Brass Balls Award

(H/T photo: Hitch Corner )

Well it takes all kinds Thanks to our friends to the North for reporting this.

Whlle the Unverse may be finite, three things know no bounds: human ignorance, the arrogance of liberals in judge shopping and the audacity of judges.  Of the later two.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A U.S. judge was considering a last-minute request to delay Saddam Hussein’s execution Friday night.

Lawyers for the former Iraqi president asked U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for a stay late Friday afternoon. Kollar-Kotelly held a brief hearing by telephone and was expected to issue a written decision Friday night.

Did I mention that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a Clinton appointee?

Addendum:(Bit)

And that last point is rather of a piece with the connections I questioned, yesterday

John at Powerline, has an interesting story.   Senator Barbara Boxer(D-CA) presented an award to one Basim Elkarra, an agent of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

Apparently Boxer only learned of the award when she read this article, “Senators for Terror.”

Newsweek is reporting, that apon reading the article, Boxer revoked the award.

I commend Senator Boxer for putting patriotism ahead of political correctness and having the courage to risk the wrath of the MSM.   Now if the MSM would just follow Boxer’s lead. Quit evicorating Vigil Goode and start taking a close look at Keith Ellson.

By the time most of you read this, that Bastard of Baghdad will have been executed for his crimes against humanity, and specifically his fellow Iraqis.  If I was to take a cue from the mainstream news services, I would be doing wall to wall coverage of this guy’s every breath between now and 10:00 PM eastern, which is when we’re told he’s going to receive his rasins.  Or, not.

However; rather than dwell on the point for any length of time, perhaps it is fitting that we pay him all the attention he deserves, a which is to say none all, and rather discuss how to move the region forward.

In my job, I am if nothing thing else, a diagnostician.  Rule number one in fixing problems, is diagnosing them correctly in the first place.  Without that first at being accomplished you don’t have a hope in hell of solving the problem.

Well, similarly, part of our problem with our analysis of our success or failure in Iraq, and the whole of the middle eastern region, is that we have misidentified some of the problems. Some of these misidentifications have been for reasons that we’ve been force-fed all our lives.  the equality of all men, etc..  I will certainly not argue against that wisdom.  The problem is, While all men are created equal all cultures, are not.  The cultures we’re dealing with over there don’t see it that way. They are driven by something else… a different world view, entirely.
Jason Pappas at Liberty and Culture makes this important point, by way of John Agresto, former president of St. John’s College‘s Santa Fe campus. That point being, that when we make judgments about our success or failure in Iraq, we miss in both directions, because of a complete misunderstanding of the rocky culture and the religion on which so much of it is based:

“We generally have a benign view of religion. We always insist that those who kill infidels or torture in God’s name have somehow ‘hijacked’ their religion. We consistently failed to understand that not all religions have the same view as we do of peace, of brotherhood, or of justice. Islam in general, and parts of Islam in particular, are not post-Enlightenment faiths. But why would they be? We desperately kept looking for the supposed ‘moderates’ among the clergy in Iraq. Moderate as compared to what? Just because we believe that God wants everyone to enjoy equal rights, or that killing Jews or stoning apostates is wrong, doesn’t mean that our beliefs are shared in other faiths.

And therein, lies a point that I made over a year ago now, which was unfortunately lost in the transition to this new web site.  I will try to reconstruct it from memory and snippets.  It generally made the point, that Islam was still waiting for its Martin Luther.  I would suggest to you that Luther, more than anyone else at this time, paved the way toward the age of enlightenment. Prior to Luther’s arrival, there was no such thing as a moderate Catholic. Similarly, then, there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim today.

As I asked Bill at his excellent INDC blog back at the beginning of this year:

Where are the long lines of local Muslims angry at what’s been done to their peaceful religion? There are none, or not enough to make any difference.

The more I investigate this the more I’m convinced that the Pope, of all people, got this one right. Islam, being Islam, simply cannot reform itself. Therefore I submit, that there is no such thing as moderate Islam. More correctly, that there is no such animal as a moderate Muslim.

