Russia 1990-2005 . . . and "home" games.

Worth a read for a thumbnail sketch of developments in Russia since 1990.

The Colonel notes Mr. Barbieri's mention of the huge losses suffered by the Russians during WWII. U.S. losses at 400,000 killed in WWII were terrible, yet were 1.4% of the Russian losses of 27,000,000.^[1]

These numbers are worth bearing in mind in the debate over whether it's better to play an "away" game or a "home" game as one military blogger put it.

This gentleman certainly doesn't get it:

You can run through all the wildly varying rationales for this war: the weapons of mass destruction (that were never found), the need to remove the unmitigated evil of Saddam (whom we had once cozied up to), the connection to Al Qaeda (which was bogus), and one of President Bush's favorites, the need to fight the terrorists "over there" so we won't have to fight them here at home.^[2]

President Kennedy correctly observed that mistakes in domestic policy are remediable. Mistakes in foreign policy can be fatal.

If Russian experience is any measure, it would be a very, very good idea not to be wrong on this "home" v. "away" deal.

Correction: 292,000 American battle deaths.^[3] Ergo, 1.1% of the Russian losses.

Notes
^[1] Return to Russia! By Jim Barbieri, Bluffton, Ind. News Banner, 7/29/05 <-- Johnson's Russia List, no. 9212, 7/30/05. The Colonel highly recommends Johnson's Russia List for an interesting daily compilation of news and commentary on Russia.
^[2] Oil and Blood, Bob Herbert, New York Times, 7/28/05.
^[3] Today's Politicos Invent the Past. When references to history are totally wrong. By Victor Davis Hanson, 8/1/05.

Muslim snipers operating in D.C. area in 2002.

What Really Motivated the Snipers

"Fight in the cause of Allah those who believe,
Destroy the devil and infidels, fear them not
(Crusader & zionist alliance) for Allah choose the humble
And the despised, so fight ye with all your possessions
and persons, fight ye and remember Allah will repay
your loan of life and property 10 fold, give your life to Allah."

So reads a poem written by Lee Malvo while in prison awaiting charges for shooting more than a dozen people across America, along with accomplice John Muhammad in the [latter] part of 2002. Both men converted to Islam prior to their killing spree.

From TheReligionofPeace.com.

Chinese curry favor in Zimbabwe.

Odious Zimbabwean President Mugabe persuaded the Chinese to help him out.

They will provide some money, build a hydroelectric dam, and make Mugabe an honorary professor.

That must take guts, to remain in the same room with a character like this. Not that it phased them any when it came to supporting the loathsome Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to suit their anti Vietnamese policy. So the Chinese have probably got a strong reason for lining up behind this guy and spending a bunch of money on a hydroelectric project.

Questi0n: What do the Chinese get out of this that makes it worthwhile for them to be associated with Mugabe?

The Chinese scored major points with the Angolan regime by helping them with their fight against the S. Africans and . They already have a space tracking station in Namibia and some Chinese running around loose there. More of the same in Zimbabwe? Good deals on chromium ore (found only in Zimbabwe, Russia, S. Africa, Turkey, Iran, Albania, Finland, Madagascar, and the Philippines)? A presence near the rich mining areas of Katanga (cobalt, copper, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds)?

How'd you like to be the Chinese faculty member designated to present the honorary degree on this mug? "Hey, Wang. Get in here. Your turn to present (snork) an honorary degree to some psychodorque the Party is sucking up to."

The Chinese are also active in S. America. See IST.

China's indifference to political controversy is illustrated in its close relationship with Zimbabwe. China is the principal supporter of the Mugabe regime, which is reviled in the international community . . . .

The Other Side of the Coin

China's principal interest in the continent is access to natural resources. But it is not its only interest. China's economic interests are wider. China's trade with Africa has risen sharply, from $10 billion in 2003 to $20 billion in 2004 and another 50 percent increase is expected in 2005. Chinese goods are flooding African markets . . . .

* * * *

The Implications for the United States

It would be easy, but mistaken, to build up the rising role of China in Africa as a new threat to the United States, or even to its interests in Africa, and thus make China an "enemy" there. What is necessary is to recognize that the rising economy of China, and nearly as significant those of India and other Asian countries, changes the strategic and economic playing field in Africa. It is not dissimilar to the impact of those economies in Latin America where many of the same phenomena are taking place.

* * * *

American interests are not yet seriously threatened. . . . But the United States does have to recognize that the United States, and the western nations altogether, cannot consider Africa any more their chasse garde as the French once considered francophone Africa. There is a new strategic framework operating on the continent and it demands new ways of operating.

* * * *

Finally, the United States should begin to engage China on Africa. China has more than economic objectives. China is seeking to be recognized as a major power.

China's Rising Role in Africa.
Presentation to the US-China Commission July 21, 2005
By Princeton Lyman
Director of Africa Policy Studies
Council on Foreign Relations

Democide.

Some 5,000 whites and blacks were lynched in the United States between roughly 1865 and 1940. What proportion of these represented cases that the authorities aided, abetted, instigated, or knew about and winked at, the Colonel does not know off hand. It is certain that these killings did not take place pursuant to some kind of official proceedings.

If Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's estimate of 60,000,000 murdered by official Soviet government action is accurate, the Soviet toll mounted at a rate of 2,364 killings a day for the 73 years of its life. This daily figure does not take into account the years before 1990 in which the concentration camps had been dismantled and the Terror much diminished.

The lynchmen in the U.S. racked up a toll equal to only 50 hours over a 73-year period of what the Soviets did pursuant to their unfettered intellects and moral principles.

The story is the same everywhere that government power is absolute. Thus, people who value their freedom and their very lives have an obligation to do more than engage in empty celebrations of independence from foreign powers. Like the members of the mosque cited below in this blob under "Culture not deviation" if we are going to content ourselves with bread and circuses and harangues about our women in bathing suits national themes [e.g., nadagate, Who'sthebiggtestputz, The Aruba Triangle, the horrors of profiling] we'll find we handed off an irretrievable chunk of power to the feds.

True safety from government fanaticism is in limiting and defining the powers of government at all levels. Americans are illiterates when it comes to understanding the interplay of Article I, sect. 8, the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment, and the great disaster that the direct election of senators proved to be, among other things.

This horrible graphic is based on hard facts.

This much on the site is garbage, however:

In the Vietnam War the United States murdered through indiscriminate bombing/shelling in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia about 68,500 people.

The Colonel knows for a fact that that pilots and ground troops were aware of and obedient to the rules of engagement.

The dogs of war.

Tail gunner.

From Watch Your Six

The Interstate Commerce Blues.

The total evisceration of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by the Supreme Court is celebrated in a ballad by Prof. Tom W. Bell at this link:

"Agoraphilia."

Freedom House: World's Worst Regimes Unveiled.

Press release, 3/31/05.

Culture not deviation.

An AP article describes the internal Egyptian debate after (yet) another bombing at Sharm el Sheik that killed 88:

• Bombers are a product of a society that produces "extremist fossilized minds."
• Egyptian government lets the press and some mosques promote intolerance.
• Journo: extremism is not deviation but in the culture.
• Prof: statements and conferences denouncing terror cover up unresolved problems; "Islamic preaching institutions are in a very acute need for a shake-up"; imams need to be educated about true religion and realities of modern world.

One Egyptian man described going to a mosque after the London bombings and the a murder of an Egyptian diplomat in Iraq. What was agenda item #1 for this guy? Women wearing bathing suits.

Jihadi Kamal Habib, however, blamed President Mubarak's autocratic rule, which has led to nihilism which has led to terror.

Some razor sharp logic there. People now believe in nothing and therefore engage in terror out of ennui.

Man, when I'm feeling ennuistic I have a hard time deciding whether to take a nap or watch tv. The task of getting my detonators and Semtex out of the basement would be on the order of scaling the Andes.

Akbar Ganji - Iranian prisoner of conscience.

Iranian journalist imprisoned by the mullocracy.

Once Moor into the breach, dear friends.

Abdullah Mehsud, formerly a guest at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to the field with his comrades to kill and kidnap.

Like turning over a rock.

Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom?

Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad [emphasis added].

