:: Bluestarblog ::

:: Friday, June 28, 2002 ::

All these terrorist names and organizations got you confused? Check out this alphabetical rundown - or this network map.

:: Scot 12:05 PM [+] :: ::
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A religion of peace.

:: Scot 11:59 AM [+] :: ::
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Hahahaha
I wonder if under-performin' Norman has seen this.

:: Scot 11:53 AM [+] :: ::
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Remember this guy? He knows a thing or two about Muslims.

:: Scot 9:58 AM [+] :: ::
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Coyne's coin - Jean Cretien and Bill Graham as the ambiguously vague duo!

:: Scot 9:57 AM [+] :: ::
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Rolling Stone - RIP

:: Scot 9:51 AM [+] :: ::
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Two articles I never thought I'd see in the Arab News:

America: New country for old visitors

and

The need for reform in the Arab world

In the same day no less!

:: Scot 9:47 AM [+] :: ::
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Though I've never been a big fan of Canadian cinema, this list has me thinking twice. Some great films here, some of which I certainly didn't recognize as Canadian.

:: Scot 9:41 AM [+] :: ::
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A double zinger from the incomparable Mark Steyn.

Osama bin Hidin?

Where did he go? The alleged experts seem inclined to favour either the Greater Kandahar area or the Pakistani tribal lands. Supposedly, he’s trimmed his beard, and is receiving dialysis from machines supplied by rogue elements of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence services, while waiting for a doctor to be flown in to perform a kidney transplant. I doubt it. On the Afghan side of the border, while the Taleban’s top execs have melted back into a not unsympathetic general population, the foreign occupiers — Osama and his Arabs and other miscellaneous hirelings — remain very unpopular. In the Pakistani badlands, meanwhile, he could perhaps rely on the fact that the $25 million bounty on his head is too large to have any meaning to your average Baluchistani villager, unschooled in such matters as exchange rates. But those duplicitous ISI guys are another matter, and I wouldn’t trust any doctor they ushered into the room.

Oh, well. Hamid Karzai says he’s in Pakistan. General Musharraf says he’s in Afghanistan. From this we can deduce the general rule that, whatever country you happen to be in charge of, you’d rather Osama were in someone else’s. The obvious question for those who say the weirdbeard is getting dialysis treatment in Iraq or Iran is: why would Saddam and the ayatollahs feel differently from Karzai and Musharraf? Are they that fond of the old terrorist mastermind? The evidence suggests that both regimes are trying to avoid attracting Washington’s attention in the hope that this whole unfortunate axis-of-evil business will just fade away. Booking him into the Sword of the Infidel-Slayer General Hospital’s Renal Ward would be like pasting a big ol’ target on your forehead. The Iranians, in particular, would be aware of a potential historical symmetry: it was Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow the exiled Shah into the US for medical treatment that provoked the American Embassy siege.


And on Bush's subtle hijacking of the G-8 summit.

The Bush plan on the Middle East and the Chrétien plan on Africa are not just differences in priorities but in fundamental approach. The NEPAD business is in the grand tradition of multilateral plans; the Palestine plan is really an anti-plan, a plan for those who don't like plans. Mr. Chrétien really thinks he can save Africa, and so do his chums at The Globe And Mail who hailed it last month as "a deal to pull Africa out of poverty." Mr. Bush is under no illusions that he brings peace to the Middle East and his plan is to have no plans on the subject until those involved get serious. He's not "imposing" "onerous" "conditions" on the Palestinians. His message to them is a simple one: No shirt, no shoes, no service. They're not conditions, only a statement of the obvious: It may be "up to the Palestinians" (as Chirac, Graham et al. insist) to choose their leaders but if they choose corrupt and duplicitous terrorism-facilitators like "Chairman" Arafat, there's no reason on earth why the United States should help them to statehood.

If Mr. Chrétien had decided to devote this summit to Palestine, he would have had a big plan brokered with the EU, he'd have flown in Arafat and Assad and Saudi "Crown" "Prince" Abdullah and a bunch of Arab League honchos -- and nothing would have come of it, because it would have been predicated on a fiction. The acronym for Mr. Chrétien's African plan -- NEPAD, pronounced "kneepad" -- could just as easily be applied to the Euro-Canadian approach to Mr. Arafat: If you spend enough time on your kneepads, the guy'll come round. He won't. Mr. Bush has seen the Arafat memo authorizing a payment of US$20,000 to the family of that last suicide bomber -- the one the Chairman supposedly "condemned." The President has made a statement of the obvious: You can't plan on a fellow like that. Mr. Bush's plan is, in fact, a superb explanation of why he doesn't have a plan.

No wonder his G8 colleagues and the rest of the all-plans-all-the-time set are furious with Bush. If the no-plan plan were to catch on with the international community, it'd be the end of summits like Kananaskis. That's why Bush didn't bother giving fellow leaders a heads-up about his speech or a glimpse of its contents. He knew that if he simply said what he thought about the subject that the rest of the gang would scramble to re-position themselves. On Tuesday, asked about the Bush speech, Mr. Chrétien said that he could not reply because he had not yet been briefed; by Wednesday, the Chrétien position had evolved: He now had no view one way or the other on Mr. Arafat. Tony Blair managed to come up with a form of words that left him looking less like an incompetent boob but which was essentially following the same trajectory: moving towards the American position but without appearing to.

Had Mr. Bush kept the no-plan plan to himself until today and quietly offered it to his pals around the table at Kananaskis, Chirac would have pronounced it unacceptable, Chrétien would have ummed and awed, Blair would have sought to find some middle ground, and the result would have been a compromise statement of utter worthlessness -- like the Commonwealth on Zimbabwe. Much better to pre-announce the plan, and give the other guys a few days to catch up. If they don't want to, what's the difference?

Somebody get this guy a blog.

:: Scot 9:35 AM [+] :: ::
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For a good analysis of Bush's speech check out USS Clueless (there are a couple of entries pertaining to the speech but you'll need to scroll down to find them). I like this guy's style of essay-blogging.

:: Scot 9:19 AM [+] :: ::
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What would Marshall McLuhan have to say about the blogosphere? McLuhless might have the answer.

:: Scot 6:10 AM [+] :: ::
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Found some cool links on my favorite (living) philosopher Daniel Dennett.

From the Edge Organization a small biography, The Evolution of Culture, and Dennett's Deal.

From Tufts University a small bio and a list of his publications.

And from University of California a small bibliography.

:: Scot 6:05 AM [+] :: ::
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Forget about Iraq and Palestine, the real action is in Saudi Arabia:

A number of Western cells are presently operating in Saudi Arabia, both overtly and covertly, and have launched periodic assaults on the youth of the Kingdom in the months since the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The Westerners who make up these cells are experts in psychological terrorism.

Western cells in the Kingdom engaged in psychological terrorism. CIA? Special Ops? Worse - journalists!

Although there is reportedly intense rivalry among them, they are nevertheless bound together by their lack of ethics and blind loyalty to the lost cause of breathing life into a profession dying a quiet death in their home countries: serious, objective journalism.

These Western journalists are apparently motivated by their collective misconception that because 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis, normal life does not exist in what they so love to refer to as the "oil-rich" Kingdom.

The Western journalists typically enter the Kingdom under cover of pretending that they want to learn more about what goes on here, for the benefit of international relations and intercultural harmony.

However, once they arrive they immediately shed their flimsy masks.

High on having got in, they set about doing what they really came here to do: launch psychological assaults on the local Saudi population.

Their weapons are crude, but intellectually devastating: questions of the utmost stupidity.

