We've been warned for the past 2,000 years. . .

http://foundingforefathers.com/_wsn/page2.html

Posted by: Founding Forefather at July 11, 2005 12:46 PM

Do the Sudanese blacks, all those Nuer and Dinka tribesmen, spend their time sniffing cocaine or watching Linda Lovelace?

Posted by: Beagle at July 11, 2005 12:47 PM

www.washingtontimes.com

Dangers of capitulation

By Louis Rene Beres
Published July 11, 2005

--------------------------------------------------

If you liked what happened in London on July 7, you'll love what is now planned for Gaza. Next month, the forcible expulsion of Jews from this tiny piece of territory will set the stage for further Arab terror attacks in Europe and the United States. While President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have high hopes that carving up Israel will protect their own countries, they have neglected to understand that a "disengaged" Gaza will quickly become the site for expanded terror violence against the West. They should have learned by now that the smell of carrion always inflames the vulture.

On the eve of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza, Israel continues to ignore the obvious. The official map of Palestine remains clear and explicit. Gaza is merely the start of a long-established and never-revoked plan to dismantle Israel in "phases." This carefully-constructed cartography defines the emergent 23rd Arab state to include all of Judea/Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and the entire state of Israel. A small slice of Jordan is also included on the map, which purposefully excludes any references to Jewish populations.

If you liked London, you'll love Israel's planned August deportation of Jews -- the prime minister's incomprehensible plan of "Land For Nothing." Following this deportation, the Palestinian Authority and its many collaborators will turn Gaza into an organized area for more ferocious Islamic attacks against selected targets in Europe and the United States. The terrorists who are responsible for the July 7 London bombings are in very close association with the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. In essence, in spite of widely-presumed distinctions, they are simply different wings of the same overarching Jihadi movement.

Manifestly delighted that Britain and America have unhesitatingly agreed to turn Israel into a present-day Czechoslovakia, al Qaeda and itsvariousPalestinian cousins fully understand that capitulation has been the West's predictable response to Islamic terror. Yes, of course America and England fight together in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this often heroic effort is strangely coincident with offering tiny Israel as a sacrificial lamb to the very same terrorist enemies. In time, this unforgivable surrender of Israel in pieces will create pieces of terrorist devastation within our own European and American heartlands.

Now London has become Tel Aviv. Tomorrow it could be New York (again), Los Angeles or Chicago. For years, British newspapers and TV news journalists have referred euphemistically to Palestinian suicide bombers as "militants." Today, however, when the victims are not just Jewish women and children in Israel, but English mothers and daughters on London buses and subways, the militants are finally called "terrorists." How desperately human beings always want to ignore what is true.

Soon the body parts will have been properly collected in London, and the affected streets and rails hosed down to a pre-incident state of cleanliness. Soon, London, like Tel Aviv, will return to "normal." Driven by an unstoppable passion for both commerce and self-delusion, British authorities will take prudent steps to ensure that the hotels stay filled and the air charters keep flying. But London, like Tel Aviv, will never return to normal until it understands exactly who is responsible for defiling its people.

Moreover, for the foreseeable future, England, like America and Israel, will also have to prepare for previously unimaginable attacks onciviliansinvolving weaponizedpathogens (bioterror)and"dirty bombs" -- that is, nuclear materials dispersed over cities by conventional high explosives.

In Pericles'Funeral Speech, as recorded by Thucydides,Athens' wartime leader commented: "What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies is our own mistakes." Understood in terms of our stubborn march to repeated misfortune in America, in Europe and in Israel, Pericles' wisdom points to the mistake of underestimating one's own national vulnerabilities. For England, for America, for Israel, the only true refuge now lies in a sober awareness that we face a distinctly common enemy and that we should not capitulate to this enemy on one front while combating him on another.

For us, paradise has been bolted shut. No American, Englishman or Israeli can force an entrance there. The persisting Sharon/Peres dream of a New Middle East is based on a theoretical impossibility. Nurtured also in London and Washington, this immature dream is a curious counterpoint to reason, a childlike vision that points determinedly to mass-destruction terrorism on several fronts.

