It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's........the Eiffel Tower

Even the Eiffel Tower is out to save the planet.

On Thursday evening, as scientists and officials put finishing touches on a long-awaited report about global warming, the Paris landmark will switch off its 20,000 flashing light bulbs that run up and down the tower and illuminate the French capital's skyline.

The Eiffel Tower's lights account for about 9 percent of the monument's total energy consumption of 7,000 megawatt-hours per year.

Quiz time. Is this trite, pathetic, foolish or all three.
Maybe next the Eiffel Tower will develop a cure for AIDS.

Disassociated Press

Here we have an AP report in the Times written by a Dionne Walker on the current controversy in the Virginia General Assembly.The controversy is over a resolution that will ''acknowledge with contrition'' the state's role in slavery.
As background they briefly mention the 1999 flood wall mural dispute...

In 1999, blacks complained that murals newly put up along the Richmond floodwall depicted Lee and other whites but no black leaders...Ultimately, murals of black leaders were added to the floodwall

No far be it from me to call the Times an outright prevaricator, I suppose they can't check everything the Associated Press feeds them, but their version of events has little connection to what actually happened.

In 1999 to decorate the city's new flood wall the city of Richmond commissioned 29 fabric murals of famous persons from the city's history. These murals included men and women, Blacks, Whites and Native Americans. It even included a likeness of Gabriel Prosser who in 1800 planned a slave revolt.......and massacre of the city's white population.
However when Said El-Amin, a city council member, saw a picture on the news of the mural of Robert E. Lee being put up he rushed to head of the local Riverfront Development Corporation and demanded that "Either it comes down or we jam." And so the mural came down.
It had nothing to do with lack of diversity in the murals but with the rather outspoken El-Amin's own dislike of Lee. The mural was later put back up after the incident became widely known, only to be just as quickly destroyed by an arsonist.

But millions of people will never know this. People reading papers as different as the New York Times, the Guardian and the International Herald Tribune will go on believing a pack of lies that put Virginians in the worst possible light.

Mosque See TV pt. 4

Why there might not always be an England...IX

"New curriculum will 'make every lesson politically correct'"

So the Daily Mail tells us on the 25th of January. How are they going to go about doing this?

In music and art, they could have to learn Indian and Chinese songs and instruments, and West African drumming
In maths and science, key Muslim contributions such algebra and the number zero will be emphasised to counter Islamophobia.

Of course according to this the "The oldest known text to use zero is the Jain text from India entitled the Lokavibhaaga, dated 458 AD", and "The rules governing the use of zero appeared for the first time in Brahmagupta's book Brahmasputha Siddhanta, written in 628."
Mohammad was still lopping off Jews' heads in 628 and had less time for higher mathematics then he probably would have wanted.
Plus will telling young people that the Muslims are responsible for Algebra reduce Islamophobia (whatever it is)?
But why should we let reality interfere with education.
A more prescient question would be 'why are they doing this?'

Under the recommendations - put forward in a report by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo -teachers will be expected to make 'explicit references to cultural diversity' in as many subjects as possible.
Sir Keith, whose report was commissioned following last July's suicide bomb attacks in London, warned that pupils could become 'disaffected' and 'alienated' if they felt unable to discuss cultural issues in subject areas.

Aaahh I see.
They will no longer have the desire to massacre us by the thousands if we sit around on the floor with them playing West African drums and discussing the merits of a decimal based number system.
Interestingly enough Sir Keith, former headmaster of the Deptford Green School, also was responsible for this report.

In All Fairness...

Lest anyone think I've think been picking on the English too much lately, or that I reserve my animus strictly for Muslims and Democrats I will be starting a series on some of our 2008 Republican hopefuls (at least they hope they're hopefuls).
A series that concentrates on a particular moral blind spot that some of them seem to have.

Mosque See TV pt. 3

John Kerry's Secret Plan?

The Clues

1) John Kerry announces he will not run for the White House in 2008.

2)Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Khamenei of Iran according to credible sources is probably dead.

3)John Kerry criticizes the US and cozies up to Iranian leaders at the Davos Summit this week.


Could Kerry be planning a run for Khamenei's post?

I bet he wishes his middle was Hussein.

