation is continuing -- he said yesterday he's going back to a grand jury -- and new facts may come to light. But the principle remains valid: It's not in the public interest for reporters to be forced to reveal their confidential sources in cases such as this. That's why Post reporter Bob Woodward should not be vilified for protecting the identity of his source in this complex affair.
Actually there are WAY too many "confidential sources" and I wish every reporter printing something just attributed to "confidential sources" should be required to reveal those sources. But this should not be selectively done.Here we remind readers that the editorial page operates separately from those who gather and publish news in The Post. Mr. Woodward doesn't answer to us, and he has no input on our page. Like other interested observers, we have noted that Executive Editor Leonard Downie, to whom Mr. Woodward does report, has faulted his investigative reporter for failing to tell him sooner what was going on and for expressing personal opinions on television about the Fitzgerald investigation, and Mr. Woodward has apologized. Both rebukes strike us as reasonable -- as does Mr. Downie's characterization of Mr. Woodward as "one of the most careful, accurate and fair journalists I have ever worked with." But the Woodward flap has significance beyond The Post's newsroom. The longtime Post reporter disclosed this week that, while conducting research for a book, he received information from an administration official about Ms. Plame before her identity was revealed by Robert D. Novak in a July 2003 column. That information was potentially relevant to Fitzgerald's investigation and to a news story that has been extensively covered in this and other papers. Mr. Woodward said he told one Post reporter at the time what he had learned but did not disclose the source. Mr. Woodward recently testified to the prosecutor, with the source's permission and after the source had spoken with Mr. Fitzgerald, but still (again according to his agreement) has not publicly identified the source.
Much of the public finds the media's extensive use of confidential sources objectionable, and understandably so.
Then why do you continue to do it.Their use should be as limited as possible. When they are relied upon, reporters should impart as much information as possible about the sources' motives. Those guidelines are accepted but too often ignored by the press.
But over the years innumerable cases of official corruption and malfeasance have come to light thanks to sources being able to count on confidentiality.
And the left wing MSM has been able to make use of unnamed, "confidential" sources (that may or may not be real) to hurt the administration.It's astonishing to see so many people -- especially in the journalism establishment -- forget that now. Many of those who condemn Mr. Woodward applauded when The Post recently revealed the existence of CIA prisons around the world, a story that relied on unnamed sources.
I believe the reporter that wrote that story should be brought befor a grand jury and compelled to reveal the source, and if the source is not revealed, the reported should be sent to jail.Is there a distinction to be made based on the motives of the leakers? If so, Mr. Woodward might have had to pass up his first big scoops three decades ago, because his Watergate source, Deep Throat -- recently revealed as FBI official W. Mark Felt -- was disgruntled at having been passed over for the post of FBI director. Newspapers face difficult questions all the time in evaluating the reliability of sources and the appropriateness of publishing their secrets. But if potential sources come to believe that they cannot count on promises of confidentiality, more than the media will suffer.
Watcher of Weasels
Watcher of Weasels hilighted a piece by The Anchoress called Attention GOP Leadership. I agree with them. I missed it when it was first posted (I was still getting caught up from my time in the hospital), but I urge everyone to read it now. Here are some highlights If your plan was to make people so disgusted with your cowardice
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) asking Bill Frist to hold off on a probe of the disclosure of classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post, your disorganization
A leak suspected to have come from the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) complicated, confused and nearly derailed a joint effort by Senate and House Republican leaders to seek an investigation of the unauthorized release of classified information related to how The Washington Post discovered of the existence of CIA-run detention and interrogation facilities in eight foreign countries.and your political tone-deafness
House Drops Arctic Drilling From Billthat they either stop contributing to the RNC, or they decide to just sit out the next election (because what’s the point), or they decide to vote out every stinking one of you in the next elections, because you freaking well deserve ouster for literally doing nothing constructive and squandering your majority…well…you have succeeded spectacularly! Beyond your wildest imaginings, I am sure. I can’t think of a single reason to vote to re-elect a any one of you.
The only possible reason would be that a Democrat might be elected instead. What should be done is that reliable conservatives need to challenge the RINOs and the weak-backbone Republicans in the primaries.The world is tilting, and you useless, ineffectual, dithering moneysuckers seem increasingly to be empty suits, given shape and movement not by ideas and a willingness to serve the electorate, but by wispy tufts of ambitious smoke. You seem directed toward nothing more than keeping your almighty Senate or House seat in your name. You give away your power, you give away your advantages in committee, you leave in place utterly feckless people like Arlen Specter and then, when you finally seem like you are on the cusp of doing something productive and right, like investigating the CIA or okaying drilling in a bare, muddly, uninhabitable tundra, you fall into a faint and go slinking back to your states and districts to gladhand and pump for money and then gladhand some more.....