At least, at the moment. Which, translates into “it may be possible to inject some change down the road.”  But, frankly, I consider it an open question, whether or not reform can ever occur.

Consider the state of Islam vs the state of Christianity, since the Reformation of the latter.
From an objective standpoint Christianity at least has the advantage of viewing government and religion on two separate levels. It was Christ himself who urged us to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s. Islam, meanwhile, has no separated perception in this area. At least part of this is a problem of point of view from the average Muslim; The Islamic world looks forward to the 15th century. So, perhaps viewing it from this angle will help your overall perspective. If you were a citizen of 14th century Spain, let’s say… would you have been able to envision such a separation between Rome and Madrid?

OTOH, and by the same token, the point of view differs from our standpoint…part of our inability to get our mental arms around this whole concept of the limitations of Islam to reform itself is due to the fact that whereas we deal with religion and social values on separate levels, those in the Islamic world do not, as a rule…. and that’s not much different than the point of view of the denizen of fourteenth century Spain, is it?

That’s problem number one, and it’s the easiest to describe in terms of trying to propagate a secular society.

Now, understand please, I still take the question of Islam’s ability to reform within the bounds of the religion framework an open question. Mostly this is due to a lack of understanding of what the religion encompasses at it’s foundations. I don’t pretend to understand Muslim culture.  But I can’t help but speculate, here; what if the problems of reforming Islam are due to a lack of understanding of the religion by its adherents, much the same as there was a lack of understanding about the Christian faith amongst most of its adherents in Luther’s time , pre-Guttenburg?

As I have said elsewhere, Luther’s biggest contribution to the Catholic church, and ultimately to the world, was the concept that he opened the Bible and the understanding of it up to the average parishioner.  Most of the people of that day who called themselves Christian, really didn’t understand the religion they claimed as their own. That’s because the majority of them couldn’t read, And even if they read English, they couldn’t read Latin, and were therefore utterly dependent on what the priest told them the book said.
So it was, that up until the time that the printing press came along, that intimate understanding, that study, was pretty much limited to the clergy, and even there, to the upper levels thereof. I’m willing to bet that’s the case in Islam… who steadfastly refuses, for example, to provide education for it’s women.

Along comes Luther with his printing press, who teaches them how to read the Bible for themselves, and gain the needed understanding of it… who tells them that a personal relationship with God is necessary, and with that personal understanding comes the reform of tolerance, which over hundreds more years becomes the church we know today.

In light of this, I would suggest to you a trend:

Here in western society, people tend to be better educated than they are in everyday Iraq, or even Egypt and Turkey, for example. This results in vastly different perceptions of everything in the world, including religion. They tend to read more, for one thing, having the ability. While I am sure that the western civilization tends to breed more placid people particularly in regards to spiritual matters, because of cultural influence alone, I would also suggest that the violence we see inherent with Islam is directly connected to the education level and therefore the understanding of that religion by its adherents.

Muslims we see here in the west are at least somewhat more peaceful than what we’ve been seeing in the MiddleEast. Is this a result of their having a better understanding of their religion, I wonder? A good understanding of one’s religion is difficult to obtain at the point of a machete , which is how Islam is so often taught in that region today.
This is one reason I’ve always been somewhat uncomfortable with the phrase “Islamic fundamentalism”; There is still a great deal of argument as to specifically what that phrase means, because the fundamentals of Islam are still in the discussion stage, even among its most adherent followers. For someone to call themselves fundamentalist, assumes that said person has a fundamental understanding of their religion.  yet, that still his ill defined at best, because they themselves can’t agree on what it means, on any more than a superficial level.  Without that understanding the phrase “Islamic fundamentalism” simply does not apply anymore than “Fundamental Christianity” does to pre-Guttenburg Christians.

Thus the question; If greater understanding of the religion by the very people involved in it is the answer, does this suggest a path for us to take?

