Karsenty and the France 2 Al-Dura Hoax

I'm in love

Who should care? I don't care!

Truth or Fact?

God I hate this argument! Yesterday James Taranto brought up the issue of Creationism vs Evolution and today published a letter from a reader.

Science has to do with fact, not truth; religion has to do with truth, not fact.

It's so simple. It's true that God created the Universe in 7 days, Adam from mud and Eve from his rib and mud: this truth speaks to our understanding of the nature of man, woman, life, sex; it gives a sense of wholeness to human experience; it grounds us in a necessary mytho-poetic form through which we create the social and moral order in which we participate and uphold by our actions. But it's a fact that humankind evolved from lower life forms. One is an emotional understanding of life without which our lives would be empty; the other an exercise in imagination and logic without which our existence would be fruitless. If you don't understand why, I pity you.

What else is there to say about the "Human Rights Council?"

Israel's kindness mistaken for weakness

Here's an interesting post by a commenter at the Jerusalem Post:

30. #21 - Thank you but Hamas is not a serious threat /
redmike - Israel
04/24/2007 15:06

Hamas/PA are totally out of touch with reality Their attacks, although they could kill someone, are in the greater scheme of things like some annoying insect that could be swatted whenever Israel decided to do so. Israel could kill its members today and bring Gaza to its knees - water, electricity military incursion etc in 48 hours. They fail to understand that they are allowed to continue thanks only to Israel's benevolence. Presumably their distorted view stems from religious fervor.

That's quite true. The Israelis are a humane people and the Palestinians sending Qassams into Israel are real delusional cases. Where are the Psychiatrists Without Borders?

Unimpeachible is irresponsible

What does AP (Associated Press) think it's doing? Here's its report:

Nine Palestinians were killed in the latest violence in the West Bank and Gaza, including two militants and a 17-year-old killed Sunday in the West Bank. The fighting also included a Palestinian rocket attack on the southern Israeli town of Sderot that damaged a home there.

"Also included?" Which came first? Was the rocket attack in response to the attack in Gaza or the other way around? What interests do Israelis have in Gaza? Are there any settlements there that have not been dismantled? When did Israel leave Gaza? If Israel has left Gaza, why would they need to invade Gaza? Why are Qassam rockets being fired into Israel? How often? How many have been killed or injured by Qassams? If a group were firing rockets near your home, would you accept that?

For a calendar of Qassam attacks for April, 2007click here.

AP continues:

Israeli officials defended the latest moves as part of operations that have been effective in drastically reducing the number of attacks against Israelis. But Palestinian officials charged that the new deaths jeopardized their efforts to expand the truce in Gaza to the West Bank.

What is a truce? In what way has a truce “largely held” if Gaza “militants have frequently fired rockets into Israel and have attacked Israeli patrols along the border fence?” If Canadians in Windsor were firing rockets into Detroit or vice versa and attacking border station with gunfire, would Canada or the US accept that as a truce that has “largely held?”

This kind of verbiage is an insult to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Israelis are told that violence is what they're owed, what they deserve. Where have we heard this before? Isn't this the message to the Jews for the past 2,000 years, from the Roman expulsion to the European expulsions and massacres leading up to the Holocaust? And wasn't that the reason for the creation and necessity of the State of Israel, to prevent the Jews from annihilation?

As for the Palestinians, the press holds them accountable and responsible for none of their actions. So is it any surprise that they act irresponsibly? The Palestinians were offered a state beside Israel in 1937 and rejected it. See here for the Peel Commission Report of 1937. Note how tiny is the land allocation for the State of Israel in Plan A, which the Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted in return for security guarantees from the International community. The Palestinian Arabs continue to reject any compromise.

More AP:

The Gaza truce has largely held, though militants have frequently fired rockets into Israel and have attacked Israeli patrols along the border fence.

Again: what is a truce?

More from AP:

The Palestinian unity government, which includes Hamas, has called for an expanded truce, and Hamas officials in the government have often tried to separate themselves from the fiery pronouncements of the group's military wing. Israel and the U.S. State Department consider Hamas to be a terrorist group.