One feels for the poor people of Iran who will suffer under the rule of this jumped up slug.

From Doctor Sanity <-- MEMRI.

Btw, check out Doctor Sanity. She writes a highly intelligent blog. One of the best.

What hyena would that be, Dear Boy?

It's no mean feat to know who speaks for what position in dar al-Islam. Whose opinion is authoritative and who but a vague group of elders, scholars, mullahs, ayatollahs, imams, mujtahids, and muftis gets to say boo about various sunnahs, hadiths, and fatawa. Like the shifting desert sands of Araby "true" Islam is a work in progress. Putative moderates can pull out what they will from this omlet and say that "Islam" is this or that, and who's to gainsay them?

The clever joker who circulated a gag(?) letter to Dr. Laura Schelschinger asking why he can't enslave Canadians as permitted by the plain language of the Bible points out that Christianity is not without its "inconvenient" texts. And in matters of practice, apostasy or heresy in some parts of Christendom were dangerous to one's health in centuries past.

However, on a great many fundamental matters of belief and practice it's possible to find the relevant sheet of music from which to read. There are flavors and there are flavors but it's beyond dispute at this stage that one can safely abjure whatever faith one wants in (formerly) Christian areas of the world. Beheadings are out. Slavery is out. Subjugation of women is all but reduced to matters of domestic abuse. In short, you can find your flavor and it basic tenets and basic practice is civilized.

Good luck figuring out what is an authoritative version of the Koran, let alone nailing down an authoritative, universally binding interpretation of it. And the practice of Islam is pretty much what you will. Dynamite strapped around the waists of kids? Groovy. Contact your local, functioning, visible, thriving Martyrs' Pack no. 131 and get a cool merit badge. Join a murderous insurgency? Right on! Contact any one of the 30 or so around the world in which Muslims are involved and you're good to go.

Sanction for any of this? No way. Our lot don't go in for that beastly business. It's really that blighter Abdul's do, Old Boy. Why not check with him?

In the Colonel's judgment, the so called moderates have the burden of going beyond mere passive protestations about The Religion of Peace.

The hypocrisy of these particular sorry "moderates" is obvious. They cry moderation but lionize a hyena:

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 Bunglawala. 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?

Doublespeak Unveiled. Muslim “moderates” are true to spirit of Islam.
By Bruce Thorton, Private Papers, 7/26/05.

USS Stark -- Iraqi attack, 1987.

On 3/17/87, an Iraqi fighter attacked the USS Stark, a frigate in the Persian Gulf. It fired two Exocet air-to-surface missiles at the Stark, killing 37 U.S. sailors.

French manufactured fighter, French manufactured missile.

"We will not be intimidated,"^[1] said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. "We will not be driven from the gulf." He described the attack on the Stark as a "horrible error," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quick to apologize for the "unintentional incident."

This bit of fantasy was announced even though the captain of the Stark twice radioed a request for identification to the Iraqi pilot:

In keeping with standard procedure, Captain Brindel ordered a radio message flashed at 10:09 PM: "Unknown aircraft, this is U.S. Navy warship on your 078 for twelve miles. Request you identify yourself." There was no reply. A second request was sent. Still no answer.

Pres. Reagan was then tilting toward Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and, mistakenly, Saddam got a pass on this incident. Attention later shifted to hostile Iranian actions which were followed by strong reactions by the Navy. Iran subsequently decided to improve relations with the West and the U.S. improved its world standing as a result of the STRONG U.S. STAND.

How much clearer does it have to be as regards the salutary results of kicking ass, even though this occurred desultorily since then? Until Pres. Bush came along, that is.

Notes
^[1] In contradistinction to saying, "You are now going to be very sorry for your mistake. We will teach you, in particular, how wise it is to refrain from any action that even remotely threatens U.S. lives and assets." The Russian laser injury inflicted on an American and a Canadian in 1997 in the Juan de Fuca Straits was only possible because of past U.S. fecklessness in responding appropriately to deliberate provocations.

Golden Gate Bridge cables.

Maybe it's not just the "mad mullahs."

Thughtful commentary on internal problems as possible source of terror:

Apparently it is all the fault of those ruthless al-Qaeda recruiters mentioned in the Whitehall document, or those fundamentalist mosques in south London, Paris, Hamburg and elsewhere that are turning our young Muslim men into crazed lunatics. If that is the case, then why is it happening now? There have long been mad mullahs in Western cities but they were generally avoided by most sensible young people, and nihilist terrorism, certainly in the West, has only become a problem over the past five to 10 years. Blaming the recruiters is the easy way out. The finger is pointed at fanatical individuals, and the solution is said to lie in reining these individuals in. The denial about al-Qaeda being a Western phenomenon in the first place has given way to a denial about the deep problems in a Western society that can give rise to something like al-Qaeda.

. . . Such terrorism, it seems, is less a consequence of far-away fanaticism infiltrating the West, but rather suggests a failure on the part of mainstream institutions in the West to cohere society or to provide individuals with any meaningful sense of identity.

There is a growing sense of atomisation and alienation in the West, not only among immigrants but across society. . . . Could it be that the new terrorism, which we consider so awful and alien, is in fact a product of the same corrosive forces that impact on the rest of us?

British-born bombers: not so shocking. From 9/11 to 7/7, nihilistic terror has its origins in the West. By Brendan O'Neill, Spiked, 7/13/05.

See also Creating the enemy. How a risk-averse West has inflamed the terrorism it fears. By Brendan O'Neill, 7/18/05.

We're Democrats and we're here to help you.

I really think the problem is that we liberals are in general far more intelligent, well-reasoned and educated and will go to astonishingly great lengths to convince people of the integrity and validity of our fair and well thought-out arguments. The audience, in case anyone has been paying attention, isn't always getting it! I suspect the problem is not the speaker - it is most of the audience.

Alleged "liberal activist," Michael Gronewalter, quoted in From Europe to America: the populist moment has arrived. By Frank Furedi. Spiked, 6/13/05 [emphasis in original].

The view that the public is too stupid to grasp the high-minded and sophisticated ideals of American liberals expresses a profound sense of contempt towards people. Furthermore, it uncritically transfers responsibility for the contemporary malaise of political life on to the simplistic and uneducated electorate. From this standpoint, it is not the inability of liberal politics to connect with significant sections of the public that accounts for John Kerry's defeat in 2004, but the narrow-mindedness of the electorate. This attitude is not confined to the USA.

Op. cit.

Well, ok then.

Vladimir Arutyunyan, admitted grenadier who tried to kill Pres. Bush and Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili in the Georgian captial Tbilisi on 5/10/05 has favored the world with an explanation.

Reason for the attack: “I will tell you why I did it. Because Bush is a prick!”

Btw, the hand grenade he used was NOT defective, just wrapped too tightly in a cloth.

MosNews, 7/26/05.

Citizenship: Georgia; ethnicity: Armenian.

Comment by Hovakim:

The Georgian and Russian sources reported that a dog-eared copy of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ by Frederick Forsyth was found in his apartment. He is said to have been so poor that he supported himself by breeding and selling hamsters although his neighbors noticed he began to sport a cell phone and cash in his pockets lately.

__?? _ Blogrel.

More vague speculation about motive from AP in The Moscow Times.com.

UPDATE 7/28/05:

Sergo Dzagnidze, chief of the criminal police department at the Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that 5 gallons of sulfuric acid, several boxes of mercury thermometers, a centrifuge, a microscope and other devices and dangerous chemicals were found in the cellar.

* * * *

. . . The suspect said he hoped to kill Bush because he believed the U.S. leader was “interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs,'’ his lawyer said Tuesday.

Oneworld Multimedia Blog, 7/28/05 <- The Guardian.

We Are Not Making This Up Dept. - I.

Once again the wildly popular "We Are Not Making This Up Dept." department of Intergalatic Source of Truth . . . . Wait! No one has ever heard of this department of IST. Ok, ok. No one has ever hear of IST!

ok. Forget it.

Check out that a certain Sheik [!] ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Bin ‘Abdillah Bin Baz, in Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa in 1966 that THE EARTH IS FLAT.

