Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses Bill Clinton's increasingly enthusiastic plunge into dhimmitude:
Three times in the last month or two Bill Clinton -- when not busy with his Clinton World Initiative (not to be confused with any Initiatives by Jeffery Sachs, or Jimmy Carter, or others intent on Saving All of Humanity All the Time, with themselves at the helm) has displayed a remarkable willingness to stand up for Arab and Muslim interests. He deplored, in front of and for his Arab hosts, those Danish cartoons. He said neither a word about the need to uphold freedom of speech by practicing it, nor a word about the mob violence and economic boycotts and threat to kill Danes -- as he might have done, with no cost and great credit to himself.And we all know he is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he met his wife. Surely what must have stuck in his mind was not Civil Procedure but Constitutional Law, and not only Constitutional Law, but the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and not only the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but Freedom of Speech, and Holmes and Brandeis, and all that. It didn't matter. He was in Qatar. Was he coming to, or from, Davos or some other World Summit where Earth-Shaking Leaders Shake Hands Only With Each Other? And he was pocketing money from his Arab hosts, and he wanted to give them their money's worth. Others in the region would hear of it, and want him back.
And then there was the news that even as his wife opposed the Dubai Ports Deal, her husband, the head of the Clinton World Initiative, was working to undo that opposition --which opposition was so significant, as a sign of mental and political health. It was a refusal on practical and symbolic grounds to pretend that there is "nothing wrong" with an Arab state-owned company controlling those responsible for security in 21 American ports, nothing different from, as Bush put it, a British company doing so. But Clinton, along with Madeline Albright (head of The Albright Group -- or is it Albright Associates -- that was retained by Dubai to influence and lobby others to drop their opposition to the deal), had no loyalty to the other members of his party. And had no loyalty to the political interests of his wife.
Now Clinton would legitimize Hamas, an organization that has repeatedly stated that its ultimate goal is to wipe out Israel. It has stated this in so many ways, some of them in the calm way of those stating merely the logical and self-evident fact of what, according to their belief-system, must be -- for of course an Infidel sovereign state such as Israel, no matter how tiny, no matter how hard to find on a map, cannot be permitted to exist. And some of them have been statements dripping with blood. And over the past two months, the entire world has been falling all over itself to assure Hamas of its continued support -- especially European countries, though some in the Bush Administration have done the same. And of course the systematically anti-Israel counsel of the assorted malleys and crooks, who are careful never to discuss, never to raise, the tenets of Islam, are repeated by those who have a stake in keeping everyone focused on the notion that continuing aid to Hamas, the purest form of Jizyah, will do wonders. Does Clinton know what Jizyah is, or has he still, even though out of office, little time for history, because glad-handing, and pocketing envelopes from grateful hosts, is too time-consuming?What this really means is that we will refuse to begin to see the Lesser Jihad against Israel as it is, and will continue on the path of throwing Israel to the wolves, and convincing ourselves that we are not doing that. Instead, we will tell ourselves, we are working hard for a "two-state solution" by chipping away at Israel, at the confidence of its succession of mediocre leaders and desperate population, and at its support from outside. And nothing will stop us.
But what did you expect? Our leaders don't dare stand back and give themselves time to study Islam, and therefore even permit themselves to analyze the situation differently. Yet the only way to start making sense of the "Arab-Israeli" matter would be to take Islam not only into consideration, but to understand that without it nothing makes sense. The widespread failure by Western leaders and elites to educate themselves, or even see the need to be educated, about Islam, is wedded to a widespread failure of imagination, of the ability to figure out that not everyone believes in the same things, sees the world the same way, and what's more, cannot conceivably be made to see the world the same way, given the hold that Islam has over their minds, their societies, their countries.In official Washington, the Arab diplomats and businessmen and fixers of every kind know how to sound reasonable. They know exactly what goes over well in the presentation of things. They also know how easily fooled Westerners are when it comes to distinguishing nonsense from truth, or attributing to the hundreds of millions they do not see before them, the real masses, what they learn from these rulers and representatives -- the smilers with the knyf under the cloke you are likely to meet in official Washington or on official visits.
