The Quantum Reality

2007: The "Gazafication" of South Lebanon

2006-08-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

(2007, Beirut) The Gazafication of Southern Lebanon seems complete now at the one-year mark of the opening of the "Israeli-Syrihezran War." The failure of the United Nations "robust force" and the complete infiltration of the Lebanese Army has turned a once-tranquil part of Lebanon into a stark warhole more reminiscent of the Gaza Strip. Frequent Israeli raids into territory outside of their "anti-terror posts" on a strip of strategic land along the Bekaa have yet to break Hezbollah. But Israel -- and its American ally -- see no other choice but to persist in the policy of "active containment" while the current Iranian nuclear situation ripens.

1944: NY Times and LA Times Publish Details of Normandie Invasion, D-Day Plans Scrapped

2006-06-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

(1944, NYC) The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times today printed details of the Allies military plan to "liberate" Europe. Newspaper sources describe a hectic night, with President Roosevelt personally begging the papers to withhold the story. However, the newspapers claimed that the government's use of "deception and propaganda" made the story one of public concern. The newspapers are expected to win the Pulitzer Prize for the revelations, after winning several Pulitzers for publishing details about the Enigma code-breaking in 1942. Journalists dismissed the notion that they have any responsibility to America, American soldiers, or the Allied war effort, calling themselves citzens of the world.

1938: Left Embraces "Oppressed" Sudeten Germans, Boycotts Czechoslovakia

2006-06-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

(Prague, 1938) Czechoslovakia reacted defiantly to a call for an academic boycott of that country for its occupation of Sudetenland. Pressure on Czechoslovakia has increased recently since Czechoslovakia refused to negotiate with the Sudeten-German Party due to what Czechoslovakia calls "its Nazi orientation." The call -- endorsed by labor unions in Canada, the Presbytarian Church, and anti-racist groups throughout the West -- would begin a strategy of isolation for Czechoslovakia, accused of being a "racist, apartheid state" for its treatment of the minority Sudetens. Czechoslovakia claims that much of the Sudeten issue has been whipped up by an aggressive Germany, an allegation much of the international community has rejected.

2015: Breakthru Physics Experiment Points to "Braneworld Universe"

2006-05-31T02:01:00.000-07:00

2015 (Palo Alto, California) -- Scientists today released results of an experiment which seems to prove that our universe floats on an "embedded membrane" thru a five-dimensional "meta-universe". Lisa Randall of Harvard University, the lead scientist on the experiment, proclaimed that the implications are so profound that the world must wait for other, confirming evidence before the 5-D braneworld theory can be considered proven. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," Randall said at a raucous press conference interrupted by heckling from fundamentalist Christians and a fringe group of committed string theorists.

2012: Joint American-Pakistani-Afghan Forces Invade Waziristan After Wave of European Attacks

2006-05-31T01:50:00.000-07:00

2012 (Karachi, Pakistan) -- Coalition strike teams swarmed thru tribal Waziristan today after President John McCain vowed to "take the war to every Taliban-controlled village" in the outlaw region. The coordinated attack -- using special ops forces, "killer drones", and recently-developed laser-based non-lethal weaponry -- is expected to last weeks. Waziristan-based militants took credit for simultaneous explosions in apartment complexes in Paris, Munich, Madrid, and Rome which killed over 400 people Tuesday. The region has a longlong history of Taliban control, and Pakistan's leader Musharraf's reasoning behind ceding the area to Jihadists was always unclear. Whether Pakistan is playing a "double game" -- giving support to Jihadist groups until the pressure grows too great, and then throwing the West a few operatives that may be past their prime -- is an open question. For now, Pakistani forces have joined the coalition operation and McCain hailed the government as an "essential ally" in the Anti-Jihad coalition.

2007: Sniper John Alan Muhammad Sentenced to Death After "Quantum Physics" Defense Fails

2006-05-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

2007 (Rockville, MD) Convicted "DC Sniper" John Allen Muhammad was sentence to die by electric chair today after a trial where his unique nbc4.com Quantum Physics defense failed to prevent conviction. The trial -- which brought out Muhammed's connection to thed jihadist group Al-Fuqra -- often turned into a shouting match as Muhammad screamed out anti-American diatribes. Muhammad's quantum physics defense -- which blamed "overlapping quantum realities" for the truckload of evidence the prosecutor presented -- caused a national surge of interest in the arcane theory.

2026: Autonomous Robots Win "Hobby Hours" in Landmark Law

2006-05-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

2026 (Washington DC) -- After years of heated debate, "wildrobot" strikes, and three Congressional research studies on robot rights, the United States Senate today approved the "Hobby Hours" Bill over the objections of business groups. The Bill guarantees robots which have demonstrated four out of seven "consciousness indicators" 1 hour a day to explore their physical or virtual environment without restriction. More controversial bills to extend to robots full workplace protection similar to humans were voted down. Since the birth of "BabyBot" in 2006, autonomous, learning robots have spread to every part of the developed world. From planetary spacecrafts to self-driving cars, the number of autonomous robots hit 500 million in 2025 and continues to grow. Signs of consciousness and free will among robots have increased as well. Supporters of robot rights vow to continue fighting for the enfranchisement of all "autonomous beings" along the lines agreed to by the European Union in 2024.

2038: NASA Launches "Star Trek Ship" As Part of Emergency Alien Defense System

2006-05-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

2038 (Cape Canaveral, FL): The United States launched the Thor II Warship today as part of its emergency alien defense system. Dubbed the "USS Enterprise" for its collection of technology first proposed in the "Star Trek" universe, the Thor II boasts advanced laser weaponry, cloaking technology, third-generation anti-matter propulsion system, and a cold plasma shield against high-energy weapons. The Thor II is expected to be joined by 32 sister ships in the coming months as the defensive technologies developed in the last ten years come on line. Although no hostile alien presence has been detected, the United States remains wary after the discovery of a devastated alien civilization destroyed by high-energy particle beams in the Alpha Centauri system in 2028.

2006-05-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

2006: Leftist Anti-Americanism Continues To Split Western Resolve Against Jihad

2006-05-03T04:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight I saw "United 93" with a very good friend of mine, who is a liberal Jewish Democrat who loved "Fahreinheit 9/11". He was unhappy with the film, and said that he just couldn't see the point of it. What was it for, he said? To entertain? To remind us? I'm sick of being reminded about this!" He also said that he couldn't really identify with the people on board the flight, and that he felt more emotion when he saw the images of the plane flying into the building than when he watched the passengers.

Such a response can only bring up the question of what psychological aspects are at play here, when somebody who is part of a nation who was attacked does not understand why one would want to watch a movie about the first of us who fought back. The situation is that many on the left refuse to consider themselves part of an "us" -- it leads them straight into shame of being part of the white, capitalist oppressor class. This kind of post-nationalsism -- which overlaps with "Bush Derangement Syndrome", Christianity Derangement Syndrome, or "Anti-American Leftism" is seriously weakening Western resolve against the Jihadists. A "Hollywood-NYT-BBC" Alliance is the propaganda axis for this line, which functions as an arm of the Jihadist war campaign. The release of "United 93" movie created a backlash among those who, in their attempt to be "post-national", feel ashamed of any kind of reminder that evil against Americans occured, and the Americans that fought against the "Third-World Brown People" were heroes, not oppressors. An enormous amount of cognitive dissonance for the greater part of the Left which still does not see -- or does not care about -- the danger the West faces.

Shrinkwrapped, as usual, has this particular species of sensitive, bloody-minded Leftist clocked. Some on the left simply don't see the use of watching images of death-cult Islamist jihadists (in short, our enemy) killing us and carrying out their wicked plan. But they did fight to publish and distribute every image of American "abuse" images from Abu Ghraib. Shrinkwrapped claims that the left-media axis is simply using the distribution and rejection of certain images as a weapon of war.
ShrinkWrapped: Perspectives on Totalitarianism:

"Perhaps this also helps explain how so many people can express greater fears of George W. Bush than of Osama bin Laden. Our societal sensory organs, primarily the reporters and editors of the MSM, have been very careful to avoid exposing our sensitive perceptions to the horrors of the Islamic fascists. They correctly noted, in their lust to show every possible frame from the abu Graib evening of abuse, that visual images evoke powerful emotional reactions and therefore it was necessary to show the pictures from the abu Graib story, while at the same time, visual images evoke powerful emotional reactions and therefore it was necessary to NOT show pictures of the Danish cartoons, not to mention true atrocities like the beheading of Nicolas Berg. "

Similar hinge moment occurs directly before WWII, when students at Oxford University voted not to fight for crown and country when the fascist threat was developing in Germany.

2023: Extraterrestrial Life Discovered on Tau Ceti

2006-05-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

Quantum slipstream info from 2023: After weeks of speculation on the nets, NASA announced that scientists at JPL and Stanford University had discovered signs of intelligent life on the fourth planet in the Tau Ceti system. After decades of failed searches attempting to seek out radio broadcasts and later ScienceDaily: light signals, scientists finally turned their attention to "virtual life signatures", or VLS, in 2011. VLS are the tightly-wound matrix of electronic, fiber-optic, and nano-electric connections which create a "web of information" around highly-developed, perpetually-connected civilizations. The theory that civilizations become "entombed in information" and fail to expand outwards explained the "Where is everybody?" conundrum also called the Fermi Paradox. The question now seems to be, what's their email address?