What is the “political wing” of Hamas? What is a “military wing?” What does the Hamas Charter say about the existence of Israel? Does the “political wing” foreswear the destruction of Israel? No.

Here is an excerpt from the Hamas Charter, which no member of Hamas has foresworn to this day:

Part III - Strategies and Methods

Article Eleven: The Strategy of Hamas: Palestine is an Islamic Waqf

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection? This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. This [norm] has prevailed since the commanders of the Muslim armies completed the conquest of Syria and Iraq, and they asked the Caliph of Muslims, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, for his view of the conquered land, whether it should be partitioned between the troops or left in the possession of its population, or otherwise. Following discussions and consultations between the Caliph of Islam, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, and the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, be peace and prayer upon him, they decided that the land should remain in the hands of its owners to benefit from it and from its wealth; but the control of the land and the land itself ought to be endowed as a Waqf [in perpetuity] for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. The ownership of the land by its owners is only one of usufruct, and this Waqf will endure as long as Heaven and earth last. Any demarche in violation of this law of Islam, with regard to Palestine, is baseless and reflects on its perpetrators.

Note what bin Laden said in this context regarding Spain and Portugal. Note also that bin Laden’s talking about the humiliation of the past 80 years. Therefore he is NOT talking about the State of Israel (1948) but the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire in 1919.

Shall we make a list of Muslim conquests which, according to religious fanatics, are Islamic holdings until the Day of Resurrection? Why not? Let’s start with Muhammed’s first military operation to found Islam. He started in Medina and he and his followers took:

1. Mecca
2. the rest of Saudi Arabia
3. Palestine
4. Jordan
5. Egypt
6. Syria
7. Lybia
8. Algeria
9. Morocco
10. Turkey
11. Iraq
12. Afghanistan
13. Russia
14. Spain
15. Portugal
16. Europe right up to the gates of Vienna
17. France right up to Poitiers.
18.Pakistan
19.Kazakhstan
20.Uzbekistan
21....

All the above are considered holdings of Islam by religious fanatics and Israel is the front line, not the thing that will appease these insane backward psychopaths who live in the 7th century. Israel is the Czechoslovakia of the 3rd World War.

Climate Change?

What is climate? What is nature? Has climate ever been stable? What defines climate stability? At The New Statesman they're asking the question "Has climate change passed the point of no return?"

There are a lot of assumptions in the question. A number of posters correctly point out that warming and cooling are natural facts. Is it possible for man to gain control over his environment and to what extent? This is an old question and it is natural to man: it is human nature to want to control as much space around us as possible. This is why we build houses, why we plant and preserve foodstuffs, why we save money and invest it. It's not so crazy to want to control the environment too. Wouldn't it be nice?

Yet those who claim man is controlling the environment seem to see it only in the most negative light, as if our control of nature could only be a Dr. Frankenstein abortion or, rather, an abortion that continues to live and haunt us, a vampire, indestructible since made by the human mind. Their tone is both hysterical and depressed.

But look at what our control of nature has wrought on the positive side. Do I really need to do an accounting from the drop in infant mortality rates to transplants? from sea voyages to space voyages? from starvation to constant year-round supplies of a variety of foods no king could imagine just a few hundred years ago? ubiquitous central heating? cleaner environments by far that the Greeks who threw their garbage in the streets?

Some posters see it this way, in a positive light and are prepared to argue against the assumptions in The New Statesman's question. One poster points out that science isn't made by consensus anyway:

Science does not earn its proofs by majority votes but by theories tested by experiment. If the theory is capable of prediction, it's a good theory.

Another upbeat poster says:

i think of oil spills when the initial reports say, "It'll take hundreds of years for this landscape to regain its natural beauty," and 8 years later the oceans have managed to clean up what our screw-ups have wrought. so many examples of humans giving themselves more credit than they deserve.

A good point. There's a bit of delusional thinking here and it oscillates with a feeling of impotence. That's a fascinating juxtaposition of two seemingly opposed feelings and it resembles nothing so perfectly as a nightmare.