The belief that democracy in the Western sense, with its indispensable panoply of guarantees for individual rights, could ever take hold in a Muslim country unless that country had first undergone, in the manner of Turkey, a systematic suppression, over several generations, of Islam as a political and social force -- is simply wild. And naive, ignorant, obstinately immune to reality, crazy, cracked. That is the Bush Administration's fault.
But the Democrats have been terrible. They have failed in exactly the same analysis. They have attacked the Iraq War for all the wrong reasons -- that there was no real threat, that Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had no relations, and so on. They should be saying: there is a real menace. The menace is the Jihad. The menace is not merely, not mainly, "terrorism" -- even if it took an act of terror to begin to get the attention that the worldwide manifestations of that same Jihadist impulse, with the same textual sources, are now just beginning to get. And that is why we should leave Iraq. It is cost-ineffective. It does not permit us to take advantage of the sectarian and ethnic divisions within the "camp of the Jihad" (describe it demurely as that, and for now leave "Islam" out of it).
And we have much more important matters to tend to, including Iran's nuclear project, and the current "attacks even within Europe" on the "recognized rights achieved by the peoples of Europe." It will sound awkward at first, a little funny. Political figures don't talk that way anymore, the way they might have with complete naturalness even a half-century ago. In fact, a few decades before that, in the Western world everyone wrote and spoke candidly about the nature of Islam. Islam hasn't changed its nature. All that has changed is the willingness, or perhaps the ability, of Western leaders to speak truthfully and piercingly about it.
And now we come, by a commodius vicus, back to that Representative Man, Bill Clinton, head of the Clinton World Initiative. He deplores for an audience in Qatar the Danish cartoonists who were published in a Danish newspaper written for Danes, and who should have censored themselves, should have "respected" Muslim demands and done what Muslims would wish them to. So much for those classes at Yale Law School on Constitutional Law, where the names Brandeis and Holmes must once have fluttered through his mind, that law school where, it seems (and he would not be alone), he obtained a credential but not an education. He announces that he's for that Dubai Ports Deal -- strange that he should be so quick to declare support for the Bush Administration, especially when his wife is against it. Surely he had time to make a phone call to her, and ask what she would like him to say, or perhaps to have him not say anything at all. And now this vicious nonsense about Hamas.
Bill Clinton is a rapacious man, an endlessly greedy man. But he has so much money at this point. Did he really have to attack freedom of speech to please present Arab hosts, and possibly set up future well-paid speechifying tours in the Gulf? Did he need to stand up for the Dubai ports deal? Did he need to repeat the malley-crook line on Hamas, that they would mature, that they would change, that if only we kept "talking to them" and of course supplying the Jizyah of more Infidel money? Does no one wish publicly to suggest that Hamas should go to the rich Arabs who every day take in billions from oil -- no one?
Possibly there is something else going on here. Senator Clinton, the wife of the former president and current head of the Clinton Global Initiative, is now a Senator from New York State. She has presidential ambitions. It is unlikely, either in her senatorial career, or in her desire for something even bigger, that her husband's casual jettisoning of freedom of speech, his declared support for the Dubai Ports deal when she declared her opposition, and this latest, and most unacceptable, of remarks, will do her any good. Surely he knows that. Surely he knows he is damaging her in all sorts of ways. Surely he cares.
Or does he?
Is this not a case of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, except that they seem to have changed roles? Or perhaps they always were, the both of them, playing the role of Lady Macbeth? After all, gender is just a "social construct," isn't it?
Sometimes the right hand does not know what the left is doing and this certainly fits.
Slick Willie: "Saving All of Humanity All the Time..."
Could be the title of a movie.
Or is it more like:
'for another $ 300.000 I'll tell you just what you want to hear.."
and if I sez 'you sonoffabitch would sell your grandmothers bones...?!
....' he would probably say for a price mate, for a price....'
You are all being quite unfair as G Bush senior managed to secure the plum job with Saudi oil companies and Clinton can only hope and/or wait.
Monica taught him the how and he is now simply showing that he learns from experience.
Well, there you are then. He's not just greedy, or even extremely greedy, but endlessly greedy.