The Sundance Wall of Shame

I thought people might be interested in catching a glimpse of who's sponsoring Hate America Fest 2007 also known as the Sundance Film Festival

This year's Festival Sponsors include:
Presenting Sponsors—
Entertainment Weekly,
Volkswagen of America, Inc.,
HP,
Adobe
Systems Incorporated,
and AOL;
Leadership Sponsors—
American Express,
Delta Air Lines,
and
DIRECTV;
Sustaining Sponsors—
ABSOLUT®,
Aquafina,
Blockbuster Inc.,
CESAR® Canine Cuisine,
KRUPS,
L’Oreal Paris,
The New York Times,
Ray-Ban,
Sony Electronics, Inc.,
Stella Artois®,
Turning Leaf Vineyards
and the Utah Film Commission.

No Senator, I've Never Tried Windsurfing...

No Act Too Vile

Did the Democratic Party leadership order the Capitol Police to stand down so that the United States Capitol could be vandalized by that anti-war protesters(ie their base)

from the Hill...

"Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of the west front steps of the United States Capitol building after police were ordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources told The Hill.

...Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps and began to spray paint "anarchist symbols" and phrase such as "Our capitol building" and "you can’t stop us" around the area, the source said."

"...can't stop us" indeed.

The image of the Democratic "yoof" at the top of this column comes from Lone Star Times.

BIAS ALERT

And if you take the vowels out of bias what do you get?

An article in the Guardian on a report from the Islamic Human Rights Commission complaining about the "crude and exaggerated' stereotypes" of Muslims in motion pictures and how they have "helped demonise Muslims as violent, dangerous and threatening."
We can tell what a sense of humor the report has by this little nugget...

"You don't get a good Muslim guy in a movie." Any suggestion that films such as Aladdin were never intended to be realistic portrayals was "analogous to saying similar things to the Jewish community in the early 1930s", she said.

Here's a list of some of the movies singled out for their negative portrayals:
Aladdin
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Siege
East is East
Executive Decision
House of Sand and Fog

Now having seen all of these (except East is East) let me give two cent's on the islamophobia of the five other offenders.

1) Aladdin: Folks it's a cartoon. A cartoon loosely base on the Arabian Nights and set during the Abbassid Caliphate.

2)Raiders of the Lost Ark: Actually I think the Germans and the French (remember Belloc?) have more to complain about with this one than the Muslims, but lets look into it. Well it's a 26 year old, over-the-top action movie made in the style of Saturday afternoon serials and set in Egypt of the 1930's. Now maybe Cairo of the 30's was a hotbed of Western sophistication. I doubt it. I'm still wondering how the Nazi's set up that secret base without the British finding out.

3)The Siege: An interesting choice of a movie to complain about since the main theme of the film is the tremendous over-reaction of the US government to a series of terrorist attacks in New York City. A film where the American General in the end gets arrested for his treatment of suspects. A film where the terrorists are originally trained by and then abandoned by the US government thus setting the stage for their revenge.
The authors of the report say "The fact that films such as The Siege pre-dated the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers challenged any argument that negative portrayals of Muslims as potential suicide bombers are a 'natural' result of atrocities such as the Madrid and London bombings..."

Uh...yeah... 'cause nobody thought of Muslims as suicide bombers before 2001.

4)Executive Decision: People if you're basing your viewpoints on ideas and images culled from Kurt Russell/Steven Seagal action thrillers then you have big problems.

5)House of Sand and Fog: I thought this was a strange choice since the Iranian family was portrayed pretty well, better than most of the Americans in the movie. Their reason for not liking it?

...the film constructs a "negative description of the revolution, without enabling any detailed or balanced analysis of the event"

The revolution their talking about is the '79 Iranian Revolution.
So basically the film makers should have talked more about the benefits of the Ayatollahs coming to power.

All in all some people have to much time on their hands.

Now if you want to talk about anti-American movies..

Mosque See TV pt. 2

Cool Fridays

That which is rarely seen and talked about by sane mortals...

the dark secret world of...

Lovecraft Legos


What man has remained sane after seeing Cthulego......or.....Lego-Sothoth

Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,...

Happy Burn's Night!

And what is the picture of ?

Why the birks of Aberfeldy of course.

The News & Undercover Mosque

Haven't heard of the Undercover Mosque controversy?

If you do a Google News search for "undercover mosque" you get 95 hits (as of January 25).

If you do a Google News search for "big brother" racism you get 3,803 hits.