Index ranks Middle East freedom
BBC reports There is a wide range of democratisation across the Middle East, a survey by a leading research and advisory firm has found. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked 20 countries on 15 indicators of political and civil liberty. The Index of Political Freedom lists Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories as the most democratic parts of the region. Libya received the lowest rating, below Syria and Saudi Arabia. The EIU scored each country on a 10-point scale, awarding one point for the least political freedom and 10 for the most. Lebanon is free in a very particular sense: it is no longer under military occupation. Most Palestinians do not enjoy that freedom, and yet they have just had local elections and are preparing for parliamentary ones in January, our correspondent says. As for Iraq, its high score is a bit surprising, given the level of violence there, our correspondent says. Iraqis no long live under a dictatorship and now have plenty of publications and political parties to choose from. But their freedom of movement is constrained by the bombings and kidnappings, and that is a big limitation.
I find it interesting that they rank Iraq and Palestine equally. There are bombings in both places, but in the case of Iraq it is a minority of a minority trying to regain control plus some foreign fighters trying to create anarchy, and in the case of Palestine it is terrorists wanting to wage war on a neighbor, and unwilling to follow instructions from their own government.Index Of Political Freedom
- Israel: 8.20
- Lebanon: 6.55
- Morocco: 5.20
- Iraq: 5.05
- Palestine: 5.05
- Kuwait: 4.90
- Tunisia: 4.60
- Jordan: 4.45
- Qatar: 4.45
- Egypt: 4.30
- Sudan: 4.30
- Yemen: 4.30
- Algeria: 4.15
- Oman: 4.00
- Bahrain: 3.85
- Iran: 3.85
- UAE: 3.70
- Saudi Arabia: 2.80
- Syria: 2.80
- Libya: 2.05
Freedom Indicators
- Election of head of government
- Election of parliament
- Fairness of electoral laws
- Right to organise political parties
- Power of elected representatives
- Presence of an opposition
- Transparency
- Minority participation
- Level of corruption
- Freedom of assembly
- Independence of the judiciary
- Press freedom
- Religious freedom
- Rule of law
- Property rights
Rumsfeld given Iraq withdrawal plan
CNN reported The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official. Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades -- usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each -- begin pulling out of Iraq early next year....
I am not surprised that some troops may be withdrawn after the December election, but it will not mark the start of the steady withdrawal, irregardless of what else happens in Iraq, that the Democrats are calling for.Rumsfeld has yet to sign Casey's withdrawal plan but, the senior defense official said, implementation of the plan, if approved, would start after the December 15 Iraqi elections so as not to discourage voters from going to the polls. The plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn. Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country's political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.
Precisely. The milestones must be met, not some arbitrary calendar date.
House Rejects Iraq Pullout
WaPo reported Differences over policy on the Iraq war ignited an explosion of angry words and personal insults on the House floor yesterday when the chamber's newest member suggested that a decorated war veteran was a coward for calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
I don't believe Murtha was a coward. His life was not threatened. I believe that he has decided to embrace Al Qaeda's desires, and give them a training ground in Iraq, without having to worry about US Troops there.As Democrats physically restrained one colleague, who appeared as if he might lose control of himself as he rushed across the aisle to confront Republicans with a jabbing finger, they accused Republicans of playing political games with the war. GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one.
At least the troops know that the House voted 403 to 3 to support them.The idea was to force Democrats to go on the record on a proposal that the administration says would be equivalent to surrender. Recognizing a political trap, most Democrats -- including Murtha -- said from the start they would vote no.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Phony Theory, False Conflict
Charles Krauthammer wrote in WaPo Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.
Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe. Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.
Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. Newton was trying to supplant the view that first believed the sun's motion around the earth was the work of Apollo and his chariot, and later believed it was a complicated system of cycles and epicycles, one tacked upon the other every time some wobble in the orbit of a planet was found. Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.
Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.
Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum.
It is not that the people of Dover wanted only secularism taught in school, they just did not want to pay for the lawsuits that might be necessary.Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city."
Pat Robertson is an embarrasment to ChristiansMeanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.