There's explanation enough there.
***********
From the Telegraph
Simon Heffer: Our frontiers are wide open to murderers
My emphasis. I think the assertion is undoubtedly true, and I'm glad this has now been said in an up-market, high-circulation daily newspaper. Perhaps it is not impossible to state the truth after all.
And as he says, the British Government are complicit in this young woman's death.
Yojimbo - re the article you linked to, I once spent half a day reading all the articles at this website (as well as following the links and viewing the videotape of the Swedes getting beat up on the street), after the site's operator posted the link here:
http://balder.org/articles/hatespeech/James-Waite-Racist-Murder-Sweden.php#maryann
I know very little about "nationalist" movements and I don't wish to be flamed for posting the link here, but I will say I see the point being made that immigrant crime towards native Europeans, which is clearly racist in nature, is grossly underreported in the European press, even as every crime perpretrated by natives on immigrants makes the front page news. As far as I am concerned, racism is racism and what is happening in Europe now appears to be a clear case of "reverse-racism", which the elites themselves are participating in.
Back on topic...Re what is going on with the Clintons, Dick Morris - if you ever read this site, could you please give us your insights because it is indeed rather puzzling. :-)
Caroline,
Thanks - I'll have a look at the link.
In the Jeshma Raithatha case, of course, the perpetrator is a European and the victim a member of a minority, a Hindu, I presume. But the girl, just the same as any English girl, was a victim of Britain's deliberately lax immigration policies.
I suspect there are more than a few similar stories. Here is another recent one. This one seems to be the result of a less than stringent policy towards sealing borders and picking up illegals.
Illegal immigrant gets life for rape.
In other words, this thug has been wandering around Europe, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, committing offence after offence, and no-one has arrested him and deported him for illegal entry, no one has even put an effective stop to his career of crime until it's got ot the point where a woman's life has been damaged - perhaps irreparably.
Bill bubba take on this, is Hilary's book "it takes a village" you can put in...takes a village to con the American public on his lack of leadership, the politician who is out for himself, even if it means screwing your own country!
Life isn't long enough nor painful enough for scum like that creature. As he is violent already you can be sure that he will not be on the receiving end of any gaol rapes.
Hammurabi may have had a point.
These creatures are slowly destroying my confidence in mankind and eliminating my tolerance towards those who fall of their own accord as opposed to those who do so by being pushed with starvation.
I have been at the stage for some years now of NOT caring why someone sticks a knife into myself and more especiallly so if I have done nothing to deserve it.
The only justifiable homicide is self or family protection in the sane and honest.
What should we expect from an NWO elitist who has membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (Albright as well) and the Bildergerger Group.
As well as all this other stuff, he also wants to be the head honcho at the UN and replace Kofi.
Surely Allah has sent him...
Wow, I wonder if Robert's seen this. It would be worth a thread all on it's own.
The Archbishop of Canterbury to Muslims at Georgetown
Oh, really - would you like to let us in on what the "agenda" is? And there's this disgusting comment:
Seeing as "human rights" include such matters as freedom of speech, worship, and peaceful assembly, I should have thought it was obvious even to the Archquisling of Canterbury that he will deceive no one with this comment.
Jeshma Raithatha was a daughter any parent would be proud of.
Don't start me off on the Arch-druid. Actually I don't think he is a druid, a real druid would have more sense.
Only this week a friend of mine resigned from his church post so as to disassociate himself from the decision to disinvest in Caterpillar Tractors. He has written to the Bishop to tell him why; as I was told in a sermon elsewhere, it is our right and our duty to tell our politicians and Bishops when they are wrong.
But will they listen to us?
""Two years ago, when 10 mainly former Soviet bloc countries entered the EU, Britain almost alone of the existing members refused to place any immigration controls on them. As a result, people from vastly different cultures to our own could freely come here."
"The Government favours mass immigration because it helps destroy the cultural basis of our society."
- I think the assertion is undoubtedly true, and I'm glad this has now been said in an up-market, high-circulation daily newspaper. Perhaps it is not impossible to state the truth after all."
-- from Yojimbo's post above
So, Yojimbo, the Telegraph is finally telling the truth about the REAL threat connected with immigration to Britain?
