Around the Web on 7-27-06
Thursday, July 27, 2006
This morning, I find myself racing the clock to post as much accumulated good stuff as I can. Thirty open browser tabs. Forty-five minutes. No particular order but for the first and last items.
Video of the Week
In a comment to a post on Richard Feynman earlier this week, the Resident Egoist recommends a superb video: "Hey, Feynman fans, if you haven't already, you should really make the time to watch this video."
He is absolutely correct! If you make the time, you will be glad you did.
The Mohammed Birch Society
Yeah. Posting about the war has been thin here over the past couple of days, but I got sick and tired of it and gave myself a break. Not only for our physical safety should we wage this war in whatever way we must to end it quickly, but we should do so for sanity's sake. The constant assault against our lives and values, insofar as we permit it by pulling punches, is a form of dhimmitude. I hate these flea-bitten, death-worshipping savages, their constant fighting, and their constant pleas for my attention.
Having said that, there is a war on, and I'm back....
Daniel Pipes discusses the consolation of having conspiracy theory nuts as political opponents.
CAIR believes that U.S. policy is made in the dark, at the behest of a lobby, and thereby ignores the lopsided views of the American electorate, 57 percent of whom sympathizes with Israel and only 4 percent with Hizbullah (according to a July 19 poll conducted by CNN). So long as CAIR continues to bark up the wrong tree, it has little chance of effecting real change. [link dropped]True, but it is not simply a matter of "barking up the wrong tree". The mere unpopularity of an opinion does not make its supporters powerless to effect change. CAIR's problem here is not that they're ignoring opinion polls, but that they are ignoring reality. That is the cardinal folly in America, and that is why Americans remain firmly on Israel's side. We know who started this.
UN Donates Human Shields
Via LGF, we learn the rest of the story behind the recent bombing, by Israel, of a United Nations outpost.
What makes Annan's allegation so unforgiveable is that his UN Interim Force in Lebanon has been warning for days about what almost certainly caused this tragedy. Hezbollah fighters, who have already been firing behind screens of women and children, have also been shooting from behind and next to the UN positions, presumably hoping Israel will not dare shoot back and risk exactly this kind of propaganda disaster. [bold added]With Kofi Annan asking whether Israel deliberately targeted the post, it is only fair that we ask whether he deliberately left men in the line of fire in the hopes that he could grandstand after this very predictable outcome.
The Moslem love of "martyrdom" (i.e., murder-suicide excused by religious authority) is only the second most obscene thing about the war. First place goes to those who aid and abet this nonsense, by standing in the way of the total annihilation of these death-worshipping savages.
So take your prize and go home now, Kofi. Better yet, put your money where your mouth is, and become a U.N. observer.
"Where is the Israeli Sherman?"
Asks Isaac Schrodinger, as he quotes the following from a link.
We have terrorist groups in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, regularly advocating genocide against Israel and following up their words with bloody attacks, even though the Israelis are capable of bombing them both back to the stone age in a matter of months. Yet and still, sizable percentages of civilians in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories are so nonplussed by the prospect of a conflict with Israel, that they go to the polls and enthusiastically support terrorists who are sure to drag them into war. That would seem to be a strong indication that Israel isn't being sufficiently hard on her enemies. [bold added]Amen.
Moslems End Boycott of Danish (Tourism)
And speaking of Israel not being hard enough on her enemies, Amit Ghate is rendered almost speechless by the following example of Denmark actually aiding her enemies.
... Ahmed Akkari, the Danish imam who toured the Middle East inciting Muslims against Denmark, has just been evacuated from Lebanon -- by the same embassy he helped burn down. [links dropped]Follow this link to see a picture of this. The many useful idiots in the West are giving Cox and Forkum a run for their money with the speed at which they are producing absurd images!
Coke Better than Pepsi
Mike, who has worked at a factory for flavorings, posted this awhile back, but it bears mentioning now anyway because he has solved an age-old riddle here.
While I'm at it, I'll explain why Pepsi sucks so bad, yet somehow manages to win taste tests. If you take Coke and Pepsi side by side in a blind test, Pepsi will win. This is because the bad taste of Pepsi cumulates from several sips (it is an aftertaste effect). So even though I hate Pepsi, I can take a sip or two and enjoy it. After half a can, I'm grossed out. Coke on the other hand tastes good no matter how much you drink, because its aftertaste is the same as its, uh ... during taste.This cumulative nastiness of Pepsi is one of those things I have noticed myself, but was never quite able to put a finger on. I have always liked Coke better than Pepsi. Now I know why!
Edward Cline Interview
Martin Lindeskog will be interviewing Edward Cline soon!
Israel at War
Bruno has a nice roundup concerning the Battle of Lebanon over at The Simplest Thing. ARI has been putting out lots of good stuff, too.
Wanna Job?
The Software Nerd reports that Mark Cuban is informally offering a job to the right kind of person -- if he leaves the right kind of comment on his blog.
If you think outside the box, here is your chance to work for a man who does the same. Interesting!
Deaver's War
Via Mike's Eyes, I read (Hmmm. That sounds almost telepathic....) an excellent post by Jim Woods on the causes of the current fighting in Lebanon.