Good for them.Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?
As a scientific theory Intelligent Design does have its problems; but it's purpose is not to challenge the provable parts of evolution, i.e. the adaptation of a species to its environment. What the proponents of ID object to is the Secular Humanists have extended the provable parts of Evolution and have said that the same process (random chance) must apply to the creation of new species - something that has never been proven scientifically. If the schools would just teach that part of evolution which can be proven scientifically, there would be no reason for ID. But if they insist on teaching the Secular Humanist (an athiest/agnostic religion) view of the creation of new species, then they should give equal time to the ID (a religious perspective that should be acceptable to Christians, Jews, and Muslims).In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase " natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.
The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?
God is not a puppet master, controlling everything. He created everything, and while He has the ability to intervene anytime He wants, He seldom does.He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.
Don't teach ID; but don't teach the Secular Humanist version of the creation of new species. Just teach the parts of Evolution that can be proven.How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.
NotInMyBible blogged There is no rational reason for faith and evolution* to be in conflict (*Or any other aspect of science.) There are, however, political and financial reasons for theofascists to keep stirring the pot. They are separatists who want eventually to get rid of everyone who isn't one of them.
ID can appeal to the beliefs of Christians (Protestants and Catholic), Jews, and Muslims. That does not sound like getting rid of everyone who isn't one of them.Oh, and Charles Krauthammer is even right this time. First time in my memory he was right about anything.
"Radical" Russ blogged But this -- agreeing with Washington Post columnist and Fox News talking head Charles Krauthammer -- ugh, I don't know if I should celebrate or take a shower
Perhaps you should do both.Cleek blogged Charles Krauthammer, who looks like Mandy Patinkin's grumpy brother, is usually someone worth disagreeing with. Nonetheless he has an excellent column today about my second favorite subject: 'Intelligent Design'.
Jason blogged Periodically I go off on a rant about the anti-science tendencies of the modern Republican party. I do so knowing that in response I can expect some well-meaning commenter to lecture me about how not all conservatives are anti-science and that I shouldn't paint with such a big brush and all that.
In that spirit, allow me to link to this excellent column from Charles Krauthammer. It gets off to a shaky start, talking up the religiosity of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Einstein, however, was not religious in any sense an evangelical Christian would recognize. In fact, he once ridiculed the idea of a personal God as a childish delusion.
It depends on what you mean by a personal God. If you mean someone to do what you want, just because you pray for it, I agree that is foolish. If you are talking about someone having a personal relationship to God, that is to be admired.
Dutch MP to make gay Islam film
BBC reports A Somali-born Dutch MP who collaborated on the film that led to the murder of director Theo van Gogh has written a sequel, about Islam's attitude to gays.
Look for the next attack of the Islamofascists to be in the Netherlands.Ayaan Hirsi Ali received death threats after her work on Submission, a film about Islam's treatment of women. Van Gogh was shot and stabbed by a Muslim radical, Mohammed Bouyeri, as he cycled through Amsterdam in 2004. The film will use anonymous actors and carry no credits in an effort to protect those involved in the project. Ms Ali told Dutch media that she had co-written the script with Van Gogh in the summer of 2004, months before he was killed last November. "I examine the position of homosexuals in Islam in the film Submission II," she told the De Volkskrant newspaper. "In the movie, they are called Allah's creatures," she added. The MP is an outspoken critic of Islamic values and describes herself as a "lapsed" Muslim. Mainstream Islamic thought treats Islam and homosexuality as incompatible, and hostility to homosexuals is widespread in many parts of the Muslim world.
When Christian Churches point out verses in the Bible that say homosexuality is a sin, they are accused of being homophobic. The Christians dont kill anyone, or bomb any buildings, they just speak out against homosexuality. It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be when Muslims react to this new Dutch film.
Extension of Patriot Act
NYT reports A tentative deal to extend the government's antiterrorism powers under the law known as the USA Patriot Act appeared in some jeopardy Thursday, as Senate Democrats threatened to mount a filibuster in an effort to block the legislation.
First we have a key Democrat urging immediate withdrawal of forces from Iraq, which would result in turning the country over to Al Qaeda, and now we have Democrats wanting to block renewal of the powers that have protected us since 9/11"This is worth the fight," Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. "I've cleared my schedule right up to Thanksgiving," Mr. Feingold said, adding that he was making plans to read aloud from the Bill of Rights as part of a filibuster if necessary.