Well, kiss my kefiyah, girls. These pixels never lie. And this guy went on to be the Grand Mufti, the HIGHEST RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY in Swordly Irapeya. And the great Kingdom of Saud didn't bat an eye over what he'd said and . . . and . . . Sheikh Bin Baz's pronouncements are still treated as authoritative by the Swordly government.

There's much more. The following is about the garbage distributed in the U.S. and around the world by the Saudis through the mosques they support:

A prolific source of fatwas condemning “infidels” in this collection of literature was Sheik ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Bin ‘Abdillah Bin Baz (died 1999), who was appointed by King Fahd in 1993 to the official post of Grand Mufti. As Grand Mufti, he was upheld by the government of Saudi Arabia as its highest religious authority. Bin Baz was a government appointee who received a regular government salary, served at the pleasure of the King and presided over the Saudi Permanent Committee for Scientific Research and the Issuing of Fatwas,^[1] an office of the Saudi government. His radically dichotomous mode of thinking, coupled with his persistent demonizing of non-Muslims and tolerant Muslims, runs through the fatwas in these publications.

Bin Baz is famously remembered by many Saudis for a ruling he issued in 1966 declaring the world flat. He was also responsible for the fatwa, unique in Islam, barring Saudi women from driving. Perhaps as a way of atoning for a fatwa he reluctantly issued in 1991 at the time of the Gulf War accepting the presence of non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia, in subsequent years Bin Baz seemed to go out of his way to pronounce against Christians, Jews, and “infidel” Westerners. His fatwas, which carry considerable weight, have been circulated through official Saudi diplomatic channels to mosques and schools throughout the world, including some in the United States, and have been particularly influential in radicalizing Muslim youth at home and abroad. The extremist views proclaimed in these official fatwas belie what Adel al-Jubeir, the articulate Saudi spokesman and special advisor to Crown Prince Abdullah, asserts during televised press conferences about fanatical sheiks in the Kingdom being mainly "underground," and the fatwas they issue being merely expressions of “their personal opinions.” Though Bin Baz is now dead, his fanatical fatwas continue to be treated as authoritative by the Saudi government.

Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques, Center for Religious Freedom, 2005, pp. 4-5 [emphasis added].

It sure makes you want to sit up and take notice next time you hear that some "sheikh" has got something on his mind. And if an honest to Allah fatwa of this caliber can issue from the freaking Pope of Swordly Irapeya, it sure suggests that any other fatwas you hear about aren't worth the spittle they're written in.

Notes
^[1] SPCSRIF Fatwa # 1967-Physics-23,954.2(a). Double gravity mandatory for infidels.

Reverse Crusade.

I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world.

Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria, while negotiating the surrender of Alexandria to the Muslims, 640 AD.

This was seven (7) years after the death of Mohammed and 455 years before the First Crusade.

Amazing! Even in 640 AD those Muslim rascals didn't know that Mohammedism is a Religion of Peace™ [used with permission].

Patrick al-Kafir at Clarity & Resolve is rapidly trademarking so many of the terms necessary to the useful discussion of Islam™ that it's now hardly possible to saying anything about world-wide terrorism without asking his permission. As I understand it, Koran™, Quran™, Qu'ran™, Mecca™, Saudi Arabia™, Wahhabi™, islamofascist™, Crusader bastard™, convert or die™, Religion of Peace™, pre-teen selbstsnitch bomber™, Jew perfidy™, Jew plot™, islamofiend™, metaphysical jihad™, innocent victims™, massive civilian casualties™, Non-Mainstream Extremists™, unassimilable™, biding our time™, and Overwhelmingly Moderate Muslim Majority™ are all now owned by Mr. al-Kafir.

Consult your legal adviser before using these terms.

Legal Guide for Bloggers.

Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, the U.S., and 9/11.

When Freedom House calls Sunni Wahhabism a "hate ideology", it is time for all to sit up and take notice. Defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups militarily is obviously important, but equally important is the defeat of the heretical ideology that provides these terrorist groups their philosophical underpinning, and one of the most prominent terrorist-friendly ideologies is Wahhabism. As I wrote here and here, this sect of Islam is inimical to the interests of the United States. Worse, the House of Saud is inextricably intertwined with Wahhabi extremists, and the government of Saudi Arabia is directly responsible for the worldwide spread of this hardline and unforgiving belief system. With the power of Saudi money behind it, Wahhabists have been infiltrating and crowding out the other more moderate and tolerant denominations of Islam . . . .

Last Monday, the CFRF [Center for Religious Freedom] issued a report titled Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques, which details one aspect of Saudi-backed Wahhabi indoctrination in America. The group gathered over 200 books and publications from over a dozen mosques and Islamic centers across the country. These materials have the direct backing of the Saudi government. While books and publications are just one component, it defies all common sense that this ideology is restricted just to written materials. For example:

The King Fahd mosque, the main mosque in Los Angeles, from which several of these publications were gathered, employed an imam, Fahad al Thumairy, who was an accredited diplomat of the Saudi Arabian consulate from 1996 until 2003, when he was barred from reentering the United States because of terrorist connections. The 9/11 Commission Report describes the imam as a “well-known figure at the King Fahd mosque and within the Los Angeles Muslim community,” who was reputed to be an “Islamic fundamentalist and a strict adherent to orthodox Wahhabi doctrine” and observed that he “may have played a role in helping the [9/11] hijackers establish themselves on their arrival in Los Angeles.”

Read it all at The War on Wahhabism, Continued [doubleplus emphasis added]. Obsidian Wings, 2/5/05.

Asking the right questions.

I have argued many times that the President's most egregious and damaging lie, the carping of partisans notwithstanding, was the one he told in apparent sincerity: that "Islam is peace." This much, one hopes, is self-evidently untrue, and it need not take a hater of Islam to acknowledge it. . . . From this assertion springs the nonsensical phrase "war on terror," falsely suggesting that America is at much at war with ETA, FARC and the IRA as it is with al Qaeda; and from this comes a number of bad policy decisions affecting things from airport security to public diplomacy to war. Sensible people admit that this nation is, ultimately, at war with Muslim orthodoxy, not in whole, but in large part: the social place of Islam according to its traditional theology, and the impetus to jihad and the imposition of dhimmitude thereof, are the insurmountable obstacles to lasting peace between the Muslim world and the rest of humanity. One of two things will bring about that peace. Either Muslims will embrace something more broadly pluralistic and, yes, private -- or we as a society will capitulate.

Actually, that's not entirely true. There is a third thing that will bring about peace: genocide.

Genocide is an option that must be discussed. . . .

. . . [O]ur enemies do not eschew it, and that is proof enough of their evil.

* * * *

. . . There is a qualitative difference between Patrick Moynihan's critique of African-American urban society and David Duke's; and there is a similar difference between a sober analysis of the role of the Koran in abetting an ideology of evil, and the declaration that it -- and inevitably, its admirers -- are evil per se.

Talking about Islam [emphasis added]. By Tacitus, 6/5/05.

Excellent progress in Iraq.

Insurgents in Iraq killed and captured: 50,000.

As new islamofascists and neo-Baathist recruits feed constantly into the meatgrinder, the total will be up to 100,000 in no time at all. Heck maybe even 150,000 by the Winter Festival.

50,000 Iraqi insurgents dead, caught. By Sharon Behn, The Washington Times, 7/26/05.

Annual Haiti voodoo ceremony.

21st century . . . .

Multiculturalism.

Cartoon: Cox & Forkum.

The article that inspired the cartoon was "A victory for multiculti over common sense." By Mark Steyn, Opinion.telegraph, 7/19/05.

Mr. Steyn makes the excellent point that:

It has been sobering this past week watching some of my "woollier" colleagues (in Vicki Woods's self-designation) gradually awake to the realisation that the real suicide bomb is "multiculturalism". . . . The London bombers were, to the naked eye, assimilated - they ate fish 'n' chips, played cricket, sported appalling leisurewear. They'd adopted so many trees we couldn't see they lacked the big overarching forest - the essence of identity, of allegiance. As I've said before, you can't assimilate with a nullity - which is what multiculturalism is.

So, if Islamist extremism is the genie you're trying to put back in the bottle, it doesn't help to have smashed the bottle.

Origin of the word "slave."