So at least our media mavens have their priorities right

I'm apparently not the only one to notice this disconnect from the real world...

Gates of Vienna: The Week Britain Died

Mosque See TV

This aired on UK Channel Four last week. An undercover investigation into some of the moderate mosques of Great Britain.

You'll be stunned.

Or maybe not.
This is part 1, I'll try to show some more over the next few days

Dishing on Dinesh

RelapsedCatholic has a point about the current Dinesh D'Souza feeding frenzy. His latest book seems not only to have set off the "South Park Conservaitve" crowd (you know the "conservatives" who mock Christ but are acceptable because they occasionally go after Mohamed) but also has caused anti-Islamisists like Robert Spenser to go all red-eyed, foam-flecked lips mad.

Everybody's angry at Dinesh D'Souza
which automatically makes me think he must be on to something. Even so-called "conservatives" get oh-so-touchy when one of their own dares to point out that contemporary pop culture is not only decadent, but dangerously so. (To those who believe we can fight off Islamic terrorists by shoving even more "Girls Gone Wild" tapes in their faces, two words: Weimar. Republic.)

Redford Owes Us All An Apology

Maybe the Dutch aren't beating us in the race to the bottom.
When the Sundance Festival isn't screening anti-Bush screeds and kiddie porn they're viewing "smart as it eloquent" documentaries on bestiality. Yes a film on bestiality called... wait for it... Zoo.
And in case you are thinking that this must be a condemnatory piece let's hear the views of one reviewer...

Not graphic in the least, this strange and strangely beautiful film combines audio interviews (two of the three men involved did not want to appear on camera) with elegiac visual re-creations intended to conjure up the mood and spirit of situations. The director himself puts it best: "I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it."

Elegiac: expressing sorrow or lamentation

Newsweek Mourns for the Fascists

From Fareed Zakaria's little piece in Newsweek detailing how George Bush has ruined Iraq.

...Iraq has seen its politics and institutions fall apart since the American invasion. Its state was dismantled, its economy disrupted, its social order overturned and its civic institutions and community corroded by sectarianism.

Let's see if I understand this fully, Mr. Zakaria is decrying the demise of the social order, politics, state, and institutions of the blood soaked Baathist state. Zakaria and Newsweek would do well to look to their own Limits of Democracy.

34 years

Anniversary

Super Mosque

And this is what the people will see from the Olympic Stadium in 2012

Two Deaths...

One that should be mourned, and one that should be greeted with a sigh of relief.
In Turkey Turkish-Armenian author Hrant Dink was murdered outside his office presumably by a nationalist. Dink had been convicted two years ago of "insulting Turkish identity." The reason for his October 2005 conviction? The judge said the statements in the dual language paper Dink edited had implied that Turkish blood was dirty.

The murder is likely to increase political tensions in Turkey, where politicians have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections later this year, correspondents say.

While thousands of miles away in a refugee camp in Africa comes a death long overdue. Alice Lakwena founder and spiritual leader of Ugandas's Holy Spirit Movement from which sprang the foul Lord's Resistance Army led by her cousin Joseph Kony. The LRA has spread fear and horror throughout northern Uganda for twenty years and now is holding talks with the government to end their conflict. Hopefully this timely death will only speed the process along.

Sometimes the Obvious...

After great talk that the Muslims insurgents in Southern Thailand just couldn't have been responsible for the Bangkok New Years bombings, Thai intelligence agencies now say the "Jemaah Islamiah were directly involved".
So much for the illegal regime change in Thailand that was suppose to among other things mollify the Islamic rebels.

Niall Ferguson

If you want to see real "speaking truth to power" read this.

And We Saved Them From The Germans Why?

If statues for prostitutes make you grin or just scratch your head, then here is some Dutch news to truly turn your stomach...

AMSTERDAM, 19/01/07 - Children will participate this summer in the Gay Pride festival. They will have a boat for themselves during the piquant parade through the capital's canals.

As in a carnival parade, groups of men annually go through the canals in countless boats, often scantily clad. With the support of gay rights organisation COC, a 14 year old boy, Danny Hoekzema, has now taken the initiative to have a boat with homosexual children participate on 4 August.

The boy put a call to peers to accompany him on his website. The minimum age for homosexuals that want to join him on the boat is 11 years. "From this age, there is already demand among young homos to have contacts with their peers of the same proclivity," according to COC.