If it does, then that path is going to be made somewhat more complex by the fact that there is no real hierarchy within the Muslim religious world as there is in say the various offshoots of Christianity. Even the various Christian sects are not nearly as disparate in their beliefs (and thereby the definition of being within the religion) as Muslims would seem to be. This presents some complications in terms of getting the “true Islam” message out; the various leaders themselves because there is no hierarchy, cannot seem to agree on what Islam IS… the tenants of the religion; Without the strong leadership model, the messages being sent on mixed at best. In a very real sense, there’s nobody to question as regards religious tenants.

Think about this; when it came time in the Christian church for reform, Luther had the advantage of having Pope Leo to proverbially set on fire. A focal point, if you will, to aim at. I daresay that Luther would not been able to be nearly as effective had he needed to fight a decentralized authority.

OTOH in the Islamic world, there is no such person, no such leader, no such group, even, to ask such questions of. Worse, still, the process of asking such questions can often be dangerous, if not fatal.  That makes the process of questioning these radicalized versions of Islam all the harder, even assuming one isn’t going to get killed for asking the questions, or raising challenges.

To whom does one go for an authority of view on what, specifically, Islam is? I have asked that question many times in the past and usually get referred to the Koran. That answer of course, is problematic, given the number of different slants on the meaning of the Koran that there are. Certainly there are a number of different slants as well on the Bible. However I would point out that there is still an authority structure in place there, which tends to narrow the Interpretations down by quite a bit.
Without such a structure, all kinds of things pop up… The religion becomes whatever certain protagonists say it is… such as the Wahabi, for example… And there’s nobody of authority within the religion to say ‘no’.

More of a comparison; The Catholic church certainly had its bloody periods. And why did these stop? Someone sitting in authority, was there to challenge, and once that authority saw the reason in the challenge that somebody within the church said “stop”.

Who is of the like in the Islamic world? Nobody that I can see.
Yet.
And that’s a problem. But more;

Islam is still waiting for its Luther.

I figure that was part of the idea, going into Iraq in the first place: Establishing a democracy in such a place, after all, would certainly lend itself to work toward altering, and, need I say it, pacifying, Islamic society, and controlling the more violent and radical elements. My take is that if such a person or group is to rise up against the Wahhabists or Salfi, they will be the product of a freshly reformed, and democratic Iraq. Which would do a fair job of explaining why the Syrias and the Jordans and the Irans are so very concerned, just now.

The very reason that those hardline Islamic states are so concerned about the insertion of democracy into Iraq is because they see ….apparently more clearly than we… that democracy, for all its faults, has one major advantage ; That it by its very nature injects social change, by way of what I will call “Social Darwinism”. Such evolution has no chance whatever under, say, a Saddam… but it DOES stand a chance under a Democracy. Under a democracy, the ideas and ideals of western culture will filter through, as they have every other place where Democracy has been installed. Japan, for example. South Korea. Etc.

This change will undoubtedly allow a more western attitude, and thereby will create the environment in which Islam’s Luther can stand forth. But this isn’t going to be a quick process. It’s going to be along slow and likely (given whom we’re dealing with) very bloody process, because changing hearts and minds is always the longest , slowest, hardest job there is. And, of course, that assumes we actually have the courage to see it through.  Given the recent election, I have my doubts.

We have to stick with the plan.  The consequences of not doing so are utter failure, for both they, and us. I say again; It’s not going to be quick.  We in the west, cannot expect that kind of seed change to occur overnight. What we’re talking about, is dragging Islam and its followers fast forward from the fourteenth century. We cannot do that quickly, or by force and not expect violent reaction. Forced change, is never long lasting , and seldom satisfactory for anybody concerned. What needs to be done therefore, is to create an environment in which an Islamic version of Luther can stand forth, so that the culture can change ITSELF.

And all of this is exactly why I’ve said that a democracy in Iraq is a good place to start; It’s only under such conditions that Islam can it last find its own Martin Luther. But I wonder if the democrats in Congress are up to creating the conditions where all that can happen.
-=-

(H/T photo:  Cartoon Stock ) 

The head line is provocative but the actual study merely seems to suggest.   I don’t believe we any hard core gender feminist reading the blog, but here is my chance to find out.   Isn’t discovery wonderful?