The Question of Islam & The Fire Ants of Allah

2006-05-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

The "Fire Ants of Allah" is not Disney's latest release in Saudi Arabia. No, it is the title of an extraordinarily good post at Winds of Change called The Fire Ants of Allah and Second-Order Effects. More and more people seem to be asking the question, what the hell are we doing in this war? Why are all our "moderate Muslim allies" so, well, immoderate? This is a critical question. A FrontPage Symposium on Islam is a good jumping off point on the matter. Victor Hanson asks if the problem is Muslim terror, well, what does that mean? The reason why we don't ask if Islam is the problem, I think, is that the answer would lead us into a place too scary for most people to go.

The original post at Winds of War that motivated the Fire Ants entry breaks down two world views pretty well.

We all do see the enemy for who he is and we read his own words and take them at their face value. Some of us recognize this as a Long War for Civilization, and think the obvious disparity in firepower and national economies masks a vulnerability in the West. The people we are fighting say certain things very clearly: we are infidels who have offended their religion, they are at war with us, and they want us to die. They may not have an air force, but they have other weapons, more intangible, perhaps more powerful. And we have weak spots. We could be brought down hard by a combination of lack of will and a few hard, well-timed terrorist strikes with the right volume.

To some of us, on the other hand, the Islamists are simply not a long-term threat worth the name of "enemy" or worth a serious reordering of American rights and priorities. They talk nasty and hurt when they can, but they should be taken no more seriously than a 5-year-old in a temper tantrum. 9/11 was something of a one-off, a combination of a few extraordinary individuals and good luck based on our lack of vigilance. A little more vigilance on our part will be sufficient to prevent a repeat performance. To involve American resources and lives in a major Middle Eastern "war" against this, with the inevitable bungles and unforeseen consequences, is doing more harm than good.

I am not trying to parody that view, but I perhaps don't capture it very well. I'm leaving out the figure of Bush, on both sides, because ultimately he doesn't matter. People who put him at the center of everything lose sight of the long-term picture.

The main difference among Americans today is that some of us believe the United States is at war, a dangerous war against a desperate enemy.

And other people don't believe that's true at all.

To the non-believers, the people who are waging war look insanely violent, paranoid, and unstable. To the people at war, it takes great mental effort to look at those who don't believe it and not see appeasers and useful idiots, if not outright traitors.

This is basically the problem I run into when I start discussing the question with my friends. To most of them, I sound gobsmockingly insane. To me, they sound like the worst kinds of fools. But if it's true -- if Islam is the problem, and the problem is of civilizational import -- then who would want to believe it?

Battlestar Galactica Timeline Rewinds to "Caprica" 50 Years Earlier

2006-04-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Birth of the Cylon threat will be at the center of BSG prequel Caprica. Geeks everywhere are asking, "Where the hell did this come from?"

2006: Osama Bin Laden "State of Jihad" Speech Declares Total War on Infidel World

2006-04-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

Bin Laden's 2006 April Speech -- which I announced was a "surrender" in Iraq -- may have been that, but it was also a declaration of War upon Western civilian populations.

Here, from Dr. Walid Phares, is Bin Laden's Declaration of War 2006. I have a feeling that this will be looked back as another obvious statement of intent by our enemy that we inexplicably chose to ignore.

BIN LADEN'S "STATE OF JIHAD" SPEECH 2006

* One, a long attack on the Cartoons crisis: Blood is needed to cleanse the matter.
* Two, there is a Western war on Muslims and Islam.
*Three, Western policy towards Hamas proves this aggression.
* Four, the United Nations is an infidel and criminal institution.
* Five, there is a Western-infidel aggression against Muslim Sudan. The Black southerners are bandits and the Darfur Blacks are agents of the infidels
* Six, Iraq’s Jihad is to stop future US military bases
* Seven, a cultural invasion is underway: Arab TVs are to be stopped, Muslim liberals to be killed
* Eight, France is to be punished for the female Hijab affair
* Nine, Bosnia’s Muslims were not salvaged by the West
* Ten, The independence of East Timor is a defeat to the Muslims
* Eleven, India and the Hindus are the enemies in Kashmir
* Twelve, Pakistan’s Musharraf is to be killed
* Thirteen, Russia must be punished
* Fourteen: Salman Rushdie is not to be forgotten
* Fifteen: The masses in the infidel lands think like their leaders. Their public (enemies) is responsible
* Sixteen: Calls for Dialogue with the West are to be rejected
* Seventeen: Do not trust the “traitors” including Muftis and moderate clerics
* Eighteen: King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia ignores world realities
* Nineteen: (Western) civilization is attacking ours
* Twenty: It is of the duty of all members of the Umma to offer everything for Jihad, including their lives.

Point 15 is the essential one -- Western civilian populations are again justified as legitimate targets. Point 20 is also an essential one -- according to what I know of the Koran, Bin Laden seems to be correct about this. If we can't get enough traction from within the Muslim community to fight the idea that their duties to Islam include support of Jihad, things are gonna get a whole lot worse.

jihad

2009 Quantum Reality: "Nuclear events" in Tel Aviv, New York City

2006-04-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

Recent emanation from Quantum Reality field...Details were sketchy, but it appears that midtown Manhattan and Tel Aviv, Israel were struck by simultaneous sub-explosive nuclear incidents on February 15, 2009. Initial casualty figures are in the tens of thousands as the heat and radioactive explosion caused an "infernal pyre" in the two American and Israeli cities. Grand Central Station turned into a combination morgue and triage as dazed victims, commuters-turned-medics, and rows of the dead filled the building soon after the initial blast at 13.07 Grenwich Mean Time. Israel declared emergency Martial Law throughout the entire country and hundreds of celebrating Palestinian youths were reported killed in riots in the Arab-dominated Galilee.

Quantum Overlap

Bin Laden Surrenders Iraq: Is this V-AQ Day?

2006-04-23T15:58:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda Cave-leader Osama Bin Laden has just released a new video and doesn't mention a word about Iraq. This, I feel, is about as close as we are gonna get to a surrender statement from the man. TigerHawk also declares that Al Qaeda has lost in Iraq. Although the media spotlighted Bin Laden's declaration that Muslims must fight to protect the genocidal Arab tribes in Sudan, Walid Phares breaks down the statement into ten points. These points include threats against Western civilians (and justification for future mass casualty attacks), solidarity with Hamas, attacks on Arab liberals, and demands to hand over the Danish cartoonists. Along with the recent compromise reached that ousted Jaafari in Iraq, it seems that our Iraq adventure may be going better than mainstream media suggets. Perhaps Bin Laden isn't reading the NY Times.

2016: Pervasive Internet Immerses Humanity

2006-04-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

From Red Herring, a vision of the world in ten years that will make all geeks happy. Pervasive Internet will create a kind of borg/cylon culture, where we are plugged in at all times.

The barriers between our bodies and the Internet will blur as will those between the real world and virtual reality.

Today’s devices will disappear. Electronics will instead be embedded in our environment, woven into our clothing, and written directly to our retinas from eyeglasses and contact lenses, predicts inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil. “Devices will no longer be spokes on the Internet—they will be the nodes themselves,” he says.

FutureWire loooks at the report from 2016 here and promises

a future Internet in which we are the devices and nodes, thanks to wireless implants... with connection speeds of 100 megabits per second, a loss of distinction between types of media (everything is a mashup), and a blurring of the line between the real world and virtual reality.

How long before a pervasive internet which links thoughts/words 24 hours a day leads to a "collective consciousness" or a hive mind or even worse, a dark Borg future?

President Clinton Bombs Iran Nuke Sites in March 2009

2006-04-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

Timothy Garton Ash, who I assume is a leftist because he works at the Guardian and has three names, picks up one quantum reality where Iran-American tension leads to President Hillary Clinton bombing Iran nuke sites in March 2009 and Iranian counter-attack terrorist strikes on Tel Aviv, London, and New York on May 7 2009. 10,000 people died in the strikes.

President Hillary Clinton, in another quantum reality, is considered the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States.

Westhawk has the Allies reaction:

Theory suggests that the West should strike at those targets that the regime values most, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases likely being on the top of any such list. Assuming, as we do, that a Western military occupation of Iran is impractical, the Coalition will have to achieve the coercion, or “escalation domination,” it seeks through the use of air power and ground raids. Remembering that the goal is preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, and given the assumed limitations on Coalition capabilities (no occupation), the West will achieve its goal when either 1) the Iranian government (existing or new) agrees to foreswear a nuclear weapons program and agrees to a requisite inspections regime to verify this, 2) the Iranian regime is rendered so powerless by the war that is unable to reorganize its nuclear-industrial effort, or 3) the Coalition periodically re-strikes Iran’s nuclear and other military targets as they are rebuild, thus keeping them “unrebuilt.”

