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May 21, 2005
Saturday morning -- groveling and linkie goodness
Please forgive the spotting blogging. A myriad of stuff going on, not the least of which I've had the most horrendous of sinus headaches the last few days as the So Cal weather has warmed up and the pollen count has gone through the roof. I'm really sensitive to all sorts of medication, Benedryl knocks me out and Sudafed will have friends and co-workers looking for a net to toss over me once they peel me from the ceiling, so I'm kind of stuck with just trying to take something for pain and suffering with 'em. Then there's just my attitude lately when reading the news What? This sh*t, AGAIN?
One-Bill-Gil Cedillo is at it again in trying to get driver's licenses for illegal aliens (you'll never catch me using the PC euphemisms in order to obfuscate the fact these people are criminals). This one on the heels of his trying to have illegal aliens treated BETTER than US citizens by exempting them from having their cars impounded when they are caught driving without a license. If Cedillo wants to be the representative of illegals and NOT of US citizens, may I suggest he emigrate to Mexico. And Gil? Don't let the border gate hit you on the ass as you leave, schmuck.
Looks like the ICRC is really really upset over Saddam photos in his underwear. While it looks as if the photos might be over a year old and the source of them is unknown, the ICRC doesn't allow that to stand in the way of sniffing that the US military is to blame. Not surprising as this "neutral" group has been nurturing a grudge against the US for sometime. They are peeved that the US didn't declare the Gitmo detainees as POWs (as they clearly are not) and rail against such "torture" as having female interrogators for moslem male detainees.
Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl could not be reached for comment.
Of course, that comes on the heels of Newsweek's Flushgate. Jeff Harrell has Best.Newspaper.Photoshop.Ever on this subject. "Unholy toilet" and Bat Boy .... omigawd!
On a serious note, don't miss Victor Davis Hanson's latest on Flushgate and moslems.
There is not a necessary connection in the Middle East — or anywhere else — between the occasional appearance of technological sophistication and what we might call humanism, or the commitment to explain phenomena through reason and empiricism. We forget that far too often as we kow-tow to extremists and seek to apologize or fathom the holy protocols surrounding a religious text.VDH sums up eloquently why I have a great deal of trouble when people preach that we must respect moslems -- because they are referring to the definition of the word as in "hold in esteem" rather than the "just be cognizant of". Let me make myself clear. There is no, none, NADA, moral/ethical/cultural equivalency between Western Civilization and the world of Islamism. I refuse to pretend there is. I am not a self-loathing Leftist. As VDH also observesIn the West, the wonder of a cell phone in some sense is the ultimate expression of a long struggle for the primacy of scientific reason, tolerance, critical consciousness, and free expression. That intellectual journey goes back to Galileo, Newton, and Socrates.
.....
That long odyssey is not so in the world of bin Laden or an Iranian theocrat — or the ignorant who stream out of the madrassas and Friday fundamentalist harangues along the Afghan-Pakistani border. These fist-shaking, flag-burning Islamic fascists all came late to the Western tradition and now cherry-pick its technology. As classic parasites, a Zawahiri or al-Zarqawi wants Western sophisticated weapons and playthings — without the bothersome foundations that made them all possible.
Abroad, we battle Islamic fascists who hate us for our success and want to kill us with the tools of the modern world they despise. But at home, we are also at odds with our own privileged guilt-ridden aristocracy, whose very munificence has made them misunderstand why they are hated.Yet another example of this cultural gulf can be found at The Jawa Report about an Afghan woman who angered fundie moslems when she was a "Veejay" -- first she was fired from her job, now she's been murdered.
It looks like Mary Kay Letourneau has married Villi, who she raped when he was a sixth grader. Guess she just was following the Woody Allen example of picking 'em out young and raising 'em to one's own liking.
One last note, I find it interesting that my October '04 posting on California's Three Strikes Law still attracts comment. Last one was just yesterday and I find it amusing that Karla somehow doesn't see any correlation between and drop in crime and an increase in prison population.
Posted by Darleen at May 21, 2005 09:21 AM