The 10 new EU member states are the least Islamic of all EU. They're Protestant and Catholic countries with deep European roots, all more or less secular, all democratic, their only "crime" is having been occupied by the brutal Soviet empire for 50 years.
Vastly different cultures, indeed? Isn't the main cultural difference worth mentioning here that while Britain is increasingly Islamified, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and other Eastern European states remain fully European and non-Muslim; not yet full of mosques and Sharia-abiding enclaves?
For decades, Western Europe kept its doors closed to the Eastern European victims of Communism while welcoming millions of Muslims from North Africa, Turkey and Pakistan. And now the main problem Britain faces is that the Christian and secular Europeans who through no fault of their own suffered under totalitarian regimes they never believed in, are finally free to enter the West? Really?
Come back to the Earth, buddy. Of course, it is safe for the Telegraph to claim that "the problem" is immigrants from the former Communist block 'cause one can be pretty sure that no Sovenians or Estonians will come up with threats to behead the editor for such an offence. No need for applauding them for finally revealing "the truth", though.
Of course, we actually know very little about the Druids. Stuart Piggott wrote a book on them. I skimmed some of it once, and it was a valiant effort, but I can't help thinking he was on a losing wicket. A few offhand comments in some classical authors is about the extent of the written evidence, and any material evidence is, as always, subject to conjecture.
I tend to think of Druids "pouring forth dreadful imprecations" (Tacitus: Annals: Book 14) but I doubt Rowan Williams is much of a hand at that.
If he calls himself a "Druid", I suspect the influence of Welsh romanticism of the "Celtic". The truth of the matter is Britain (and Ireland) have far older and deeper roots, and the Keltoi (not a name they themselves used) were probably not invaders in numbers but little more than an upper stratum:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/prehistory/peoples_01.shtml
Not what I said, rahel.
I made the point that Simon Heffer (not "the Telegraph") had made the point, with reference to that story, that:
"the Government favours mass immigration because it helps destroy the cultural basis of our society"
I was pleased to see this truth told. You may not have been, but I couldn't care less about that.
When did elephantiasis set in with ex-Presidents? When did they stop retiring, to their house in Independence, Missouri or farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but stayed to dispense wisdom, write their ridiculous memoirs that tell us nothing but fill up the book-clubs? When did those Presidential libraries become Babylonian in size? When did they start making the speechifying rounds, the way George Bush Senior (you know, the one supposedly full of Yankee rectitude?), picking up large expressions of gratitude, that should rightly have been given directly to the American soldiers who rescued them, and to no one else, did in Kuwait with his million-dollar appearance? And when did the mix of We Are the World self-promotional spectacles, the ones arranged by Sir Bob Geldof, where a much of multi-millionaire entertainment celebrities could more easily raise the money just by contributing a small fraction of what each of them has accumulated, but instead have started this whole business, and then the fantastic dreams of Ending Poverty Forever of such self-promoters and polypragmosynists as Jeffery Sachs with his private fiefdom and schemes, the absurdly-named World Institute.
When the self-promoting spectacle of We Are the World meets the spectacular self-promoting of The World Institute, what emerges from that meeting is a "We Are the World Institute" which is exactly what the Clinton World Initiative, or Clinton Global Initiative --with its Citibank sponsorship ("Ajay, come on down") and willing billionaires who, by parting with just a very tiny portion of what they have managed to accumulate, are given a pass, valid in all countries, a Permit to Feel Good About Yourself For Giving Something Back -- turns out, in its essence, to be.
"I made the point that Simon Heffer had made the point, with reference to that story, that:"the Government favours mass immigration because it helps destroy the cultural basis of our society""
-- Yojimbo
And the story makes it pretty clear that the "point" is made with reference to opening the borders to the 10 new EU countries with "vastly different" cultures. Not with reference to Muslim immigration.
Sounds rather like another way to avoid telling the truth. Not so pleasing unless one is happy with any general expression of base xenophobia.
There are far too many polypragmosynists. Somebody should do something about it.
This is at the base of what Bat Ye'or and Oriana Fallaci have said.