To cut to the chase, the BBC is reporting, “Housework cuts breast cancer risk:”

Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

I see no reason not to continue to play the role of the cynic.   The study suggests four groups.  How well do demographics the four compare?.   How conclusive is this study? 

Merv Benson, PrairiePundit, bravely suggests:

Who among us will be brave enough to print out a copy of this story to put in front of their wife at breakfast time?

Disclaimer:   Neither this blogger nor the management of this blog assumes any responsibility for the consequences of any action taken as result of reading this post.

So, I’m looking over my autofeed mail account this morning…  That’s the one that gets automatic reports from all over, and the one I have all my google autosearches dumping to. I must not have killed off the one looking for stories about Arafat, when he died, because look what pops up:

WASHINGTON – WND- After 33 years of secrecy, the U.S. State Department has finally declassified a document admitting it knew the late Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, plotted and supervised the murders of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973, a cover-up first exposed by WND in January 2001.

The document, released earlier this year, with no fanfare, makes it clear the Khartoum operation “was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval” of Arafat, a frequent visitor to the White House throughout the 1990s who died in 2004.

So, since this document existed during all of the Clinton years, Bill Clinton must have known he was consorting with a known enemy of these United States, and a known murderer. I’ll leave the implications of this to the reader.

Addendum: (Bit)

Turns out, this story’s been around a bit longer than this.

Scott over at Powerline wrote about this back in June… and in fact was the author of the earlier WND story, which was originally released as a Column in the Strib. As John at Powerline points out:

… this whole incident illustrates why most conservatives have so little confidence in the State Department. The Americans who were brutally murdered by Yasir Arafat’s thugs were State’s own employees. And yet, for years the department covered for Arafat. Why?

Why, indeed.

I have my doubts that knowledge of the situation was confined to the State Department.  If it was so confined, then staffers and the State Department need to be seeing jail time.  If on the other hand it was not so confined, and the White House knew about it, all through the Clinton years while Arafat practically had an office in the White House, then someone involved with the Clinton White House, possibly Bill Clinton himself, needs to also have some jail time on their calendar.

The left leaning at State, is not a new scenario for any of us.  I’ve mentioned the apparent geopolitical left leaning there, several times over the years.  Their steadfast opposition to the war in Iraq is just the opening salvo.

Then, we have the apparent collusion between the PLO, and thereby Arafat, and Jimmy Carter.  This relationship would seem to extend beyond the grave, or possibly beyond the influence of Arafat himself, if we read between the lines of Mr. Carter’s most recent anti-American propaganda effort. book.

Next we have Arafat trying some of Bill Clinton’s Monica- soaked cigars, just about every weekend. one must assume, to assume an essence, that all these people I’ve just mentioned are complete and total idiots, or that they are extraordinarily bald faced liars.
Either way, there is a pattern here, that is disturbing its implications, and I suspect, destructive in its outcome, if it’s not checked.

We have identified who, what we have to identify yet. is why.

(BBCT reader FloridaTony, for the tip)

What really mattered was whether an Iraq freed from his death grip could hold him accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future. A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness. It could have fostered a new national unity in an Iraq long manipulated through its religious and ethnic divisions.

It could have, but it didn’t. After a flawed, politicized and divisive trial, Mr. Hussein was handed his sentence: death by hanging…

 

…

 Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won’t either.

So bleats the NY Times today. I swear, these people would have defended Hitler, if only because his was a socialist party.

The MSM media loves tyrants and moonbats. Two of their favorites are Hugo Chavez(tyrant) and Cindy Sheehan(moonbat), pictured together.

First to the tyrant, the BBC is reporting “Chavez to shut down opposition TV :” 

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will not renew the licence for the country’s second largest TV channel which he said expired in March 2007.  