A dying civilization compromises with its disease, sometimes even nurturing the virus that produces the infection. So it is today with Israel and its supposed allies in England and the United States. If you don't like what just happened in London, you will not like what is about to take place in Gaza. "Disengagement" is a virulent compromise that will further endanger us all.

Louis Rene Beres graduated from Princeton University. He is the author of many books and articles dealing with strategic issues and international law.

Posted by: Kemaste at July 11, 2005 12:52 PM

This is an interesting, if bleak, point of view. Is there any hope for humanity in this line of thought?

Posted by: Mike at July 11, 2005 1:06 PM

They hate us because that's what they do... ...or their leaders tell them to do. It's Orwell's three minutes of hate, but it's not three minutes long.

Brigette Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian American, gave her account of growing up through the civil war that racked her country (and continues to) in the 1980s, how she was taught to hate Jews and did until her mother and her needed medical treatment as a result of injuries sustained at the hands of warring Arab factions. She has never forgotten the Israeli doctors who treated her mother before going on to treat Israeli soldiers.

Nonie Darwish tells a similar story of being raised to hate blindly as does Walid Shoebat.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at July 11, 2005 1:07 PM

LOL ! Lind Lovelace, you are giving your age away Hugh !

Posted by: TooBad at July 11, 2005 1:08 PM

"Muscular Christianity" is what it will take (+muscular Judaism). Here's why there won't be any "muscular atheism/secular humanism"- because it is those philosophies that have brought us a decadent, degenerate culture.
That is not to say that there are not some muscular atheists- Hugh has proclaimed himself one (? I think- I may be wrong)- but over all, I doubt sincerely that the secular humanist West can rouse itself, so deluded is it by hedonism, multi-culti, etc.

Posted by: miasarx at July 11, 2005 1:09 PM

Great post, Mr. Fitzgerald.

Posted by: kj at July 11, 2005 1:41 PM

"This is an interesting, if bleak, point of view. Is there any hope for humanity in this line of thought?"
--- from a posting above

A curious comment. Should we avoid reality, because that reality appears to some to be "bleak" or should we, rather, pretend that that reality is otherwise, to cheer ourselves up?

"Hope for humanity" is not a phrase that means much. There is hope for those of us who wish not to be islamized, not to have Europe islamized, not to see the more vulnerable and marginal members of all non-Muslim societies fatally attracted to the Da'wa-pushers all around, funded by Saudi Arabia and other well-wishers.

What would it mean to say, in 1941, is there "hope for humanity"? What would it mean to ask if, in 1956, the world-wide threat of the Soviet Union, after it crushed the Hungarian revolt, without a finger being raised in the West, and Imre Nagy and Pal Meter, and many others, were executed? Did the picture look "bleak" in 1941? Yes it did. Did it look "bleak" in 1956? Yes it did. And guess what -- the right side won.

In the first case, it won through sheer military force -- total destruction of the enemy. In the second case, it won because, by holding on, by checking here and there every attempt to push forward, by helping to create the conditions which, after nearly a half-centuryuof the Cold War, caused enough people within the Soviet Union to recognize that it had failed, failed on its own (economic) terms, and that there was no point in pretending otherwise.

And that is exactly how any attempt to deal with Islam today should operate. Recognize what its texts teach. Recognize that those texts, those tenets, affect far more Muslims than just those who engage actively in terrorism, and far more than those who are profound believers, but because it is such a pervasive mental system, and becuase, especially for Arabs, there is so much -- filial piety, embarrassment, the self-esteem of those who cling ot half-truths or myths about the "greatness of Islamic civilization" more than a millennium ago (a preposterous attitude, even if that "civilization" really were as they describe, and even if it really were the result of "Islam" rather than despite Islam), because if they don't have that "Islam" -- if Islam turns out to be a bane rather than a boon for most of its history, then this causes all kinds of psychic disarray, apparently.