They invariably leave their Saudi victims with a feeling of having been insidiously violated, and doubly distressed at their later realization that they were such willing victims.

After the initial assault, the victims are betrayed again.

Their polite but persistently objective and sensible answers are wildly distorted — indeed, not unusually completely reversed — in subsequent reports filed by the Western journalists for subtle propaganda purposes abroad.

This trend was brought to light last week when a Saudi teenage girl was found in tears after falling victim to a psychological terror attack by a foreign reporter, who had been walking around under cover of looking like a total and utter idiot completely unaware of why he had been sent by his newspaper to the Kingdom.

In fact, the best advice for Saudi youths is that they should ignore anyone they think may be a member of a terror cell. Do not even look them in the eye!

After all, without the complicity of the victim, a psychological assault can never succeed.

Good advice - freak.

:: Scot 6:27 AM [+] :: ::
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A list of 350 Music Journals, Magazines, Newspapers and Periodicals.

:: Scot 10:28 AM [+] :: ::
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Need a search engine? Take your pick.

:: Scot 9:42 AM [+] :: ::
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Flash intros don't get much cooler than this.

:: Scot 9:24 AM [+] :: ::
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Multiculturalism's volatile mix. George Jonas says what political correctoids have been keeping taboo for years.

Commenting on non-traditional immigration requires a footnote. The problem doesn't arise when people come to Canada from the Levant; the problem arises when people come to recreate the Levant in Canada. That's where non-traditional immigration and multiculturalism become a volatile mix. Extending our values to others is one thing, but modifying our values to suit the values of others is a vastly different proposition. As the late scholar Ernest van den Haag pointed out in 1965, patriotism is not racism. "The wish to preserve one's identity and the identity of one's nation," he wrote in a prescient piece in The National Review, "requires no justification any more than the wish to have one's own children."

By now multiculturalism has made it difficult to safeguard our traditions and ideals against a new type of immigrant whose goal is not to fit in, but to carve out a niche for his own tribe, language, customs, or religion in our country -- or rather in what we're no longer supposed to view as a country but something between Grand Central Station and an empty space. When Canada is no longer regarded as a culture, with its own traditions and narratives, but a tabula rasa, a clean slate, for anyone to write on what he will, immigrants of the new school will be ready with their own texts, including some that aren't very pleasant. The sound you hear is the sharpening of their chisels.

:: Scot 11:06 PM [+] :: ::
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Migrants must spread out: Ottawa

OTTAWA - Denis Coderre, the Immigration Minister, is proposing a strict immigration policy with the intent of putting a million newcomers in the country's less populated regions by 2011.

In reaction, a spokeswoman for immigrants said the plan seems like something out of "Communist China" and evokes memories of the kind of policies abroad that incited people to leave their homelands and come to Canada.

Yukon as Tibet? Tiananmen Square as Flin Flon? I can see it.

:: Scot 10:57 PM [+] :: ::
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Stratfor reports interesting developments on the Philippine front.

:: Scot 10:48 PM [+] :: ::
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Great piece Friday from National Review's Jonah Goldberg on Nazism and Islamism.

:: Scot 10:32 PM [+] :: ::
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Spin's Top 20 'MOST FASCINATING AND AMAZING ARTISTS'
(it was actually a list of 40 but the last 20 I either don't know, don't care, or can't believe they are in anyone's top 40)

1. Jay-Z
- He replaced Busta Rhymes as my favorite rapper. Not too bright but he does do LL better than LL

2. Radiohead
- I like them so much that I don't even listen to their CD's unless I have months and months to get into it

3. Eminem
- #3? on Spin? I'm not sure if this guy is really that cool. Then again, neither is Spin anymore

4. U2
- Always a lock for a top 10 showing, and will be for life

5. System of a Down
- Don't know a damn about them but by their description they sound weird enough

6. OutKast
- a rap/hip hip/r&b act I know little about

7. Linkin Park
- A teenege band I have to admit I like. Let's see what they do next

8. Moby
- Referring to his lifestyle he says "I feel so boring." He's not the only one

9. Weezer
- Haven't yet heard a CD of theirs I didn't like

10. The Strokes
- A top 10 showing no surprise. Should have the momentum for a few more good CD's

11. Basment Jaxx
- a rap/hip hip/r&b act I know little about

12. P.O.D.
- No matter how you look at at, the Christian pop/rock tag is always a kiss of death

13. Bjork
- A good spot for what is shaping to be a fine career. Her music is as ethereal as the French

14. Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott/Timbaland
- a rap/hip hip/r&b act I know little about

15. Tool
- Always a good darkhorse on a top 20 list

16. Alicia Keys
- a rap/hip hip/r&b act I know little about

17. Sum 41
- Will soon go the route of Silverchair. A bunch of talented kids without much to say

18. Dr Dre
- A much cooler, and smarter, version of 'Diddy Puff.'

19. Creed
- Not a good sign when bands start comparing themselves to Led Zeppelin

20. Nelly Furtado
- Spin calls her the coolest Canadian going. Not sure if that's a slag on Spin or on Canada

:: Scot 10:06 PM [+] :: ::
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Right-Wing Blacklist: Conservatives tell Cornel West to go to the back of the bus.

(Thusday’s) Chronicle of Higher Education reports that four distinguished neoconservatives are boycotting a panel discussion marking the 100th birthday of the political philosopher Sidney Hook, one of the authentic giants of American intellectual life. The four—Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Patrick Diggins, and Hilton Kramer—are backing out of the event, which is to be held at City University in Manhattan, because the organizers, looking to replace the philosopher Richard Rorty (he canceled), had the temerity to invite Cornel West.

West, of course, was recently in the news when he tangled with Harvard's president, Larry Summers, after Summers suggested he produce a new scholarly work. His neoconservative critics seem to be urging the opposite—implicitly suggesting that his views or his unconventional style disqualify him from participating in scholarly discussion. They want to shut West out of the intellectual circle.

Slate's Sam Tanenhaus seems to have some trouble figuring out the reasons behind the Cornel West snub. Let's see if I can help here:

1) Prior to his departure from Harvard in April, West occupied the position of ‘university professor’ (among Harvard’s 2000+ instructors, only 14 are accredited with this position). One might think that only serious intellectuals apply, but on his one page website – cornelwest.com, scholarship and academicism are nowhere to be found. Instead, we are treated to a shameless promotion of his horrendous CD Sketches of My Culture (of which a scathing and accurate review can be found here) in addition to a little (ok, a lot of) self-aggrandizing. To wit:

- In all modesty, this project constitutes a watershed moment in musical history. The combination of the oratorical passion and unmatched eloquence of Dr. Cornel West with the particular musical genius of Derek D.O.A. Allen has produced an auditory theatrical experience.

- Harvard Professor lauded as one of the most preeminent minds of our time. Author of the best seller "Race Matters" as well as many as fifteen other published texts including his latest entitled The Cornel West Reader. Dr. West's passionate oratory and deep grasp of a multitude of subject matter (from hiphop culture to a treatment on Nihilism and Nietzsche) has rendered him one of the most sought after lecturers in the country.

- His presence is a mainstay in the American media. So much so that he has virtually become a household word.

Putting aside the high school grammar, I can’t imagine any intellectual worth his or her own salt hyping their own self importance this way. This is the rhetoric of a salesman, not an academic.

2) Although one should not judge a book by its cover, it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow when gleaning some of his
titles -Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity, Prophetic Fragments, The American Evasion of Philosophy, The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought, Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, Prophetic Reflections, Keeping Faith and Restoring Hope. His philosophical canon looks more like social activism than ivy league intellectualism.

