In a recent editorial “Let Bus Drivers Drive, Not Hunt for Terrorists” the Pilot denounced the idea that school bus drivers should be encouraged to report activity they see that may be related to terrorism. The ubiquitous school buses drive through most of America’s neighborhoods and if, say, the bus driver saw a group of people wearing turbans and face masks practicing an assault on a synagogue, that would be a good thing, no? Well, according to the Virginian Pilot, no. If the Department of Homeland Security encourages or makes it easier for bus drivers to do this, according to the Virginian Pilot, the Federal Government is unleashing a gang of 600,000 political spies to destroy what is left of our precious freedom.
That freedom of course, no longer includes drawing cartoons of Mohammed, but let that pass.
Of course it comes to the opposite conclusion when it comes having doctors spy on their patients.
The article “Bill would bar doctors from asking about guns” comes down squarely on the reasonableness of doctors asking patients about gun ownership. The American Academy of Pediatrics, a group that advocates a total ban on guns, is quoted but not identified as an advocacy group for a radical position.
So the Virginian Pilot does not want school bus drivers involved in protecting us from terrorism, but is all for having doctors spying on us to see if we own guns.
From the gang that still has not shown us the cartoons of Mohammed, it makes perfect sense.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Toon Trouble for Hitler
Tim Blair has a fascinating piece of history, recounting that prior to World War 2, British cartoonist David Low was asked by some British politicos to avoid offending Hitler.
Current political disputes aren’t the first caused by cartoons. In this 2002 speech, Australian treasurer Peter Costello tells the story of New Zealand-born cartoonist David Low, a troublemaker in Britain during the 1930s:
Low’s regular depictions of the Fuhrer caused enormous diplomatic problems for the British Government, but they were to prove remarkably prophetic. Throughout the decade he portrayed the German dictator as a ludicrous, vain, pompous fool with unbridled ambition.
In 1933 the Nazis banned the Evening Standard and all newspapers carrying Low’s work because of a cartoon he had drawn depicting Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.
In 1936 during the Berlin Olympic Games Low received his first request to tone down his depiction of Hitler in the interests of “good relations between all countries”.
In 1937 the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax visited Germany and met with the Propaganda Minister Goebbels, who told him that Hitler was very sensitive to criticism in the British press, and he singled out Low for attention.
Lord Halifax contacted the manager of the Evening Standard to see if Low could be toned down. He said:
"You cannot imagine the frenzy that these cartoons cause. As soon as a copy of the Evening Standard arrives, it is pounced on for Low’s cartoon, and if it is of Hitler, as it generally is, telephones buzz, tempers rise, fevers mount, and the whole governmental system of Germany is in uproar. It has hardly subsided before the next one arrives. We in England can’t understand the violence of the reaction."
It wasn’t only Hitler complaining about Low. In 1938 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain singled out Low while appealing to newspapers to temper their critical commentary of Germany. Chamberlain said:
"Such criticism might do a great deal to embitter relations when we on our side are trying to improve them. German Nazis have been particularly annoyed by criticisms in the British press, and especially by cartoons. The bitter cartoons of Low of the Evening Standard have been a frequent source of complaint."
Weird to think, from our remove, that anyone would ever have taken complaints from Nazis seriously.
Now it all begins to make sense.
Current political disputes aren’t the first caused by cartoons. In this 2002 speech, Australian treasurer Peter Costello tells the story of New Zealand-born cartoonist David Low, a troublemaker in Britain during the 1930s:
Low’s regular depictions of the Fuhrer caused enormous diplomatic problems for the British Government, but they were to prove remarkably prophetic. Throughout the decade he portrayed the German dictator as a ludicrous, vain, pompous fool with unbridled ambition.
In 1933 the Nazis banned the Evening Standard and all newspapers carrying Low’s work because of a cartoon he had drawn depicting Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.
In 1936 during the Berlin Olympic Games Low received his first request to tone down his depiction of Hitler in the interests of “good relations between all countries”.
In 1937 the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax visited Germany and met with the Propaganda Minister Goebbels, who told him that Hitler was very sensitive to criticism in the British press, and he singled out Low for attention.
Lord Halifax contacted the manager of the Evening Standard to see if Low could be toned down. He said:
"You cannot imagine the frenzy that these cartoons cause. As soon as a copy of the Evening Standard arrives, it is pounced on for Low’s cartoon, and if it is of Hitler, as it generally is, telephones buzz, tempers rise, fevers mount, and the whole governmental system of Germany is in uproar. It has hardly subsided before the next one arrives. We in England can’t understand the violence of the reaction."
It wasn’t only Hitler complaining about Low. In 1938 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain singled out Low while appealing to newspapers to temper their critical commentary of Germany. Chamberlain said:
"Such criticism might do a great deal to embitter relations when we on our side are trying to improve them. German Nazis have been particularly annoyed by criticisms in the British press, and especially by cartoons. The bitter cartoons of Low of the Evening Standard have been a frequent source of complaint."
Weird to think, from our remove, that anyone would ever have taken complaints from Nazis seriously.
Now it all begins to make sense.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Flemming Rose -editor of the Jyllands-Posten - on the Cartoon Riots
By Flemming Rose
Washington Post
February 20, 2006
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose?
Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
Washington Post
February 20, 2006
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose?
Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
Col Sanders MIA After Cartoon Riots (From Human Events Online)
As has now been well established by the Western press, five months ago a vicious right-wing propaganda rag in Denmark, possibly edited by a cryogenically preserved Nazi collaborator, sought specifically to denigrate Islam by commissioning a series of unspeakably horrible caricatures that baselessly portrayed Islam as having a tendency towards violence and intolerance.