And this was another reasonable response:

Climate has changed since Earth was created. We already have witnessed 4 climate change since 1895, and alawys [sic] alarmists predicted the world was reaching a point of no return, either from warming or ferom [sic] cooling. Earhs [sic] was warmer than now between 800-1300 AD and much cooler from 1400-1715 AD. So relax, keep working and enjoy life!

I've left this one for last:

...the absence of religious faith (and even vehement opposition to it) has led to the present "return of the repressed content" of Christianity. In the late 60s there was an ice-age scare but it didn't take since it had no cultural resonance. "We've been bad, we will burn" has obvious cultural resonance.

The "return of the repressed" comes from Freud. It would be interesting to see a study done to test my theory that more atheists, agnostics and anti-religious types are seized by Global Warming hysteria than those who are secure in their religious faiths. Since we know that a larger proportion of political conservatives are religious than those who are politically liberal and that fewer political conservatives "believe in" global warming as an unstoppable man-made train than liberals, the hypothesis has promise and needs to be tested.

Get Wolfie!

From the Wall Street Journal:

The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.

Mr. Wolfowitz asked the World Bank board to release the documents, after it became possible the 24 executive directors would adjourn early Friday morning without taking any action in the case. This would have allowed Mr. Wolfowitz's anonymous bank enemies to further spin their narrative that he had taken it upon himself to work out a sweetheart deal for his girlfriend and hide it from everyone.

The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start. Bear with us as we report the details, because this is a case study in the lack of accountability at these international satrapies.

Please read the whole thing here.

As Melanie Phillips sees it:

The truth of the matter, however, is that faced with an obvious conflict of interest he asked to be removed from Ms Riza’s case altogether — but his request was turned down by the bank’s ethics committee (sic), which itself advised him that she should leave the bank and be compensated for this blow to her career. [my emphasis]

In other words, in this respect Wolfowitz behaved honourably; the Bank itself was responsible for Ms Riza’s promotion but chose to smear Wolfowitz — who has been campaigning against corruption at the Bank — by claiming falsely that this was the outcome of his secret machinations.

See the last post for more of the same.

The Chosen People

Richard Landes went on holiday today and left his laptop at home. Good for him. He posted this before he left. Scroll down for my comment. It's interesting that Finkielraut didn't point out that if the Palestinians are the Left's chosen people, they must think they're God.

Progress in the War

Please read: Houzan Mahmoud's essay, "We say no to a medieval Kurdistan," here.
An excerpt:

The demand for secularism - and a movement that fights for it as a cause - is now a reality in Kurdistan. It has divided the society between two poles: those who want a secular society with space and freedom accorded to all religions and schools of thought, and those who have a programme of the imposition of political Islam on every aspect of our lives.

Our campaign for the removal article seven has opened a new chapter in the fight for secularism and against the medievalism and obscurantism of sharia law.

This struggle marks a particularly bright period in Kurdistan's contemporary history. It is an historic movement for human dignity, for freedom of religions and other forms of thought, for women's equality and human rights.

It is worth mentioning that without international support and solidarity, our campaign would simply not have been as successful as it has. Therefore, I call on all freedom-loving people worldwide to give consistent and unconditional support to important fights of this kind.

Our unity and worldwide solidarity does make a huge difference. It always leaves an impact. My thanks to all who stood with us in our struggle. We will continue with our fight until we win and push sharia law back to where it belongs - in the dark ages.

And Charles Krauthammer's "The Surge: First Fruits, " here.

An excerpt:

The news from Anbar is the most promising. Only last fall, the Marines' leading intelligence officer there concluded that the United States had essentially lost the fight to al-Qaeda. Yet just this week, the Marine commandant, Gen. James Conway, returned from a four-day visit to the province and reported that we "have turned the corner."

Why? Because, as Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, has written, 14 of the 18 tribal leaders in Anbar have turned against al-Qaeda. As a result, thousands of Sunni recruits are turning up at police stations where none could be seen before. For the first time, former insurgent strongholds such as Ramadi have a Sunni police force fighting essentially on our side.