3) Delusions of grandeur. Try these tasty tidbits from The Cornel West Reader:

"[Chekhov's] magisterial depiction of the cold Cosmos, indifferent Nature, crushing Fate and the cruel histories that circumscribe desperate, bored, confused and anxiety-ridden yet love-hungry people, who try to endure against all odds, rings true to me." "Despite my Chekhovian Christian conception of what it means to be human— a view that invokes pre-modern biblical narratives …" "I stand in the skeptical Christian tradition of Montaigne, Pascal, and Kierkegaard …" "My Chekhovian Christian viewpoint is idiosyncratic and iconoclastic. My sense of the absurdity and incongruity of the world is closer to the Gnosticism of Valentinus, Luria, or Monoimos … My intellectual lineage goes more through Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Rilke, Melville, Lorca, Kafka, Celan, Beckett, Soyinka, O'Neill, Kazantzakis, Morrison, and above all, Chekhov … And, I should add, it reaches its highest expression in Brahms's 'Requiem' and Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme.' "

Huh? This is what I call the Oswald Bates syndrome. Remember Damon Wayans’ character from In Living Color that spouted big words without a hint of what they actually meant? Replace ‘Oswald Bates’ with ‘Cornel West’ and ‘big words’ with ‘obscure thinkers and abstract concepts’ and you have a campus huckster worthy of sketch comedy. Want an audio sample? Listen to any of West’s interviews with NPR’s Tavis Smiley.

(For a clearer read on points 2 and 3, read David Horowitz’s Cornel West: No Light in His Attic)

4) After Harvard president Larry Summers earlier this year demanded West to produce scholarly work befitting of his title, as well as do his part to curb the massive grade inflation that has plagued the university (half the grades given at Harvard are A’s and over 90% of its graduates are honor students), West teamed up with fellow race-oil hustlers and victimology profits (er, prophets) Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and turned the boss’ pep talk into a racial attack. A smart move by West. Why even attempt to show the goods when you can play the race card? West knew that the politically correct Harvard was no match for a charge of racism, and he was right. Summers apologized for the ‘misunderstanding’ and in one fell swoop, West sabotaged his dignity as well as that of Summers and Harvard. No matter for West - he knew Princeton, a former employer, was waiting for him with open arms (this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the universities' affirmative action quotas and the lack of willing talent).

Employer beware. Kristol, Himmelfarb, Diggins, and Kramer won’t be the only ones snubbing this hot potato in the years to come.


John McWhorter has a good take on scholars, academic output, and Mr. West.

:: Scot 12:09 PM [+] :: ::
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The Left have certainly made fools of themselves lately, and Debra Saunders couldn't be more accurate:

By the Not-Names' definition, it's suppression if someone (a liberal) feels uncomfortable or fears criticism about expressing an opinion. The "Not in Our Name" signers (Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Gloria Steinem, et al.) complain that "dissident artists, intellectuals and professors" are "attacked." Witness the conceit that theirs is a battle of big brains -- oooooh, they're "intellectuals" -- versus boneheads. The statement dismisses "the simplistic script of 'good vs. evil'" -- because only rubes and flag-wavers believe in evil. The shame of it is: There will be times when the left is right, when the feds push too far, when innocent people are harassed and detained or when academics lose their jobs because of their politics. Too bad the political center won't listen to them. In their hysteria and self-aggrandizement, they shred their credibility.

But why would this self-sabotage give them reason to pause when they are bereft of shame and humility.

What do they risk? Not their lives, but not getting a guest spot on a game show. They proclaim "not in our name," apparently unmindful of the fact that they can say that freely largely because of the nameless military recruits, demoralized FBI agents and intelligence workers who put their lives on the line to keep America free. Anonymous people protect their lives and freedoms -- and in their delusions of moral grandeur. They return the gift with ingratitude.

As I'm sure any Vietnam veteran can tell you.

:: Scot 4:55 AM [+] :: ::
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Dennis Prager's seven ideas for life:

1. The greatest struggle in your life is not with society but with yourself. This idea is not taught today. We are taught that we are victims of society -- of its sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia and ethnic prejudices. The overwhelming temptation is therefore to see your problems as being with America and not with yourself. But this is all false. We are each our biggest problem.

He probably should have added parents to this list. It's not uncommon to blame someone (or something) else for the gaps in our lives and parents make for an easy target.

2. Use your common sense. Whenever you hear the words "studies show" -- outside of the natural sciences -- and you find that these studies show the opposite of what common sense suggests, be very skeptical. I do not recall ever coming across a valid study that contravened common sense. For example, I was told when I was in college that "studies show" that boys and girls are not inherently different; they only differ because parents raise them in a sexist manner. This was nonsense, and now almost no one believes this. Now we are told that "studies show" that it is not better for children to have both a mother and a father, that it is just as good to begin life with a single parent or with two fathers or two mothers. But, with all respect to any person who raised a good child, this, too, is nonsense. Of course it is better to begin life with a good father and mother.

This 'studies show' tag can be applied to nearly any human utterance, no matter how absurd. Demand more from the debater who carelessly throws around such argument boosters (and look out for their kin - 'experts agree'..., 'the polls suggest'..., 'according to recent findings'..., etc.)

3. Race is unimportant. The color of people's skin is as trivial as the color of their hair. Be guided by the idea of Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who suffered the horrors of a Nazi death camp and whose family was gassed. After the Holocaust, he was asked, "Do you hate the Germans?" "No, I don't," he replied, "because there are only two races, the decent and the indecent." Remember that truism, and you can never be racist.

A truly enlightened thinker, Frankl's existentialist ideas of logotherapy (therapy through meaning) should be mandatory reading for any student of psychology.

4. Don't leave your values at home. Whatever you do professionally, don't leave your values at home when you go to work. Many people in my profession, the electronic media, are decent people. But they leave their decent values at home when they go to work. At work, they produce a lot of garbage because ratings demand it. So, too, many lawyers are fine men and women at home, but they leave their decency at home when they enter a courtroom -- because obtaining the verdict they want demands it. It is not hard to succeed professionally. What is hard is to succeed with your integrity intact.

A good article here on ethics and the workplace. Hopefully the Enron scandal will have a positive fallout.

5. Beware of bad ideas. The 20th century, the century of gas chambers and gulags, was the bloodiest and cruelest century in history. Why? Not because so many people were bad, but because so many believed in bad ideas. The Islamic terrorists who slit flight attendants' throats and slaughtered 3,000 American innocents on September 11, 2001, were not sadists; they were normal people who believed in evil ideas. Here is a quick way to measure if an idea is good. Ask two questions: Does believing this idea make a person more ethical? Does the idea hold all people accountable to the same moral code? For Nazis, Communists and Islamic radicals, the answer to both is no.

It's funny how most schoolchildren can discern right and wrong better than radical academics and educated idiotarians.

6. Your behavior matters far more than your intentions. That you mean to do something good or that you are sincere doesn't mean much. What matters is how you act. If you do something bad, it is not important that you "meant well." So spend much less time monitoring your motives and far more time monitoring your actions.

Good intentions and a nickel is still only worth a nickel.

7. Judeo-Christian values are the real counterculture. Many people think that dressing weird or having your body pierced is a statement of individuality, strength and rebellion against the dominant culture. Not true. The ultimate counterculture and strength in America today is to take the God of Judaism and Christianity seriously. If you want to be an individual and to be strong, affirm a higher value system that enables you to say no to the prevailing culture. When you know to whom you are accountable and when you march to the beat of that Higher Drummer, you will lead a more peaceful, happy and individualistic life.