All numbers related to the slave trade are rough estimates. While a figure like 80% of all slave traffic to the Middle East region seems high, it may stem from the fact Arabian slavery predates Middle Passage slave transport by at least 1,500 years. A fascinating aspect of this pre-Americas slave system was many of the victims were Caucasian peoples from Southern and Eastern Europe. They were transported to Northern Africa to serve as mercenary soldiers and cavalry men, primarily for the Nubians. Thus, the word "slave" is derived from "Slavic". Therefore, Serbs, Czechs, Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, etc. were your original slaves.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Comment by John Pearson [emphasis added] on The Slave Trade Continues where M. Simon wrote:

Of all the slaves shipped to the western hemisphere less tha 5% went to North America (mainly the American Slave States). I found out that the slave trade to the west comprised about 10% of the trade. The vast majority went to the countries of Islam. In transporting the slaves to the Americas about 10% died in transit. In transporting slaves to Muslim countries 80% died in transit.

Gahrie also commented:

I am a teacher. I am amazed at the ignorance about the true nature of slavery and the slave trade in the New World. Even my fellow teachers who are Black are astounded when I show them the numbers concerning the importation of slaves to the New World. One fact that caps it for most of them is the fact that South American slave traders stopped importing female slaves because they usually died before they could bear children, and you could get more work out of a male slave before he died.

The Colonel once knew a young black man in Washington, DC who had converted to Islam because "The Moors" had not enslaved his ancestors.

His historical ignorance was sad but, alas, no worse than that of the (white) college kid who couldn't identify the country from which the U.S. gained its independence or the high school kids (race unknown) who couldn't identify the major combatants in WWII or the century in which the American War of Northern Aggression took place.

Be that as it may, the Colonel learned from a reliable source^[1] many years ago that one reason Islam spread in the regions of Black Africa is because it was forbidden under Islam to enslave another Muslim.

Mr. Pearson is correct about the origin of the word "slave":

Middle English sclave, from Old French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclvus, from Sclvus, Slav (from the widespread enslavement of captured Slavs in the early Middle Ages).

American Heritage dictionary.

Who could those slavers have been?

Notes
^[1] The Colonel's mom.

Heineken commercial.

From Hedonistica.

I can't believe she left.

From Nona at Mahjoob.com.

Clever cartoon.

From Mahjoob.com.

Egypt and terror.

From:

Karim Elsahy of One Arab World
A New, Free, Proud, and United Arab World

Great moments in scurrilous politics - I.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.
1986 Supreme Court confirmation battle over Judge Robert Bork.

The perfection of youth.

My Own Summer.

By Marta, Poland.

No WAY!

The mirror of the sun.

By Bernie, U.S.A.

Liquid.

Fall down.

By Anniken Slette Hannevik, Norway.

Lustily water.
Round Droplet is Falling.
Droplet from melted snow.
Crystal water.
Mirror.

By Nina Larsen, Norway. Her beautiful logo: here.

Creative.

Below the Rust.

The Walls of Unsaid.

Prints by Michaël Zancan, France.

Islam and democracy incompatible.

Muslims and their religion are not yet ready to accept pluralism, democracy and free thinking. Democracy is in fact incompatible with islam, as many muslim imams have openly stated. That is their interpretation of the koran. It should therefore come as no suprise to us, that muslims in the West are waging Jihad against us. In their eyes, if we didnt realise that this would happen, the fault lies with us and not them. I agree. I do not think our societies, geared as they are to free and open thought, can continue with this continuous assault on freedom. If this assault is not brought to a halt soon, then free society will start to perish, and with that the economy. It may not be evident immediately, but perish it will in the fullness of time. If the current trend of increasing conflict continues, then we are irrevocably headed in the direction of a major armed conflict with the Islamic world.

Excellent comment (#83) by DP111 [emphasis added] at LGF.

From Fjordman, "The Second Fall of Rome?"

Here is a thoughtful contrary Muslim view, though it appears that the author's views are in the minority within his community:

Muslims as Minorities An Islamic Perspective. By Yoginder Sikand.

UPDATE 7/24/05:

On the probable majority viewpoint we have these statements from accountant Wassim Doureihi, Sydney, Australia leader of the global Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir:

[Australia] must "stop enforcing rules over Muslims and allow the Muslims to assume their own political destiny . . . ."

And:

I was born in this country. I don't choose where I was born . . . I consider myself as a Muslim first and foremost.

From Clarity & Resolve.

And: In a July 2005 poll of British Muslims, "12% saw themselves as British first and Muslim second."

From Clarity & Resolve.

Google storage space rapidly diminishing.

With the exponential increase in amateur bloggers, the mountains of commentary on whether Obersturmbahnfuehrer Karl von der Rove should be publicly or privately flogged, the astounding success of Al Franken’s talk show, etc., Google has announced that it is running out of computer hard drive storage space for this tsunami of drivel commentary.

Accordingly, Google is axing all people with access to the worldwide web to please:

• use an ampersand instead of the work ‘and’;
• stop using two spaces between periods & the beginning of the next sentence;
• use only single quotes around what other people say;
• expand the use of the singular form of verbs regardless of the number of entities in the predicate (e.g., 'there’s 15 snipers in the city,' 'here’s a couple of things to bear in mind,' etc.);
• use a Hemmingwayesque style of writing;
• when writing poetry, imitate e.e. cummings. Capital letters are bigger than small letters & take up more hard drive space. We don’t call them small letters for nothing;
• stick to the point in discussion groups & forums. Nobody, but nobody, wants to hear about your dog;
• don’t discuss silly foreign policy issues like the lack of a nuanced Iraq exit strategy. It’s enough that the President seeks the total annihilation of the dirt bag population of Iraq & no further discussion of this point is necessary;
• use only one asterisk between first & last letters of cuss words. It is sufficient, henceforth, simply to write ‘f*k,’ ‘b*t,’ ‘m*r,’ ‘a*e,’ ‘d*d,’ ‘h*k,’ or ‘d*n.’ This will save a lot of space in blog comment sections especially. Even ‘f*k y*u’ will save one valuable byte of space & help Google immensely, considering the widespread web usage of this phrase to express principled intellectual and artistic disagreement.

Mexican immigration attitudes and policies.

On the matter of illegal Mexican immigration to the U.S. consider that:

• Mexican elites have no respect for U.S. sovereignty.
• Mexican President Fox’s national security adviser advocates using Mexicans in the U.S. as a foreign policy tool of Mexico.
• Mexican elites view the increase in Hispanic government officials in the U.S. as something that will enable them to protect Hispanics.
• The average Mexican contemplating emigration does not consider obtaining U.S. citizenship as something that involves a transfer of loyalty. It is only a way of obtaining U.S. benefits and making money.
• Mexico strictly controls immigration to Mexico – only people with marketable skills or financial independence are welcome.
• Mexico provides no benefits to illegal immigrants.
• It provides no services to Americans in English.
• When Californians proposed to abolish bilingual education Mexican legislators characterized this as “racist and discriminatory.”
• If you are an immigrant from Poland, Mexico does not encourage you to think of yourself as a Polish-Mexican. A unified culture is valued by Mexicans, not by Americans.
• U.S. efforts to control our southern border are viewed as racist; Mexicans have a right to cross the U.S. border.
• Mexican schools ensure that children are taught that the U.S. took away ½ of Mexico’s territory.
• Mass immigration of Mexicans and the foolish U.S. embrace of multiculturalism are disasters in the making.

“The Education of a Gringo in Mexico. Or How Living in Mexico Helped Transform Me into a VDARE.COM Contributor.” By Allan Wall.

Gruff Georgian grenadier grabbed.

Vladimir Arutyunyan, suspected of throwing live grenade at President Bush May 10, 2005, captured. Few fuzz figure fiqh forces finger flip following fierce fight.

Turqouise pool.

By Jorge Arana.

And:

Sigueme.

Agua.

Gota de agua.

Struggling bravely for mainstream acceptance.

#1 By JM Vee

#2. By JM Vee

#3. By Eric Le Parc

From Trek Lens.

I'm from the Revolution and I am here to help you.

The ONLY Che t-shirt worth having. Buy it here.

From Zacht Ei.