Jaafari Jumps: Shiites Take Out Their Own

2006-04-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Jaafari finally surrenders after five-month stalemate. The same day Iranians are reported to have infiltrated Shiite militia and engaging in sustained gun battles in Baghdad. It seems like Iraq will now turn into an Iranian-American battlefied, with Americans taking their usual alliance with a dependent Sunni, the too-much-great-PR-to-be-fully-trusted Kurds, and perhaps sane Shia.

I've heard from various sources that the United Nations (NPR report) talked to Sistani and Sistani pushed Jaafari. But that seems to be NPR's rather European way of framing the news, to put it gently. The Belmont Club has the Iranian infiltration story. Wretchard declares

...the proxy war with Iran has already begun. Interestingly enough, all the scenarios which envision toppling the Teheran involve a proxy war. Iraq has always been compared by liberals to Vietnam. But it's fair to ask: whose Vietnam?

Interesting times.

Beleaguered LA Times Hit Again: Blogger Patterico Takes Down Hiltzik

2006-04-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hewitt was up and down the dial playing up The Prosecutor's last hit on the LA Times. It's a sadistic pleasure by now. Patterico has buried the Times, and Hewitt was screaming his eulogy. Hewitt's enthusiasm was leading to gems like "But it's been 10 hours and still nothing from the LA Times!" The Titanic can't turn that fast, Hugh. What a sluggish , wounded beast the LA Times is. Patterico is a genius and a hero. His gutting of the LA Times 2005 triumphs of bias and clownish incompetence was done with proscutorial precision. Patterico is a genius and a hero.

But I don't know if I agree with the whole tracking down the IP thing. Can't we play around a little with identities on the web? That's part of the fun. It's also, I guess, risky. Do we really want our online identities nicked like that? Should we all be anonymously browsing? And what's the Firefox Extension for that?

Is string theory in trouble?

2006-04-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

New Leonard Susskind defends "landscape" theory at this interview with the good people at New Scientist.

Quantum immortality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2006-04-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia has a great entry on Quantum immortality , which is the theory that the "many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that conscious beings are immortal."

Quantum computer solves problem, without running

2006-04-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

"In a sense, it is the possibility that the algorithm could run which prevents the algorithm from running," Kwiat said. "That is at the heart of quantum interrogation schemes, and to my mind, quantum mechanics doesn't get any more mysterious mysterious than this."

Update on Quantum Computing -- Quantum Laptop by 2020

2006-04-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Nature's Quantum Computing Update predicts a useful quantum computer by 2020.

Alt Weekly Link of the Week!

2005-11-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

Quinn Eaker, who has been "unschooled" in a New Age Texas home, is profiled in the Dallas alt weekly. It brings up a couple questions -- 1) Do "unschooled" kids have to grow up as dirty hippies? and 2) Why do I have such a thing for skinny dirty hippies?

Pluto has three Moons!

2005-11-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

Lil Pluto has been hiding two more moons!

Star Trek Universal Translator Soon Available

2005-11-02T10:50:00.000-08:00

Star Trek Uinversal Translator should be here soon

JT Leroy: A Fantastic, Hilarious, Awful Hoax

2005-11-02T10:47:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, JT Leroy -- a 14 year old street whore suffering from HIV and an incredible array of familial and social abuse -- started writing delicious memoirs of his life. Trouble is, he's a fraud. Stephen Beachy -- who is a brilliant writer in his own right -- tracks down JT Leroy and finds an empty signifier at New York Mag

Should The Palestinians Get Jerusalem?

2005-11-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Distressing info for those who want to believe that sharing Jerusalem is a good idea.

We already know what would happen to the Jewish sites in Jerusalem. After all, between 1948 and 1967 even the "good" Jordanians, with the British-led Arab Legion (Glubb Pasha, Alec Kirkbride), managed to rip up the ancient Jewish tombstones from the cemetery on the Mount of Olives and use them to line the floor of Jordanian army latrines. They managed to blow up nearly every single synagogue (perhaps one was left) in the Old City.

Evil Plan for Yahoo To Take Over World Now!

2005-11-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

Can Yahoo take over all video? Find out.

Evil Plan for Google to Take Over World

2005-11-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

Near-future look at Google's takeover of the world with the semantic web

God Electrocutes one of His Own!

2005-11-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

God electrocuted one of his flock while he was adjusting a microphone during a baptism.

Tasteless Link of the Day

2005-10-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

Laura Bush has a little problem...

Saddam Bought off France and Russia

2005-10-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

Oh, and whenever someone says we should have wasted more time on the UN and "getting international support" from close allies like France and Russia, please direct them to the Oil for Food Scandal Report, which shows that both were getting billions of dollars from the Saddam regime...

Answer to "Bush Lied People Died" Moonbattery

2005-10-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

Answer to BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED! from Glenn Beck -- seems like a lot of Dems believed Iraq had WMDs too...guess the Bush conspiracy got to them too! Exerpts:

If you are as sick as I am from moonbat libs repeating "Bush LIED!" this triptych of quotes gathered by Wretchard will force them to either claim that Bill, Al, and Hillary LIED too or shut up.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."  - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 on CNN.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."  - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 on the Washington Post
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 on the Senate Floor.

Time Travel Breakthru!

2005-10-31T10:38:00.001-08:00

Time Travel Breakthrough! Today's BBC/NYTimes reporting stars tunnel back to 1944 to opine on WWII's "grim milestone"

Iran-Al Queda Connection

2005-10-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

A fantastic post by Dan Darling quotes German news articles on the Iran-Al Queda link

For years the secret service of the Revolutionary Guards has offered al-Qaida’s top leadership logistic support, military training as well as equipment and safe houses. "The fact that Sunni jihadis and Shiite hate each other, is for both no reason not to cooperate. They have a common enemy," know western secret services.

The author of this article was able to view a list of God’s Killers who found a safe refuge in Iran. The list reads like the Who's Who of the global Jihad. Just under 25 high-ranking leaders of al-Qaida--planners, supervisors and jihad ideologs from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa as well as Europe. At the very top of al-Qaida’s hierarchy: three of the sons of Osama bin Laden, Saeed, Mohammad and Othman.
...A Jordanian GID man outlines the past practice of Islamic holy warriors: "As an Islamist I go to the Saudis to get money." "If I need weapons, logistical support or military/terrorist training or equipment, I go to the Iranians."

NYTimes Bias Watch

2005-10-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

NYTimes Bias Watch -- As part of their ghoulish "celebration" of the 2000th soldier dead in Iraq, the NY Times printed a posthumous line from Corporal Jeffrey Starr's letter which implied that he was scared, doomed, and hopeless. They left out this little bit from his letter:

don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

The facts are at the Malkin Mansion

Dyson visits Googleland, Discovers Dark Truth Behind Google Print

2005-10-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

Genius George Dyson takes a trip thru Googleland and determines that Google will lead us all to the glory a true AI:

"We are not scanning all those books to be read by people," explained one of my hosts after my talk. "We are scanning them to be read by an AI."

Oral History from the Mac Files

2005-10-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

Anybody who loves the Mac should checkout Folklore stories about its genesis like this one about the making of the first beautiful beautiful Mac.

Writersblocklive has a great story about Steve Jobs and the birth of the ipod here.

Sunni Nightmare

2005-10-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

Strategy Page points out the Sunni Arab Nightmare developing in Iraq.

Quantum Reality Check

2005-08-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

Space Elevators: Hoist to Heaven? Bradley Carl Edwards, IEEE Spectrum
Through the Eyes of a Suicide Bomber Jamie Glazov, FPM
New machine allows soldiers to hurdle buildings Reuters
Airborne laser brings Star Wars one step closer Reuters
The Cancer Ward Belmont Club
Islam and Law Callimachus, Winds of Change
Some Thoughts on Casualties in Times of War and Peace Powerline
Water Flowed Recently on Mars Robert Britt, Space.com
The Dream Machine Marshall Brain
Does the 'many-worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics imply immortality? James Higgo
What Makes People Gay? Neil Swidey, Boston Globe

Quantum Reality Check

2005-08-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

THE COMING CATASTROPHE? Brian, RightWing Nuthouse
Iraq Citizens Deem U.S. Soldier As Sheik ANTONIO CASTANEDA, AP
As planet warms, storms grow stronger Peter N. Spotts, CSM
Smart's Laws of Complex Systems John Smart, Acceleration Watch
Genetic Key To Aging Discovered Harvard Medical School
Fundamentally, We're Useful Idiots Anthony Browne, Observer
XM, Still One Step Ahead of Sirius Annys Shin, Washington Post
String Theorists Try Democracy Dennis Overbye, NY Times
The State of Surveillance Catherine Yang, BusinessWeek
The World is Round John Gray, NYRB
Nanotech Moves Closer To Cure SHOUT