And this is exactly what bothers me the most about the Right. They and think and say so many bright things and then blow it by spouting religious dogma. The separation of church and state? Sometimes I think these people wish the church ran the state. Oh well - 6 out of 7 isn't bad.

:: Scot 4:34 AM [+] :: ::
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Online books! From Henry Aaron (no, not the ballplayer) to Jim Zwick, the site boasts over 16000 titles.

:: Scot 3:20 AM [+] :: ::
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America's Secret Warriors. A terrific article on American Special Forces.

:: Scot 3:11 AM [+] :: ::
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This is the most promising (and hopefully sincere) ray of hope I've seen from the Palestinians in the last year.

More than 50 Palestinians took out a full-page newspaper ad today condemning suicide bombings, sparking debate at a time when most Palestinians support the attacks as an effective way to hit Israel.

The ad in Al Quds, a leading Palestinian daily, appeared this morning - a day after a suicide bombing killed 19 people on a Jerusalem bus, and hours before another suicide attack killed seven more people at a bus stop in the evening.

In the ad, the Palestinians urged the militant groups behind deadly assaults on Israeli civilians to "stop sending our young people to carry out such attacks".

"We see no results in such attacks, but a deepening of the hatred between both peoples and a deepening of the gap between us," the ad said.

The signatories included Hanan Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian spokeswoman and a legislator, and the Palestinians' senior Jerusalem official, Sari Nusseibeh, along with other prominent figures regarded as moderates. The ad urged other Palestinians to join them in their opposition to the bombings.

Let's see if this gains momentum.

:: Scot 2:39 AM [+] :: ::
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I should have in the next day or two a list of a hundred or so recommended sources and pundits listed in the left panel. I'm no 'very good thinker,' but I think I've just figured out how html language works on this thing.

:: Scot 3:53 AM [+] :: ::
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You would think that a guy who owns his own news service would be smart enough to see the difference between Palestinians and Jews. Not so with Ted Turner. Then again, he thought the 9-11 hijackers were brave.

Mr Turner also admits that he was wrong to call the September 11 hijackers "brave" in a speech in Rhode Island that sparked outrage. "I made an unfortunate choice of words," he says, adding that his ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team meant the word was never far from his mind. "Look, I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word ... I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it."

Sounds like a very good thinker to me.

:: Scot 1:33 AM [+] :: ::
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Note to terrorists:

Large gathering of young, loud, ugly, ungrateful drones of Western society to be found in Kananaskis, Alberta July 26-7.

Attack now.

:: Scot 3:08 PM [+] :: ::
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So this is why soccer hasn't caught on in America:

There are just two things about the World Cup that prevent Americans from caring: it involves soccer and the rest of the world. We could get over the soccer part eventually — after all, it's kind of like the soccer we make our suburban children play, only without the goal scoring. But the global part just isn't going to happen. When I hear that Tunisia is playing Belgium for the crucial Group H runner-up spot, all I want is a map. The only way Americans are going to learn another country's name is if it attacks us.

:: Scot 4:00 AM [+] :: ::
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Iraq. So should we or shouldn't we. William Galston (a confessed Democrat, though not a dove) explains Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire.

These are weighty claims, and it is not my intention to dismiss them entirely or lightly. But even if an invasion succeeds in removing a threat here and now, it is far from clear that a policy of preemption will make us safer in the long run. Nations cooperating with us in the war against terror might respond to a preemptive U.S. attack on Iraq by ceasing to arrest and turn over suspected terrorists, and by halting the sharing of intelligence. Our allies in Europe (and elsewhere) might respond by accelerating their diplomatic and military separation from us. Our adversaries might well redouble their efforts against us. New generations of young people -- including those of our erstwhile allies -- could grow up resenting and resisting America. One thing is certain: If we promote and then act on our new principles, nations around the world will adopt them and shape them for their own purposes, with consequences we will not always like.

Margaret Thatcher (yep, that Margaret Thatcher) has a different opinion.

Between Iran on the one hand and North Korea on the other, the list of rogue states will be the subject of continuing revision and debate. And in each case there will be a mix of policies appropriate to achieve our goal of removing the threat which these states pose.
That is also true of Iraq. I have detected a certain amount of wobbling about the need to remove Saddam Hussein--though not from President Bush. It is not surprising, given the hostility of many allies to this venture, that some in Washington may be having second thoughts. It is, of course, right that those who have the duty to weigh up the risks of particular courses of action should give their advice--though they would be better to direct their counsel to the president not the press. But in any case, as somebody once said, this is no time to go wobbly.
Saddam must go. His continued survival after comprehensively losing the Gulf War has done untold damage to the West's standing in a region where the only unforgivable sin is weakness. His flouting of the terms on which hostilities ceased has made a laughingstock of the international community. His appalling mistreatment of his own countrymen continues unabated. It is clear to anyone willing to face reality that the only reason Saddam took the risk of refusing to submit his activities to U.N. inspectors was that he is exerting every muscle to build WMD. We do not know exactly what stage that has reached. But to allow this process to continue because the risks of action to arrest it seem too great would be foolish in the extreme.

But no matter, it appears we have decided war already (and as if we really didn't know this). We ARE at war with Iraq. The purpose of this war is a regime overhaul and that is exactly what is being done. According to the Washington Post,

President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force to capture the Iraqi president, according to informed sources.
The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Hussein, directs the CIA to use all available tools, including:
• Increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and forces inside and outside Iraq including money, weapons, equipment, training and intelligence information.
• Expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi government, military, security service and overall population where pockets of intense anti-Hussein sentiment have been detected.
• Possible use of CIA and U.S. Special Forces teams, similar to those that have been successfully deployed in Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Such forces would be authorized to kill Hussein if they were acting in self-defense.

This sounds like war to me. Special ops and intelligence gatherers are probably mapping out every square inch of the country and could likely guide a smart bomb on Saddam's toothbrush. If the lunatic can be overthrown the smart way (ie. minimal casualties) then all the better. The difficulty will not be the actual ousting of Saddam, it will be what to make of the ensuing mess while focusing attention on the next target. When it comes time for the military to do actually do its thing, my guess is that it's going to make the precision and swiftness of the Afghanistan effort look like Vietnam.

:: Scot 3:50 AM [+] :: ::
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Welcome to the new design. Unfortunately, it has screwed up the italics prior to this post. When reading entries with quotes (italics), what is written below may be a continuation of that quote - not my writing. I'll fix this in the next few days.

:: Scot 3:42 AM [+] :: ::
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It might seem stupid now, but I do see a high proliferation of these Segways coming to town.

:: Scot 3:36 AM [+] :: ::
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Picking up not your forte? This might help.

:: Scot 3:16 AM [+] :: ::
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I remember doing some research on economic sanctions about a year ago and came to many of the same conclusions that pundit Matt Welch does in his essay The Politics of Dead Children. One of the biggest problems I see with sanctions is that they have become tired diplomatic actions administered by tired aging diplomats. This line of thinking often sees only two choices when airing necessary grievances with other countries - war and sanctions. These choices seem too simple to me and that's probably the point. It's much easier to slap economic or military action on a country than to change their mode of thinking or truly uproot their failed systems. I'd like to think with the expanse of globalization and intelligence that smarter diplomats will stop playing checkers when they should be playing chess.

Check out his blog. It up there with Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair, and Steven Den Beste.

:: Scot 2:46 PM [+] :: ::
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Sounds like Australia is closing in on the U.K. as America's best friend.

:: Scot 2:09 PM [+] :: ::
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Bill O'Reilly pulls no punches with the Euros:

The entire European Union is a problem in the war on terror, not just Deutschland. The EU has told the Bush administration that it has a "problem" with trying captured terrorists in front of military tribunals. Well, pardon me, EU, but blank you.