Face it, muchachos and muchachiquitas. Che was a murderous prick^[1] who got only a fraction of what he deserved.

Here's an account of one happy, happy day in world history:

October 8, 1967:

1:30 p.m.: Che’s final battle commences in Quebrada del Yuro. Simon Cuba (Willy) Sarabia, a Bolivian miner, leads the rebel group. Che is behind him and is shot in the leg several times. Sarabia picks up Che and tries to carry him away from the line of fire. The firing starts again and Che’s beret is knocked off. Sarabia sits Che on the ground so he can return the fire. Encircled at less than ten yards distance, the Rangers concentrate their fire on him, riddling him with bullets. Che attempts to keep firing, but cannot keep his gun up with only one arm. He is hit again on his right leg, his gun is knocked out of his hand and his right forearm is pierced. As soldiers approach Che he shouts, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." The battle ends at approximately 3:30 p.m. Che is taken prisoner. (Rojo, 219; James, 14)

[Emphasis added.]^[2]

Che Guevara problem: SOLVED.

The 28-year-old Bolivian Army captain, Prado Salmon, who hunted Guevara down retired from the Army a major general and was Bolivia's ambassador to the United Kingdom and Mexico. The captain's unit was U.S.-trained.^[3]

Notes
^[1] "We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable . . . we will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood! Let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois – more blood, as much as possible." "Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler." By Humberto Fontova, News Max, 2/23/04 [emphasis added].

This is eversoslightly inconsistent with his saying that "the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love." Books and Writers. The Colonel will immediately announce when he has resolved this inconsistency. (Note how Dr. Guevara, revolutionary lovebug, wanted his life to be spared when it looked like "nightie night" for him.)
^[2] The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified, by Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5.
^[3] "Che I met was no hero, says his captor." By Anne Hyland, The Scotsman, 8/15/04.

Dutch whimsy.

Great fun. Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

From Zacht Ei.

Christian bastard.

Read about the death threats, bricks through the window, and graffiti experienced by a Pakistani muslim and his wife who converted to Christianity.

Three years of misery inflicted by Muslims in Bradford, UK.

Here's an excerpt from the Times:

Muslims who lose their faith face execution or imprisonment, in line with traditional Muslim teaching, in many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen. In the Netherlands, the former Muslim MP Ayan Hirsi Ali had to go into hiding after renouncing her faith on television.

Read it all to appreciate that rubber-meets-the-road reality of how the Religion of Peace operates and, I might add, how British officials have been useless in providing protection or punishing any of the perpetrators.

From Dhimmi Watch, 2/5/05 <-- Times Online: "Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family," by Anthony Browne.

The Prophet's Pursuit of Booty.

See Catherine's comment in which she list Koranic and other sources illustrating Mohammed's pursuit of both kinds.

E.g.:

Tabari IX:139 “Layla approached the Prophet while his back was to the sun and clapped him on his shoulder. He asked her who it was and she replied, ‘I am the daughter of one who competes with the wind. I am Layla. I have come to offer myself to you.’ He replied, ‘I accept.’” [Layla shared her story with her parents.] “They said, ‘What a bad thing you have done! You are a self-respecting girl, but the Prophet is a womanizer.’”

A short respite from mundane earthly concerns.

Galaxy Group HCG 87 -- 400 million light years away.

The Center of Centaurus A -- "gigantic glowing gas clouds."

Diurnal motion.

In the Center of the Trapezium.

Chutzbah

Total self confidence.

Saddam's support for terror and culpability in all WTC attacks.

Christopher Hitchens . . . : "When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, [sic] to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993".

From Dissecting Leftism.

Some of the anti-Iraq war types deride the proposition that Saddam had a connection with the events of 9/11. Whether that is true the Colonel doesn't know just now. However, his harboring of people involved in the 1993 bombing of the WTC makes him an active participant in a bombing attack on the WTC. How is Saddam's 1993 complicity different from, say, having provided false passports to the 9/11 hijackers? The only diffference between the two events was that the first was unsuccessful. It was no less monstrous in conception.

John Hawkins in "Debunking 8 Anti-War Myths About The Conflict In Iraq," Right Wing News, Item # 6, makes this comment on the above quote:

Mr. Hitchens is entirely correct. Saddam provided "safe haven" for terrorists with "global reach." Among them were terrormaster Abu Nidal, Abdul Rahman Yassin, one of the conspirators in the 1993 WTC bombing, "Khala Khadr al-Salahat, the man who reputedly made the bomb for the Libyans that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over...Scotland,"Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer," & "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan" who is now believed to be leading Al-Qaeda's forces in Iraq.

Without question, Saddam Hussein had extensive ties to terrorism.

See Item # 7 for the Iraq-al Quaida connection:

While there may not be evidence that Saddam and Al-Qaeda cooperated in attacks on the United States, the evidence that Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al-Qaeda worked together is absolutely undeniable.

Thus, the Colonel suggests that the breast beating about Mr. Bush's WMD claims (but one of several points he made about Iraq) is simply a purposeful and spurious distraction from the real issue, viz., the advisability of punishing Saddam.

If a Democratic Iraq can come out of the whole operation, so much the better.

The important point is that in the hierarchy of criminality, President Bush moved down one notch in this list to item 2:

1. Direct participation in terrorist acts.
2. Cooperation with terrorist actors.
3. Providing financial support for terrorist acts or organizations.

That is a salutary step away from the legal hairsplitting over whether there is direct evidence of participation into the more easily provable realm of providing support. Saddam can be said to have gone down simply for this and the educational and inspirational benefits to the U.S. and the West are immense.

The retaliation on those in 1 and 2 should be vicious and sustained.

We can do this now at less cost than we can later at much greater cost. A nuclear Iran simply cannot happen. A nuclear Pakistan is still in the unacceptable category.

UPDATE 7/26/05: Case Closed. The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. by Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, 11/24/2003, Volume 009, Issue 11.

From: The Young Curmudgeon, 11/7/03.

The American Roots of Fascism

Our previous post references this piece by the inestimable Mr. John Ray: The American Roots of Fascism.

Ii's an eye opener.

Here's an excerpt:

So however you look at it, the connection of Fascism to Leftism is quite seamless. Its origins were in the intellectuals of the 19th century German Left, it was developed and made politically influential by the American Left around the beginning of the 20th century and it reached its full implementation in the hands of one section of the European Left in the 1920s and 1930's -- i.e. Hitler & Mussolini. And both Hitler and Mussolini campaigned as socialists and never ceased advocating socialism.

Interesting facts about Salvador Allende (1908–1973).

• President of Chile (1970-73).
• Killed in CIA-backed coup, 1973.
• Deposed by General Augusto Pinochet.
• Believed that surgery could make a male homosexual heterosexual.
• Wrote doctoral theses in 1933 at age 25 in which he asserted:

1. Jews have a disposition to crime.
2. The mentally ill should be forcibly sterilized.
3. Alcoholics should be forcibly sterilized.
4. The U.S. Constitution is a "living" document.

• Advocated compulsory sterilization program while health minister from 1939 to 1941.
• One of the founders of the Chilean Socialist Party in, uh . . . 1933.

Wikipedia bio: Salvador Allende.

From The American Roots of Fascism, by John Ray<-- Simply Morbid Herald <-- The Telegraph.

OK. . . . No. 4 is a lie.

Margaret Cho - nitwit.

Margaret Cho, alleged comedienne, named her dog "Gudrun" after Gudrun Ensslin of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

Check out this link to appreciate why the family of the man at the top of the page never thought that 1970s terrorism was as "chic" as Margaret thinks it is.

From Ace of Spaces HQ.

The Castle, Al Kut, Iraq - 4th LAR HQ

The rewards of kicking ass - Fallujah.

Today was a perfect example of how far we have come on the backs of the incredible young Marines, Soldiers and Sailors who have been a part of the Regiment since we arrived in February 2004.

By mid-morning, we were sitting in a meeting with the local imams. The senior imam or "mufti" brings other important imams in a few times a month and we discuss ongoing issues inside the city. The imam meeting is in addition to various reconstruction meetings with contractors and bureaucrats as well as the perpetual development of the Iraqi security forces. What is unique about the imam meeting is that like so many other things happening now, the meeting itself would have been beyond impossible as recently as October. Now the imams request the meeting and sit down with us in order to reduce friction and work toward improving the quality of life of the Fallujahns.