In his book A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan, Deaver recounts the role he played in reigning in Israel's attack on Beirut. On the television, the news displayed images of open warfare in what had been a vibrant city. In this case, the terrorists using Lebanese territory to wage war had been Arafat's PLO, and the Israelis were going to finish them off this time. By the point of Beirut, PLO military power had been rendered even more ineffective than usual and Israel was pounding their hiding places at will. However, this one-sided fight was too much for Deaver, who went all wobbly. He went to his employer and friend of many decades, President Reagan, and said he would resign if Reagan could not do something to stop the carnage. For his friend, Reagan made that call and Israel allowed the PLO to escape to exile in Tunisia.Read the whole thing!
But did that stop the carnage Mr. Deaver? NO! It might have stopped the images on the news that so disturbed him, but the killing continued. [link dropped]
Happy July 25th!
The Gaijin Biker points to one of the funniest Onion articles I have seen in quite some time: "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored".
Wikipedia, the online, reader-edited encyclopedia, honored the 750th anniversary of American independence on July 25 with a special featured section on its main page Tuesday.It's all this good!
"It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone. "At 750 years, the U.S. is by far the world's oldest surviving democracy, and is certainly deserving of our recognition," Wales said. "According to our database, that's 212 years older than the Eiffel Tower, 347 years older than the earliest-known woolly-mammoth fossil, and a full 493 years older than the microwave oven."
"In fact," added Wales, "at three-quarters of a millennium, the USA has been around almost as long as technology."
Well, that's it. Blogger's editor makes it necessary to stop before I'm really done so I can make what I have presentable. (Damn "smart quotes" and other HTML hiccoughs!) As always, if you're looking for more to read, visit the good folks on my blogroll.
-- CAV
6 comments:
Gus,
I just read Hugh Fitzgerald's latest post at Jihad Watch (the gold standard for commentary and info on Islam). I would really love to get your take on it. Fitzgerald is my favorite non-Objectivist commentator. Even better than Steyn. Hell, I think he is at times better than Tracinski (of course allowing for the fact that he is a conservative).
He makes a number of points that I don't often see O'ists make explicitly. He explicitly names the enemy as Islam and not totalitarian Islam which he points out is a redundancy. He also opposes the Iraq War #2 (read it to see what he means by that) b/c it is a waste to attempt to transform Islamic culture. His plan would have been a divide and conquer; ie let the Sunni's and Shiites kill each other and liberate the Kurds for example.
I must say, I am more impressed with his analysis of the Middle East than I am of Tracinski's. I think Hugh Fitzgerald is one of the best writers on this subject out there. He should get more press amongst O'ists.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/012400.php
Hope you enjoy it.
D. Eastbrook
PS I think I may have submitted this twice. Sorry if I did.
I just noticed something else regards Fitzgerald's post. Here is this:
"That is perhaps the worst effect of this fiasco. Yet, every day there is a reason offered up on a platter for the Americans to announce, plausibly, the need for them to depart. It could be Al-Maliki praising Hizballah. It could be the behavior of the Mahdi Army. It could be the latest mutual atrocities of Shi’a and Sunnis in Baghdad or outside Baghdad. It could be anything at all. But the decision to get out of Iraq should be based on the recognition that we have won, we have set in motion something that cannot be easily undone, and that ensures that the Sunnis and Shi’a will be fighting over the economic and political spoils left free for the grabbing when Saddam Hussein was overthrown. It is a Metternich, a Mahan, a Mackinder in reverse who would not only not see the advantage of this course, but do everything to prevent it."
This is a conclusion that I have seen Yaron Brook make (although not as explicitly) but is the exact opposite of the war posture of TIA. They view any withdrawl as surrender (especially Wakeland). I really think Fitzgerald is on the money.
D. Eastbook
re: "...flea-bitten, death-worshipping savages". Gus, CAIR is the propaganda and lobbying arm for global Islam. It represents not one American Muslim, because it has no religious authority. In fact, can we name even one popular, U.S. Muslim cleric? - rather strange in these times that no religious leader stands up as their religious spokesman.
Who does CAIR represent then? It was founded in 1994 by Nihad Awad, Omar Ahmad, and other former members of the Islamic Association of Palestine. CAIR is till funded largely by Middle Eastern sources such as the Al Maktoum Foundation, owner of CAIR's D.C. headquarters, and headed by the crown prince of Dubai.
Also, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal donated $500,000 to CAIR in support pro-Islam books and tapes in U.S. public libraries. As a non-profit organization, CAIR is eligible for taxpayer funded grants, as well, and CAIRS lawyers will prove fit to tap the public treasury as soon as possible.
D.E.,
Thanks for bringing that up. Except for that bit about alternative energy, it is right on the money in many respects. I especially liked this:
"And that independent Kurdistan could be of great benefit to American policy, rightly conceived, as an example to other non-Arab Muslims, such as the Berbers of Algeria, of what they too might achieve -- not to mention its electrifying effect on Kurds in Iran, and therefore on Baluchis, Arabs, and even Azeris in Iran, who together make up nearly 50% of the population of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Vigilis,
That CAIR is regarded as anything other than a terrorist front is a domestic consequence of the fact that our politicians neither recognize nor name Islam as the enemy.
Gus
If you haven't already seen it, check out this video of ambulances marked with "U.N." being used a troop-carriers?
S-N,
Wow!
And while we're on the subject of ignoring the Geneva Conventions, catch this news story, which shows pictures of Hezbollah operating in the 'burbs.
Gus
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