If the United States government designates that a terrorist is a prisoner of war, then that prisoner can be legally tried in front of a military tribunal. And if the EU doesn't like it, it can kiss our croissants, if you know what I mean.

I am sorry for sounding like John Wayne here, but somebody has to have a serious talk with these Europeans. This is not some game we are playing. There are killers living in Europe that want to destroy Western Civilization, and those people must be dealt with harshly.

If a terrorist kills somebody in Paris, United States policy is to help out in any and every way. We don't hold back because the French legal system is the opposite of ours -- you are presumed guilty there instead of innocent. We do not intrude into the national security matters of other countries. Yet, some of those countries constantly intrude on our right of self-defense.

:: Scot 2:03 PM [+] :: ::
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An amusing piece on physics and aberrant behavior.

Since 9/11 there has been much debate about root causes. Such discussions are inevitably contentious and circular: Poverty may cause me to commit a crime, but what is the root cause of poverty?

Fortunately, using the principles of modern physics, we may soon be able to identify the primary root causes of all aberrant human behaviour. Indeed, over the past century, as new and more remarkable discoveries have been made, scientists have seen an unmistakable connection between the laws of physics and the weird actions of people. While research is in the formative stage, scientists believe they are closing in on a Unified Theory of All Root Causes (UTARC). This theory proposes that the reason humans behave badly is because, in essence, the universe behaves badly (physicists call this type of behaviour "non-classical").

:: Scot 1:55 PM [+] :: ::
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Won't somebody please think of the lawyers?

Lawyers who may have expected more discrimination cases have been largely disappointed. Jed Marcus, a partner at the employers' defense firm of Grotta, Glassman & Hoffman in Roseland, N.J., says the firm's 54 attorneys have only one case in which post-Sept. 11 anti-Muslim backlash is cited as a cause of action.

"If there is a rising tide, we're gonna know it," he says, referring to his firm's large labor and employment law practice. "Basically, we're not seeing anything."

My heart bleeds for ya pal.

:: Scot 3:23 PM [+] :: ::
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Fight flyer with flyer:

(A) 29-year-old man had tried several conventional methods of halting the daily delivery of ads and junk mail but notices to the mailman and a standard 'no advertising' sticker had no effect.

On October 20, 2000 the annoyed recipient escalated tensions by posting an original notice on his mailbox to make his feelings clearer. One side of the message displayed a picture of the man holding a pistol. On the reverse side was a message in colorful and violent language promising to carry out sexual assault on anyone who dared to put an ad in his mailbox.

:: Scot 3:16 PM [+] :: ::
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A bad week for Chomsky. Both his politics and his liguistics took a well deserved beating.

:: Scot 2:52 PM [+] :: ::
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Jonah Goldberg on racial profiling:

Again, the clearest proof that profiling works is that al-Qaida is using agents who don't fit the standard profile. When your enemy has to abandon its most plentiful weapons -in this case, suicidal Arab murderers -because you've learned to defend against them, that's good news.

Obviously, al-Qaida has a lot more Arabs than Hispanics. But, they've rightly concluded that Hispanics would have an easier time making it through our defenses. They're right, of course, which is why profiling alone isn't an all-purpose tool. But since when do you abandon a tool because it can't do everything? I can't use my hammer as a screwdriver, but my hammer is still pretty useful.

:: Scot 2:47 PM [+] :: ::
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Why don't we hear more about citizenship stripping? I've seen a few good articles from pundits and bloggers about this.

:: Scot 2:45 PM [+] :: ::
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Great essay by Robert Kagan on the American - European divide. Grab a drink, it's a long one.

Jim Lederman in the National Post sees the same thing through a different angle.

:: Scot 2:35 PM [+] :: ::
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You can imagine my delight when I saw this -

Think great minds think alike? Think again. View streaming video of New York Times critics in candid conversations with some of America's greatest innovators in literature, television, film and music.

You can imagine my disappointment when I saw the role call of talent - Martin Scorsese, Peter Jennings, Jon Stewart, David Chase, John Irving, Lou Reed, Will Shortz.

When I think of 'great minds,' I think of maybe the fifty or hundred greatest minds of all time. The funny thing is I like all these guys and would pay a hundred bucks for a half hour conversation with any one of them. They are smart, unique, and intriguing. But all this is not enough to qualify as great, in their respective generations or of all time.

Then again I've read of activist ex-porn stars and smooth-talking MTV gangsters refered to as genius.


Speaking of smart labels, it seems Reuters is convinced that osama bin laden is a dissident.

The United States blames Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks on the United States that killed 3,000 people.

Such a noble information service with the temerity to declare this charge. What courage to assert the moral voice of neutrality and show the world that one man's Islamofascist homicidal maniac is a another man's dissident.

:: Scot 2:18 PM [+] :: ::
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Academia vs. The Military

While I can certainly understand the reluctance a university feels about miltary presence on campus (even if it is only the ROTC), it smacks of hypocrisy when a terrorist supporters can give victicratic commencement speeches about 'American Jihad' (like at Harvard) and Nazist/Islamist targeting of Jews requires the Jews to arm themselves with lawyers because the university is too confused about its own freedom of speech mandate to dole out justice (like Berkeley). Nicholas Kristof intrigues about the political incorrectness of the military:

At Harvard, many students and faculty members are hostile to military and R.O.T.C. training because the military discriminates against gays. It's a fair point, and the discrimination is worth fighting. But it was the American military that deposed the Taliban, the most viciously anti-gay regime in the world, one that executed gays by knocking over walls on top of them. America's military does discriminate against gays and is a bastion of anti-gay attitudes, but it has also done more for gay rights — albeit in Afghanistan — then all the gay organizations in the Ivy League put together.

:: Scot 12:38 PM [+] :: ::
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Hartley Steward feels Canada's pain.

:: Scot 12:16 PM [+] :: ::
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Bloggin's been light (okay - completely empty) this week. Lots of good reading, just no time for comment. Let's see if I can catch up.

Found such a great piece from blogger Eric Raymond, I thought that I wrote it myself


Top Ten Reasons I'm Not A (Left-)Liberal:

1. Gun control. Liberals are completely wrong about this. A fair number of them know better, too, but they sponsor lies about it as a form of class warfare against conservative-leaning gun owners.
2. Nuclear power. They're wrong about this, too, and the cost in both dollars and human deaths by pollution and other fossil-fuel side-effects has been enormous.
3. Affirmative action. These programs couldn't be a more diabolical or effective plan for entrenching racial prejudice if the Aryan Nations had designed them.
4. Abortion: The liberals' looney-toon feminist need to believe that a fetus one second before birth is a parasitic lump of tissue with no rights, but a fetus one second afterwards is a full human, has done half the job of making a reasoned debate on abortion nigh-impossible.
5. Communism. I haven't forgiven the Left for sucking up to the monstrous evil that was the Soviet Union. And I never will.
6. Socialism. Liberals have never met a tax, a government intervention, or a forcible redistribution of wealth they didn't like. Their economic program is Communism without the guts to admit it.
7. Junk science. No medical study is too bogus and no environmental scare too fraudalent for liberals. If it rationalizes bashing capitalism or slathering on another layer of regulatory bureaucracy, they'll take it.
8. Defining deviancy down. Liberals are in such a desperate rush to embrace the `victimized by society' and speak the language of compassion that they've forgotten how to condemn harmful, self-destructive and other-destructive
behavior.
9. William Jefferson Clinton. Sociopathic liar, perjurer, sexual predator. There was nothing but a sucking narcissistic vacuum where his principles should have been. Liberals worship him.
10. Liberals, by and large, are fools.