Lt. Col. D.G. Bellon, USMC

A little ass kicking music.

English National Anthem.






Reveille.

Now that we're awake (maybe), here's a little inspirational music for the fight the islamicists so desperately want from us.

March: Gardes du Corps.
Composer: Robert B. Hall .

March: The Directorate .
Composer: John Phillip Sousa.

March: The Black Horse Troop.
Composer: John Phillip Sousa.

Site: March Music Online. The USAF Heritage of America Band.

Religion of Peace - IV.

Goodwill ambassadors.

Beslan, N. Ossetia-Alania, Russia.

September 1, 2004.

Religion of Peace - III.

With the program.

Religion of Peace - II.

Mattel is for pussies.

Religion of Peace - I.

AK47, rocks, and Koran.

From some Islamic group web site.

Seems to be some kind of subtle relationship between the AK and the rocks. Possible environmental group.

Forsythia and blue vase.

Very fine.

Alas, I can't recall name of the artist or where I got this.

Immigration -- summum bonum.

The following negative aspects of immigration have been identified by one gentleman:^[1]

• Muslim terrorist cells.
• Refugee scams.
• Importation of disease.
• [Non-assimilation, indifference to host country norms, and] cultural dilution.
• Religious antagonism.
• Economic displacement.
• Job losses.
• Inflated welfare and other costs [prisons, gang control, quindecimlingualism].
• Population pressure.
• [Special privileges].

The Framers never in their wildest imaginings could have predicted the steam engine, mass transatlantic steamer travel, massive refugee movements, cheap air travel, and the loss of a sense of cultural cohesion such that the nation's borders would literally and figuratively be undefended.

Should a family choose to leave open the doors to its residence so that any and all might enter and make some claim upon its private property, it would rightly be considered to have taken leave of its senses. For Americans to do the equivalent on a national scale hardly creates a ripple on the political pond.

Nativism is derided by the left as a manifestation of small minds for, lo, the Family of Man, noble and glorious in its every expression, must be free to wander where it will. Unrestricted immigration must proceed for no other reasons than that multiculturalism is a certified Good Thing or that a fortunate ancestor wishes to be reunited with his extended family. Or . . . so help me, "we are a nation of immigrants."

Former military allies and refugees from homicidal regimes should always have a special claim on the sympathies of other countries. But the burden of proof has long since shifted back (if it ever left) to those who claim that "diversity," cheap labor, and mindless ethnic dilution trump all other considerations.

Some immigrants have a great desire to integrate and some make great contributions. The history of the U.S. is a success story many different hands in the making. That success was not impeded by the fact that the source of immigration was overwhelmingly European, even though non-Europeans have made many contributions as well.

Either way, immigration at one time happened at a rate that could be absorbed, came from a broadly homogenous group, and took place according to an expectation (willingly internalized) that there was a new American identity that was the most important identity, but which permitted endless ethnic variation.

In recent decades, however, immigrants have been able to qualify for residence merely by arriving -- thereby completely bypassing even the minimal efforts to condition residency, let alone citizenship, upon some allegiance to our political and social norms. The existence of huge Spanish-speaking enclaves and the phenomenon of gangs in southern California are testimony to the fact that even immigrants from familiar cultures can arrive in too great a number. The political ramifications of this presence of illegal immigrants in California are significant.

The Colonel simply can't imagine why he would not be a fantastic addition to the island culture of Japan. If there is a dearth of Japanese with skills at obfuscation, dissembling, flattery, and verbal misdirection, the Colonel is willing to set sail immediately to make his contribution. However, it is not clear even to the Colonel, just how Japanese society would be benefited by the arrival of 375,000 American accountants, businesspersons, nurses, taxi drivers, fruit pickers, street rod mechanics, short order cooks, bronc busters, bull riders, and chicken pluckers. What exactly would be our claim to admittance? That it would be nice to have a Japanese standard of living? That's its rich culture would surely benefit our children? That we don't like it where we are? That we are oppressed by motorcycle helmet laws?

Yet U.S. policy is mindless -- further immigration from radically disparate cultures at an uncontrolled rate for any personal reason at all is . . . just fine.

The Colonel has contributed very little of enduring value to the greatness of western civilization other than devising creative ways to relieve widows and orphans of their last remaining savings. That doesn't prevent him from recognizing the inherent superiority of that civilization. It is a civilization that is basically inclusive, and even more so is it open to people of talent and industry. The fact that people from non-European backgrounds can do as well as any others is testimony to its strength.

The religious doctrines of Muslims should give us great pause in this area, however, as those doctrines unequivocally mandate a theocracy that is incompatible with our present political and legal order. And they teach that all non-Muslims are filth and should not be associated with.

If Muslims want to avail themselves of the benefits of liberal society they should take positive steps to renounce such precepts and do more to cast out from their own society the advocates of murder and obscurantism.

Until that happens we need, among other measures, to reduce Muslim immigration to zero and demand the absolute cessation of Saudi financing of Wahabi mosques.
______________________
Notes
^[1] "Easter and the Resurrection of the West." By Chilton Williamson Jr., Vdare, March 29, 2002

Exquisite.

Group: Croatian Folk Ensemble Lado.
Album: Raspelo.

From Tamburaland -- "promoting flat singing and broken english."

Compare the experience of the women of "Lado" in Croatia (free artistic expression, independence, commercial opportunity) to the experience of Ms. Naze Ezizi, poet and musician, in Iran. (Hint: a woman's voice belongs to her husband.)

Punishment for women singers/poets (choose as many as you want):

1. stoning.
2. honor killing.
3. fining.
4. rousting by cops.
5. banishment from being published in any paper.

From Clarity & Resolve, a greaaaat site.

The restored Stoa of Attalus, Athens.

The genius of the Ancients. From Wickipedia.

2400 mujahadin attacks since 9/11.

From Islam. Religion of Peace?

. . . [T]he next time you hear someone refer to this ideology as "The Religion of Peace", direct them to this site and explain that every person on this list lost their life or was maimed by individuals vocally inspired by this religion.

From "About the List of Terrorist Attacks":

Only a handful of cases from the country of Sudan were included, for example, even though the Muslim government has killed nearly two million Christians and other non-Muslim black Africans in the last two decades.

See permanent link on this page under "Islam."

Petunias.

Local carnivores.

Spring.

The origins of gooneybirdism.

Liberals, leftists, socialists, National Socialists (leftist, btw), commies, multiculturalists, fanatics, and other idealists (pardon the taxonomical confusion) seem most beset by the pain of dealing with life's intractable realities: cupidity, personal failings, faction, ignorance, ethnic difference, sloth, rejection, disease, uncouth motherplunkers, etc.

Marcus Aurelius said, "[Consider] that men will do the same things nevertheless, even though thou shouldst burst." Meditations, VIII, 4. Aurelius counseled acceptance of the natural order (man's nature).

Idealists cannot. They must either bend reality to conform to their imagination by denial, or conform reality to their imagination by murder and revolution. It is probably this that explains the appalling blindness of the left, their inability to see communism as the abhorrent system that it is. Anyone else who can agree that the "is" of one's own society is deficient has to be noble. Like oneself it happens.

The U.S. is in trouble because we have thrown aside the mechanisms that the Founders devised to deal with man's actual nature. Today, the politicians vie amongst themselves to offer the most attractive dream (sic).

To attack the dream is to attack the dreamer. Hence the disproportional vehemence of the liberals, the "angry left."

Samuel Johnson nailed the psychodynamics of dreamers 246 years ago -- way before anyone had even heard of psychodynamics. He had no illusions about the pathetic search for a perfect government.

Enjoy this vignette from Dr. Johnson's Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia:

CHAPTER XLIV--THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMAGINATION.

"Disorders of intellect," answered Imlac, "happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity, but while this power is such as we can control and repress it is not visible to others, nor considered as any deprivation of the mental faculties; it is not pronounced madness but when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or action.

"To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination out upon the wing is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which Nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow.

"In time >some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.

"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."