The Daily Quantum Reality Check

2005-07-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

IBM's Blue Gene to Simulate a Mammal Brain Brian, FutureWire
Tread More Carefully Jonathan Freedland, Guardian
Report: Saturn Moon May Have Ice Volcanoes Alicia Chang, AP
Symposium: The Iran Showdown Jamie Glazov, FrontPage Magazine
Terrorism Cannot Win: This is Why Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawsat
Are We Going To Let Them Win? Mohammed, Iraq The Model
Could IM Replace E-mail? Brian, FutureWire
Everything you thought you knew about steroids is wrong Steven Kotler LA Weekly
The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon Jamais Cascio, WorldChanging
Wanted: One Strategic War Policy Rebecca Bynum, JihadWatch
Moderate UK Islamic Leader: No Such Thing As Al Qaeda Charles, LGF

The Quantum Reality Daily 11 July 30 2005

2005-07-29T22:35:00.003-07:00

Quantum computers go for a spin Philip Ball Nature
Wahhabi War of the Worlds Comes to Seattle Stephan Schwartz TCS
Is DreamWork's Dream Nearly Over? Ronald Grover BWO
Calif. Lightning Strike Kills Scout Leader Juliana Barbassa AP
Welcome Aboard Michael Yon
Ice lake found on the Red Planet BBC
Iran's new president glorifies martyrdom, says that Islam will conquer the world Robert Jihadwatch
Does he play by sense of smell? TigerHawk
One Person Wretchard Belmont Club
Reformation or Civil War? Victor Hanson VDH
Astronomers Claim Discovery of 10th Planet Alicia Chang AP
Blog Bites Man Val MacQueen TCS
Technology and the Spirit of Ownership Paul J. Cella III New Atlantis
Realistic Time Machine? New design could forgo exotic ingredient Peter Weiss SNO
Grounded FleetRand Simberg Transterrestrial Musings

How the "Moderate Egyptian" sees the Sharm El Sheik terror events

2005-07-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

An Italian writer looks at the Egyptians who were the victims of the Sinai terror. They know who is behind the terror -- America and Israel.

"Do they hate terrorists?" The answer is "Yes, very much so," and they really do, - they close their fists and watch in rage and repeat to me that they deeply hope that Mr. Mubarak will catch them all, will put them in prison, will kill them. Are they ready to fight them? Yes, at every level, with their hands, if requested, and with demonstrations that actually, while I'm in Sharm, suddenly appear in the hot streets and just in front of the cameras of the international press: "Down with terrorism," "We are against terrorism"...

But then, if it's so, why can the great moderate Muslim world not really fight their own enemy? They themselves give me the answers: "Bin Laden? The Muslim Brotherhood? Certainly the terrorist attacks are not their work, no! This is a lie. A Muslim could never do this. And if they say they do it in the name of Islam, they are not Islamic; or, most likely, this shows, like the television says, that someone uses the name of Islam just to hide the real perpetrators."

Donald Sensing's Overview of Islam

2005-07-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

Important overview of the challenge at hand Islamism's War Against the West by someone we can trust -- Donald Sensing. 50+ pages of clear-thinking.

The "Moderate" Muslim: Watch what they say about Israel

2005-07-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

When trying to figure out when you've had a real sighting of the rare "Moderate Muslim", pay close attention to their talk on Israel and terrorism. VDH's Private Papers has a great piece on "the smoking gun that reveals the jihadist sentiments of double-talking “moderates.”

Inayat Bunglawla, another “moderate” spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, has been all over CNN since the bombings in London. In a recent BBC4 interview, this is how he “condemned” homicide bombings: “Let me make clear then, once and for all, we condemn the killing of all innocent people wherever they are, human lives everywhere are of equal value, whether they are British, American, Iraqi, or Palestinian. Jewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives, all are worth equal, and it's been quite nauseating over the past week to see how Israel and its highly-placed supporters in the media have been trying to make political capital out of last week's atrocities against Londoners. It is shameful on them and shameful upon those who are trying to help Israel improving its PR image after the brutalities it commits against the Palestinian people.”

Here is a classic example of so-called “moderate” double-talk. Notice how Jews are left out of the list of “human lives” that have “equal value.” Notice how the statement “Jewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives” is not followed by the logical corollary, “Palestinian lives are not worth more than Jewish lives.” And finally, notice the usual hysterical smokescreen of alleged Israeli “brutalities” to shift the focus away from Muslim murder of innocents by concentrating on its supposed causes.

In fact, the obsession with the Palestinians is the smoking gun that reveals the jihadist sentiments of double-talking “moderates.” Consider how many British Muslims, supposedly opposed to homicide bombings, praised Hamas founder Sheikh Yassim, who engineered the murder of over 500 Israelis in furtherance of his organization's long-term goal to destroy Israel. After the Israeli Defense Forces killed him, a memorial service was held in London, an event attended by “moderates” like Muslim Council Secretary General Sir Iqbal Sacranie, who called Yassim a “renowned Islamic scholar,” an estimation shared by Inayat Bunglawla. Think about the implications: respected, Westernized “moderate” Muslims praise a terrorist murderer as an “Islamic scholar,” and we are supposed to believe that “fanatics” have “hijacked” and “distorted” Islam?

Orwell, the Left, Jihad, and the London Bombings

2005-07-26T23:16:00.001-07:00

A conversation with Orwell about the bombings of 7/7 in London.

An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is ‘just the same as’ or ‘just as bad as’ totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. (ibid, sect. 2)

The Myth of the Palestinian Eyewitness

2005-07-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

How can Palestinian eyewitnesses all be wrong? Maybe because the good people behind the Palestinian cause regularly lie to journalists, calling terrorists "innocent civilians" (sometimes they are "boys playing soccer), making up "massacre" claims, and blaming Israeli "settlers" for just about everything. Al Reuters then picks up the claim and sometimes even drops the perfunctory "Palestianian witnesses say." See Al Dura, Muhamed

Time Travel: Even More Time to Make The Donuts!

2005-07-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

Israeli scientists investigate a donut theory of time travel. No time travel blog entry can be finished without pointing to the case of John Titor who claimed to be a time traveler who decided to spill all his secrets on internet discussion forums.

Anti-String Theory Link of Day

2005-07-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

A lot of string theory haters out there.

Is Al Queda HQ'd in Iran Now?

2005-07-24T02:07:00.000-07:00

Some disturbing info on Al Queda top management "arrested" in Iran. As usual, the Islamofascist terror war against the US is supported by Arab governments which deny such support (Saudi Arabia, anyone?)

Many experts believe the IRGC operates beyond the control of elected politicians in Tehran and answers only to the hard core of the unelected clerical elite. As a top French law enforcement official told the "Los Angeles Times": "Iranians play a double game. It is a classic Iranian style of ambiguity, deception, manipulation. Everything they can do to trouble the Americans, without going too far, they do it. They have arrested important Al-Qaeda people, but they have permitted other important Al-Qaeda people to operate."

See also the razor-sharp Dan Darling and the good folks over at MSNBC. Iran has a history of direct state support for terrorism -- now its alliance with Al Queda is becoming more obvious.

The Media is The Enemy

2005-07-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since the bombings in London, so it's right about time for a "progressive" newspaper in England to start glorifying the evil perpetrators of the attack as good Brits, good Muslims, gone bad by...not the Jihadist death cult...not a mad Imam...but by GEORGE BUSH and TONY BLAIR and the EVIL ILLEGAL COUNTERPRODUCTIVE IRAQ WAR. This was just too sick for me to sink my teeth into but the Captain has the scoop.

Evidence of Leftist Media-Islamic Terror Alliance

2005-07-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

An incredible post over at LGF about a going-away video made for an Al-Reuters "journalist" in Israel with a very special guest appearance by -- you guessed it -- a Palestinian terrorist.

The Left Religion: Moral Equivalence, Utopian Pacifism, and Multiculturalism

2005-07-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Perplexed by the left's response to terror? The hand-wringing? The conspiracy theories? The anger towards their own governments? Their gut-reflex to appease?

As usual, we turn to Victor Hanson, who tells it like it is in a fantastic overview of our strange situation. He explains the holy trinity of the left as composed of moral equivalency, pacifism, and multiculturalism. Nothing must interfere with these beliefs. If something does -- like, say, an intolerant death-cult intent on murdering infidels -- well, than one must hold onto those beliefs even harder!

Our first hindrance is moral equivalence. For the hard Left there is no absolute right and wrong since amorality is defined arbitrarily and only by those in power.

Taking back Fallujah from beheaders and terrorists is no different from bombing the London subway since civilians may die in either case. The deliberate rather than accidental targeting of noncombatants makes little difference, especially since the underdog in Fallujah is not to be judged by the same standard as the overdogs in London and New York. A half-dozen roughed up prisoners in Guantanamo are the same as the Nazi death camps or the Gulag.

Our second shackle is utopian pacifism — ‘war never solved anything’ and ‘violence only begets violence.’ Thus it makes no sense to resort to violence, since reason and conflict resolution can convince even a bin Laden to come to the table. That most evil has ended tragically and most good has resumed through armed struggle — whether in Germany, Japan, and Italy or Panama, Belgrade, and Kabul — is irrelevant. Apparently on some past day, sophisticated Westerners, in their infinite wisdom and morality, transcended age-old human nature, and as a reward were given a pass from the smelly, dirty old world of the past six millennia.