Top Ten Reasons I'm Not A Conservative:

1. Censorship. The complete absence of evidence that exposure to pornography or sexually-explicit material is harmful to children or anyone else doesn't stop conservatives from advocating massive censorship.
2. The War on Drugs. We found out that Prohibition was a bad idea back in the 1930s -- all it did was create a huge and virulent criminal class, erode respect for the law, and corrupt our politics. Some people never learn.
3. Creationism. I don't know who I find more revolting, the drooling morons who actally believe creationism or the intelligent panderers who know better but provide them with political cover for their religious-fundamentalist agenda in return for votes.
4. Abortion. The conservatives' looney-toon religious need to believe that a fertilized gamete is morally equivalent to a human being has done the other half of making a reasoned debate on abortion nigh-impossible.
5. Racism. I haven't forgiven the Right for segregation, Jim Crow laws, and lynching blacks. And I never will.
6. Sexism. Way too much conservative thought still reads like an apologia for keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.
7. Anti-science. Stem cells, therapeutic cloning -- it doesn't matter how many more diabetes, cancer and AIDS patients have to die to protect the anti-abortion movement's ideological flanks. Knowledge -- who needs it? Conservatives would try suppressing astronomy if the telescope had just been invented.
8. Family values. Conservatives are so desperate to reassert the repressive `normalcy' they think existed in grand-dad's time that they pretend we can undo the effects of the automobile, television, the Pill, and the Internet. And should try to.
9. Ronald Wilson Reagan. A B-movie actor who thought ketchup was a vegetable. His grip on reality was so dangerously weak that the Alzheimer's made no perceptible difference. Conservatives worship him.
10. Conservatives, by and large, are villains.

Good stuff.

:: Scot 12:14 PM [+] :: ::
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Daniel Pipes on Islam after 9/11:

If militant Islam achieved the acme of its achievement on 9/11, then 11/9 could be when the movement began its descent. The first date marked the peak of militant Islam, its day of greatest success in humiliating the West, causing death and panic. The second date, when the Taliban lost their first major city, marked an apparent turning point, with the West finding its resolve and its strength to deal with its new main enemy.

The marked contrast between these two dates has several implications for understanding the Muslim world. First, public opinion in the Muslim world is volatile, responding to developing events in an emotional, superficial, and changeable way. Second, as the Los Angeles Times notes, "popular support for militant Islam is not nearly so broad as was once believed."41 The movement is loud and it is vociferous, but it does not command more than a small minority of the Muslim world’s active support. Third, that militant Islam is a bit of a paper tiger – ferocious when unopposed but quite easily intimidated. Fourth, the so-called street has little bearing on developments. It rises up with much noise but without much consequence, unable to force governments to take its preferred actions. It dies down when its favorite causes fare poorly.

:: Scot 10:10 PM [+] :: ::
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Oxblog has a good piece on the balance of homeland security vs. a blind offensive:

In World War II and the Cold War, bad guys inside our borders could hurt us by sending sensitive information abroad; today, bad guys within our borders can hurt us by killing a lot of us. That is why a focus on homeland security is important right now. Even if both the Axis of Evil and the Axis of Just as Evil were defeated tomorrow, it would still be possible -- although, granted, less likely -- for Islamist fanatics to carry out more attacks.

:: Scot 9:41 PM [+] :: ::
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Came across Gary Dunford's article today in the Toronto Sun. He discusses Dartmouth University's choice for commencement speaker this year - none other than Fred 'Mr.' Rogers. I read about this last week but I was hardly surprised considering the parade of celebrities that have embarrased graduating glasses throughout the last decade or so. Topping the list of the silly was Long Island University's Southampton graduating class of 1996 - they're commencement speaker was Kermit the Frog.

:: Scot 9:29 PM [+] :: ::
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The Globe and Mail's Heather Mallick weighs in with a tasty bit of racism:

The fact that those who defend racial profiling always seem to be white is, I think, the best argument against it.

Another village deprived of their idiot.

:: Scot 3:44 PM [+] :: ::
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Ollie North on racial profiling:

Who is responsible for killing nearly 4,000 Americans in: the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut; the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro; the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847; the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103; the 1993 truck-bombing of the World Trade Center; the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; the 1998 attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole; and the Sept. 11, 2001 hijack-kamikaze seizure of four commercial airliners?

A) Youthful, female, Haitian-Catholic nationalists; B) Middle-aged, Korean-Buddhist separatists; C) Geriatric, bisexual, Norwegian-Lutheran anarchists; or D) Young, male, Middle Eastern-Islamic extremists.

Kennedy, Conyers, Daschle, their ACLU allies and others still stumped by the question should look at the 22 "Most Wanted Terrorists" on the FBI website (www.fbi.gov). Hint: Not one is named Smith, O'Leary, Goldberg or Garcia. All 22 are young, male, Middle Eastern-Islamic extremists.

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan makes a smart observation:

We are in the middle of another systems failure.

We are busy for instance debating absurdities. Such as: In an era in which certain Arab and Muslim males roughly 18 to 40 years old are taking active steps to severely damage the United States and kill Americans, is it wrong to give added scrutiny to Arab and Muslim males 18 to 40 years old as they attempt to enter America, board planes, rent charter planes and ask for maps to the nearest nuclear power plant?

How absurd and clueless do you have to be to be having this debate? You have to have surrendered all common sense.

Here is my emblematic moment for the systems failure we are currently in--not the one that caused Sept. 11 but the one that continues, that we're in now. I was in an American airport a few months ago. I was in line with 30 or so people waiting to board a plane. I watched--we all watched--as an elderly couple, a man and woman in their 70s or 80s, were ordered out of line to be searched. They were old, frail, embarrassed. They stood 40 feet away from us, their shaky arms held wide as they were wanded by a low-wage worker not endowed with enough human grace to show them sympathy or respect. The old man and the old woman were forced to take their shoes off when everyone knew--we could see it--that it was hard for them.

It is a great regret of my life, and I am ashamed of it, that I did not attempt to intervene. I knew that if I did I, dangerous middle-aged American female terror threat that I am, would cause myself the kind of trouble that would mean missing the plane and disappointing my son, who was at home waiting.

So I did nothing, and in the end we were all allowed to board. But I will never forget that couple being searched, thanks to the heightened compassion of Norm Mineta.

Norm Mineta, our transportation secretary, has a searing memory, and that memory determines U.S. airport security policy in 2002. When he was a little boy at the start of World War II, Mr. Mineta and his Japanese-American family were sent to an interment camp. It was unjust and wrong. The Japanese of America in 1942 were American citizens, not illegal aliens or visitors newly arrived; moreover, they had never, not one of them, launched an attack on the United States. What FDR did to them was wrong.

But the facts of Japanese-Americans in 1942 do not parallel the facts of our enemies today. Our enemies has already killed civilians and announced they will kill more. We know who the enemy is--we know many names, and we certainly know the general profile--and we have every right, or rather duty, to give those who fit the profile extra scrutiny. Instead we play games and waste time wanding people we know to be innocent, and searching their tired old shoes. We do this to show we're being fair. But we really know otherwise, all of us.

We are being irresponsible and careless in the hope that history will call us tolerant and compassionate. It is vanity that drives us, not the thirst for justice and a safer world. Mr. Mineta has received many awards for his sensitivity to ethnic profiling. Good for him, but I'd personally give him an award if he'd begin to act like a grownup and recognize that his childhood trauma shouldn't determine modern American security policy.