If these idiots do go forward with their filibuster, make them do a real filibuster, and keep tapes on everything they say. A lot of it will make for some really good campaign ads when (not if) there is an attack in the US that could have been prevented had the Patriot Act been renewed.The political maneuvering came even before negotiators for the House and Senate had agreed on a final deal to extend the government's counterterrorism powers under the act. With a tentative deal in place on Wednesday, Congressional negotiators had been expected to reach a final, printed agreement by early Thursday for the full House and Senate to consider. But despite minute-by-minute updates about a possible conclusion, the day passed on with no final agreement, causing no shortage of nervousness among Bush administration officials and Republican supporters of the tentative deal. By Thursday evening, officials said negotiators had reached what amounted to an impasse for the day, as those from the Senate pushed for further civil rights safeguards that were seen as unacceptable to House leaders. Talks are expected to pick up again on Friday, officials said. The tentative deal reached by negotiators would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions of the law that are set to expire at the end of the year. The remaining two provisions - related to government demands for records from businesses and libraries and its use of roving wiretaps - would have to be reconsidered in seven years, as would a separate provision on taking aim at people suspected of being "lone wolf" terrorists.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Not all Muslims want to integrate
Bruce Bawer wrote in csmonitor The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs, brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have perversely encouraged this ire.
I first noticed the problem when I lived in Amsterdam in 1999. A visitor to that city might imagine that not one Muslim lived there. But to venture just a few blocks beyond the tourist-crowded streets was to learn otherwise. In my neighborhood, the sidewalks were crowded with hijab-clad women pushing baby carriages. There were as many signs in Arabic as in Dutch. Outside the "neighborhood center" waved a large Turkish flag. Such districts, I learned, could be found across Europe. Muslims were a huge, rapidly growing - and highly segregated - minority. In city after city, downtown areas were almost 100 percent European, the outskirts increasingly Muslim.
Americans know about ghettos. For many of our families, they've been a stage in the transition from immigrant to native. Many ghetto residents are still, essentially, foreigners; integration takes place largely in the next generation, as the children of immigrants go to school, find jobs, and leave the ghetto behind.
Not in Europe. Officially, to be sure, France is less multicultural than most European countries - witness its rejection of religious labels in public documents and its ban on hijabs in schools.
France is multicultural but it just hates religion. Not just Islam. They also dont like Christians or Jews. The ACLU would love living in France.But enduring segregation is a fact of life in France as it is elsewhere on the continent. Millions of "French Muslims" don't consider themselves French. A government report leaked last March depicted an increasingly two-track educational system: More and more Muslim students refuse to sing, dance, participate in sports, sketch a face, or play an instrument. They won't draw a right angle (it looks like part of the Christian cross). They won't read Voltaire and Rousseau (too antireligion), Cyrano de Bergerac (too racy), Madame Bovary (too pro-women), or Chrétien de Troyes (too chrétien). One school has separate toilets for "Muslims" and "Frenchmen"; another obeyed a Muslim leader's call for separate locker rooms because "the circumcised should not have to undress alongside the impure."
Many Muslims, wanting to enjoy Western prosperity but repelled by Western ways, travel regularly back to their homelands.
If they don't like western ways, then they should stay there.From Oslo, where I live, there are more direct flights every week to Islamabad than to the US. A recent Norwegian report noted that among young Norwegians of Pakistani descent, family honor depends largely on "not being perceived as Norwegian - as integrated." .....
Read the rest.
Ignoring the Facts
Richard Cohen wrote in WaPo In one of the most intellectually incoherent major speeches ever delivered by a minor president, George W. Bush blamed "some Democrats and antiwar critics" last week for changing their minds about the war in Iraq and now saying they were deceived. "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the president said. Yes, sir, but it is even more deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how history was rewritten in the first place.The only rewriting of history is that being done by the MSM and the Dems
It is the failure to acknowledge this -- not merely that mistakes were made -- that is so troubling about Bush and others in his administration. Yes, the president is right: Foreign intelligence services also thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, he is right that members of Congress drew the same conclusion -- although none of them saw the raw intelligence that the White House did.The intelligence committees had access to it.