Collossus of Rhodes it Ain't

Amsterdam's red light district is reportedly to receive a bronze statue dedicated to prostitutes around the world.
The statue represents a self-assured woman, her hands on her hips, looking sideways towards the sky, and standing on a doorstep, ANP said.

Because only the most "self-assured" women become street walkers.

When Republicans DoThis It's Called A Gag Order

How are you supposed to get unbiased scientific infrormation in an atmosphere like this...

The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to "Holocaust Deniers" and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.

The Weather Channel’s (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program "The Climate Code," is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

It makes you wonder what if the piltdown man "discovery" had been treated with the Stalinist reverence that Manmade Global Warming is today.

Cool Fridays

And now for something completely different...

Trailers from the Comics/Movie Nexus...
Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer

Spider Man 3

Ghost Rider

300

Nothing yet for...

Wolverine
Magneto
Iron Man
Ant Man
The Incredible Hulk

When Mrs. Larry David talks about global warming coming to America is this what she means?

"A Thunderbolt"

The Media is all a buzz about it.
A baby boom for the French, France has the second highest birthrate and will have the largest population in Europe by 2050.
So is Mark Steyn totally off base?
Newsweek asks "what can Europe learn from 'exception Francaise.' "
Europe can learn about "generous parental leave,""fewer hours,""more job security, free day care and medical coverage", it can learn about all these things, but it want learn anything about the ethnicity of those having babies. The French out of either high mindedness or naivety don't keep records on such things. So the exact percentage of those 75 million French that are expected by 2050 to actually consider themselves French as opposed to let's say subjects of the Caliphate.

According to "Gerard-Francois Dumont, Sorbonne professor and editor in chief of Population & Future magazine: "Every time I am at a conference, people want to know what is going on in France."

That's a pretty good question.
And Steyn has already thought of it.

Red Flags to Bulls

Tony Blair says it would be just "crazy" for Scotland to be an independent nation once again.

With the Tricentenary of the Act of Union coming May 1 and the election of MSPs to the Scottish Parliament just two days later I hope this was not his idea of the best way to calm independence rumblings. The Labor Party is already expected to lose it's small majority in the election, but whether or not the SNP will have the votes to call for a referendum on independence and whether that would pass is another matter. Polls on the referendum question are all over the place.

Blair like all Unionists is left in the bind of trying to stress the importance of the Union enough to convince voters to keep it, without making the issue provocative enough to fan separatist sentiment. And mollifying Scots with more devolution will probably not do much to convince them of the necessity of remaining with Great Britain.

The Guardian doesn't do much to help with comments such as these (italics mine).

In Edinburgh, the (SNP)party's leader, Alex Salmond, likened Mr Blair and Gordon Brown to the "parcel of rogues" who, according to contested history, agreed to union without the people's consent - the phrase of Robert Burns alleges Scottish parliamentarians were bribed with English gold.

That there is anything "contested" or "alleged" to the corruption involved in the original vote is news to me. But it no doubt has to do with Whatley's book.

The Origins of NeoConservative Foreign Policy or Whose Poodle is Whose?

These are some selected sections of a speech which Tony Blair gave before the Chicago Economic Club in April 1999.
You will notice that this is over a year and a half before George W. Bush took office.

This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed. We have learned twice before in this century that appeasement does not work. If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged, we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later.

...Twenty years ago we would not have been fighting in Kosovo. We would have turned our .backs on it. The fact that we are engaged is the result of a wide range of changes - the end of the Cold War; changing technology; the spread of democracy. But it is bigger than that

I believe the world has changed in a more fundamental way. Globalisation has transformed our economies and our working practices. But globalisation is not just economic. It is also a political and security phenomenon.

We live in a world where isolationism has ceased to have a reason to exist. By necessity we have to co-operate with each other across nations.

...Many of our problems have been caused by two dangerous and ruthless men - Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. Both have been prepared to wage vicious campaigns against sections of their own community. As a result of these destructive policies both have brought calamity on their own peoples. Instead of enjoying its oil wealth Iraq has been reduced to poverty, with political life stultified through fear. Milosevic took over a substantial, ethnically diverse state, well placed to take advantage of new economic opportunities. His drive for ethnic concentration has left him with something much smaller, a ruined economy and soon a totally wined military machine

....The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts. Non -interference has long been considered an important principle of international order. And it is not one we would want to jettison too readily. One state should not feel it has the right to change the political system of another or forment subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some claim. But the principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter. When oppression produces massive flows of refugees which unsettle neighbouring countries then they can properly be described as "threats to international peace and security". When regimes are based on minority rule they lose legitimacy - look at South Africa.