Now, Muslims are not normally a people to congregate in mass protest and burn flags, hurl stones or break things. But this unprovoked act of cultural aggression (coming, as it did, out of the blue and occurring in Islam’s heartland, Denmark) was simply too much to take. Therefore, after five months of consideration, it was decided to make an exception for this case, and spontaneous protests broke out.
So it’s settled then. Had not the Jyllands-Posten newspaper committed its unforgivable violation of Sharia law, everything would be peaceful in the world. What we have here is a clear case of direct cause and effect, well isolated. That’s why the protestors targeted their anger narrowly at the newspaper in question and did not use the occasion to let loose a general pogrom of anti-Western, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-American and anti-Moderate rioting. Oh wait, now that I think about it, that’s exactly what happened. After a suspicious pause that lasted longer than Joe Biden’s first set of hair plugs, the offended masses erupted in anger at the newspaper, Danish foods, the Prime Minister of Denmark, all the rest of Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, the principle of Free Speech, Israel, the Red Cross, the European Union, Christian churches, their own governments, Catholic Priests, the United States, Christian children, Ronald McDonald, and (of course) Kentucky Fried Chicken.
What? The United States cannot be on that list! Our brave State Department, always at the tip of any retreating spear, issued a condemnation of the cartoons and declared that free speech carries with it the responsibility not to say anything controversial. Plus, 99% of America’s media refused to even show the cartoons without more pixilation than they would provide for a daytime broadcast of “Caligula, The Larry Flynt Cut.”
Then why would many of the crowds feel a need to throw in a chorus of “Death to America!” and burn the U.S. flag at a riot over doodles from Denmark? Perhaps it was just habit. You know, like when I always miss the turn to go to the post office because I am so used to going straight at that intersection on my way to work. Or maybe it’s because the cartoons are just a pretext for many of the professionally angry that assembled at the riots.
Yes, there were many Muslims, normal people of a non-radical bent, that were offended by the cartoons (and embarrassed by the fact Islam is afflicted by so many radicals that the cartoons hit a chord), but they were not the ones doing photogenic things to embassies and effigies.For the radicals that used the cartoons as an excuse to party like it’s 1999, it was all just a pretext. Had the cartoons not existed they would have been in the streets about something else. And once in the streets all the same targets would have been torched.
REUTERS/Mian Khursheed
Consider the protests in Pakistan last week. Enraged, allegedly over Danes having been Danish in Denmark, crowds rushed into the street, shouted “Death To Israel!”, “Death to America!” and, oh yeah, “Death to Denmark!”, all the while burning a seemingly inexhaustible supply of foreign flags. They then attacked a McDonald’s Restaurant, a South Korean phone company, locally owned theaters, a (British owned) Holliday Inn, and (of course) a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Perhaps Colonel Sanders was Danish? Or maybe he was a Colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces?
Sure, he was Southern, but then the Secretary of State of the Confederacy was a Jew, so burning the KFC could have been a clever blow against Zionism. And the Danes are well known as the running dogs of Zionism. It all makes perfect sense now. Those cartoons burned the KFC! It’s all our fault.
In Nigeria, gangs of Muslim “protestors” (some of which claimed to have heard of the cartoons) torched Nigerian Christian churches, purposely dousing at least one man with gasoline and burning him alive, as well as beating to death a dozen others -- reportedly including a Nigerian priest and three Nigerian Christian children. Wow! Way to teach those Danes a lesson, you brave Mujahideen. Or maybe we Christians just all look alike to them.
A cartoonish freak in Turkey murdered an Italian priest. “Protestors” attacked the American embassy in Jakarta (perhaps looking for Colonel Sanders?). And Libyans used one Italian politician’s support for the Jyllands-Posten as an excuse to attack their old colonial nemesis once again. But keep in mind it was all really about cartoons from Denmark.
As retaliation for the Danish cartoons, the President of Iran celebrated a contest to solicit cartoons about the holocaust. How wonderfully non-sequitur: Post-Christian secular Danes speak freely regarding Islam? Then let's have a contest to belittle the holocaust! That’ll learn ‘em! But then, who could resist throwing in the Jews once things got going good? And some people think President Ahmadinejad is a little flaky!
Let’s be honest, most of the media hand-wringing over the cartoons and restraint and sensitivity was simply wasted. There is no avoiding offending the radical branch of Islam. Offense is the fuel with which the movement has been built.
Thus, radical Islam is always looking for insults to freak out about. It's the Joe Pesci of religious movements. One moment you think the world is getting along fine and the next moment some oversensitive suicide bomber has got his finger on the trigger, saying “You think my prophet is funny? Funny how? Like he’s a clown? You think he’s a clown? He’s here to amuse you? No, Anthony, he’s a big boy. He knows what he drew. How is my prophet funny?”
The pretexts under which aggressive action, reaction, and over-reaction are taken by the experienced rabble rousers of the radicalized Muslim street have about as much validity as O.J. asking Nicole "Why do you make me hit you, baby?"
Such complaints should not be an occasion for self-examination and appeasement, but one for disdain and resolve.
Now, Muslims are not normally a people to congregate in mass protest and burn flags, hurl stones or break things. But this unprovoked act of cultural aggression (coming, as it did, out of the blue and occurring in Islam’s heartland, Denmark) was simply too much to take. Therefore, after five months of consideration, it was decided to make an exception for this case, and spontaneous protests broke out.