I am pleased to see others confirm it. As I said, I couldn't care less what you think. Clear?
And if you think the murder of this young girl was acceptable, because it was done by a Latvian, I've even less time for you.
I don't think Rowan Williams has ever refered to himself as a druid, indeed I think it most unlikely. I started calling him the Arch-druid on the strength of his Welshness and his beard.
Most of what I know of the Druids comes from my 5th form efforts to translate Caesar's Gallic Wars. Whatever the rights or wrongs of their religious practices (and I could not compose poetry in any circumstances, let alone underwater in a limited amount of time) they seemed to recognise a dangerous invading force when they saw it. And as for what the Romans did for us, (apart from aqueducts and straight roads, law etc) I doubt the Grislamic menace would have any beneficial effect to compare.
Ah, Interested, here we are -- alone again at last.
Let's not forget that it was Bush who insisted and pressured Israel into not only allowing the palestinian elections to take place on time, but on also insisting they allow hamas to participate. But let's as usual give Bush a free pass and focus on an ex-president.
Bush has done a shit job as president, yet you are all still focusing on Bill Clinton. Of course focusing on him and Hillary makes it easy to avoid confronting questions about Bush's failed leadership.
As far as putting yourself above the country, Bush certainly put his family's business interests in the UAE ahead of America's security. How about worrying what the current president is up to rather than the ex-president who's opinions no longer have an impact.
Only an Oxford comma between us.
Laura-
It's Tweedledumb and Tweedledumb-er.
Clinton is where Bush will be in about three years. Globe-trotting for lucrative "speeches to Muslims" petro-bucks. Proclaiming the "noble" religion of Islam. And adding wings to his "library" (to house the thirty Reader's Digest condensed books he's read).
There is little lost love here for GWB. But, if a guy will built you 'half a boat' (a partial war against Islamic extremism) as opposed to the opposing party which wants to refuse you permission to 'lay the keel' (no surveillance, no patriot act, no attempt at border controls, etc.) , you have to still choose the half-idiot over the total sell-out.
Having read it again, Clinton's view is that he would negotiate with hamas UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. That really isn't different than what the Bush administration and the Israeli government has said, which is to recognize hamas if they would give up terror and recognize Israel. In my view I don't think there should ever be negotiations with hamas because it is a terrorist group, and even if they were to give lip service to meeting those conditions, they of course couldn't be trusted. But nevertheless, contrary to the spin that Bush supporters are giving it, Clinton hasn't stated anything much different than what Bush and the Israelis have said regarding negotiations with hamas.
Not entirely apt as it implies a naive or innocent desire to be seen as still useful as opposed to the blatant personal greed motive really driving him.
But you win this week's competition for the longest and most archaic word use :)
On the topic of the George Bush Senior's million dollar speech in Kuwait after their liberation, there is at least one thing that bothers me. Why did the US not insist on the 20% portion of the wealth reconquered that is the part due to the leader of a fight among the Muslims. Why not use their rules to our advantage, when the opportunity presents itself? Let's see, 20% of all land, movable wealth and oil fields of Kuwait would be a tremendous help given our national budget deficits.
Just a thought.
Magooey
Hugh said:
Maybe in the Middle East. (Though I wonder if it would have been impossible to force and finesse non-sharia constitutions into place in Afghanistan and Iraq without a commitment of generations.) But outside the Middle East, Hugh's general truth doesn't fully hold up, does it? There are two or three Muslim-majority countries outside the Middle East that are rated "free" by Freedom House (PDF doc), which collects data on civil liberties and political rights in every country in the world. For example, Freedom House has Muslim-majority Mali rated "free". Turkey is rated only "partly free".
Almost the whole of the Muslim-majority world (40+ countries) falls into the "not free" and "partly free" categories at Freedom House, whose data show that the Muslim world is behind every other major region in terms of human rights. I conclude that even if Islam's totalitarianism can fail to appear or can go into remission in a few places like Mali (and without the systematic suppression Hugh argues would be prerequisite) immigration of Muslims to the West should be halted, at least until a majority of Muslim-majority countries demonstrate in practice that human rights and Islam are thoroughly compatible.