...First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators. Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? In the past we talked too much of exit strategies. But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world. But it does make a difference that this is taking place in such a combustible part of Europe.

I am not suggesting that these are absolute tests. But they are the kind of issues we need to think about in deciding in the future when and whether we will intervene.

The PBS NewsHour site where got this from entitles the speech The Blair Doctrine.

As American as Mom and Apple Pie

With all the uproar (at least on the right) over Sen. Barbara Boxer's, dare we say, catty remarks to Secretary Rice about her lack of children perhaps we should turn our eyes to our last female Secretary of State. Madeline Albright has three children, daughters who have done quite well in life two of them being lawyers and the third a banker. This procreational demonstration on the part of his State Department head is no doubt what gave Bill Clinton the right to make an unprovoked attack on Serbia. The fact they were daughters who as women are naturally more empathetic than male children are is why President Clinton insisted he needed no Congressional approval to make the assault and could also safely bypass any messy entanglements with UN Security Council.
And so America was spared any talk of "illegal, preemptive wars" and "unprovoked aggression."

It would be beneath me to mention the fact that none of Ms. Albright's daughters served in the United States Armed Forces.

Attack of the Moderate Baptists

Have no fear Baptists the X-Presidents are riding to your rescue. Their aims?..."to improve the Baptist image and broaden its agenda." How are they doing this? Well Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have put their shall I call it clout behind an assembly of "moderate" Baptists to meet at the Carter Center in 2008. Somehow I think that when they speak of broadening agendas that it will not include things like opposition to embryonic stem cell research or speaking up for persecuted Christians around the world. Persecuted Christians like those in China which will be having it's much ballyhooed Olympics in 2008.

Hmmm what else happens in 2008 that Bill and Jimmy might be interested in influencing ?

Der Paronoia Fest

There seems to be a festival of anti-American paranoia in the German press this week.
First from the Frankfurter Allgemeine I learn that we're counterfeiting our own currency...

A rumor has circulated for years among representatives of the security printing industry and counterfeiting investigators that it is the American CIA that prints the Supernotes at a secret printing facility. It is in this facility, thought to be in a city north of Washington D.C., where the printing presses needed to produce the Supernotes is said to be located.

The CIA could use the Supernotes to fund covert operations in international crisis zones, and such funds would not be subject to any control by the American Congress. One could comfortable lay the blame for the counterfeit money operation at the feet of Pyongyang's arch enemy.

It is interesting if you read the article closely how the writer keeps bringing up points to show how unlikely it is the North Koreans are producing the counterfeits only to point out at the end of the paragraphs that it is possible they have the capability.

Die Welt also gets into the act telling us that...

For many years it was only wild speculation. But now Microsoft has confirmed: "Yes, we have collaborated with the National Security Agency (NSA),: which is the most secretive of all U.S. intelligence services, in the development of their new Vista operating system. The company claims that this will enhance security for PC users, but critics fear there is an entirely different motive.

From ZDnet we get the more prosaic truth.

Microsoft got input from the National Security Agency for a document with tips on how to use the Windows Vista operating system in larger organizations.

The National Security Agency Information Assurance Directorate reviewed the Windows Vista Security Guide and provided comments that were incorporated in the published version, according to Microsoft.

Not as bad as Pravda but then that's not saying much
Speaking of Pravda, here is a little information on the online edition, which is apparently separate from the dead tree edition.
Translations of the German articles are from Watching America.com

The More Things Change....

It's gives me a warm feeling of security and continuity to see that Pravda has changed so little.

US massacres in Somalia
Terrorist attacks by US military aircraft against civilians and livestock in Somalia. After the Afghan wedding slaughters and the massacre of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, innocent citizens in Somalia, grazing their sheep, become the latest victims of Washington’s murderous foreign policy.

Or maybe this is more to your taste...