So it’s settled then. Had not the Jyllands-Posten newspaper committed its unforgivable violation of Sharia law, everything would be peaceful in the world. What we have here is a clear case of direct cause and effect, well isolated. That’s why the protestors targeted their anger narrowly at the newspaper in question and did not use the occasion to let loose a general pogrom of anti-Western, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-American and anti-Moderate rioting. Oh wait, now that I think about it, that’s exactly what happened. After a suspicious pause that lasted longer than Joe Biden’s first set of hair plugs, the offended masses erupted in anger at the newspaper, Danish foods, the Prime Minister of Denmark, all the rest of Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, the principle of Free Speech, Israel, the Red Cross, the European Union, Christian churches, their own governments, Catholic Priests, the United States, Christian children, Ronald McDonald, and (of course) Kentucky Fried Chicken.
What? The United States cannot be on that list! Our brave State Department, always at the tip of any retreating spear, issued a condemnation of the cartoons and declared that free speech carries with it the responsibility not to say anything controversial. Plus, 99% of America’s media refused to even show the cartoons without more pixilation than they would provide for a daytime broadcast of “Caligula, The Larry Flynt Cut.”
Then why would many of the crowds feel a need to throw in a chorus of “Death to America!” and burn the U.S. flag at a riot over doodles from Denmark? Perhaps it was just habit. You know, like when I always miss the turn to go to the post office because I am so used to going straight at that intersection on my way to work. Or maybe it’s because the cartoons are just a pretext for many of the professionally angry that assembled at the riots.
Yes, there were many Muslims, normal people of a non-radical bent, that were offended by the cartoons (and embarrassed by the fact Islam is afflicted by so many radicals that the cartoons hit a chord), but they were not the ones doing photogenic things to embassies and effigies.For the radicals that used the cartoons as an excuse to party like it’s 1999, it was all just a pretext. Had the cartoons not existed they would have been in the streets about something else. And once in the streets all the same targets would have been torched.
REUTERS/Mian Khursheed
Consider the protests in Pakistan last week. Enraged, allegedly over Danes having been Danish in Denmark, crowds rushed into the street, shouted “Death To Israel!”, “Death to America!” and, oh yeah, “Death to Denmark!”, all the while burning a seemingly inexhaustible supply of foreign flags. They then attacked a McDonald’s Restaurant, a South Korean phone company, locally owned theaters, a (British owned) Holliday Inn, and (of course) a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Perhaps Colonel Sanders was Danish? Or maybe he was a Colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces?
Sure, he was Southern, but then the Secretary of State of the Confederacy was a Jew, so burning the KFC could have been a clever blow against Zionism. And the Danes are well known as the running dogs of Zionism. It all makes perfect sense now. Those cartoons burned the KFC! It’s all our fault.
In Nigeria, gangs of Muslim “protestors” (some of which claimed to have heard of the cartoons) torched Nigerian Christian churches, purposely dousing at least one man with gasoline and burning him alive, as well as beating to death a dozen others -- reportedly including a Nigerian priest and three Nigerian Christian children. Wow! Way to teach those Danes a lesson, you brave Mujahideen. Or maybe we Christians just all look alike to them.
A cartoonish freak in Turkey murdered an Italian priest. “Protestors” attacked the American embassy in Jakarta (perhaps looking for Colonel Sanders?). And Libyans used one Italian politician’s support for the Jyllands-Posten as an excuse to attack their old colonial nemesis once again. But keep in mind it was all really about cartoons from Denmark.
As retaliation for the Danish cartoons, the President of Iran celebrated a contest to solicit cartoons about the holocaust. How wonderfully non-sequitur: Post-Christian secular Danes speak freely regarding Islam? Then let's have a contest to belittle the holocaust! That’ll learn ‘em! But then, who could resist throwing in the Jews once things got going good? And some people think President Ahmadinejad is a little flaky!
Let’s be honest, most of the media hand-wringing over the cartoons and restraint and sensitivity was simply wasted. There is no avoiding offending the radical branch of Islam. Offense is the fuel with which the movement has been built.
Thus, radical Islam is always looking for insults to freak out about. It's the Joe Pesci of religious movements. One moment you think the world is getting along fine and the next moment some oversensitive suicide bomber has got his finger on the trigger, saying “You think my prophet is funny? Funny how? Like he’s a clown? You think he’s a clown? He’s here to amuse you? No, Anthony, he’s a big boy. He knows what he drew. How is my prophet funny?”
The pretexts under which aggressive action, reaction, and over-reaction are taken by the experienced rabble rousers of the radicalized Muslim street have about as much validity as O.J. asking Nicole "Why do you make me hit you, baby?"
Such complaints should not be an occasion for self-examination and appeasement, but one for disdain and resolve.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Larry Summers: F**** Off
In view of Summers' prostitution of of his position after he got into hot water, the following represents my feelings very well.
(read the whole thing)
I doubt that he could have survived the rage of his politically correct faculty since his board was itself a quivering jelly of conventional opinion. But had he stood up to the mendacious PC establishment, his ritual sacrifice might have possessed a certain tragic dignity. As it was, his departure from the presidency of Harvard was just another grubby chapter in the annals of academic degradation.
(read the whole thing)
I doubt that he could have survived the rage of his politically correct faculty since his board was itself a quivering jelly of conventional opinion. But had he stood up to the mendacious PC establishment, his ritual sacrifice might have possessed a certain tragic dignity. As it was, his departure from the presidency of Harvard was just another grubby chapter in the annals of academic degradation.