Just work to create those conditions among Muslims, whether in the Middle East, or Asia, or Africa, or in Europe or America, that will cause enough of them to question the faith, to begin dimly to recognize that the political, economic, social and intellectual failures, now blamed on "the West" or "Zionism" or something else (it really doesn't matter what) are in fact deliberately attributable to Islam itself.

That does not mean bombs raining down everywhere. It means education of Infidels, a refusal to be accommodating, a refusal to extend aid (we should, in fact, be moving heaven and earth to diminish any discretionary income Muslim states and peoples may possess, because the first use of that income will, quite naturally, be to further the Jihad through support of Muslim propaganda, Muslim weaopns projects, Muslim attempts to bribe large numbers of non-Muslims to act as apologists as so many have been doing for the past three decades), and an attempt not to create, but merely to exploit, the most obvious fissures within Islam.

To wit:

1) Resentment of Arabs by non-Arab Muslims, for the linguistic, cultural, and political suppression (Berbers, Kurds, and so on)

2) Resentment of Shi'a for the persecution and murder suffered at the hands of Sunnis (Shi'a in Saudi Arabia, in Iraq, in Bahrain, in Kuwait, in Yemen, and Lebanon)

3) Resentment of the poor Arabs -- Egyptians, Jordanians, and so on - for the oil-rich ones, a resentment that has been kept in check becasue the foolish West has taken it upon itself to provide for the economic betterment of those poorer Arabs, rather than force them to go hat i hand to the rich Arabs, and whatever results, whether requests are met or rebuffed, will inevitably lead to intra-Arab resentments.

And these three points of entry are not being exploited, today, at all.

Far from it. We are doing exactly the opposite. We pay what can reasonably be described as a "Jizyah" because it is received, by the Muslims (Egyptians, "Palestinians," Pakistanis, and so on) as theirs by right. They deserve it. We should not dare to suggest cutting what they so richly deserve -- look at how fearful the American government is of offending one of the most viciously anti-American countries, and regimes, in the world -- that of Egypt. We need to pay them, you see, in order to be "protected people." It is the same mental set. And we need to pay Pakistan, otherwise -- well, otherwise they might re-collaborate with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and who knows where A. Q. Khan will send his bombs and know-how next. We are afraid to offend Musharraf, and do not dare to read him the riot act about A. Q. Khan (whom Americans have still not been allowed to interrogate) and the surreptitious support for the Taliban, the surreptitious undermining of Afghanistan, and all the rest of what that seemingly rectitudinous, but Janus-faced Musharraf, and ISI company, are still gettting away with -- and will, unless there is some understanding of the complete impossibility of winning Muslim friendship -- but Muslim coooperation based on threats and withholding of aid and closing of markets is another thing.

And, for the 500th time here at Jihadwatch, Iraq offers the perfect place to exploit the non-Arab Muslim resentment of Arabs, by supporting the Kurds to the hilt in their desire for indepdnence. The Turks don't like that? Too bad. Turkey kept that fourth division from invading Iraq. Turkey's bases and listening-posts, once useful in the Cold War, are no longer needed Turkey will not enter the E.U. Turkey has nowhere else to go -- and if it doesn't play its cards right, we need not guarantee that we will prevent a free Kurdistan from extending into Anataolia. But if they do play their cards right, well... And one more thing to tell Turkey -- chose us, or choose the Islamist Parties. But you can't have both. Make up your minds. Go back to full-bore Kemalism, and continue the job of constraining Islam, and creating conditions where people can leave Islam, can become other than Muslims, or don't.