'Land Of The Free, Home Of The Brave.' America now has staggering 7 million jailed citizens
As many people around the World continue in their amazement over the total moral and economic collapse of the American Nation, a possible new clue as to why this so was revealed this past week with the United States Department of Justice announcing the staggering rate in which their government has been jailing their own citizens, and which now stands at 7 million Americans.
...and when these figures are added to the estimated 1 million prisoners of war held by the Untied States, all around the World, the once great American Nation has now become the greatest jailer of human beings the World has ever known.

Yes, Russia is calling us the "greatest jailer of human beings the World has ever known."
Of course the Bureau of Justice's Prison Statistics say there were 2,193,798 people incarcerated in the United States, but that was as of December 2005 so maybe we've been busy lately.
As for the 1 million prisoners abroad, that seems to have been pulled out of a certain Slavic orifice.

But I think the best part is "the Untied States".

Blah. Blah. Blah.

These shameful events have humiliated the Arab world

Saddam's trial and mob execution reeked of western double standards. Yet Iraq's neighbouring states failed to speak out

No doubt the Red Guardian liked it better when the Iraqis were hanging Jews in the main square of Baghdad to cheers of tens of thousands.
OK, maybe a cheap shot but the author of the article Ghada Karmi did write this two years ago.

Whatever Arafat's faults this is no time to rehearse them or fight over his succession. It is time to grieve the loss of a man who deserved a more fitting end, and to pay homage to one of the last of the great world leaders, a life-long patriot and fighter for the Palestinians, who gave them status in the world and a stake in their own future.

Seeee. I'm The Nonthreatening Grandmother From San Francisco.

I thought she was from California not Utah.

Why You Shouldn't Get Your Theological Arguements From A Television Show

Because if you do you wind up writing silly tripe such as this about protests over the new British "sexual orientation regulations" which...

"...outlaws discrimination in the provision of services on the grounds of sexual orientation. It will, for example, stop a Christian bed-and-breakfast owner refusing a gay couple a double room because it goes against his or her religious beliefs."

You see Christians who oppose this bill have it all wrong according to Gareth McLean of the Red Guardian...

"Leviticus 18:22 states that homosexuality is an abomination.
...around the beginning of the Old Testament, it also says you can put people to death for working on the Sabbath and that slavery is acceptable. Or at least, they don't any more. In The West Wing, President Bartlett says it all so much more eloquently than I and he really throws into stark relief the deployment of selective quotation to justify bigotry and intolerance."

Now far be it from me to quibble about religion with Bishop Sheen (Martin Sheen that is) but that supposedly telling point of dinner party religious debate only holds up if you happen to be arguing with an Orthodox Jew.
For all a Christian has to do is point out that there is something called the New Testament that trumps the Old Testament when there is disagreement between the two.
And lo and behold if it doesn't say in the Pauline Epistles that many of the Levitical laws are not applicable to being a Christian. These same Epistles also mention in Romans 1...

[26] For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, [27] and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Which is a verse you rarely hear mentioned in the Media today for the very good reason that it explodes poor reasoning that you can only get away with if your the fictional President of the United States......or a writer for the Guardian.

The New House

Have you noticed that when the Republicans controlled the House with a majority of 232-202 they had a "razor thin" majority, but now that things are almost exactly reversed (D 233- R 202) the Democrats apparently have a mandate.

Sharpening the Knives for Iraq's back

"In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there."

This is from President Ford's statement on signing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974.
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1974.
Remember that name.
It's probably going to come up a lot in the next few weeks.
The Act of 1974 passed over the veto of Gerald Ford by the Democratic majority in Congress cut off military aid to South Vietnam. This set the country up for a North Vietnamese offensive only 4 months later that broke the South Vietnamese Army.

Barney Frank

Let's start the session right.
Expel Barney Frank from Congress.

Unless you think accusing President Bush of ethnic cleansing is no big deal.

OKC's Bigger Connection

At last someone seems to be connecting some rather obvious dots...

Oklahoma City Bombing [Cliff May]
An Al-Qaeda connection? A congressional committee suggests there was.

This man seems to have been connecting dots for a while now

Romney

From the Rocky Mountain News via the Corner...

I queried two Coloradans attuned to the political attitudes of conservative Christians: Bill Armstrong, the former senator and president of Colorado Christian University in Lakewood, and Earl Waggoner, a professor at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Centennial.

Tell us, gentlemen: Is Romney's Mormon faith a bridge too far for evangelicals?

"I have never encountered anyone who said they couldn't vote for Romney because of his faith," Armstrong replied with his customary bluntness, although he was quick to note that he personally wasn't backing any candidate for the time being.