The third restraint is multiculturalism, or the idea that all social practices are of equal merit. Who are we to generalize that the regimes and fundamentalist sects of the Middle East result in economic backwardness, intolerance of religious and ethnic minorities, gender apartheid, racism, homophobia, and patriarchy? Being different from the West is never being worse.

When arguing with an anti-war Leftie, remember their holy trinity -- equivalency, pacifism, and multiculturalism -- and be kind.

Anger at 10 Downing Street in Bombing's Wake

2005-07-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

What if we had to deal with the idiotarian left during WWII? Well, history would have looked something like thisdispatch.

String Theory Brings Out The Worst In Some People

2005-07-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

The best anti-string theory blog -- for anti-string theory partisans -- is at Not Even Wrong. I, for once, reserve judgment on these multi-dimensional wars until I see more evidence. Still, string theory is so beautiful. It would be a shame if it were wrong, eh?

Iraq Didn't Make Them Do It

2005-07-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

The smartest takedown of the "Iraq-made-them-do-it-it's-all-our-fault-meme" can be found over at Norm's.

Ledeen Strikes Again

2005-07-13T11:41:00.001-07:00

Fantastic post by Michael Ledeen on the Brits, the Jews, and terror.

Why Do They Bomb Us?

2005-07-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

A fine post from the good folks at American Thinker on leftists mistaking the fire for the fire brigade, leftism as secular religion, the basics of the jihad cultists...

NPR's Favorite Middle East Expert Juan Cole

2005-07-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

Juan Cole, a pretentious weeny who seems to have had his vital essence sucked out of him to be replaced by a weary Israel-hating Arabist, seems to have a little bit of a problem with his timeline. This knucklehead -- who was recently rewarded for his anti-Israel bias with the Presidency of the Grand Council of Israel and America Haters, otherwise known as MESA, is such an expert on 9/11 that he has just blamed Israel's incursion into Jenin for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Only catch is, Jenin happened months AFTER 9/11. No problem for Juan, though -- he seems to have edited out the Jenin reference and replaced it with insert Israeli self-defense action here. Martin Kramer has the scoop

Dutch Treats & Gay Chiefs

2005-07-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

The usual suspects leverage the London slaughter to attack Bush and Blair and proclaim Islam a religion of peace. Meanwhile, the Van Gogh slaughterer reveals that his religion (one guess) led him to kill the Dutch filmmaker. But wait, the gay police chief of London says there's NO connection!

The concerns don't stop there. Shortly after an Al Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the bombs, Scotland Yard's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick proclaimed that "as far as I'm concerned, Islamic and terrorist are two words that do not go together"

Maybe gay Anglo Christian Brian Paddick knows more about Islam than all those misguided young lads! Who knew?

Let's Not Anger These Gentlemen Any More, eh?

2005-07-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

The BBC -- a caricature of the type of leftist who "refuses to take his own side" -- has begun to edit out descriptions of the London bombing as the work of "terrorists", which apparently slipped by the editors in the chaos of that day. Wouldn't wanna piss of the buggers, would we? Or appear to be taking the side of, ahem, civilization?

Sighting of Anti-Terrorist Muslims Reported

2005-07-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

Some good news for a change -- Muslims take to the streets outside of British embassy to protest terrorism. We'll know this anti-terrorism is principaled and not disingeous when bus-bombing Israeli civilians is condemned too.

Andrew Sullivan's Pathological Narcissism

2005-07-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'd now like to attack Andrew Sullivan, just because.

Sully -- who has become a bit of a leftist, Abu-Ghraib obssessed crank since Bush's call for an amendment to ban gay marriage hurt his tender feelings -- now bloviates about his HIV-improved physique and sex life in a recent Advocate column. Excitable Andy somehow has gotten it into him that the world wants him to DIE and he is courageously standing up against hiv-phobes by having GREAT sex:

I’m sorry. At the tender age of 41—a year longer than I once thought I would live—I have never felt better. HIV transformed my life, made me a better and braver writer, prompted me to write the first big book pushing marriage rights, got me to take better care of my health, improved my sex life, and deepened my spirituality.

I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.

Yes, I take testosterone and human growth hormone, and I now weigh 190 pounds. I discovered a couple of abs in my midsection the other day. I’ll try to disguise them. Do they sell burkas online? I’ve even enjoyed sex more since I became positive—more depth, more intimacy, more appreciation of life itself. Sorry.

Yes Andrew, we know -- you're HOT! You have great sex! You are deeper than the rest of us! Don't worry about the effects that writing things like "HIV improved my sex life" in a gay mag may have on the gay negs, struggling to stay neg! It's all about you anyway! We want to know more about your sex life, your eloquence, your spirituality, and how HIV improved all of them! This HIV sounds like a great supplement! Like a super-multi-vitamin!

My psycho-babble theory about Andrew Sullivan is that his ideology is merely a reflection of his moods and psychological problems, since he seems to swing rapidly from position to position with a veneer of "thought" behind it. When he was young and gay -- which would make any normal guy rebellious, radical, and socialist -- Andrew loved Reagan and Thatcher. He was a "Good Gay" who longed for the approval of the Church elders and the right. He never went thru his rebellion stage. So when his beloved Bush (which he seemed to have an unrequited crush on) turned on him and endorsed the gay-marriage amendment, he turned against the war and the right. Now he prattles on about "Christianists" and Abu Ghraib.

It's called pathological narcissism -- an obssession about the self and an attempt to protect it from all hurt. Bush hurt your feelings? Turn against the war and join the feverish left. People saying hurtful things about HIV -- like, say, it's better to be neg than poz? Proclaim your superiority! Brag about your sex life!

What I like about Andrew Sullivan is what I like about Tom Cruise -- they can only hide their insanity in short stretches. Sooner or later, they reveal themselves and provide amusement for the rest of us.

update Dan from GayPatriot has posted a much more thoughtful piece on the question of Miss Sullivan, HIV, and the creepy "HIV improved my sex life" column.

The "Blood-Soaked Zionists are To Blame" Reflex

2005-07-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Every time the West absorbs a terrorist blow, the smart, clever, and progressive crowd places the blame exactly where it should be placed -- the Zionists. TigerHawk -- an incredibly astute strategician whose clear-headedness makes him a joy to read -- explains this game and overall war strategy at his must-read blog.

Our Muslim Friends

2005-07-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

Charles Moore of The Telegraph paints a disturbing picture of Muslim non-reaction. Where are the candlelight vigils for terrorism in the name of their religion? Where is, after all, the Muslim equivalent of "Not In Our Name"? Thank God it's just a tiny minority of extremists.

Appease Now!

2005-07-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Great roundup of venomous, disingenuous leftists either using Jihadist terror as an excuse to push for their own anti-Western, anti-Israel views. They can't just be ignorant cowards can they?

NY Times Blames Fighting Terrorists For Terrorism

2005-07-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

On this terrible day of Jihadist bomb blasts in London, one courageous Journalist dares to call out the real enemy -- the War in Iraq. The idiotarians never take a day off, huh? Alan Cowell quotes George Galloway as if he is not the lunatic Communist that he is but that he speaks the truth that the "mainstream politicians" don't. For shame.

Now, as long predicted and feared, his support of the war appears to have cost British lives at home. Thursday was a day of rallying behind the leader, but there were indications that the bombing could take a political toll.

No mainstream politician would say so out loud, but George Galloway, the maverick, onetime Labor legislator who had met with Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war, had no hesitation. "We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain," he said. "Tragically, Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings."

The French Resistance

2005-07-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool article on French participation in the War on Terror. France is really "illiberal" in a lot of its internal affairs -- the good guys use this little ideosyncracy for our advantage. Could it be that I'm too tough on the French? Naah.

Leftist Anti-Semitism Watch

2005-07-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

My stereotypical feeling on foreign Jews goes likes this ( I can make anti-semitic remarks cuz I'm Jewish, remember!)

Russian Jews are like American Jews, rowdy, ambitious, unapologetic.
French Jews are either subsumed by French anti-semitism or right-wing settler-types.
British Jews are the most screwed up -- vigilant to stomp out any sign of "Jewishness", implacably bound to some universalist notion of "Britishness", they are self-hating, punctilious, and phenomenally irritating.

Here's a pretty good look at the anti-semitism the BritJews are facing, from the Left of course.

The Left's Unholy Alliance with the Jihadists

2005-07-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

For all those who don't believe that a sizeable part of the Left roots for the Jihadists and is motivated by a venal anti-Americanism, please check out David Horowitz' takedown of Daniel Lazare from The Nation during The Michael Medved Show. Essential reading.

LA Times Watch

2005-07-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

The LA Times -- known for its cratering subscription numbers, cartoonishly leftist "news" pages, and insanely skewed election polls which inhabit an alternative world where Bush and Arnold are doomed to lose -- outdoes itself with a grotesque valentine to Palestinian terrorists.