I especially like the last paragraph - 'It is vanity that drives us, not the thirst for justice and a safer world.'

Use that argument next time you're confronted with political correctoids.

:: Scot 2:21 PM [+] :: ::
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I would much rather see book burning than book subversion. The latter is much more dangerous.

:: Scot 2:04 PM [+] :: ::
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Steven Den Beste asks "Do you prefer unpleasant truths or pleasing falsehoods?"

Stated in those terms, most people would say "Truth is better than falsehood" but it's not that simple. This is a very deep question, and in practice most of us do, to some extent, accept pleasing answers irrespective of whether they're the most likely answer. It's called "hope", "optimism", "faith" and many other things ("gullibility"), and for many people it's what keeps them going and keeps them happy.

There's a fine line between optimism and gullibility. That's the problem. A pessimist may be a realist, but he is probably also unhappy. Is that good? It depends on what you think you're trying to accomplish in life, and that's why there's no simple or obvious broadly applicable answer to this question.

No matter how you answer it, you'll pay a price. There are benefits and drawbacks to every way of dealing with it, and also to attempting to dodge it. On one level or another, it affects everything we do, because it is a fundamental question about how we view the universe and how we think inductively.

About 30 years ago I embraced the idea that truth was always better than falsehood irrespective of whether it was pleasing. There are various reasons why that was, for me, the best answer but those reasons don't apply to other people and it may not be the best answer for everyone.

Because of that, I became an atheist. While I would prefer the comfort of religion, I cannot bring myself to accept it. It is, to me, a pleasing falsehood. To me, atheism makes the most sense. But atheism is cold, uncomforting. I have come to accept atheism and to make the best I can of it but it doesn't fill the hole that religion would fill in my psychic needs. That is part of the price I pay for taking an extreme realistic point of view of the world.

I used to think that the choice of atheism (or in my case, agnosticism) was cold, lonely, and lacking in that special 'wonderfulness' that seems to imbue those who do identify as religious - until I delved into the life of Carl Sagan. He seemed to display the happiness and optimism of a newly programmed cult inductee but without any nod to spirituality (he too was an agnostic). By convincing me to see humans as a way for the universe to know and explore itself filled the many gaps of my impiety. Purpose, wonder, beauty, fulfillment, higher calling - these were all addressed by my new found perceptions of what it meant to be human. To think of yourself as not a minion of a god but rather a minion of discovery in a universe rippling with life can only bring a smile to your face. It is the universe, not god, that depends on us to understand and appreciate it. A higher calling indeed.

Incidently, the logic of my agnoticism derives not from the fence sitting position of 'I don't know' but rather from the defeatist position of 'I don't care.' Why don't I care? Because it is something I will never know, no matter how hard I try.

:: Scot 1:17 PM [+] :: ::
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A good explanation as to why we haven't dismantled Saudi Arabia.

Yet

:: Scot 12:00 PM [+] :: ::
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Do conflicts of interest get any bigger than this?

:: Scot 2:49 PM [+] :: ::
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Just think, if more and more peaceful Muslims exposed and rooted out terrorists and their wannabes within their mosques and communities, Islam would quickly earn a reputation as a religion intolerant of hate and radicalism. Anarchists and destructionists alike would know to turn to other, lesser religions to seed their cults. I'm not sure I see the same complicity or reticence from the other great religions when it comes to addressing extremist cancers. The BBC reports that new US security measures have touched off Arabs - as you knew they would. What one side is failing to say and the other side is failing to hear is that these security measures are a plea for help. We need peaceful, law abiding, and like it or not, Jew-friendly Muslims to come forward and snitch on suspect behaviour from their own when they see it. Simply put, more help equals less intrusion.

Interestingly enough, at the end of the article a little doom is laid out:

By the time US troops got on the ground in Afghanistan in force last winter, members of al-Qaeda had largely melted across the border into Pakistan. The revelations now coming out of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in Washington point to a monumental failure of US intelligence over 11 September. Yes, there is a shake-up going on, yes, there is a recruitment drive for specialists. But these measures, like the fingerprinting and profiling of visitors, will take time to yield results. And time may not be on America's side.

While there certainly has been some absurd screw-ups on our side, I'm not sure how much credit I'd give to future terrorists considering the brainy subterfuge employed by the likes of 9-11 'mastermind' Mohamed Atta.

:: Scot 2:43 PM [+] :: ::
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What's that you say? There is a special celebrities' chapter of the flourishing idiotarian movement? Dandy. I would like to nominate Sandra Bernhard from the, ahem, female category and Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson from the, pardon me, male category as this week's spokespeople.

:: Scot 1:46 PM [+] :: ::
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Great heads-up from Instapundit today on CNN's Lou Dobbs. Columnist and host of Moneyline, he has in the last few days weighed in with his definition of the current war.

...(the) "war on terror" is not adequately descriptive, and far too politically correct to have ample meaning, even though that is the term of art favored by the government and the media. Personally, I believe it's important for us to describe our enemies honestly, and with as much clarity as is possible.

I like the idea of a new definition as 'war on terror' or 'war against terrorism' felt awkward and vague. Wars against behaviours (such as drugs or crime) just don't seem to work. A dedicated and meaningful war requires a war against an idea or philosophy. Nazism, communism, and Islamism, unlike drugs or crime, is a threat to our ideas and philosophies and therefore our way of life. It could be argued that these are only ideas that have been distorted and made dangerous by an unrepresentative and demented few. That could be, but I have yet to see any happy and vibrant nations that were built on anything close to the tenets of the aforementioned axis of isms, and until I do, there remains a sore lack of evidence. Those who choose to rule with or enforce radical philosophies of Islam (Islamism), like the Nazis and communists before them, will inevitably find themselves in ugly conflict with the modern world.

:: Scot 12:12 AM [+] :: ::
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Query to Protesters, part 1

I, like anyone other human, have a ton of pet peeves and objects d' hate (cheif among them political correctness - hence this site), but I could never imagine myself pissed at something like McDonald's. Not even the (insert any variety of the doofus demographic here) counterhelp that happens to screw my order and have me wait four and a half minutes instead of the expected one and a half can truly invoke my ire toward this corporation. The mindset of those whose mission in life is to attack and destroy Ronald and pals seems like a sick, inverted reaction toward the inner child. McD's to a normal adult represents a textbook model of efficiency, from the brainstorms and boardrooms of the CEO's to the location of the Blizzard and soft drink machines in the restaurants. It is a place where anyone but the slowest of the slow can get a job. But just like kids rebel against the order and authority of their parents, McD haters depise the order and (business) authority of powerful corporations. To the fat/salt/sugar/vegan/socialist/enviro/anti-globo fascists it is a target of hate and anger that has more to do with a convoluted rebellion against success and capitalism than forcing bunnies from their natural habitat in Brazil. When I walk into a McD's, I see a diversity of people on both sides of the counter and a slew of kids (but for no more than my one and a half minutes) and yes, I've read about the ecological and social ills that McDonalds and not consumers (i.e. people) are responsible for. I have also read the same reports and essays about Nike, Starbucks, Banana Republic, Sunglass Hut, The Body Shop, Microsoft, Enron, Chevron, Shell, The Gap, etc stc etc. You'll excuse me if I see a pattern of blind anti-capitalism rather than concerned planetary sterwardship at play. Look at the golden arches for what it is: a depot of passable hot and cold snacks in a kid friendly and stress free environment - with toys and the occasional playground to boot. Is something this innocuous really worth protesting?

:: Scot 5:52 PM [+] :: ::
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Word of the day - infovore. Cory Doctorow has a great article on why he (and probably most of us) blog. I envy his 'infovistas'.