Iran Denounces "Tom and Jerry"
This is not a joke. Click on the link and you will find that Tom and Jerry is a Jewish plot to make mice "cute" thus improving the image of Jews. you have to read it to understand it and them to laugh.
Is Islamfascism a mental disease?
Is Islamfascism a mental disease?
White House Secrecy, Then and Now: Foster vs. Cheney
Brent Bozell on the ridiculous Time and Newsweek cover stories on Cheney.
The media defended its frenzied coverage of an accident by arguing it's part of a pattern, a pattern of Cheney keeping secrets from the press. He's a stonewaller, see.
All this said, let us reserve the award for the greatest chutzpah of Birdshot Week to Bill and Hillary Clinton and their ravenous pack of hypocritical wolves, such as James Carville and Paul Begala, all of whom pounded Cheney for his secrecy. While Carville and Begala wailed like vampires for blood-alcohol tests for Cheney and his victim, Hillary Clinton sneered that "The refusal of this administration to level with the American people, on matters large and small, is very disturbing." Bill Clinton agreed with the wife that the Bush people have an "enormous penchant for secrecy -- for not telling anybody anything about anything."
If we learned anything in the Clinton years, it's that they are world-class stonewallers and the phrase "enormous penchant for secrecy," when applied to them, is an understatement. Don't expect the press to agree with this, however. They spent eight years enabling their secrecy.
[snip]
Time and Newsweek both featured teen gun violence on their covers of August 2, 1993. Foster died on a Tuesday afternoon, giving the magazines plenty of time for reporting. Newsweek promoted the story in a corner of its cover, and had four pages inside headlined "The Mystery of a White House Suicide." It told a soft story that concluded with the picture of Foster's childhood friends Clinton and chief of staff Mack McLarty as "once innocent boys playing mumbletypeg." The only darkness in the piece came from jabs leveled at the editorials of the "acerbically conservative" Wall Street Journal.
Time didn't even use a corner of its cover for Foster, picking instead the whopping story "Are Whales Fair Game?" Time had one page -- just one -- by Clinton-boosting reporter Margaret Carlson, titled "Where Hope Ends," with a childhood picture of Foster and Clinton. Again, the only negative mention was the Wall Street Journal editorials.
Over the next year, we learned that in private the White House had feverishly spent the hours after Foster's death scouring for stonewalled Whitewater documents in his office, hiding them from investigators -- an "enormous penchant for secrecy." But that was another time, when that administration kept all manner of things from the public, and Time and Newsweek found no darkness, only light.
The media defended its frenzied coverage of an accident by arguing it's part of a pattern, a pattern of Cheney keeping secrets from the press. He's a stonewaller, see.
All this said, let us reserve the award for the greatest chutzpah of Birdshot Week to Bill and Hillary Clinton and their ravenous pack of hypocritical wolves, such as James Carville and Paul Begala, all of whom pounded Cheney for his secrecy. While Carville and Begala wailed like vampires for blood-alcohol tests for Cheney and his victim, Hillary Clinton sneered that "The refusal of this administration to level with the American people, on matters large and small, is very disturbing." Bill Clinton agreed with the wife that the Bush people have an "enormous penchant for secrecy -- for not telling anybody anything about anything."
If we learned anything in the Clinton years, it's that they are world-class stonewallers and the phrase "enormous penchant for secrecy," when applied to them, is an understatement. Don't expect the press to agree with this, however. They spent eight years enabling their secrecy.
[snip]
Time and Newsweek both featured teen gun violence on their covers of August 2, 1993. Foster died on a Tuesday afternoon, giving the magazines plenty of time for reporting. Newsweek promoted the story in a corner of its cover, and had four pages inside headlined "The Mystery of a White House Suicide." It told a soft story that concluded with the picture of Foster's childhood friends Clinton and chief of staff Mack McLarty as "once innocent boys playing mumbletypeg." The only darkness in the piece came from jabs leveled at the editorials of the "acerbically conservative" Wall Street Journal.
Time didn't even use a corner of its cover for Foster, picking instead the whopping story "Are Whales Fair Game?" Time had one page -- just one -- by Clinton-boosting reporter Margaret Carlson, titled "Where Hope Ends," with a childhood picture of Foster and Clinton. Again, the only negative mention was the Wall Street Journal editorials.
Over the next year, we learned that in private the White House had feverishly spent the hours after Foster's death scouring for stonewalled Whitewater documents in his office, hiding them from investigators -- an "enormous penchant for secrecy." But that was another time, when that administration kept all manner of things from the public, and Time and Newsweek found no darkness, only light.
So, what to do when your own press corps cooperates with the enemy’s propaganda machine, not just out of fear but with enthusiasm?
I, for one, am terminally sick of it. But what to do? It’s not like I can call up CNN and say “hey, put me on the air and let me give you a damned good hiding, you rotten skank!”
Well, not with any degree of success, anyway.
Even if I phrase it “Could we have a program about the use of language in the WOT and how word choices have shaped the perception of terrorists and rogue regimes (as well as the West)?” I get a muttered “damn ditto-heads” and a dial tone.
Mind you, it’s hard to be that calm and rational when the bobble-heads on TV are licking the boots of whatever terror regime is in their sights at the moment.
Well put.
Well, not with any degree of success, anyway.
Even if I phrase it “Could we have a program about the use of language in the WOT and how word choices have shaped the perception of terrorists and rogue regimes (as well as the West)?” I get a muttered “damn ditto-heads” and a dial tone.