Just who does Hugo Chavez think he is:  John McCain?  Chavez wasn’t content to restrict free speech just doing election season, he wants to permanently silence his opposition.

Captain Ed offers background.

Meanwhile back on the moonbat ranch, Mrs Sheehan  comes out in favor of “objective tests:”

I believe his pardon of Richard Nixon is one of the factors that have led to the untimely deaths of over 3000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the Middle East

Mrs. Sheehan adds:

No, the United States of America is not a “banana republic” Mr. Talking Head, but since Nixon got away with his blatant crimes and every President since Nixon has skated away from office after having committed overt and covert crimes, we have on our hands, here, a situation that I am forced now to call: “Bloody George.”

No Mrs. Sheehan, the United States is not a banana republic.  We don’t shut down free speech, expect  of course during election season.

More on Mrs Sheehan, from Powerline and  Flopping Aces

Steven Milloy, this monring:

This week the Bush administration proposed to list the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. It’s a futile gesture that only signals a weakening in the Bush administration’s heretofore strong stance against global warming hysteria. The proposal resulted from a lawsuit settlement the Bush administration reached in February with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In return for these groups dropping their effort to force the Bush administration to grant polar bears “threatened” status under the ESA, the administration agreed to commence a rulemaking to list the bears.

This doesn’t sound like much of a “deal” – and it’s not. Though the proposal doesn’t legally bind the Bush administration to list polar bears as threatened and the proposal will simmer for at least 12 months during which time the administration says it will seek more information and public comment, based on the fanfare accompanying the proposal’s roll-out, it seems the listing is all but final. Rather than issuing the proposal in a tentative and low-key manner, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne issued a media release and reigned over a press teleconference where he and the director of Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) touted the proposal. But they quickly lost control of the affair – not to mention their message. The major issue at the press conference became not whether the polar bear was truly endangered, but whether the rulemaking was a signal that the Bush administration was beginning to melt on global warming.

Well, of COURSE they are. What did you expect?

Let’s call it what it is; This shift is not so much about the climate changes around the world so much as it is the climate changes in Washington…. the latter of which being the only confirmed climate change directly attributable to the activities of man. This is one of the political consequences of a Democrat Congress, and merely one example of many, in why such was to be avoided.

Why? Of what consequence is such a ruling?

The FWS’ own proposal reports that there is no data that even suggests this action is needed. Further, as Milloy points up:

 …potential consequences to polar bears are highly uncertain. No one knows exactly what’s happening with Arctic sea ice, much less what the future holds. The Greenland ice melt, for example, was actually larger in 1991 than in 2005 and the Greenland ice cap is thickening. Data from the Canadian Ice Service indicate there has been no precipitous drop-off in ice cap amount or thickness since 1970.

So, there’s no real effect on the environment, which apparently doesn’t need the help, anyway.  What we have here is a purely political move, designed to give “global warming” hawks the legitimacy they’ve been screaming for.  Another compromise, in short, with Democrats… You’d think the younger Bush would have learned form the elder’s mistakes in that area.

We caught a little snow here in Rochester… a dusting.

Denver, meanwhile is trying for the title of “The New Buffalo”…

DENVER —AP- A second storm in a week pounded Colorado, dumping more than 2 feet of snow in the foothills and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and the closure of highways and government offices on Friday. The storm covered an area stretching from the Rocky Mountains into the western Plains. The National Weather Service said it could buffet the region with wind gusts up to 45 mph, whipping heavy snow into blinding whiteouts. Denver could get 18 inches of snow by Friday morning.

They’re not even awake out there yet, but the accumulator is showing they got precisely what they’re looking for.

Wow. Skiing down I25. (Chuckle)

Yesterday, in reference the Duke Faux rape case, I wrote:

When the case broke, Mike Nifong was the hunter.  Nifong is now the hunted.

Well the hunt is on, and Nifong is indeed the target.  Fox News is reporting, “North Carolina State Bar Files Ethics Complaint Against Duke Lacrosse Rape Prosecutor Mike Nifong:”

RALEIGH, N.C. â€”  The North Carolina State Bar filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong, accusing him of breaking four rules of professional conduct when speaking to the reporters about the sensational case.