:: Scot 11:15 PM [+] :: ::
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You know what? I'm bored of this mess already. I hope Paul Martin comes out on top, but deep down I really don't care.

:: Scot 9:11 AM [+] :: ::
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Alexa McDonough is reportedly quitting as Leader of the New Democratic Party.
My guess is that nobody will know the difference. I can't believe I voted for these clowns in the last two federal elections.

:: Scot 9:04 AM [+] :: ::
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Time For Some Fun

It doesn't have to be pretty to be a good time...

What's an honest guy to do?

Motorized Ice Cream Cone. Yay!

I guess I'm more thankful for growing up in the 70's than I thought.

How (a whole shitload of) stuff works

How humans work...

So you wanna...?


A dreary day at the helm yesterday - surprising considering I myself had a good day.

:: Scot 6:12 PM [+] :: ::
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Adam Radwanski has a great Q & A about the Chretien/Martin soap opera.

:: Scot 10:22 AM [+] :: ::
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Will the queen be dressed up in her leathers?

Ozzy to play for the Queen

It gets better...

Born to be mild

I wonder if she'll welcome the bikers to the city with a photo-op and a handshake.

:: Scot 12:43 AM [+] :: ::
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Wounded Soldier With Wired Jaw Prevented From Boarding Plane With Wire Clippers. The story only gets uglier from here folks.

equally absurd...
check out 'The Resistance' game

and to top it off...
The Entire Zionist Movement is Responsible for Conspiring with the Nazis
Remeber that quote next time you get news or opinion from MEMRI.

:: Scot 12:00 AM [+] :: ::
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What the fuck is wrong with us?

Stewart Bell (National Post) - Blood money on tap

Through negligence and indifference, the Canadian government has permitted virtually every major terrorist organization in the world to operate within its borders. Canada's failure to disrupt the terrorists on its soil has resulted in major security problems for Canada's neighbours and some of its closest allies.

Canadian-based terrorists have been arrested in the United States, Britain, France, Jordan, Algeria, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and other nations.

Canada's failure has also caused severe troubles within Canada's refugee communities, where militants have hijacked cultural organizations and religious institutions for their own ends. And it has helped create an international climate in which global terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda have thrived.

Canada may not be the only nation that has been negligent on this front, but for a country its size, Canada harbours far more terrorists than it should, possibly more in proportion than any other Western industrial power. As a result, even as it has sought to portray itself as tough on terrorism, Canada's international reputation has suffered because it is seen increasingly as a source of terrorism.

While federal politicians including Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, continue to deny that Canada is a terrorist "safe haven," the problem is spelled out in stacks of Federal Court case files, immigration and refugee files, CSIS reports, RCMP intelligence briefs, Security Intelligence Review Committee reports and records from criminal prosecutions in other jurisdictions, notably France and the United States.

or how about this gem...

Robert Fulford (National Post) - Terrorism is Arafat's medium

A Reuters photograph, taken in Ramallah last weekend, shows Bill Graham, the foreign minister of Canada, and Yasser Arafat, the notorious murderer, in genial conversation. Mr. Graham beams a warm smile down on Chairman Arafat, as if listening to comments from a gentle old constituent in Rosedale. Mr. Arafat directs his wolfish grin upward at his latest visitor from Ottawa.

That photo can serve as the perfect emblem of Canada's wretched diplomatic performance in the Middle East since the 1970s. As an allegorical depiction of Innocence & Evil, it would be suitable for hanging in the National Gallery if it were not so shameful.

Year after year, we send our foreign ministers to Israel on fact-finding missions, and year after year they look at everything except the facts. As Israel's situation grows worse, Canada's response grows more simplistic. But even for a Canadian foreign minister, Mr. Graham seems exceptionally perverse and moralistic. He has learned with astonishing speed his role as Minister of Equivalence, Evasion and Pomposity.

(in case you were wondering, yes, it is the same Bill Graham...)

Maybe Jews are smarter than most.

:: Scot 10:00 PM [+] :: ::
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Wow! These are my kind of feminists. Read Christine Stolba's cool essay Three Cheers for Patriarchy!


Praise for patriarchy? Surely only a victim of false consciousness would utter such blasphemy. Any sane person with a liberal arts degree knows that patriarchy is a pernicious beast—still only partly subdued by the efforts of the women’s movement— hat has ravaged the talents of women for thousands of years.

But can patriarchy be as bad as some would have us believe? Defined narrowly, patriarchy is “a social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line.” This is not always the preferred arrangement in modern families. But the brief against patriarchy encompasses more than relationships inside the family.

Since everything to emerge from western civilization bears the stamp of patriarchy, the argument goes, western civilization is inherently suspect. If you think this sounds nutty, then clearly you, dear reader, have fallen prey to patriarchy’s wiles. For as theorists such as Andrea Nye—author of Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic—tell us, because of its roots in ancient patriarchal Greece, logic itself is suspect.


Some of patriarchy’s supposedly oppressive strictures—particularly those surrounding questions of sex and marriage—seem more appealing than onerous compared to our modern alternatives. Who wouldn’t prefer courtly love, which sprang up in an obviously patriarchal medieval Europe, to the crass hooking-up culture of contemporary times? Then, troubadours and trouvères praised the virtues of women and, as historian Jacques Barzun has argued, helped establish “in theory the rights and privileges that women deserve and that many have enjoyed in reality, beginning with respect of their person and admiration of their qualities.” Today, women’s qualities are “admired” in venues such as Temptation Island and Maxim; perusing Playboy, not penning poetry, is the more acceptable male medium for marveling at women’s charms.


In many ways patriarchal societies have made good on the promises of those medieval swains who honored their ladies. It is patriarchal societies, after all, that have produced triumphs of logic, science, art, and literature; and, for the most part, it was a patriarchal clique that developed the liberal political philosophies that led to notions of democracy, individual rights—and women’s liberation. Therein lies the rub: Patriarchy was the dominant social arrangement for most of the history of western civilization, a civilization that has produced the expressions of human freedom and individual rights that radical feminists now want to reject.


If only we had more feminists like this, we gentlemen would be more than happy to lay our coats down for the causes of our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, and nieces.

:: Scot 6:43 PM [+] :: ::
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Grade inflation strategies. I guess neuroscience and quantum physics just wasn't challenging enough.

:: Scot 10:44 PM [+] :: ::
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I couldn't quite put my finger on it but after 9-11 Colin Powell seemed an outsider next to Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush. It will be interesting to see if his role diminishes as the war progresses.

:: Scot 10:35 PM [+] :: ::
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Bill O'Reilly has an interesting strategy for an offensive against terrorists.

:: Scot 10:09 PM [+] :: ::
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Bernard Lewis has a great article on the Islam malaise. For a more thorough read check out his pre 9-11 book "What Went Wrong." In it Lewis sees one of two possible outcomes for the Middle East:

a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression

or...

they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences and join their
talents, energies and resources in a common creative endeavor

Disturbingly relevant.

:: Scot 11:41 AM [+] :: ::
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Looks like the National Post has finally put Mark Kingwell's article on the Middle East in its archive (and no, this modest blogger was in no way responsible). Its a terrific exemplar of journalistic condescension - how to tell readers you are above giving an opinion while sliding one in anyway. This is no surprise to those who read Kingwell as he is usually more interested in po-mo pseudo intellectualism than coherently debating views and facts.

:: Scot 11:18 AM [+] :: ::
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The Rev linked to this cool site for atheists the other day.

:: Scot 2:11 AM [+] :: ::
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