It's OK to bring your own laws with you

From Kathryn Jean Lopez:

In a German case in which a Muslim, Moroccan-born 26-year-old mother of two was petitioning for an expedited divorce from a man who had beaten her and threatened her life, Judge Christa Datz-Winter denied the woman’s request, a woman who already had a restraining order on her husband after police were called last May because he attacked her. The reason for the injudicious divorce denial? The Koran, the judge said, instructs that “men are in charge of women.” She explained further that the couple hails from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife.”

For the the story at the New York Times, click here.

Not A Bad Sign

Civil rights march in Islamabad.

An Island Kingdom

At Works And Days:

One can make all sorts of clever arguments—indeed the Brits have, from blaming us to blaming their own—about why this crisis was someone else’s fault, due to a misunderstanding, due to media exaggeration, due to an accident. But what is missing is the simple fact that THIS IS THE BRITISH NAVY. Who would care if the Iranians had embarrassed the Italian Navy, the Russian Navy, or the Chinese Navy? But the Brits? We forget that the entire history of Western navies is predicated on the British experience at sea. The Brits had the greatest admirals, the Brits invented the Man-of-War, dreadnought, battleship, heavy cruiser, and aircraft carrier. The Brits created the very notion of modern seamanship and discipline, and its pantheon of naval heroes like Drake, Cook, Anson, Vernon, Nelson, and Fisher still resonates. So like the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center this was an iconic act that sent a message that the descendents of Xerxes finally upped Lord Nelson.

Please read the whole post.

Exeunt Christ, Enter Mohammed

From CBC: The sailors and marines are to be freed. Good that the wrong has been righted at least. But note the language that accompanies the release of the British sailors:

"On the occasion of the birthday of the great Prophet (Muhammad) … and for the occasion of the passing of Christ, I say the Islamic Republic government and the Iranian people — with all powers and legal right to put the soldiers on trial — forgave those 15," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the Muslim Prophet's birthday on March 30 and the Easter season. [my bold]

Obviously, Christians take the meaning of the holiday to be the resurrection, not just the crucifiction of Christ. Muslim supercessionism is the big drum being banged here.

The only surprise here was that he didn't blame the Jews. That was to keep the message as black and white as possible.

Looks Like War

No posts for quite a while. One tires of yelling into a void, more tired of trying to educate people who would rather pull the covers over their heads. How people like Melanie Phillips can keep her sanity is beyong my understanding. I do it by ignoring politics for a time. But there's a war on and many people don't only not know which side they're on, they don't even know which side is even in their best interest to support.

I've argued to friends all the way through this Iraq quandary, the invasion of Iraq was to get Iran outflanked. Now they have them east and west. You can't move a quarter million troops on aircraft carriers and you can't attack a country as large as Iran from the Persian Gulf. I've never believed Iraq was about Iraq. It is only the second stage in a very long war against Islamic imperialism.

Oh, I know: it's only imperialism when the West pushes back, not when Islam attacks. That's just natural. That's immigration. Well, that's true enough and so long as you can live with amputations for minor theft, you can just say bring it on. If you don't even like ten years for a loaf of bread, amputation should tell you which side you're on. If you don't think it's fair to keep gays from marrying each other you're not likely to agree to their being stoned to death. Same for adulteresses and abortions. Clearly the left and right need to unite against a common enemy and that means not only compromises but a solid agreement on basic principles. There aren't enough on the left though it's improving. Hitchens understands the war, as do a couple of bloggers like neoneocon, a lifelong liberal Democrat who woke up on 9/11. Many prefer to sleep.

It looks like the kidnapping of the British sailors is the first shot. My crystal ball goes blank here. Mr. Blair does not have Ms. Thatcher's backbone or there would be hell to pay already. James Lyons, former commander-in-cheif for the US Pacific fleet suggests the British take Kargh Island, a major shipping port for oil according to James Taranto's March 30 column. His point that Iran has indirectly attacked America by attacking her ally is true but clever on Iran's part. The pressure is put on Blair and not Bush this way. I have no doubt what President Bush's course would be.

I'd sure love to read the diplomatic mail between Washington, London, Canberra and Ottawa these days.

But I predict allied troops in Iran before the 1st day of summer. That will put the Democrats on a veritable spit.

Update August 2, 2008: I was wrong and I'm going to stop predicting now. But I'll post from time to time.