In the Kabyle region, among Berbers in France, some will look over at a free Kurdistan, and putting away their dog-eared copies of Kateb Yacine, will begin to ponder. Hmmm -- now at last we are not punished for speaking Tamazight. Now we can observe Berber ways, Berber culture. And did you know, that Col. Bremond, back in 1950, wrote a book with the title "Les Arabes et les Berberes" with a subtitle: "La Berberie est un pays europeen." Perhaps we should look into that. And you know, I have heard that more and more Iranians are depicting Islam as an "Arab import" that helped damage Persian civliization. Maybe the Kurds, maybe the disaffected Iranians, have a point. Berberia -- why perhaps even that mercruial man Mr. Khaddafy, intermittently expressing his fury at the Arab League and the Arabs, might help fund something new -- Berberie. Oh, all sorts of things are possible, but not if one does not begin to talk about them, to suggest them.

And finally, and most importantly, Iraq presents the Shia-Sunni split. The Americans have done nothing to encourage it. They have done everything they can to patch it up. That makes no geopolitical sense. Get out your Halford Mackinder, boys, and begin to act like grownups. We need only leave, or greatly diminish our foces.

Give up the preposterous dream of that $595 million embassy. Stop dreaming of permanent bases anywhere in the Muslim world, but especially in a Shi'a-dominated Iraq, whose Defense Minister just signed an agreement with the Iranians, and whose President Jaafari, the one who a week or two ago publicly requested, on top of everything else we have done for Iraq, a "Marshall Plan" funded by the United States, to be called, he oleaginously suggested, "the Bush Plan." Spare us, please -- even the fact that such a request was made shows what kinds of assumptions and presumptions we have allowed to get into the heads of these people, who really must take us for fools, to be taken in turn for all we've got.

Oh, and just today Jaafari critized the American military for its tactics. Here's the AP story:

"Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari criticized US And multinational forces for shooting at Iraqi civilians who act suspiciously near patrols or military areas, saying such cases should be handled in a 'civilized' way, such as shooting at tires instead of passengers."

"Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Boylan, a spokesamn for the US Command, said American forces investigage all fatal shotings. He blamed the problem on the growing use of suicide car bombs as an insurgent weapon.

"Terrorists, through use of suicide [vehicles], have caused htis predicament," Boylan said. "they have affected the normal level of trust that people have for one another and have made it difficult to distinguish between normal traaffic and a grave potential threat."

Whose side are you on -- the American soldiers, trying not to be killed, or the Marshall-Plan-suggesting (always with the hand out, are the Iraqis, and for that matter the "Palestinians" and the Egyptians, and the Jordanians -- you know, we don't have as much as the Gulf Arabs, so why don't you Infidels try to make up the difference, huh?) Jaafari, who if my watch is right, will soon be winging his Sciri-party way to Tehran, to meet with his fellow profoundly devout rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran, including Mr. Ahmadinejad?

Is this any way to conduct a war? To undo the very things you should be doing, to work against the very best way to demoralize and divide the enemy, and to preserve our own resources (a few hundred billion could go a long way to pay for nuclear, solar, and wind projects, and all kinds of conservation project -- and the effect on cutting back OPEC revenues would be far more important to the anti-Jihad war effort than bringing "democracy" to Shi'a-run Iraq).

Other than those one or two who like to ululate about "Surrender" and "Defeatism" and suchlike, I would be interested if someone finds something about what I suggest above to be flawed. If you argue that we must not "leave Iraq" as a sign of defeat, you are right; leaving Iraq msut take place only if accompanied by other measures that show it is part of a "conscientiously-applied program" (I take the phrase from the American Dental Association's endorsement of Crest) of anti-Jihad measures. Including ending aid to Muslim states, beginning with Egypt and the shock troopos of Jihad, those "Palestinians" born as a people round about 1968, and still going strong, and above all, with a change in rhetoric.

And leaving Iraq, accompanied by those measures, and with much more discussion between American and European governments, not in the old spirit of Eurabian appeasement, but in quite a different spirit -- how are we going to stop, and reverse, the islamization of Europe -- now we are talking.

"Bleak"? Not bleak at all, if you keep your wits about you. Merely -- complicated.

Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 1:52 PM

"Linda Lovelace, you are giving your age away Hugh.."
--- from a posting above

No, I'm not. Mentioning the obvious L.L. not only supplied a welcome alliteration, but was a ploy to present myself, even a little too obviously, as a superannuated fuddy-duddy (look: I used the superannuated term "fuddy-duddy" and don't overlook the Winchellian "all the ships at sea" either-- is this guy in his 90s, or what?) who can only come up with that name, and is just pretending to know about these and so many other matters. A loveable old coot, but fundamentally an innocent. Well, I guess it worked.

There are other things in there that suggest I am as au courant as any undeprived and self-depraved private school girl in New York or Los Angeles.

Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 2:02 PM

They hate us because we love the future while they love the past.

They want to crawl back into the comfort of a Stone Age womb.

While the West (and 'The Rest', to use Hugh's phrase) are aiming to fertilize the universe.

The Visions are unreconcilable.

They cannot stand our creativity (almost all of it forbidden by their iconoclastic cult)
and try to crudely match its 'effects' with destructivity.

I don't hate them.

I just seriously wish they could slip into a parallel universe, en masse, and cause their hell upon one another until the string-theory 12th dimension cows come home.

Inshallah!

Posted by: BigSleep at July 11, 2005 2:27 PM

I wouldn't entirely rule out the importance of Muslims hating the West for its modern values: I would position that hate as a sub-category under the primary Islamic hatred for the Infidel in general (and the Dar-al-Harb the Infidel inhabits) which Hugh appropriately identifies as the overarching Islamic hatred.

Thus, the primary overarching Islamic hatred for the "Infidel Rest" has radiating sub-categories, including important distinctions among

1) modern Western secular values

2) Christians

3) Jews

4) polytheists

5) jinns that urinate in their cous-cous

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 2:48 PM

Hey founding forefather,

I found an excellent speech at the Washington link at your little site, the speech Washington made as he left office.

And you know what's funny? I did a search of the speech and couldn't find NOT EVEN ONE mention of the words "God," "Jesus," "Bible," "Christianity," and "Christian." I wonder why?

Posted by: kj at July 11, 2005 3:31 PM

see this

http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2003summer/article1.html

Posted by: ploome at July 11, 2005 3:31 PM

We make our own laws, therefore we CANNOT follow the ONE LAW given to Muhammad.

20th century exposure to the modern west as a result of our rapid development via making our own laws and governing ourselves has caused this reaction.

They don't hate us FOR our freedom, but because that freedom means we are idolators and in free self government and law creation we are self worshippers. Muslims who move an inch towards us get Ibn Tamiyya'ized. There can be no compromise with a system such as ours, monstrous and satanic in its conception, and inception to them.

Before this is done, these morons may yet compell us to kill an awful lot of people who believe this crap.

Posted by: epaminondas at July 11, 2005 3:47 PM

ploome,

That excellent article you linked (which I've read before) diagnoses & analyzes why Leftists (both European and American) hate America -- not why Muslims do.

However, by that very diagnosis & analysis, we better understand why so many millions of Leftists like to spoon as bedfellows with Muslims.

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 3:50 PM

Hugh,

You're absolutely right as usual. Once we get over the shocking realization that "they" will kills us not matter what we do. Then we will stop trying to appease them and get on with the war. All kind of opportunities open up when you realize that they will go on killing us in as great a number as they can manage NO MATTER WHAT WE DO. Then we can do anything we want to do, anything we think might work to stop the wanton killing of our citizens.

The security of the majority of our citizens, the decendants of those who built this country must be paramount.

Great work,
Rebecca

Posted by: Rebecca JW at July 11, 2005 4:02 PM

Good to see Tracey Emin's unmade bed getting a mention, Hugh. But she's laughing all the way to the bank, so if not artistic, she is at least artful.

I agree with everything except your spelling of 'criticize', 'Islamize' and 'demoralize', which should be spelt with an 's' not a 'z'.