Well I'm sure I don't know as many people as Bill Armstrong, but I have encountered people who said they couldn't vote for Romney because he was a Mormon. And these people are loyal Republican voters.

Looking Glass World

I now officially have a huge disconnect with the rest of the globe.
Isn't it amazing that the Anti-Americanism of large segments of the world has reached such a pathological state that the execution of a savage tyrant elicits hand wringing and soul searching on a monumental scale.

Blair fails to condemn hanging as Bush ducks the question

Saddam's Trial: Farce or Justice?

Italian politician starts hunger strike to protest Saddam execution
Bloomberg

Uncertain justice

The misguided execution of Saddam Hussein

Mobile phone captures Iraq's cruelty

Saddam: From monster to martyr?

We're lucky they included the question mark on the last one.

You Get The World You Wish For

Will wonders never cease. Our Brave New Left, defenders of scientists against the theocrat Bush, have found discovered a chink in their Futurist armor. Apparently science can go to far, and I'm not talking about the European bogeyman of Frankenfood.

"Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.
The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.
The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned."

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: “These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people."

Checklist time
Abortion...OK
StemCell research....OK
Cloning....OK
Curing Homosexuality in the womb....echoes of Nazi research

Of course I'm sure someone like Tatchell would oppose abortion if it was aimed at fetus that was somehow shown to gay in vitro.
You see killing is OK as long as the victim is not a member of a designated victim group.

Why there might not always be an England...VIII

Do you sometimes get the impression that Great Britain is just San Francisco turned into an island kingdom. They are even ruled by a queen.

OK... obvious joke.

Koran of the FFV

OK, match point to Rep. Ellison.

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.
Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages.

Apocalypto

Here we have an apoplectic review Apocalypto, or at least the historical aspects of it.

I hate it. I despise it. I think it's despicable. It's offensive to Maya people. It's offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st-century Western ones but are nonetheless valid.

You notice that her political sensibilities seem to be influencing her viewpoint a wee bit.
It's also interesting that she seems to actually find very few historical errors in the movie, she just doesn't think it's respectful enough.

Was the depiction of sacrifice — lining victims up as if they're in a ticket queue in front of a hysterical public crowd — accurate? That was startling.

We have evidence to suggest that there were group sacrifices. But it would probably have been done as a pious act with solemnity.

And here's another review that doesn't do much to hide it's slant...

"The high culture was portrayed as brutal and decadent which did not provide insight into the remarkable art, architecture, books, literature and advanced science of the Maya.
The film has received a lot of attention for its violence.
Aakhus said Gibson exaggerated that aspect of Maya culture.
Human sacrifice did occur, but not to the extent that is shown in the film.
Ritualized killing is not unknown to us.
Our own practice of capital punishment, when looked back on in 500 years, I am sure will appear brutal and senseless."

The Cruelty of Man

After pushing the whole "rush to execution" idea as much as they could and finding no one was taking, what with that interminable trial, the Media has switched tactics
If I'm reading the current vibe correctly, people don't have a problem with Saddam's execution so much as they think it was really mean for him to be taunted...before he was hanged.

Rrrrrrright.

Egad

Gosh, California's going to leave to0.

Why there might not always be an England...VII

Ken Livingston a.k.a. Red Ken, the radical socialist Mayor of London has announced lives up to his nickname yet again...

"Ken Livingstone is planning a "massive festival" across London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution.

The event, to be staged in 2009, will involve street parties, sports venues and some of London's leading museums as well as the closure of Trafalgar Square."

Pretty much the nicest place to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution is from 4600 miles away.

Grim Milestone

Now look who's using talking points...

USA today

"As the United States approaches the grim milestone of 3,000 servicemen killed in Iraq, the trend lines are going in the wrong direction."

ABC News

"The grim milestone was crossed on the final day of 2006 and at the end of the deadliest month for the American military in Iraq in the past 12 months."

Newsday.com

"Grim milestone in Iraq war"

The Australian

"But the new time frame could coincide with another grim milestone looming in Iraq"

International Herald Tribune

"At grim milestone for U.S. deaths in Iraq war, a time to reflect"

The Independent Online

"The grim mood has not been helped by a new milestone for US casualties."

Happy Hogmanay

Unless the winds blowing 70 mile an hour.