And he is right, too, that Saddam Hussein had simply ignored more than a dozen U.N. resolutions demanding that he reopen his country to arms inspectors. When it came to U.N. resolutions, Hussein was notoriously hard of hearing.We can endlessly debate the facts of the Iraq war -- and we will. More important, though, is the mind-set of those in the administration, from the president on down, who had those facts -- or, as we shall see, none at all -- and mangled them in the cause of going to war with Iraq. For example, the insistence that Hussein was somehow linked to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a leitmotif of Bush administration geopolitical fantasy -- tells you much more than whether this or that fact was right. It tells you that to Bush and his people, the facts did not matter.It really says a lot more about the Democrats and their willingness to lie. Bush never said that Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He said that Hussein had supported terrorists, and he did, paying for many of the suicide bombers in Israel. And he said that Iraq hosted terrorists, and it did, both in Baghdad and in camps in the North. And Hussein did make efforts to communicate with Al Qaeda.
It did not matter that Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 terrorists, never met with Iraqis in Prague, as high-level Bush officials claimed.There were several cases where the intelligence agencies were wrong.
It did not matter that Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was finding no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.He has not done much better with Iran or North Korea? Does Richard Cohen believe that neither of them have such programs?
None of that mattered to Vice President Cheney, who warned of a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program, promoted the nonexistent Prague meeting and went after legitimate critics with a zealousness that Tony Soprano would have admired: "We will not hesitate to discredit you," Cheney told ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the other important U.N. inspector. ElBaradei recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. Cheney's gonna have to wait for his.I would not expect the left wing Nobel Committee to honor Bush or anyone else in the administration, even if Bush is right and democracy in Iraq spreads throughout the Middle East.
Nobody has been repudiated by Bush for incompetence and dishonesty regarding Iraq. Instead, some -- former CIA director George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet comes to mind -- have received presidential medals. What's more, there's evidence aplenty that the sloppy thinking, false analogies and bad history that led to the Iraq war remain the cultural style of the White House. The president's recent speech, for instance, conflates all sorts of terrorist incidents -- from Israel to Chechnya -- neglecting that they are specific to their regions and have nothing to do with al Qaeda. Every bombing somehow becomes an attack on Western values "because we stand for democracy and peace." Oh, stop it!Please don't stop it.
It would be nice, fitting and pretty close to sexually exciting if Bush somehow acknowledged his mistakes and said he had learned from them.Democrats certainly are focused on sexual matters, aren't they.
But more important -- far more important -- is what this would mean for the conduct of foreign policy from here on out. Repeatedly in his speech, Bush mentioned Syria, Iran and North Korea -- Syria above all. If push comes to shove there, it would be nice to have absolute confidence in American intelligence and the case for possibly widening the war. If we are to go to the mat with North Korea or the increasingly alarming Iran, then, once again, it would be wonderful to have the confidence we once had in the intelligence community -- as imparted to us by our president. Is there or is there not a threatening nuclear weapons program on the horizon?
At the moment, no one can have confidence in the Bush administration. It has shown itself inept in the run-up to the war and the conduct of it since. Almost three years into the war, the world is not safer, the Middle East is less stable,Saddam is no longer in charge of Iraq, even with the insurgents and foreign fighters killing Iraqis, fewer Iraqis are dying than under Saddam, and Iraq now has a democratic constitution, and will elect the first government under that constitution in December.
and Americans and others die for a mission that is not what it once was and cannot be what it now is called: a fight for democracy. It would be nice, as well as important, to know how we got into this mess -- nice for us, important for the president. It wasn't that he had the wrong facts. It was that the right ones didn't matter.
Rep. John Murtha joins Al Qaeda
Yahoo! News reports An influential House Democrat who voted for the Iraq war called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, another sign of growing unease in Congress about the conflict.
Such an action would guarantee that Iraq would become a host nation for terrorism, just like Afganistan was when Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attack, except it is much easier to get to and from Iraq, and they would find it much easier to attack their neighbors. Since what John Murtha recommends is exactly the opposite of what is good for America, I am left with no alternative to conclude that he has betrayed the USA, and sold his soul to Al Qaeda."It is time for a change in direction," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats. "Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region."
All wrong.House Republicans assailed Murtha's position as one of abandonment and surrender, and accused Democrats of playing politics with the war. "They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world,"
That is the job of the French.Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said. Murtha estimated that all U.S. troops could be pulled out within six months. A Vietnam veteran, he choked back tears during his remarks to reporters. Murtha's comments came just two days after the Senate voted to approve a statement that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" to create the conditions for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Open Source (Pajamas) Media
James Joyner blogged in Outside The Beltway The thing bloggers most like to blog about is blogging itself, especially the hypothesis that blogging will one day transform the global media--if it already hasn't. Thus, it's not surprising that yesterday's launch of Open Source (nee' Pajamas) Media is among the hottest topics in the blogosphere. Of course, if you just like to read blogs, it may be the most boring topic in the blogosphere.