(My wittering on about spelling proves that the terrorists have not been able to intimidate this Londoner; it is business as usual, and the bulldog spirit...bla...bla...)

Posted by: Interested at July 11, 2005 4:09 PM

KJ: eres un merluzo. I have lost hope of reaching you in English, so I shall try a few other languages. Who knows, perhaps your brain can open itself to Basque or Burushaski or Elamite. George Washington did not mention God or Jesus in his speech because he did not need to. His speech was about foreign policy, which meant almost entirely relationships with other Christian countries. And at any rate, what do your sneers at our religion have to do with JihadWatch? Keep your prejudices at home, sir.

Posted by: Paolo at July 11, 2005 4:42 PM

Interested,

"spelt" is for horses and Leftist vegans. It "should" be spelled "spelled".

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 4:42 PM

Interested,

"spelt" is for horses and Leftist vegans. It "should" be spelled "spelled".

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 4:43 PM

I see this thread has unravelled into a spelling bee.

Well then, how do you spell "antidisestablishmentarianism"?

And provide both the British and the American variants, please.

I knew I'd stump you.

Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 4:49 PM

" Well then, how do you spell "antidisestablishmentarianism"? "

That's from Black Adder the Third, isn't it? From that excellent episode with Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Posted by: cruzado at July 11, 2005 5:13 PM

Well, I've spelt spelt as spelt all my life and I'm not going to start spelling spelt as spelled now.

Well then, how do you spell "antidisestablishmentarianism"?

I wouldn't spell it, I'd hum it or sing it. It will keep my spirits up in Britain's darkest hour like all those cheerful ditties they used to sing during the blitz.

Posted by: Interested at July 11, 2005 5:16 PM

Blackadder the Third is the best Blackadder, and they're all good. Ploppy the Slopper, anyone?

How is this relevant to the topic of the thread?

Well perhaps Blackadder is one of the reasons we're hated.

Posted by: Interested at July 11, 2005 5:19 PM

Another word to learn to spell is "Nicenoconstantinopolitan" -- a word that sticks in the craw of Muslims in their hatred for orthodox Christology but which should flow out of ours as smoothly as the honeyed "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" did from Julie Andrews' Mary Poppins'.

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 5:30 PM

Hugh, One of the things that has always struck me is the initial difficulty in comprehending what Islam is. I was completely ignorant of Islam prior to 9/11. I would occasionally see Muslims, or people dressed as Muslims. I would think, 'how queer they are?' and go on with my life, never thinking about it again.

When you talk about Islam being violent with people who have little knowledge about Islam being wrapped in constant war and aggression, discrimination and imperialism. It's just too difficult to believe. This stems from our experience with all the other the Christian faiths. Same God right? Must be a similar text, the Quran and the Bible, right? How can it be violent? It is why you get an immediate dismissal, a 'You're crazy' dismissal. You can send them all the emails you want with links to various sites, and they don't bother. 'You're just too weird.' and that is that. It is very discouraging, but I plow on.

Posted by: reset at July 11, 2005 6:03 PM

I would occasionally see Muslims, or people dressed as Muslims. I would think, 'how queer they are?' and go on with my life, never thinking about it again.

Reset, are you American? What I'm getting at is, does 'queer' mean the same to Americans as it does to us British?

Apart from this bit of irrelevant nonsense, I really understand your point of view. On Sept 10 I genuinely believed that Islam had been hi-jacked and that it was just another religion. I was genuinely upset to discover that this wasn't the case, not least because I know some lovely, kind Muslims. (Good Muslim = Bad Muslim). I found it hard to believe that it could be. How much more difficult it must be for apostates, who face not only their own denial (a bit of an Americanism there), but also potential death threats.

Posted by: Interested at July 11, 2005 6:11 PM

reset,

The situation is worse than one of people generally saying "Hugh is weird" or "Robert is weird" for calling attention to the facts of the massively militaristic religion Islam.