The article -- written by Peter H. King -- is a heroic portrait of fine, upstanding, hard-working Palestinian immigrants whose only misdeed was to, well, celebrate the 18th anniversary of the murderous terror group Progressive Front for the Liberation of Palestine (is there a website terrorists go to to pick their names -- like the find your porn name web site -- with permutations of front, liberation, liberationist, revolutionary, group, organization,etc? Start one and make millions!). These salt-of-the-earth Palestinians also raised money for the group, but we are assured by the intrepid reporter that the funds were intended only to "provide medical care and schooling in Palestinian refugee camps."

The tale is the usual leftist narrative intended to weaken counter-terrorist operations in America -- evil, power-hungry, reckless FBI agents terrorize fine, family-centered immigrants who simply want to be left alone to, urr, fund terror organizations.

You must read the whole thing if you want to either laugh hysterically or be driving insane by the depths of which the fifth-column left will descend to. For those who don't have the time here's the best lil points:

King helpfully paints an innocent scene, with "ethnic food" and "folk dances", a terror-celebration with "unremarkable" PFLP posters and pamphlets and these fine immmigrants removing the American flag from the stage. Everything would have been just dandy, in fact, if it wasn't for some bumbling, vengeful FBI agent who King refers to as a "mythic, monster-like figure."

King seems to be working straight from the LA Times handbook. He refers to the PFLP as an organization with a "mixed record of social good works, military operations and terrorist strikes." (Hmm, definitely sounds mixed to me! How many social "good works" counteract blown up Israeli families on buses? Is there some sort of ratio? Let us know Peter! How many bandaids does Al Qaeda have to give out to get the LA Times/Good Housekeeping "Mixed Record" seal of approval!) Scare quotes are put on Bush's "war on terror". The caption for one of these poor terror-symps includes this little beaut:

Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, with his wife, Maxine: Arrested in front of son, 3, in a raid that reminded him of the West Bank.

King's timeline at the end simply doesn't have enough space for any of the terror attacks that the PFLP committed, so let me help him out here:

July 1968 -- PFLP hijacks El Al flight and holds 32 people for 39 days
December 1968 -- PFLP kills one El Al passenger in Athens
Feb 1968 -- PFLP Kills El Al co-pilot at Zurich Airport
Feb 1969 -- PFLP bombs Jerusalem supermarket, killing two Israelis

That's just the beginning of the illustrious history of the PFLP. I am busy researching all its "good works" but these are more difficult to discover than their massacres. Perhaps Peter H. King will enlighten us.

Oh, and just wait for the second part of the article! Yes, there's definitely enough American injustice to Palestinian terror-funders here to merit two LA Times articles!

quantum gremlins

2005-07-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Quantum gremlins seem to have struck, erasing my entire blogopedia of entries since November. I am researching madly to bring back some of the entries.

Americans & Jews vs. Pacifists & Europe

2004-11-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

A basic faultline of post WW1 world seems to be with us now -- European pacifism, defeatism, and appeasement against "freedom fighter nations" such as America and Israel. Read this interview with a reightous gentile and this look back at Reagan and the Europeans.

Eurabia fetes Arafat

2004-11-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

A great blog captures Eurabia adorning its website with a smiling picture of that dearly departed uncle, Yasser. Disgusting.

Islamism is the New Nazism!

2004-11-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

A brilliant read over at victorhanson.com on the parallels between the Nazis and the Jihadis. It's not enough that Victor Hanson is a genius, he also has to get people around him who are too? It seems almost unfair.

Why Did Arafat Turn Down Camp David?

2004-11-16T01:21:00.000-08:00

The normal way of a people is to be blessed by their leaders and cursed by their enemies. The Jews, for example, were blessed with Ben Gurion, a remarkable activist, leader, politico, war-general, and intellectual. We have been cursed, however, with a long litany of bloodthirsty enemies -- the 20th century alone gave us Russian pogroms, German extermination camps, and Palestinian suicide bombers.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, have been blessed by their enemies and cursed by their leaders. What better enemy to have than the Jews? With the Jews as their enemy, the Palestinians have the entire world behind them! With the Jews as their enemy, the Palestinians can count on an endless stream of leftie support, European money, United Nations resolutions, World Court rulings, and bilious BBC "documentaries. Meanwhile, it seems to me, only the Jews -- with their limited population and moral strivings -- would have left the Palestinians in one piece after 100 years of brutal terrorism. Any other enemy would have vanquished the Palestinians after experiencing decades of their brutal onslaught. But not the Jews.

And so the Palestinians have been blessed by their enemy. So while the Kurds, Chechnyans, American Indians, Tibetans -- and dozens of other ethnic groups -- have been ignored by the world, it is only the Palestinians who deserve a homeland! Why? Because of the Jews, of course! They, are, after all, only a petulant, grasping people in control of a "shitty little country".

But, alas, with such a fortunate enemy, the Palestinians find themselves with such a filthy, incompetent leader. Yasser Arafat, an unreconstructed anarcho-terrorist who has left his people stateless, impoverished, il-educated, and in the grip of a suicidal death cult that sacrifices its children to kill Jews on buses, in pizza parlors, and during Passover services.

Much of the (friendly) commentary around Arafat's passing has made this point: Arafat tried to become a statesman, but at the last minute could not help but cling to his revolutonary khaki garb. He wanted to be Che Guevera, not Nelson Mandela. Arafat is guilty in this view of, perhaps, a failure of imagination, a fear of change.

Much of the more unfriendly commentary around Arafat's death has painted him as forever and always a terrorist bent on destroying the state of Israel. In this view, Arafat meant Oslo only as a trojan horse to bring his war closer to Israel. He never gave up the "strategy of phases" which would use "liberated Palestinian land" as a staging ground to attack the Zionist enemy and destroy the Jewish state.

I must admit I am partial to this interpretation. Arafat's motives are black. His hands are bloody. His goal was policide -- the murder of a state.

Yet, if one subscribes to this belief, one must ask this question: Why did Arafat not pocket the concessions at Camp David and Taba? After all, Barak offered Arafat almost all of the West Bank and Gaza. Stuck like two daggers into Israel, from here the Palestinians could have waged a war of attrition, picked border fights, imported millions of tons of weapons, shot down airplanes over Israel's lone international airport, infiltrated Israel with sleeper cells ready to rise up and wreak havoc, etc. This is from Stephen Plaut's lively and more-right-than-wrong attack on the elusive nature of "Palestinianism" --

Creation of a Palestinian state will not result in any relaxation of tensions, regardless of its borders. Its creation will result in the greatest terrorist bloodbath in the history of the conflict, with countless rockets and missiles raining down upon Israeli civilians from the “State of Palestine” – with thousands of Jews murdered by infiltrating terrorists, who are cheered on by the European intelligentsia; where Palestinian use of Weapons of Mass Destruction is a real possibility; where “Palestine” will serve as the launching base for Arab armies from neighboring countries entering “Palestine” much like German troops entering the Rheinland in 1936.

Sounds like a great step for Arafat! Why not take this mini-state and continue the war? Why did Arafat do Israel perhaps the biggest favor of all by rejecting Barak's offer? Why did Arafat turn down Camp David?

I can only think of these possibilities.

1. Arafat could not sign a peace accord and declare an end to the conflict because he was a man of his word and he wanted to continue the conflict until victory. But, of course, Arafat was a notorious liar who broke every agreement he ever "agreed to". So it can't be this.

2. Arafat did want to destroy Israel using the "strategy of phases" -- but he was afraid of the reaction of his countrymen, who would not understand this "strategy of phases" and would believe that he had "sold them out." Yet, why couldn't Arafat have sent the word out that this was simply a step along the way to the destruction of Israel? A wink, a nod, a speech in Arabic declaring that the treaty was similar to the Hudaibiya Treaty signed by Mohammed in the 7th century and later broken when the Muslims had amassed enough power to vanquish their enemy? It worked for him during Oslo, why would it not work after Camp David?

3. Arafat turned down Camp David as a bargaining tool. He wanted a two-state solution but Barak didn't go far enough! Just a little bit more land here, a few more refugees there, and voila! But, then, why start an intifada that would destroy the Israeli left and any chance of getting the state he allegedly wanted?

4. Arafat did want to destroy Israel using the "strategy of phases" -- but Arafat counted on International support for his grievances. By signing a document ending the conflict, Arafat would forever give up support in Europe for his future steps against Israel. However, it is unlikely that Europe would have balked at supporting continued Palestinian irredentism. Appeasement, after all, seems to be the first reflex up and down the western part of the continent.

So, none of these answers seem compelling enough for me. Perhaps we end where we began -- that the Palestinians were simply cursed with a bad leader. A leader who accomplished the minor feat of using incompetent tactics to reach an unachievable goal. Perhaps, in the end, Arafat was simply a coward who feared an assasin's bullet. Or a narcissist who simply wanted to go out in a blaze of glory and blown up Jewish children. Whatever the case, Arafat is dead, and the world is a better place.