Mind you, it’s hard to be that calm and rational when the bobble-heads on TV are licking the boots of whatever terror regime is in their sights at the moment.
Well put.
The War With Iran Has Begun
From the Adventures of Chester, a thoughtful analysis of current events in the Middle East including the "cartoon riots" and the destruction of the mosque.
Excerpt; read the whole thing.
Allow a slight digression on the nature of terrorism itself. As much as Al Qaeda or its brethren may wish to inflict massive casualties within the West and the US especially, terrorism is just as much about, well, terrorizing a given audience or constituency. That is to say, even though many forms of it might inflict significant casualties, the ultimate goal is influence. It is meant to change minds. When its perpetrators are known, and terror acts are overt, it might be categorized within that type of operation that the West would know as a "show of force." When its origins are not known, or if it is perhaps not even clear that a certain event has a single human agency behind it, then it seeks other forms of influence -- perhaps to change mindsets or affect policy. In some cases, it might even overlap or be confused with covert action, one of the purposes of which is to affect or change policy without any public knowledge of agency or origin.
[snip]
When considered in the light of the long history of Iran with terror, as both its sponsor and its exporter, one wonders if Iran has begun a new campaign in its quest to achieve nuclear power status with no real objection from the rest of the world. Much of the below has been stated in other venues, but consider each of these points afresh:
-the cartoon controversy did not really begin until after the IAEA had referred Iran to the security council.
-the current chairmanship of the IAEA is held by Denmark.
-some of the worst violence was in Syria, a state where the government controls association, and which is allied with Iran.
And as far as the mosque destruction goes:
-no particular group has claimed responsibility.
-conventional wisdom, correct or not, holds that this act has created one of the highest states of tension in Iraq in some time.
-President Ahmadinejad was quick to blame the US and/or Israel, for the act.
Have these acts been effective in influencing the West? The cartoon controversy might have united the West a bit, but it might have united the Muslim world much more. The mosque destruction is a bit too recent to judge.
[snip]
But all of this raises a larger point: when Americans envision war, we imagine large scale military assaults and operations to neutralize targets, not covert and deniable violence on behalf of influencing public attitudes. Yet this blind spot is exactly what Iran excels at performing, and exactly what vexes Secretary Rumsfeld so much as he laments today in the LA Times:
[snip]
Iran has ...a well-crafted strategy really, as it seeks the seams in our defenses. It undermines our cultural assumptions (wars must be declared at a given point, ended at a given point, and fought by uniformed military forces on "battlefields") and even some of our societal organizational seams (media institutions are not part of the governments that fight wars, but are separate, and beheld to different standards).
Excerpt; read the whole thing.
Allow a slight digression on the nature of terrorism itself. As much as Al Qaeda or its brethren may wish to inflict massive casualties within the West and the US especially, terrorism is just as much about, well, terrorizing a given audience or constituency. That is to say, even though many forms of it might inflict significant casualties, the ultimate goal is influence. It is meant to change minds. When its perpetrators are known, and terror acts are overt, it might be categorized within that type of operation that the West would know as a "show of force." When its origins are not known, or if it is perhaps not even clear that a certain event has a single human agency behind it, then it seeks other forms of influence -- perhaps to change mindsets or affect policy. In some cases, it might even overlap or be confused with covert action, one of the purposes of which is to affect or change policy without any public knowledge of agency or origin.
[snip]
When considered in the light of the long history of Iran with terror, as both its sponsor and its exporter, one wonders if Iran has begun a new campaign in its quest to achieve nuclear power status with no real objection from the rest of the world. Much of the below has been stated in other venues, but consider each of these points afresh:
-the cartoon controversy did not really begin until after the IAEA had referred Iran to the security council.
-the current chairmanship of the IAEA is held by Denmark.
-some of the worst violence was in Syria, a state where the government controls association, and which is allied with Iran.
And as far as the mosque destruction goes:
-no particular group has claimed responsibility.
-conventional wisdom, correct or not, holds that this act has created one of the highest states of tension in Iraq in some time.
-President Ahmadinejad was quick to blame the US and/or Israel, for the act.
Have these acts been effective in influencing the West? The cartoon controversy might have united the West a bit, but it might have united the Muslim world much more. The mosque destruction is a bit too recent to judge.
[snip]
But all of this raises a larger point: when Americans envision war, we imagine large scale military assaults and operations to neutralize targets, not covert and deniable violence on behalf of influencing public attitudes. Yet this blind spot is exactly what Iran excels at performing, and exactly what vexes Secretary Rumsfeld so much as he laments today in the LA Times:
.I believe our war with Iran has begun.Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we -- our government, the media or our society in general -- have not.
Consider that violent extremists have established "media relations committees" and have proved to be highly successful at manipulating opinion elites. They plan and design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communication to break the collective will of free people
[snip]
Iran has ...a well-crafted strategy really, as it seeks the seams in our defenses. It undermines our cultural assumptions (wars must be declared at a given point, ended at a given point, and fought by uniformed military forces on "battlefields") and even some of our societal organizational seams (media institutions are not part of the governments that fight wars, but are separate, and beheld to different standards).