Below is a lengthy collection of responses to a survey I sent out yesterday to several prominent bloggers associated with OSM/PJM supplemented with other blogger commentary on the subject
James mentions my response in his post:
Don Singleton was perhaps the most enthusiastic of the responders:I believe that the blogosphere is the wave of the future, and am interested in participating in any endeavor that advances it.
He sees the organization asA clearinghouse for advertisements, to allow me to focus my efforts strictly on blogging.
[...]
AFAIK, the only control they will apply is requiring me to insert some code to process their ads. They forbid me to take other ads, but I do not object to that. Getting ad revenue without having to solicit my own ads, deal with the advertiser, etc, was a big positive.
Christopher Lydon blogged In May we named our show “Open Source” and we named our non-profit production company “Open Source Media.” In fact, http://www.opensourcemedia.net/ used to be our URL until we decide to scrap the “net” and look for an “org.”
opensourcemedia.org is a domain name owned by Jack Brighton in Champaign, Illinois, who is apparently affiliated with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but the website at that domain is just a parked page.But here’s the actual legal-type description of what we are:
A joint production of Open Source Media Inc. and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, Open Source is presented by WGBH Radio Boston and distributed by Public Radio International (PRI).What this means is that we are seven people in a rented office with, incidentally, a rather bold mouse who does not yet have a name. We make a radio show four times a week that uses bloggers as local and topical experts; this show is distributed to public radio stations by Public Radio International, and to truckers and early adopters by XM satellite radio.
So this morning I got an email from a listener with the following subject header:
did someone steal your name?Hm. A company that used to call itself Pajamas Media now calls itself Open Source Media, which is — scroll down to our legal notice — kind of exactly what we call ourselves. They’ve collected $3.5 million in venture capital, and, to celebrate their re-naming of our already-named name, they’re holding an event at the Rainbow Room.
So what to do. A couple of blogs — Atrios, Stephen den Beste, Dennis the Peasant, Begging to Differ, Homocon — have picked up on this already, unprompted, perhaps because if you Google “open source media”, we’re the third result. Presumably the new “Open Source Media” Googled their new name before they settled on it?
Don’t get us wrong; we didn’t invent the idea of working with bloggers to make media, we certainly didn’t invent the concept “open source,” and there’s plenty of room for everyone to do what we’ve been doing. But they chose the same name that we established in May and, seeing as how we work in the same industry, people might find that a little confusing. And that has us puzzled.
Update 11/16, 4:33 pm
The Talent Show and Daily Kos point out that the original idea behind “open source” — the software concept, not the radio show — was that you borrow from the work of others, then release your own work back out to be borrowed in turn. To that end, we made a priority from the very beginning of putting a Creative Commons license on our site and all of the mp3 files of our broadcasts.
Whether the board at PM/OSM will stick with the OSM name, or be forced to select another one, is something for them to figure out, but I still think the concept is a good one.
Vaccine Funding Tied to Liability
WaPo reported Legislation that would pour billions of dollars into the production of vaccines against avian flu and other pandemic diseases is threatened by the trial lawyers' lobby, which objects to proposed limits onlawsuits against drug manufacturers.
This is stupid. There is not that much money to be made on vaccines, particularly vaccines that must be developed quickly to protect from a pandemic. If we want the drug companies to devert efforts in making popular drugs like viagra, to develop low profit margin vaccines we need to give them some protection against lawsuits.Republican congressional leaders, acting at the urging of President Bush, hope to approve a measure soon that would appropriate about $7 billion to pay for vaccines that would combat a flu epidemic and biological attacks by terrorists. The bill could begin moving on Capitol Hill this week. But the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and some of its Democratic allies in Congress are working to scuttle or drastically transform the effort, asserting that anti-lawsuit language in the bill would so broadly indemnify pharmaceutical companies against suits that consumers' rights would be denied.
Vaccines would not be forced on anyone. If someone thinks a vaccine might make them sick, they should not take it, rather than taking it and then bringing a lawsuit against the manufacturerSen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the Senate's chief advocate for strict liability protections, asserted that the companies need to be thoroughly indemnified against suits to provide enough of an incentive for them to make vaccines, which tend to be low-profit products.
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