If found guilty, punishment can range from admonishment to disbarment.  Just think all the efforts Nifong made just to win re-election, going down the drain.

Update:  The Associated Press has more, here.

One of Britney Spears’ most popular fan Web sites is shutting down, suggesting the disgraced pop queen may be losing her subjects’ support, reported TMZ.com. WorldofBritney.com — which has followed Spears and everything associated with her since 2000 — will die, according to celebrity gossip site TMZ.

 

So says Fox.

Every once in a while… not very often, mind you… American popular culture shows signs of sanity. I think we now have a working process to eliminating talentless Madonna wannabes from the pop culture.

If this we a prize fight, the referee would stopped it by now.  Rosie  O’Donnell keeps impugning Donald Trump and  Trumps keeps smacking O’Donnell.

(H/T photo:  TMZ )

On her blog Rosie infers that Trump is a pimp:

beauty pageants
where women were paraded around
judged valuable or not
by old white men

it is always old white men

Trump in turn, calls the media, in this case Fox, and body slams O’Donnell.  Hot Air had the audio, here.   Trump calls O’Donnell a dummy.  Well if she isn’t one, she sure plays one on television.

Interesting tidbit on the wire, just now, talking about Saddam:

But he also voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency, saying: “Long live jihad and the mujahedeen.” He urged Iraqis to be patient and rely on God’s help in fighting “against the unjust nations.”

Ummmm… What about the idea that Saddam wasnt supporting terrorists, and had no connection with them?

I see by way of OTB, an article in the WaPo reporting that John Edwards has decided to enter the race for the Democratic nominatinon for President.

 Edwards has no chance whatever of playing any role of greater import than spoiler, here.

His team have already shown themselves to be inept, pushing Edwards into this meat grinder a day earlier than they planned,  (Irony: His chosen motto for the campaign: “Tommorw begins Today”.)… and anwyay, the Obama /Clinton monster will likely eat his lunch before June.

Update:

To the point I made about the staff’s cluelessness, up spings Byron York at The Corner:

 The first lesson of Edwards’ announcement this morning is this: If you are going to wear a wireless microphone so you can appear before the press without the artifice of a podium, you should make sure your staff puts new batteries in the transmitter, so your audio signal will not deteriorate as it runs out of juice, or as it encounters interference from the zillions of other wireless devices at the news conference.  Better yet, use a wire.

Ummm. Yeah.

York makes another point about the monochrome look of the crowd, too… and it’s a valid point.   One thing he does NOT say, but I will: It’s interesting that Edward’s kick-off is a bitch-fest about the federal government’s handling of the aftermath of Katrina… for two reasons.

 First, as we’ve discussed here the federal government did it’s job according to the agreement that the state and local governments signed off on. The screwups that happened were at the state and local levels, both of which are run by morons in Edwards’ own party… the Democrats. You’d think he’d want to avoid this subject.

Secondly, if we can take the tenor of this kick off as any indication, his entire campaign will be wrapped around blaming George Bush for everything. Apparently, the failure the last time he tried this “I’m not George W Bush” tack hasn’t made much of an impression. I think we can take this as solid indication that he’s brought nothing new to the table for this go-around.

Between his staff and his personal choices, one wonders if he’s got the smarts to make it to the June date I’ve already mentioned.

( H/T photos  Heart Attack Grill )

In RealClearPolitics, John Stossel asks, “Is Nothing Too Trivial For the Busybodies?”

The motto at the popular Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz., is: “Taste … worth dying for!” That’s because it serves only artery-clogging food like big hamburgers (the biggest is called the “Quadruple Bypass”) and “Flatliner Fries,” which are boiled in lard.

 

The restaurant’s website says: “Insane political correctness stands as a barrier between the average man and his pursuit of happiness.”

Do the nanny state nazies have no sense of decency?   Is this indeed a burger worth dying for? 

What say you?