Friday, February 24, 2006
Bush Sells Port Security to Highest Bidder
From BlameBush this parody:
Bush’s insane decision to surrender our ports to Al Qaeda shatters once and for all the myth that RepubliKKKans are strong on national defense. Our military, economy, environmental policies, and even our criminal justice system would benefit greatly from the fine leadership of the International Community, but our precious shipping centers are just too important to place in the hands of corrupt nation-states. Under the approving eye of the United Arab Emirates, a rogue cargo vessel loaded with nativity scenes or school vouchers could be purposely crashed into any of our vibrant seaports, killing millions of panhandlers and gay prostitutes while Bush calmly finishes the back nine at Pebble Beach.
Americans expect and deserve better from those we trust to protect us. Senator and future President Hillary Clinton knows this well, and has been a vocal opponent of Bush’s lax security at our ports for years. In the coming days, she will be introducing bold new legislation that will require all U.S. shipping centers to be managed either by Americans, or by those wonderful Chinese Communists who ran our nuclear laboratories so splendidly in the 1990’s.
In addition, stringent regulations will be put in place to protect our harbors from terrorist attacks. Using intelligence obtained without resorting to torture, eavesdropping, or asking personal questions, suspicious vessels will be stopped before they even enter our ports.
A Blue Ribbon Commission of Hollywood celebrities, weeping 9/11 widows, and Joe Biden will be quickly formed to determine if the ship means us harm, exactly what we did to provoke it, and how many tight close-ups of Joe Biden it will take to make things right.
If the vessel is determined to be a threat, the commission will then present their evidence to the United Nations Security Council for final approval, then go about obtaining the necessary warrants to board the ship. Each member of the crew will be randomly searched without regards to race, gender, or sexual orientation, and in the full presence of representatives from both the ACLU and Amnesty International. Any nicotine products, offensive cartoons, or weapons purchased through the gun show loophole will confiscated and melted down to create a memorial to honor the thousands of brave men and women who have died from botched back alley abortions since South Dakota revoked a Woman's Right to Choose.
It's all about priorities, folks. Making our ports safe again will be an expensive task and will require thousands of union jobs, but true patriots would willingly sacrifice Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans to give our Democrat leaders the tools they need to defend us against religious fanatics bent on our destruction.
Thankfully, the Boy Scouts don’t have WMD's or cargo ships to carry them just yet, but as a nation we must be prepared for when they eventually do
Bush’s insane decision to surrender our ports to Al Qaeda shatters once and for all the myth that RepubliKKKans are strong on national defense. Our military, economy, environmental policies, and even our criminal justice system would benefit greatly from the fine leadership of the International Community, but our precious shipping centers are just too important to place in the hands of corrupt nation-states. Under the approving eye of the United Arab Emirates, a rogue cargo vessel loaded with nativity scenes or school vouchers could be purposely crashed into any of our vibrant seaports, killing millions of panhandlers and gay prostitutes while Bush calmly finishes the back nine at Pebble Beach.
Americans expect and deserve better from those we trust to protect us. Senator and future President Hillary Clinton knows this well, and has been a vocal opponent of Bush’s lax security at our ports for years. In the coming days, she will be introducing bold new legislation that will require all U.S. shipping centers to be managed either by Americans, or by those wonderful Chinese Communists who ran our nuclear laboratories so splendidly in the 1990’s.
In addition, stringent regulations will be put in place to protect our harbors from terrorist attacks. Using intelligence obtained without resorting to torture, eavesdropping, or asking personal questions, suspicious vessels will be stopped before they even enter our ports.
A Blue Ribbon Commission of Hollywood celebrities, weeping 9/11 widows, and Joe Biden will be quickly formed to determine if the ship means us harm, exactly what we did to provoke it, and how many tight close-ups of Joe Biden it will take to make things right.
If the vessel is determined to be a threat, the commission will then present their evidence to the United Nations Security Council for final approval, then go about obtaining the necessary warrants to board the ship. Each member of the crew will be randomly searched without regards to race, gender, or sexual orientation, and in the full presence of representatives from both the ACLU and Amnesty International. Any nicotine products, offensive cartoons, or weapons purchased through the gun show loophole will confiscated and melted down to create a memorial to honor the thousands of brave men and women who have died from botched back alley abortions since South Dakota revoked a Woman's Right to Choose.
It's all about priorities, folks. Making our ports safe again will be an expensive task and will require thousands of union jobs, but true patriots would willingly sacrifice Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans to give our Democrat leaders the tools they need to defend us against religious fanatics bent on our destruction.
Thankfully, the Boy Scouts don’t have WMD's or cargo ships to carry them just yet, but as a nation we must be prepared for when they eventually do
IF THE VIRGINIAN PILOT DARES PRINT THIS....
It may be hard to believe, but this cartoon:
... had the following response:
Letter in the Straits Times
Obviously, we misjudged how different people would react to Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur syndicated cartoon published by the New Straits Times last Monday. We have written to the Internal Security Ministry in response to its letter asking us to show cause, explaining the processes involved and how the cartoon came to be published. It is a process involving the human factor, and humans err.
We told the ministry the same thing we are telling you — that we may have misjudged how different people would react to the cartoon, which, as we have pointed out to the authorities, was NOT one of the 12 produced by Danish cartoonists that outraged Muslims throughout the world. It was a totally different cartoon.
[snip]
The NST never intended to hurt any feelings. At least one religious scholar has told the NST that the cartoon was not offensive but could, if different people wished, be interpreted differently.
But we stand corrected. We should have been more sensitive — human error or not. So again, we apologise.And again, we will willingly accept any action deemed fit by the Government.
This is an abject groveling that is, unfortunately, now the defualt postion of the "news" media. I really do wonder if the "sitzpinklers" at the Virginian Pilot (or at any of the other Dying Media) now dare print this cartoon knowing that members of the "religion of peace" consider it blasphemous.