"Bush has done a shit job as president, yet you are all still focusing on Bill Clinton. Of course focusing on him and Hillary makes it easy to avoid confronting questions about Bush's failed leadership."
-- from a posting above
"Focusing on Bill Clinton"? At this web-site? If you think this website has been refraining from criticism of Bush and Rice and the rest of the Administration, criticism of a kind that Administration loyalists do not dare even to mention because it is of the deadliest, most unanswerable kind, far more deadly and unanswerable than anything any of the Democrats have yet come up with, then either you have not been coming to this site very long, or if you have, you have not been reading very attentively. For evidence of this, you can start by browsing among the "Articles" which can be retrieved by clicking on that word on the bar at the top, or more quickly, by googling a key phrase, such as "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" Project. You will discover the most uncompromising and furious attacks on the Bush Adminstration for its Iraq policy, from early 2004, when it became clear that there were idiotic ambitions behond that of searching for, and destroying, major weaponry.
In your original posting, you use a noun as an adjective. An objection has been raised, and since I raised it, I sustain it. That objection is not to the anthimeria (the figure which describes the use of one part of speech for another) but rather to the particular noun that you chose to use without altering it from its nominal to its adjectival form. Ordinarily this would have triggered a deletion. This new practice is explained in "Call Us Prudes: Two Notes on Verbal Decorum" posted at Jihad Watch on March 18, 2006.
If you want to stick around to see this Administration raked over the coals, do so. But part of the price of remaining is to see all sorts of people --including that greedy flim-flam man Bill Clinton and his equally ambitious wife -- also being subject to criticism. Very few of our current leaders deserve to 'scape whipping. That's aphaeresis. Also known as ablatio. But perhaps under the demure circumstances I shouldn't have added the latter -- it might set some rhyming minds a-thinking.
To "Laura" above (say, were you ever in the Vaucluse? Anywhere near Mont Ventoux?):
Among the many examples of those who, reacting to my criticism of Bush as you do above to my much more infrequent (because they are not running foreign policy, and Bush is) criticism of the two Clintons, Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth, is the following, selected at random from those put up in just the last month:
"Hugh,
The only thing that is too obvious to be grasped is that positive things are indeed happening in Iraq despite the dismal picture you repeatedly paint. I suspect your failure in this regard is due in large part to the total blackout of good news from the Major Media outlets. But be that as it may. If the war on terror is neither a left nor right issue as has been asserted herein then isn't some measure of balance from the authors on this website in order? Instead, we must endure not only the Media's constant one-sided negativisms but also the same from you now virtually every time we visit JihadWatch. The next thing we'll be seeing is you dedicating your posts to Cindy Sheehan. The increasingly left tilt you've given Robert's website has got me expecting Code Pink banner-ads to start showing up here on the main page any day now.
The odd thing about your near-daily diatribes against the war in Iraq, Bush, and as Howard Dean would say, everything else the Republican Party stands for, is that you would be spinning the events in Iraq completely differently if another political party was in the Oval Office overseeing our defeat and retreat in the face of the global jihad (preferably led by someone who had been less-than-honorably discharged with known sympathies for a certain North Vietnamese Communist Regime).
Hugh, you need to come clean with everybody here by first admitting that you really are a leftist partisan hack and motivated by paranoia of the evil quartet of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove. From there, we can work our way toward eventually figuring out why you lurk the forums at moveon.org. The upside potential to this type catharsis is that it has been known to put a permanent halt to constant hand-wringing, nightmares of jack-booted Republicans, and chronic adult bedwetting."
So which am I? Unfair to Clinton, or unfair to Bush? A member of Karl Rove's kitchen cabinet, as you think, or a member of Willi Munzenberg's Comintern, as the poster quoted above thinks?
Or is it just possible that there is a third alternative, and that I am not unfair to either, but meting out justice to both?
If common useage is any indication (and I do believe that most dictionarists surrender eventually) the use of "that word" may seem to be as an anthimeria, but it is no longer.
However I would not expect you to be aware of this after the "prudity" discussion as obviously you only exist in rarified atmospheres.