"I will no more," said the favourite [Pekuah], "imagine myself the Queen of Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours which the Princess [Nekayah] gave to my own disposal in adjusting ceremonies and regulating the Court; I have repressed the pride of the powerful and granted the petitions of the poor; I have built new palaces in more happy situations, planted groves upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of royalty, till, when the Princess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow down before her."

"And I," said the Princess, "will not allow myself any more to play the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till I have in my chamber heard the winds whistle and the sheep bleat; sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the village maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks."

"I will confess," said the Prince, "an indulgence of fantastic delight more dangerous than yours. I have frequently endeavoured to imagine the possibility of a perfect government, by which all wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved in tranquillity and innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salutary effects. This has been the sport and sometimes the labour of my solitude, and I start when I think with how little anguish I once supposed the death of my father and my brothers."

"Such," said Imlac, "are the effects of visionary schemes. When we first form them, we know them to be absurd, but familiarise them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly."^[1]

What has modern psychiatry added to these insights?

Notes
^[1] "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." By Samuel Johnson, 1759 (emphasis added).

This is a slight revised version of the original post appearing July 10, 2005. Some strange formatting and inaccurate links that somehow crept in were corrected, inter alia. That post has been deleted and this one posted in its place.

The soul of wit.

From Little Green Footballs.

Master street painter.

From Bore Me.

Kanadian Kardiac Kare.

Single payer health care (aka socialized medicine).

Fantastic . . . IF you happen to be a political insider. If not, wait your turn, sucker. We'll get to you eventually.
Thanks to Kate (example of awesome Canadian womanhood) at Little Dead Animals. The Roadkill Diaries.

Kung fu chimp.

Slick, sinister, simian, samurai scrapper.

From Bore Me. The best of your inbox.

Good definition.

A pragmatist believes something when they see it.

A fanatic sees something when they believe it.

From Barking Dingo.

Wildly creative.

Polish guys, I think.

With a sequel on the way!

Crazy French guy.

A bit of Gallic genius.

The failure of the United Nations ideal.

Yet another terrorist outrage in London will set off the usual train of events. We'll ask Who did this? How did they do it? How could any decent person do this? What can we do to prevent this in the future? Did we cause this in any way? Oh, dear!

Massive resources will be diverted to find the perpetrator. The terror alert level will be raised to dizzying chromatic heights.

And then we'll go back to waiting for the next outrage with the same followup. Basically lots of resources will chase very small groups of people who (1) desperately are in need of a horsewhipping and (2) are able to avail themselves of unlimited support from governments with too much oil revenue or are just simply depraved.

Iran, Syria, Lybia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,^[1] the Sudan, and North Korea have all been actively engaged in terror, harboring terrorists, or paying off terrorists, and all have been

• firmly in the grip of a murderous, pig ignorant medieval theocracy;
• hypocritically paying lip service thereto;
• governing with fascist excess (in part) to control Gooney Bird Islam; or
• clinging to a dynastic Stalinist joke of a government.

The problem of Islamic terror is not a police problem. Forget the FBI and Scotland Yard.

Terror is a problem of state sponsorship of murder that hides behind skilled clandestine operators able to

• cross international borders with ease,
• operate with impunity within immigrant populations in the West,
• take advantage of western legal and political protections,
• enjoy the hypocritical acquiescence of western elites, and
• count on the unwillingness of western populations to fight for their culture.

Face it.

The United Nations is an idea whose usefulness came and went immediately. It was stillborn the moment it opened its doors with the odiferous U.S.S.R. on the Security Council with a veto. "Collective" action in Korea under the putative colors of the U.N. was possible only because of a freak lapse in tactics on the part of the Soviets, never to be repeated.

Today, grotesque governments declaim in the General Assemply upon human rights violations in the U.S. Piss ant diplomats, wafting Old Spice apres bain dabadoo, glide through U.N. Manhattan hallways.

The horror at the slaughter of WWII gave birth to the impossible dream that humans who then knew the bitter fruit of war could unite against war. The dream was, of course, the dream of all idealists whose skewed view of human nature blinded them to the futility of western nations being able to accomplish anything valuable to them by cooperating with monstrous regimes. Not that Alger Hiss, ace communist spy, advisor to President Roosevelt at Yalta, and Secretary General to the founding charter conference of the United Nations thought that the communists were monstrous, or anything.

The place to learn about bug-like regimes is on The Discovery Channel and through traditional diplomacy, not by creating expensive entities like the U.N. -- "Romper Room on the Hudson."

Dollar for dollar, Disney is more entertaining.

The U.N. needs to be scrapped and a limited-membership NATO reconstituted and directed to target outlaw regimes. Terrorist incidents need to be answered with destruction of some military or capital asset of each of the non-democratic states that support or have supported terror.

Escalating sanctions can be devised by two or three Lance Corporals over a few brewskis.

There is simply no need to prove present involvement. Past involvement will do fine, with the burden of proof being on the regime to prove non-sponsorship or that some other dirt bags are responsible for a particular incident.

The whole world is in thrall to regimes that produce no music, no science, no technology, no thinkers, and no Hostess Twinkees or Ho Hos. Their combined non-oil economic output is probably less than Lappland's antler exports.

Yet, these bastard regimes get to partake of the banquet provided by modern cultures just like crazy Uncle Jethro at Thanksgiving. The crucial difference being that Jethro contributed something of value to the family. Just what has come out of Araby in the last 200 years?

Quick. Name one thing.

When are the people of the West going to say, "Enough"?

If the answer is "Never" then a future of dhimmitude is most certainly ours.

Coming soon: legal measures to deal with terror . . . .

Notes
^[1] President Bush is acting precisely correctly by ignoring the pussies in Europe and the U.N. and taking care of business in Opiumistan and Iraq. It's like a busload of lawyers at the bottom of the ocean. A damn good start.

Time to open us up a can of (domestic) whoopass.

Senator John Cornyn makes this point ("Senate Sense & Nonsense. SCOTUS rules of order.") about one of President Clinton's Supreme Court nominees:

[Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, a brilliant jurist, had served as general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union — a liberal organization that has championed the abolition of traditional marriage laws and attacked the Pledge of Allegiance. She had previously written that traditional marriage laws are unconstitutional; that the Constitution guarantees a right to prostitution; that the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Mother's Day, and Father's Day are all discriminatory institutions; that courts should force taxpayers to pay for abortions, against their will; and that the age of consent for sexual activity should be lowered to age 12

Given the realities of Justice Ginsburg's views, Mr. Clinton did not care a fig about preserving the Court's ideological balance as it had existed before the retirement of Justice Byron White. Ergo, Bush shouldn't have to nominate someone just like Justice O'Connor.

The left will scream bloody murder about any threat to stare decisis^[1] as though the accelerated betrayal of the Constitution by the Supreme Court since the thirties has become holy writ. Judicial error, once committed, you see, is forever insulated from remediation, so long as it supports the unrestrained expansion of federal power and the concomitant evisceration of the (once) sovereign states. The left will tar as an extremist any nominee who is unwise enough to suggest that there is nothing sacred about bad precedent.

Justice Clarence Thomas, God bless him, knew the true meaning of the Commerce Clause and for his originalist views endured what may have been the most stomach-churning campaign of character assassination of 20th century American politics.

In contrast, someone as radical as Justice Ginsburg slipped onto the Court with the Republicrats being ever so gentlemanly and accommodating. Let's hope President Bush nominates someone with a little fire in his or her belly for the cause of the "dead" Constitution, as Jonah Goldberg aptly describes it ("Better Off Dead. A conservative Constitution"). When the Demuglicans yell bloody murder over someone who understands the place of Article I, section 8 in the constitutional scheme, let them be reminded of Justice Ginsburg, and the battle go on from there.

With the President pretty much in a state of terminal cluelessness on the "Islam is a religion of peace" deal (at least publicly), it's not promising that he will be particularly prescient on the issues of

• the pretzelization of the 14th Amendment,
• the fevered annulment of state law by extension of the Bill of Rights,
• the reckless extension of the Commerce Clause to sanction any assertion of federal power,
• the indirect bypassing of Article I, section 8 by grants in aid,
• the bloatation of the Necessary and Proper Clause,
• the mausoleumization of the Tenth Amendment, and
• the ignorification of the Second Amendment.