... had the following response:
Letter in the Straits Times
Obviously, we misjudged how different people would react to Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur syndicated cartoon published by the New Straits Times last Monday. We have written to the Internal Security Ministry in response to its letter asking us to show cause, explaining the processes involved and how the cartoon came to be published. It is a process involving the human factor, and humans err.
We told the ministry the same thing we are telling you — that we may have misjudged how different people would react to the cartoon, which, as we have pointed out to the authorities, was NOT one of the 12 produced by Danish cartoonists that outraged Muslims throughout the world. It was a totally different cartoon.
[snip]
The NST never intended to hurt any feelings. At least one religious scholar has told the NST that the cartoon was not offensive but could, if different people wished, be interpreted differently.
But we stand corrected. We should have been more sensitive — human error or not. So again, we apologise.And again, we will willingly accept any action deemed fit by the Government.
This is an abject groveling that is, unfortunately, now the defualt postion of the "news" media. I really do wonder if the "sitzpinklers" at the Virginian Pilot (or at any of the other Dying Media) now dare print this cartoon knowing that members of the "religion of peace" consider it blasphemous.
Virginian Pilot's Editors: sitzpinklers
That the editors of the Virginian Pilot are craven cowards is no longer in dispute. Meanwhile, a tiny minority of the American media are actually trying to stand up for free speech. Some, like the editor of the student newspaper of the University of Illinois, are being slapped down. Other’s like Christopher Hitchins are willing to stand up and even organize solidarity demonstrations at the Danish embassy.
But the example of the Old Media cowardice in the face of physical threats is going to give us wonderful new terms for describing them
Here’s from The Corner:
Apparently, the Germans have a word for men who can't stand up for themselves, both literally and figuratively. It's 'sitzpinkler', which means both one who sits when urinating and wimp.
Welcome Virginian Pilot editors, Sitzpinklers all.
UPDATE: Pictures from the Danish embassy
But the example of the Old Media cowardice in the face of physical threats is going to give us wonderful new terms for describing them
Here’s from The Corner:
Apparently, the Germans have a word for men who can't stand up for themselves, both literally and figuratively. It's 'sitzpinkler', which means both one who sits when urinating and wimp.
Welcome Virginian Pilot editors, Sitzpinklers all.
UPDATE: Pictures from the Danish embassy
The Cartoon Wars, Once Again
Subhead:
THE VIRGINIAN PILOT EDITORS ARE COWARDS.
Let’s begin by stating a few very basic facts.First: the cartoons in question are not offensive in the least. This isn’t really clear in the West because, for the most part, our media has refrained from publishing them (a self-imposed ban now thankfully broken in Canada by the Western Standard).
Much of the offense in the Islamic world comes from the fact that, when displayed there, the cartoons have been mixed with ones depicting Mohammed as a pig and accusing him of bestiality and pedophilia. And, I would note, Islam’s own holy sayings provide at least some evidence on the last count (in the story of Mohammed’s marriage to a six year-old girl), though admittedly the account is disputed.
Second: these cartoons are from last September, with the controversy only really starting in the last few weeks. News, it will be recalled, does not travel by Donkey in all of Araby. What do these facts point to?
Simply, they suggest that someone very purposefully brought about this controversy for some reason. Indeed, a number of Danish Moslem leaders traveled the Middle East for some period of time flogging this story before it took. Why?
READ THE REST...
THE VIRGINIAN PILOT EDITORS ARE COWARDS.
Let’s begin by stating a few very basic facts.First: the cartoons in question are not offensive in the least. This isn’t really clear in the West because, for the most part, our media has refrained from publishing them (a self-imposed ban now thankfully broken in Canada by the Western Standard).
Much of the offense in the Islamic world comes from the fact that, when displayed there, the cartoons have been mixed with ones depicting Mohammed as a pig and accusing him of bestiality and pedophilia. And, I would note, Islam’s own holy sayings provide at least some evidence on the last count (in the story of Mohammed’s marriage to a six year-old girl), though admittedly the account is disputed.
Second: these cartoons are from last September, with the controversy only really starting in the last few weeks. News, it will be recalled, does not travel by Donkey in all of Araby. What do these facts point to?
Simply, they suggest that someone very purposefully brought about this controversy for some reason. Indeed, a number of Danish Moslem leaders traveled the Middle East for some period of time flogging this story before it took. Why?
READ THE REST...
UAE, P&O and the Ports
From Captain's Quarters:
The fallout from the Dubai deal continues to mount after a week of protest over the transaction. The UAE has offered to delay the completion of its purchase of P&O to allow Congress to review the deal, while Americans have their first real debate over port security and operations since 9/11 -- not that one existed much before that, either.
Like most controversies, this one has had its share of hyperbole and hysteria, but the debate has been educational. The questions about how port operators affect security needed to be aired, but in some ways the curt answers have left an incomplete picture. The administration's accurate answer that port security would remain in the capable hands of the Coast Guard and Customs service (a part of DHS now) clarified the role of the port operator, but left the impression that the companies filling those roles have nothing to do with security. That simply isn't true; any operation that has to interface with a serious security regimen winds up with potentially critical information regarding security procedures, personnel, and can identify holes within the process that can be exploited later. That to me is the one argument that remains unchallenged in the debate.