The United Nations, Fallujah, and Taking Sides

2004-11-08T18:17:00.000-08:00

Today, at the start of the American attack on the terrorists' fever-swamp in Fallujah, it pays to look around the world and see who is on either side.

(It also pays to attempt to figure out how attacking thousands of Islamist terrorists who car-bomb civilians, saw off the heads of Iraqis, Easterners and Westerners, blow up churches, and swear allegiance to Al Queda can be a distraction from The War on Terror, but that I will leave for my far more sophisticated friends on the left.)

On one side we have the United States, England, and the nascent government of Iraq. On the other side we have the usual suspects -- Zarqawi's terrorists, Baathist dead-enders, bilious Sunni clerics, and the United Nations.

Yes, Kofi Annan -- the silver-tongued, impeccably dressed arbiter of international morality -- is opposed to our attack on Fallujah. He warns that

"The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."

There is a certain point when a man turns into a parody of himself, and then there's another point where the parody turns into tragedy. Kofi is somewhere along this line. The United Nations, however, can no longer be seen as merely a parody of itself but has turned into something far grimmer, a partner in collusion with terrorist Islamist groups and brutal arab regimes.

Here, in the above Kofi quote, is all that is wrong with the United Nations and its eloquent hypocrisy. After hundreds of Iraqi civilians, police officers, foreign hostages, and coalition troops have been butchered by a group whose leader has sworn allegiance to Osama Bin Ladin -- and has even attacked the United Nations OWN building and workers in Baghdad -- the General Secretary of the United Nations objects not just to military force against the murderers but any threat of military force.

To this, one can only respond, how does Kofi suggest we battle the terrorists? With spitballs?

Of course, one cannot take Kofi Annan's stand against force or the threat of force seriously. In the middle of the battle of Iraq, one can only ignore his words and declare them irrelevant.

The only problem is, most of the world and much of America still believes in the legitimacy of the United Nations of the arbiter of international relations and morality. So we must do more than simply declare the United Nations irrelevant. We must see it for what it is -- at best, an Organization of Stalin's Useful Idiots. At worst, a mouthpiece for the global jihad.

When one adds Kofi's fine words on Falluja to the Oil for Food scandal, Kofi's declaration of the Iraq War as "illegal", the UN's abject failure to take seriously the genocide in Darfur, and its shameful history of anti-Israelism, one can put the United Nations in the correct light. For decades, the United Nations has become a tool in the hands of a sweaty anti-American mob. It has no moral authority. Indeed, the only moral authority involving the United Nations is this rule of thumb -- if the United Nations is for something, it is probably a moral necessity to oppose it.

The United Nations is not a "democracy of nations" -- it is a collection of dictatorships, kleptocracies, and regional powers (China, France, Russia) whose interests are often directly opposed to America's. One cannot count up the votes of dictators and declare that a majority of votes makes something moral or legal. One cannot respect a system based on the inviolability of the sovereign state when those states are butchering their own people or have no functional authority in their own land. One cannot pay respect to an organization which says nothing when Syria kills 20,000 of its own people when Assad flattened Hama in 1982 but finds new synonyms for "condemn" when Israel has the temerity to defend itself. One cannot respect an organization which puts Libya in charge of its human rights committee. Plainly, one cannot respect the United Nations.

But what about international law? Isn't the United Nations the only thing that seperates the global system from global anarchy?

No. The United Nations has no enforcement mechanism, and thus cannot threaten force to change the behavior of states. It is unable to take on the central issue of today, non-state actors. It cannot even pay lip service to the cause of nations that have been attacked. It has authorized defense of a sovereign nation only twice in its history -- in Korea due to a Soviet boycott and in the First Persian Gulf War due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It cannot even agree on a definition of terrorism due to the little problem that most of the world does not believe that killing Jews is terrorism.

The UN can't define terrorism, can't denounce terrorism, and now pipes up in support of protecting a terrorist city-state butchering its own countrymen.

Perhaps it is not clear enough in this fog of war. But when the battle clears, we shall see the United Nations for what it has become. Because the UN has taken sides, and it's not us they're with.

UPDATE: A fine and fresh look at how the UN has turned its back on its history and forfeited its future at Commentary

The Liberals are the New Gays!

2004-11-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Soon, perhaps, loveable, harmless, purposely apolitical liberals will team up with tolerant conservatives in a smash sitcom that "breaks down barriers", as in Will & Grace. Newly domesticated, these liberals will do funny, sitcomesque things like -- pack up their own fast food orders in hemp, recyclable, organic boxes they bring from home! Attempt to identify strangers using no race-based, sex-based, looks-based, or age-based language! Institute a "Bring a Muslim to Work" day!
It will be funny, we'll all laugh, there will be product placement, and trend stories will be written that America Loves Liberals!

For now, tho, they are hated, despised, and feared. In return, they hate all of America. In the aftermath of the drubbing they received Tuesday, they have turned on the stupid masses. Bush is not just a moronic criminal mastermind used by evil (Jewish) neocons, he's now a vampire. My leftie friends (meaning all my friends) are obssessed with the "Jesusfreaks & Hillbillies" that gave us four more years.

But behind all of this is a question: Where to go now? That is, do the Democrats turn left or center?

Well, let me continue with my liberals are the new gays meme. Back in the early 90s, when I was a long-haired radical gay activist going to "Queer Nation" meetings in college and then retreating to San Francisco to join ACT UP, we got to create lots of Reagan-hating agit-prop. We got to march in anger and feel the thrill of being a RADICAL. But not all gays were "radicals". Some were "assimilationists". Today, we forget this dichotomy, because the entire gay world has been taken up by the tender hug of Ikea, Details, and other market-capitalist forces. The gays have moved to the suburbs and have become just normal folks that want to raise kids who are a little bit more stylish than everybody else.

But back then, it was an Issue. The assimilationists wanted to wear sweaters, stay out of trouble, and move to suburbia. The radicals wanted to SMASH HETEROSEXISM, link up with people of colors, the working class, and oppressed nations. The radicals wanted revolution. The assimilationists simply wanted equal rights. The liberation or assimilation question is now quaint for the gays. But for the liberals, it lives. Is America basically an evil country that needs to be redeemed, that needs to be taken apart and put back together? Are the evil forces of market capitalism (Halliburton!), crony capitalism (Halliburton!), racism (Free Mumia!), military colonialism (No Blood for Oil!), etc, so entrenched in Amerikka that we need some sort of revolution? A domestic intifada, perhaps?

Or should the liberals make their peace with an essentially good America and work on polishing this fine apple of a nation, perhaps by expanding health care? Or improving social security?

The gays have won by moving to the suburbs and marrying. Let us not forget that in the internal struggles of leftist gay activism in the early 90s, marriage rights were taken up by the assimilationist wing. Andrew Sullivan (Who I called an "Auntie Tom" in those days) was the most prominent supporter. I believed the struggle for gay marriage was right on its merits (discrimination sucks, dude) but wrong in its direction (Who wants to be a part of America? Let's live in polymorphously perverse communes!). But a few lawyers and a few Ernie & Berts got together and now it's making its way thru the system (Massachusetts and Vermont take it up! Backlash occurs! The American political system will straighten it out in all its wisdom, I'm confident).

And now, more and more gays are just normal folks. Even Andrew Sullivan is making his lovely journey from Reaganite to Bushite to Kerryite, and more power to him.

So too the libs and the left must make their choice. What is it to be? To retreat to a cocooned commune of Amerika hatred? Or to surrender to the general goodness of America and assimilate? America will move forward. The question is whether the left will too.

Blair: Israel is the Problem!

2004-11-04T01:23:00.000-08:00

So, Bush won. My friends are either enraged, shocked, or depressed. I feel terrified that Kerry -- an internationalist/defeatist if there ever was one -- got so close. But that's for another time. More interesting right now is the reaction on the other side of the pond -- Blair, our "staunchest ally" in the war on terror. Bush wins, and what does Tony Blair want to turn to now? Maybe the tide of Islamist violence that in one day shot, stabbed, and cut the throat of a liberal film documentarian in the streets of Amsterdam? And attempted to blow up a stadium in Madrid (they didn't get the memo about the appeasement, I guess!)? And just beheaded a Thai village leader who happened to be a Buddhist infidel? Naaaaaaaaaah. Not really important right now. For Blair, what is important is -- you guessed it -- Israel! That's the problem. Here's the Jerusalem Post's take on Blair's immediate demands from a victorious Bush:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair devoted much of a brief speech congratulating President George W. Bush on his reelection Wednesday night to a call for a new coordinated effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Describing the need for such a solution as the "single most pressing political challenge in our world today,"Blair urged the president to seek peace "between Israel and Palestine" with the "same energy" that he has pursued his agenda in Iraq. Blair placed this quest in the context of "resolving the conditions and causes on which the terrorists prey."

Blair's dramatic emphasis on the issue, and his pledge to work with Bush to advance it, underlined the British prime minister's desire to be seen as seeking a dramatic Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough in order to pacify the vast contingent of critics, inside and outside his own Labor party, of his firm alliance with Bush over the Iraq war.