Mr. Bush's instincts on a bad day are infinitely preferable to Justice Ginsburg's cerebrations on a good day, however, so he may yet kick some ass.

It's working in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not here?

Notes
^[1] This is an incredibly sophisticated legal concept that is difficult for mere mortals to grasp. In the simplest of terms it means "what we said before on any issue is absolutely locked in stone and will destroy the Republic if changed unless, of course, it's convenient for us to do something different, in which case kindly STFU."

Slide show - military in Iraq.

With thanks to 2Slick's Forum, 3/6/05.

"Free ranging extremists."

This is one of a bunch of graphics the Dutch came up with the after murder of Theo van Gogh.

This is a sneaky site that keeps changing the name of the subdirectory where the image is stored so it's not possible to link drectly to the image. For "Free ranging extremists" go to where all the images are on this Dutch blog, Retecool, and search for the word "bord".

With thanks to Zacht Ei.

Btw, Mr. Dasselar's commentary at Zacht Ei on Mr. van Gogh's murder in the Netherlands in 2004 is insightful and extremely interesting.

Male chauvinism celebrated.

With thanks to Zacht Ei.

Think winter!

Jackass alert - I.

In contrast to intelligent Muslims who favor accomodating haphazard seventh-century thinking to liberal values in some way, there are those Muslims who resist any kind of ameliorating interpretation.

These gentlemen take the position similar to some Englishman's saying that the U.K. should go back to a form of land holding that prevailed at the time of the Norman Conquest. Then, as befitted an illiterate aristocracy, the son receiving land from his father was beaten to burn in his memory that a significant event in his life was taking place. Only the eldest son inherited land from his father.

Over the centuries, the common law in England and the U.S. adapted in myriad ways to changing social, technological, commercial, and political realities. Sometimes change was good, sometimes bad, but there was always the possibility of adaptation. Theocracy was eventually supplanted (though secularism without religion had a hideous record in the 20th century). Slavery was abolished.

In contrast. slavery only became de jure illegal in Saudi Arabia in 1962, give or take a year or two. (No need to rush these things.) Whether it became de facto illegal there is doubtful.^[1]

Imagine throwing out every legal advance in Europe and the English-speaking world during the last 1,400 years and reinstituting Anglo Saxon law. "Primitive" captures the essence of that legal system.^[2] And "whack job" describes anyone who'd want to turn back the clock to those days.

Trust me on this. Really.

In this spirit, The Colonel offers the views of former Pakistani president Mohammad Rafiq Tarar:

• The present government is alienating Pakistan from its glorious past^[3] and rich Islamic cultural heritage.
• Muslims are being massacred in Waziristan and Balochistan at the "signals" of the U.S.
• Unchecked freedom is promoting obscenity.^[4]
• The U.S. is the "greatest terrorist."

And this classic statement of the "All Change Is Disaster (ACID)" school of Islamic thought from Karachi [City District Government Chief Mr. ] Nematullah Khan:

• Muslims were chosen by Allah Almighty to guide all humanity^[5] because their character is built upon the Holy Quran and Sunnah.^[6]
• Muslims have fallen on hard times because of deviation from the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

(Emphasis added.) There you have it. Back to the basics of the seventh century and everything's jake.

With thanks to Khaleej Times Online.

Notes
^[1] Saudi Arabia is, you will note, the wellspring of Wahabism, the ne plus ultra model of correct atavistic Muslim thought. If this issue required what must surely have been a head bonking struggle inside the Kingdom of Saud, what are the chances of reform on some lesser issue? What can a reasonable person conclude but that Wahabism is permanently locked in medieval thinking?
^[2] E.g.: The Laws of Æthelberht, King of Kent, 560-616 A.D.:

82. If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay fifty shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy (the object of) his will of the owner. "

The Laws of King Alfred, 871-901 A.D.:

Of fornication with a nun.

8. If any one carry off a nun from a minster, without the king's or the bishop's leave, let him pay a hundred and twenty shillings, half to the king, half to the bishop and to the church-hlaford who owns the nun. If she live longer than he who carried her off, let her not have aught of his property. If she bear a child, let not that have of the property more than the mother. If any one slay her child, let him pay to the king the maternal kindred's share; to the paternal kindred let their share be given. . . .

^[3] I.e., when we were top dog.
^[4] E.g., bare ankles, exposed hair, female participation in the workplace.
^[5] A consternation devoutly to be missed.
^[6] Uh oh.

Sensible Islam - I.

The Colonel applauds Muslims anywhere who take a stand against Islamic obscurantism and terrorism:

President Pervez Musharraf said all Muslim countries should persistently pursue “enlightened moderation” and try to correct misperceptions about Islam in the rest of the world.

“We need to curb obscurantism and correct our direction — we should have enlightenment and moderation in accordance with Islamic teachings,” he said.

[Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad], speaking at the ceremony in which he received an honorary doctorate from the International Islamic University Islamabad, said Muslims should interpret Islamic laws in harmony with the needs of the modern times.

With thanks to Khaleej Times Online.

Fly-through computer simulation.

Here's a glimpse of what computer graphics can achieve -- Khed-Brahma area Gujarat. (For Windows Media Player.)

Short explanation here.

With thanks to National Remote Sensing Agency of India.

Wahabism Delenda Est.

Completely correct.

With thanks to Aarghhh!!!

Something to drive the Mullahs crazy.

Best rap video ever.

Actually, the only good rap song in the intergalictic troposphere monitored by The Colonel's sigint detachment.

Be that as it may, The Colonel see's this as a harbinger of the eventual demise of Iran's islamofacisti.

Funny quote in the comments at ref link: "It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man!!"

Never Ending Fall.

No, not a sermon. Something that probably took two years of programming to perfect.

I'm trying to think of some political ramifications to this:

• Islam's concept of mortal existence and the will of Allah (s.w.f)?
• Mortal existence of taxpayers and the will of Congress and the courts?

From: BoingBoing (outdated link though, above link works).

Weasel alert.

Read this post and ask yourself whether the Washington Post, LA Times, and The Boston Globe can be trusted

1. to report on anything to do with the fight against Gooney Bird Islam or
2. not to revel in anything that shows the U.S. military in a bad light.

Compare the headline they used and the obviously correct headline supplied by Stephen Spruiell at Media Blog, NRO, 6/27/05.

Oh! THAT part of the story.

The WPLATBG version highlights the statements of 17 lying mother plunkers about the Koran abuse at G'mo Bay. The Spruiell version raises the point that, like, it's a delusion to hope that releasing any of the combatants will not result in their rejoining the forces trying to kill our guys and gals.

Jews responsible for psoriasis.

Sheikh Ibrahim Medeiris, Palestinian Authority TV, May 13, 2005.

Thanks to MEMRI TV.

New Iran pres denies '79 hostage role.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently elected president of Iran by a clear majority of eligible fanatics in the Holy City of Teheran; the Holy City of Esfahan; the Holy City of Qom; the Holy City of Tabriz; the Holy City of Chabahar; the Holy Villages of Bam, Gonabad, and Yazd; the Holy Hamlets of Kazan, Yasuj, and Dezful; and the Holy Duty Free Port of Bandar Abbas, has come under fire for his alleged role in the takeover of the American Embassy in 1979.

“No way would I have been involved with something like that,” he said through an interpreter. “I was just delivering pizza to the Marine guards when the humus hit the cuspidor.”

“Oh, sure, I was nursing one or two grievances against the United States just like every other unemployed graduate of the religious schools. Here I was able to recite the Koran backwards and forwards but where were the good paying jobs for me as a programmer, engineer, or doctor? Quite honestly, if it weren’t for the Crusades, resurgent Zionism, Ronald Reagan, and Inside-the-Beltway, neoconservative revanchism, I would be a practicing gynecologist right now.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad proudly wheeled his personal 1980 “Infidel Eliminator” scooter into the press conference. “It’s a good thing I finally own my own scooter now so I can still deliver pizzas and provide for my family after my term as president is over.”

“I don’t know where people get the idea I was into torture and international assassinations.” said Mr. Ahmadinejad.

“What?! I’m some kind of animal?”