This adjectival variation of the noun has a definite and more specific meaning difference from the usual one. It does not mean: "sloppy","offensive", "insulting", "careless" or "malodorous" etc.. It simply means that a distinct lack of effort (for whatever reason), with its expected result, was put into whatever noun it qualified.
GW,
But he has - I'd assumed that was why you said it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2173194.stm
The 'prudity' guidlines, as I understood them, pertained not to any personal preference of Hugh. I thought the new guidelines were to keep this website accessible to the largest possible general audience, including to children, or to teens at any rate. Strangers come here all the time to have a look, too. In a setting that aims to attract the largest possible audience, I'm not sure the casual imprecations uttered among best buddies and sailors are considerate. A little decorum isn't always snobbery. Sometimes it's just a sign of unassuming respect for the boundaries of unfamilar others. We can tell the truth bluntly and call 'em like we sees 'em without fecal metaphors. Of course, if your posts are good enough, your fecal metaphors won't be the crappy kind, and maybe they'll be allowed to stay.
you have not been coming to this site very long, or if you have, you have been reading very attentively
Or not.
it might send some rhyming minds a-thinking.
Or racing ahead.
I'm with Hugh on the Iraq intervention. Iraq has been a huge waste of time and money as well as the loss of life.
The whole purpose of the intervention in Iraq and the attempted installation of a liberal democracy there, was that it was part of the War on Terror, ie it would reduce the Jihad. As it is unlikely that the Iraq example is going to be followed by any other islamic country, it follows that for success on the Iraq model, it requires that we intervene in every other Arab/muslim country. So even if there was total success in Iraq, it has no bearing on the overall Jihad.
The Iraq intervention has had other negative consequences. It has alienated Europe from the US. Even though this was to be expected, this alienation is evident even in Britain, the closest ally of the US. The DT reports that there is deep misgivings even in the British army - a no nonsense army if ever there was one, and one that has operated comfortably with US troops for generations.
Instead of a united front of the US and the UK, even this front is in danger of unravelling.
Blimey, Yojimbo, I missed that.
Still it shows I made the right assessment of him! Potty!
(No offence to Welsh poets, bards, harpists and male voice choirs in general, I hasten to add)
NB, my English teacher was very strict teaching us "the supposed rule (which Fowler would call a 'superstition') about putting punctuation marks before and." No Oxford comma for us. She was equally strict about not beginning sentences with and or but. However I have taken no notice of that rule for some years. Strange.
Ken Barlow from Corrie is a druid and he hasn't got a beard.
And what's more, you can start sentences with and if you want to. And but. But some may not like it.
Not sure I should make yet another OT comment, Granny Weatherwax, but I quite agree with you: "potty" it is.
I find it difficult to fathom the mentality of a man who can just about, in a very roundabout way, express grave doubts when really pushed (as Dr. Williams did when Rusbridger interviewed him) but can then revert smoothly to the well-trodden path (as he does in the link I gave) at the first chance. I suppose it is, somehow, so much easier, and so more "respectable". I suppose it is quite literally a case of slipping into comfortable paths - long-laid-down neural pathways. Unfortunately, it means there is an ever increasing gap between what is going on in his mind and what is going on in reality.
I'm reminded of Prince Charles again. Frankly, I think Daniel Pipes has a screw loose here with this "secret Muslim" nonsense. Here we have simply another case of someone who just doesn't get it. I really don't think Charles is even specifically pro-Muslim more than pro-anything-else. He has donned Muslim clothing here or there on State visits. But he is equally happy to kiss the floor at a Sikh Gurdwara, or to have Hindu markings smeared on his forehead, and I can't imagine a Muslim would wish to take part in either ceremony. I don't actually imagine Charles is "multiculturalist" in the usual sense either. Multiculturalism seems often to boil down to something like: all religions are different and equally invalid. Charles seems rather to exhibit a kind of omnivorous "spirituality" reminiscent of the theosophists that boils down to: all religions are the same and equally valid. In this case, the influence is, I'd think, not the theosophists but probably Jung (via Laurens van der Post). I've a copy of Sandy Gall's book on the Bushmen. Charles has written a very short forward to it in which he uses the phrase "inner spirituality" of the Bushmen no less than three times. I've a lot of sympathy for the Bushmen, but a phrase like "inner spirituality" means everything and nothing. What's "spirituality" when it's at home, and what have metaphors of "inner" and "outer" (surely hints of Cartesianism here) to do with it?