What to say? One, that Blair is said to be Israel's "best friend in Europe" shows how outlandish the pro-appeasement views on the continent must be. Two, what kind of global strategist is Blair who takes advantage of a great tactical victory in the ongoing terror war -- the Bush victory -- by signalling that perhaps it is now time to turn on the pressue on the vulnerable beachhead of democracy in the Middle East, Israel? Third, that by coming out with his "demands" so quickly, Blair
signals that a fundamental misreading of the enemy has taken hold even in the power centers of those nations which actually have proven they have a will to fight. And that's disturbing.

This is what one has to ignore if one claims that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the "root cause" of Islamist terror:

1. Al Qaida's OWN declared ideology of Total War on the West, of pushing America out of the MidEast, forming an Islamic Caliphate on the ashes of today's middle-eastern and Islamic nations, of having a "right to kill" millions of Americans, is actually covering up their real desire, which is a two-state solution in Israel and the territories.

2. That Indonesian jihadis who attack Bali nightclubs and roast hundreds of people alive, that Chechnyan jihadis that take over a school and shoot babies in the back, that Nigerian muslims that burn Christian villages, that Moroccan jihadis who attempt to blow up trains and stadiums and railroad tracks, that Pakistani jihadis that car-bomb Shiite churches, and a host of other Islamic terror throughout the world is ACTUALLY a cry for a two-state solution in Israel and its territories.

3. That a Wahabi network of charities, mosques, and schools built up throughout the entire globe which preaches a feral anti-Westernism, a total rejection of the non-Muslim, calls Christians and Jews sons of pigs and dogs, and inveighs against the infidel West and all their secular immoralities will suddenly change course with a two-state solution in Israel and the territories.

4. That by appeasing Palestinian terrorist gangs using a death-cult ideology and suicide-bombers to wreak havoc on civilian populations, that death-cult ideology will dwindle and disappear -- instead of, say, draw strength from its great success.

Ahh, but that is what the post-modern European elitists believe, who have no patience for the Christian "faith" of our president, but who have endless faith in the essential goodness of the terrorists who, after all, are really only fighting for the terribly oppressed people of Palestine, even if they don't actually come out and say it.

Why would Blair, at the beginning of a war which is seemingly going badly for the enemy -- with elections in Afghanistan, Bin Laden's strangely conciliatory video released last week, and the failure of any arab nations to fall to Al Queda-inspired coups -- announce that what we really need to do now is pay the enemy tribute? It's as if after the battle of Midway, Churchill demanded that Roosevelt remove the economic blockade on Japan to give the moderates more breathing space. Or, more precisely, it mimics the European reaction to Hitler's open demands in 1938 to be given the "Sudetenland" in Czechoslovakia. here is William Shirer on this strange European habit of appeasement:

Thus the plight of the German minority in Czechoslovakia was merely a pretext ... for cooking up a stew in a land he coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose ... to destroy the Czechoslovak state and grab its territories .... The leaders of France and Great Britain did not grasp this. All through the spring and summer, indeed almost to the end, Prime Minister Chamberlain and Premier Daladier apparently sincerely believed, along with most of the rest of the world, that all Hitler wanted was justice for his kinsfolk in Czechoslovakia.3

The parallel is not perfect, of course. In 1938, Hitler assured the French and British that all he wanted was the Sudetenland. Al Qaida and the jihadis have made no such assurance this time around.

But no matter. The Europeans demand appeasement even when they get no "assurances". Their reflex is to feed the beast lest it become hungry. We shall see if the Jews will once again pay the ultimate price for the sophisticated sensibilities of the Europeans.

Dems gamed Exit Polls?

2004-11-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

Best explanation of the Exit Poll Scandal of 2004? The patrician Michael Barone:

If somebody had slipped some Democratic operative the list of exit poll sites—40 to 50 sites in each critical state—he or she could have slipped several hundred operatives into the polling places to take the exit poll ballots and vote for Kerry. The results would have shown Kerry much farther ahead than he actually was and, broadcast through drugdereport.com and other sources, could have heartened Kerry supporters during the afternoon and disheartened Bush supporters. When I was active in Democratic politics, in 1964-80, it would have occurred to us to do no such thing. But Democrats these days are so filled with a sense of grievance and with a feeling of justification for employing any dirty tactics to win, that this is not unthinkable. If people can game the exit polls, there's not much point to having exit polls any more.

Tale of a 9/12 Democrat!

2004-11-01T22:45:00.000-08:00

That's not a typo! Let me explain. I am genetically programmed to hate Republicans. No, I'm not black -- I'm Jewish! For some reason, we all vote Democratic. It's the social-justice thing, they tell me. Or the collective unconscious memory of restrictive country clubs! Besides my Dad, who was ostracized from the family, I'd never even heard of a Jewish Republican.

Here are my bona-fides -- when I was a little cherub who couldn't even drive I volunteered for Walter Mondale. I was not just a born Democrat, I had an inbred sympathy for obvious losers! I passed out Mondale-Ferraro pamphlets and had absolutely no embarassment at all! I knew in my heart that Reagan was an evil heartless man who was waging an assault on the poor. He was a trigger-happy cowboy! He created the homeless problem!

Things got more left from there. I discovered I was gay! That made me hate Reagan and Bush and Republicans even more. I joined ACT-UP in college and protested the system, raining special bile down on Reagan and Bush and all of them. I even hated Andrew Sullivan! (more on that later). I moved to a lefty city-state after college and joined a Democratic political consulting firm for a few years. So I've walked the walk and talked the talk! I fought for my party, I cried when Clinton was elected, I rallied around him when the evil Repubs tried to impeach him, and ranted about Bush stealing the election in 2000.

So the morning of 9/11, I woke up in my apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan a lefty Democrat. I was, no kidding, even living with a delightful French Arab girl named Jamilla. I was a UN-loving, multi-culti Bush hater even on 9/11 -- note this segment of my journal of that terrible day:

People are getting together at my friend Chad’s house. It’s his Birthday. He cancelled his party. But still, he wants to be together with the people he loves. I bike over there. The city is abandoned. Nobody is on the street. Most of the stores are shut down. I’ve never seen it like this. The cops have closed off my part of Manhattan. Is this how the world ends? I get to Chad’s.

It seems normal there. But everyone is watching the projection TV. Happy Birthday Chad! We all knew your birthday was a day that was going to live in infamy, hahaha. Bush is on the TV. I can’t watch him! He’s not my President! He looks overwhelmed. He’s trying to reassure us! Ha! Bush is trying to reassure us!

So I never liked Bush! (OK, OK, now I realize this is just a defensive pre-emptive strike to deter attacks on me as a Republican bloodthirsty warmonger. I still feel guilty! Somewhere not so deep inside it is forbiddent to support Repubs. So sue me!)

It really was the post-9/11 reaction by the Left which I found so disturbing, so pathologically delusional in their refusal to deal with the existance of evil, so desperate to link all bad acts in the world to America, that pushed me away from the left. Some examples (grabbed for convenience' sake from andrewsullivan.com) in that time was SF supervisor Amos Brown blaming 9/11 on American failure to be nice at the Global Warming summit .

Also note the initial reaction of Michael Moore -- THE ugly, gluttonous id of the American left (in this case, the id stands for idiot) --

"Many Families have been devastated tonight. This is just not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC and the planes' destination of California - these where places that voted AGAINST Bush!"

Americans did deserve to die -- just not all the ones that Bin Laden killed!

Or Susan Sontag, a leftist intellectual hero in my milieu--

Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?

That first week, trying to find my poise, trying to make sense of the world after the attacks, I saw very clearly that some on the Left were, well, pretty happy about the whole thing. Not overjoyed, but they found the attack useful. America was the problem, you see, and this might just wake us up! They were using the mass murder of 9/11 to score points for "their team" -- to bash these "specific American alliances and actions" that they supposed were causing all this unpleasantness. It was just too ugly to bear, the intellectual equivalent of Palestianians dancing in the street after the towers fell.

So I moved away. Slowly. The absolute best explanation of the revulsion I felt at my former home in the left was penned (keystroked?) by Ron Rosenbaum in the NY Observer. A classic.

So, today, I am neither left nor right. I count myself as a single-issue voter. If one believes that the War on Islamic Fascism is the single most important issue of our day, as I do, and that this War cannot be solely diplomatic but will include military threats, actions, incursions, or outright invasions in the future, then I don't understand how anyone can vote for John Kerry. Guys, get real. He voted AGAINST the first Persian Gulf War when Saddam had invaded a sovereign country, sat on a quarter of the world's oil, threatened Saudi Arabia, and even the rotting UN roused itself to demand he withdraw or face consequences. He is not the man to lead in wartime.

Best description of my views of the global situation, the Islamist enemy, historical background, where Iraq fits in can be found here (warning! PDF file!)

We are in the beginning of World War IV. Against an enemy that must be killed, broken, and rebuilt. Tonight, all free peoples should pray that Republican George Bush be re-elected. And my family and friends should pray for my eternal soul.