There is not, as you suggest, just a vague general feeling out there based on ignorance. There is also out there (in our own West) a massively dominant IDEOLOGICALLY based sentiment that will always have the knee-jerk response to defend tanned sandal-wearing ethnic Muslims, while at the same time condemn the evil corrupt American "imperialists".

Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 6:51 PM

There are other things in there that suggest I am as au courant as any undeprived and self-depraved private school girl in New York or Los Angeles.

PJW Hugh Dog,

One phrench phrase too far. Phat writing tho, bro.

PeaceO

Posted by: Beagle at July 11, 2005 7:06 PM

Interested, I use 'queer' to mean 'out of the ordinary' or not 'normal.' I like useing it because it conveys the meaning accurately. I am also aware that it gives a little 'buzz' and keeps the reader interested since most people think first of it's use as a term for a homosexual man.

Gays use 'queer' sometimes, but almost exclusively in conversation within a group of gays. Gays have also used it for shock value in the slogan, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it.' Kinda like other ethnic groups use 'verboten' slang words to address each other (for example, Chris Rock and David Chapelle, two black comedians use the 'n' word copiously in their comedy routines). Of course, you and I know, it is not permissible in a PC world for those not of any ethnic group to use that same slang word for that ethnic group.

It's kinda funny how words become PC 'danger' words and how some word's original meaning and use are completely abandoned as a new meaning takes full control of the word. For example, you wouldn't say to someone, "I was so gay today after getting the news". Not gonna happen, unless you want to have a laugh with some friends I guess.

I'm not ready to give up 'queer' as a verboten PI word. Just like saying "Islam is the problem" is not PC, too bad.

Posted by: reset at July 11, 2005 7:20 PM

I was never into the weepy, sentimental, "Why Do They Hate Us?" crap, even immediantly after 9/11. I had learned about Islam in school (and of course I got the glossed over version) but I still saw how they absolutely cannot get along with anyone, even themselves, look how Shia's and Sunni's go at it. But pre-9/11 I always considered it their own problem, now I know better. Sites like Mr. Spencer's and Mr. Sina's have been eye-openers.

Posted by: JadeDragoness at July 11, 2005 7:20 PM

metaxy wrote...There is also out there (in our own West) a massively dominant IDEOLOGICALLY based sentiment that will always have the knee-jerk response to defend tanned sandal-wearing ethnic Muslims, while at the same time condemn the evil corrupt American "imperialists"....

Yep, bump into them all the time, and see them and hear them on TV news and talk shows telling us how to think and behave.

Posted by: reset at July 11, 2005 7:24 PM

Actually, Beagle, TooBad had it right all along -- I am 98, and was just pretending otherwise.

Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 7:34 PM

If you're going to lie about your age it's best to lie upwards, then you get compliments for things like being able to chew your own food.

I'm 110, by the way, and I can use a computer. Not bad, eh?

Posted by: Interested at July 11, 2005 8:24 PM

2bad HU phat beatz rok

Posted by: Beagle at July 11, 2005 8:38 PM

Hugh, you and Robert should be on tv more (i.e. for a theological anaylsis of all this). How many Islamic/terrorist experts properly analyse the islamic terrorist problem on tv? One percent....less? I honestly havn't seen even one expert on tv do it well/in depth (which I think under the current circumstances is insane).

Posted by: obl r us at July 11, 2005 8:40 PM

Anyone out there with the right ideas who can buy a television station? Or perhaps just pay for a radio show we can syndicate? I've got three years of RADA under my belt, so voice modulation should not be a problem. Robert ditto, though I think he's secretly always wanted to direct.

Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 8:43 PM

Hugh:

Up in the Great White North, there's the Asper family's Global TV network (corp headquarters are in Winnipeg, Man. I believe). They also publish the National Post. You and Robert might find a sympathetic ear or two there.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at July 12, 2005 8:35 AM

Okay, just call them up and we'll take a meeeting with them. Is Swifty Lazar still alive?

Posted by: Hugh at July 12, 2005 9:03 AM