The Closing of Civilization in Europe
America’s immigration problems pale in comparison with what confronts Europe. America’s major ethnic minorities – Blacks as well as Hispanics – are Christian, while the meanstream culture is also rooted in Christianity. In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.
The Virginian Pilot Doesn't Want to Piss Off the Wrong People
Call it “anger management.”
The media obviously doesn’t have any problem publishing images that piss off Islamists; just as long as they are incited against the proper people (e.g., the U.S. military).
The Mo-toons are taboo because, well, God forbid the nutbags start bombing us instead of some icky white trash jarhead from Nebraskansaw.
9-11 photos are even more doubleplusbad taboo; those images might piss off icky white trash jarheads from Nebraskansaw.
What Do We Know About Diet and Health?
From TCS Daily:
Well, the latest research on the relation between nutrition and health has just been released and the fur is flying. Turns out the largest study ever done to assess the impact of a low fat diet on some of our major killer diseases has found that the diet has no effect -- no effect on heart disease, no effect on stroke, no effect on breast cancer and no effect on colon cancer.
[snip]
No matter what health-related research claims, if there is any wiggle room at all (and there usually is quite a bit when dealing with human beings) scientists will put their spins and biases on it in an effort to support what they believe to be true. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is something that people often forget in trying to decide what the findings really mean.
What's more, when it comes to the causes of complex, multifactoral diseases like all of those examined by this research, we know much less than we think we do about why certain people get them while others don't. While nutrition may play a role, it is only one of many, many potential contributing factors.
And when it comes specifically to the links between nutrition and disease, we know even less, again because of how complex the relationships are and how many different factors are involved. Add to this the tremendous variability in individual response to various dietary components and you have a level of complexity that is not described well using 30-second MTV-like sound bytes.
Well, the latest research on the relation between nutrition and health has just been released and the fur is flying. Turns out the largest study ever done to assess the impact of a low fat diet on some of our major killer diseases has found that the diet has no effect -- no effect on heart disease, no effect on stroke, no effect on breast cancer and no effect on colon cancer.
[snip]
No matter what health-related research claims, if there is any wiggle room at all (and there usually is quite a bit when dealing with human beings) scientists will put their spins and biases on it in an effort to support what they believe to be true. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is something that people often forget in trying to decide what the findings really mean.
What's more, when it comes to the causes of complex, multifactoral diseases like all of those examined by this research, we know much less than we think we do about why certain people get them while others don't. While nutrition may play a role, it is only one of many, many potential contributing factors.
And when it comes specifically to the links between nutrition and disease, we know even less, again because of how complex the relationships are and how many different factors are involved. Add to this the tremendous variability in individual response to various dietary components and you have a level of complexity that is not described well using 30-second MTV-like sound bytes.
Sticks and Summers
From TCS Daily, a must read:
Excerpt:
At Harvard, Mr. Summers faced neither sticks nor stones but an altogether more formidable weapon, the feminist fantods. The utter depravity of his crime -- suggesting that the possibility of innate differences between the genders was one among various hypotheses worth testing in the search for an explanation of the relative scarcity of women in the top rank of science and mathematics -- was first indicated by the reaction of an MIT biologist, who said she fled the scene lest she "black out or throw up." No subsequent elucidation of the nature of Summers' offense ever improved upon that formulation. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but making me barf is poopy."
[snip]
"While I may not agree with what you say, I'm going to make damned sure you don't ever say it again, see?"-- Voltaire, as played by Edward G. Robinson
Excerpt:
At Harvard, Mr. Summers faced neither sticks nor stones but an altogether more formidable weapon, the feminist fantods. The utter depravity of his crime -- suggesting that the possibility of innate differences between the genders was one among various hypotheses worth testing in the search for an explanation of the relative scarcity of women in the top rank of science and mathematics -- was first indicated by the reaction of an MIT biologist, who said she fled the scene lest she "black out or throw up." No subsequent elucidation of the nature of Summers' offense ever improved upon that formulation. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but making me barf is poopy."
[snip]
"While I may not agree with what you say, I'm going to make damned sure you don't ever say it again, see?"-- Voltaire, as played by Edward G. Robinson
Science Journals Delivering “Political Science”
From Townhall by Michael Fumento:
Last May, a Korean report in Science magazine prompted headlines around the world by declaring it had made tremendous advances in the heretofore disappointing field of embryonic stem cell (ES cell) research. It has now prompted much soul-searching in media land. “How could we have been fooled?” reporters are asking themselves in print.
Well, wake up guys, because the major science and medical journals have been fooling you for years. And what appeared to be a trickle when I first wrote on it in 1999 has become a torrent.
Read the whole thing.
Last May, a Korean report in Science magazine prompted headlines around the world by declaring it had made tremendous advances in the heretofore disappointing field of embryonic stem cell (ES cell) research. It has now prompted much soul-searching in media land. “How could we have been fooled?” reporters are asking themselves in print.
Well, wake up guys, because the major science and medical journals have been fooling you for years. And what appeared to be a trickle when I first wrote on it in 1999 has become a torrent.
Read the whole thing.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Standing Up for Denmark (Since The Virginian Pilot Won't)
Christopher Hitchens is an unreconstructed Leftist. But unlike most on the Left, he is honest.
Excerpt; read the whole thing:
The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.
And I refer you to my previous comments on the craven, stinking, rotten, racist, etc. cowards at the Virginian Pilot.
Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot
Excerpt; read the whole thing:
The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.
And I refer you to my previous comments on the craven, stinking, rotten, racist, etc. cowards at the Virginian Pilot.
Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot Virginian Pilot
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