"dictionarists..."
-- from a posting above
Any relation to the title of that movie-- "The Shootist"? Having completed his own role in a film about the libertine Earl of Rochester, John Malkovich is planning, I've heard, to make a movie about Samuel Johnson ]and the composition of the first great English dictionary, that of 1755. The romance of the harmless drudgery of lexicography. Scoffers will argue that that is unlikely material for a movie. But think again of the high cinematic drama, as Johnson is sitting there at his desk, trying to write an entry for a word, and the camera vorkapitches and now we see his face and furrowed brow, all concentration, as he mouths but does not say aloud this or that different possible definition, and around him swirl the various definitions that are being considered in his fevered brain -- number one, number two, number three, each slightly or very different from the last. Swirls and eddies of words, now careening down the Odessan steps of his...oops, wrong movie. Anyway, Fantastic emotion builds in the audience, until at long last we see his fluent pen writing the definition that will enter the dictionary, and history.
Name of movie according to movie-world rumor: "The Dictionarist."
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"I would not expect you to be aware of this after the "prudity" discussion as obviously you only exist in rarified atmospheres.."
-- from the same posting above
"Prudity" -- now there's a happy accident, clearly a folk back-formation from "crudity," constructed by those who assume that "welsh rarebit" is a mistake for what they take to be the correct version -- "welsh rabbit" -- and insist, incorrectly, on using the latter form (see Eric Partridge). But I like it. Other possibilities now present themselves: "rudity" as in "the stark rudity of his later clothes-pin paintings which, in a strictly malerisch sense..." (see Art Forum, any issue): "dudity" (so that we can elevate "Shur, dude" to "Quite right, Your Dudity." And then "rudity" -- as in, "Rudity to the guests will not be tolerated and will be grounds for prompt dismissal from the hotel staff" or "when the bridge at Concord was rebuilt in 1874, elements of its original and celebrated rudity were deliberately retained."
"Prudity"? "Rarefied atmospheres"? C'mon, Your Dudity. I'm breathing the same air you do, not floating around in the upper ether. Get with the program.
Again, the best way to handle this is to confront the Clintons on Islamic ideology's homicidal leanings. Ask them, Bill in particular, why are they choosing to ignore Islam's homicidal tendencies? WHY INDEED do THEY CHOOSE TO IGNORE ISLAM'S HOMICIDAL TENDENCIES???
Homicide is a crime in America. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for non-compliance with it. Abetting Islam is abetting murder!
If the Clintons did not know it before it, they know it NOW!!!
a poster above says that clinton's position on the hamas is the same as Israel's, that is, that Israel under the Olmert regime is ready to talk to the Hamas if it fulfills certain conditions, which appear to be those of the so-called Road Map. I do not approve of such a position. Even if the Hamas were to fulfill the conditions cited, how could we ever trust them not to break their word in the future, especially if we give up easily defended land areas that serve as a strategic deterrent?
Keep in mind that Olmert is not a truly legitimate leader, or even a legal leader. His party, Qadima, got less than one-quarter of the vote in the last elections [29 seats out of 120 in the Knesset]. Further, Olmert is still only the deputy prime minister till today. Sharon is still officially the PM, although everybody knows that he will never come back --never to consciousness let alone functioning. Sharon should have been declared incapacitated [nivtsar m'l'tafqed] months ago. But if that had been done, then Netanyahu would have legally become prime minister [as the next name on the party list on which Sharon had been elected]. And THAT many powerful persons, within and without Israel, did not want to see happen. With all his faults, Netanyahu is the best that we now have. And he has many virtues too. By the way, he has publicly recognized the dangers of Islamic jihad. So, in order to keep Netanyahu out, the attorney general dishonestly failed to declare Sharon incapacitated, thus leaving Olmert in control with the title of deputy prime minister.