ELECTION 2008: There's just no explaining the mind of half of American voters!

Will we never learn? | THOMSON: Washington Times
HT - Will we never learn? | BLACK KETTLE
Jumping Ship | Hanson: Pajamas Media
HT - Jumping Ship | BLACK KETTLE

I must admit to extreme frustration with my countrymen ... how can 50% of our adult population justify placing an untested, unvetted socialist in the Oval Office? Based almost totally on feelings.

What is it about the human condition that we seem never to learn from the past, much less from others? Why do we keep making the same mistakes, over and over again? [...] And yet half of these average American voters appear ready to hand the White House to a totally unproven candidate whose principal claim to fame seems to be his stirring, if largely empty, rhetoric. No matter that he has, since his youth, fraternized with extreme leftist radicals ... [Thompson - WT]

It's flat out inexplicable.

Can so many average Americans turn a blind eye to Barack Obama's self-proclaimed "spiritual mentor" for 20 years, a man so radical he routinely spews anti-white hate and brazenly implores God to damn America? [Thompson - WT]

Are Americans so sick of their political class that they are willing to gamble their country away?

A great many moderates and conservatives are worn out and tired of Bush and Bush hatred, the European furor, serial charges of racism and illiberalism, and finally, in their weariness, think that Obama will, in a variety of ways, just make all the ickiness go away–as if he will make all of us be liked abroad and end racial and red/blue fighting at home. [VDH - PJ]

McCain is no diamond on black velvet but at least he's been under a lot of pressure for a long time ... yet he might make diamond grade in the next eight years.

Obama, as I have said ad nauseam, has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain’s and Palin’s racism and hatred. [...]

... for a self-acclaimed conservative to vote Obama would mean that higher taxes, larger government, more entitlements, more of a UN-centered foreign policy, dialogue with an Iran, less coal,oil, and nuclear energy production at home, more “oppression” studies and “reparations”, leftish Supreme Court judges, open borders (I could go on) were the truly conservative positions, or perhaps suddenly truly the ‘right’ positions. [VDH - PJ]

All of this is true and so frustrating. Yet the thing that frustrates me even more is the pain I feel in my back from the knife wound inflicted by George W. during his first four years ... signing every spending bill sent to him. A betrayal I'll never forget. Almost as bad as his dad's, "read my lips"!

Now I have another pain, watching McCain and Palin playing the chastised and chagrined; the former due on Letterman soon and the latter kissing up to SNL. Someone get me a sea sickness pill.

Election 2008, McCain,
Obama, Palin, Politics

PALIN NOW: LA NOW Chapter head endorses Palin!

OH-OH …EXPECT FIREWORKS … BIG TIME!! | GretaWire
HT - Explosive! Head of NOW LA chapter has just endorsed Gov Palin | Ironic Surrealism II

Perhaps John will step aside and let Sarah run?

Greta Van Susteren reports ...

Just got this email from FNC embed producer….as soon as it came in and I saw it, my eyes popped out!! I know this woman!! I read it to my husband…and he agrees! This endorsement is going to really going [sic] to cause a storm!! Hang on to your seat! Read!

From: Gomez, Serafin
To:
Sent: Sat Oct 04 18:05:43 2008
Subject: Head of NOW. LA chapter Endorses Palin

Carson, CA-

The head of the LA chapter of National Organization for Women has just endorsed Gov Palin @ campaign rally. Not speaking [for] NOW or her chapter she said but as an individual. ” This is what a feminist looks like,” she just before handing it over to SLP.
Serafin Gomez
Producer, FNC Political Unit
Washington Bureau

A check of the California NOW site and the LA Chapter site (there is no LA Chapter web site) revealed no online response from NOW; a check on the National web site shows no response either (not that they are obligated to respond).

Election 2008, Endorsement, McCain,
NOW, Obama, Palin, Politics

TERRORISM: Sir Paul McCartney targeted by whacko Muslims!

Sir Paul: Terror target | Sunday Express
HT - SIR PAUL: TERROR TARGET | BLACK KETTLE

Way to go Paul ... I'm not sure John Lennon would be pleased but this John is ...

Sir Paul McCartney has been threatened that he will be the target of suicide bombers unless he abandons plans to play his first concert in Israel.

Self-styled preacher of hate Omar Bakri claimed the former Beatle’s decision to take part in the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary celebrations had made him an enemy of all Muslims.

Sources said Sir Paul was shocked but refused to be intimidated.

In an interview with Israeli media yesterday he said: “I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel.”

Beatles, Israel, Paul McCartney,
Muslims, Terrorism

PALIN: Will the real bigots please stand up?

The Coming Trials of Sarah Palin | American Thinker
HT - The Coming Trials of Sarah Palin | Black Kettle

J. Robert Smith speaks words of truth in his American Thinker piece ...

Democrats and the left generally can no more accept a Sarah Palin vice presidency than they could Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice. They can no more accept a conservative woman a heartbeat away from the presidency than they can a conservative African-American interpreting the nation's laws. Expect the long knives to be out, and stay out.

Since the Clarence Thomas nomination fight in 1991, conservatives and fair-minded Americans have learned a bitter lesson: for liberals, it isn't about promoting the advancement of all African-Americans, but only those in step with their ideology and aims. The same can be said of women. Liberals believe they own the franchise, and it doesn't allow for baby-making, gun-friendly, God-fearing women, who, not incidentally, fight for lower taxes, smaller government and a strong national defense. They certainly can't be Republicans.

[...]

Expect Democrats, the left and their allies in the establishment media to go well beyond the initial attacks on the Governor's inexperience and whatever they can pick out of her record. In the coming weeks, the left's whole political and media machine will seek not only to trip up the Governor to prove their contentions that she's dangerously inexperienced, but will attack her character. They'll especially go after her motherhood, her womanhood and her honesty.

[...]

And doesn't an attack on Palin's motherhood conflicting with her work life contradict longstanding feminist claims about women pursuing both? The answer is yes, but what does that matter? You expect logic and fairness? The left plays mercilessly for advantage. Contradictions are nuisances.

Go there and read more of Smith's thoughts on feminism and Jolly Joe Biden.

Bigotry, Election 2008, Leftists,
Palin, Politics, Religion

MOVIE REVIEW: August Rush

AUGUST RUSH - PG

This is DVD only ... it is a classic love story with a unique fairytale quality. The sound track is exceptional, the music is foundational to the storyline, and the acting of the lead character, Freddie Highmore, is superb.

My family is very picky about movies ... there are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ... and then there are the rewatchable:

Second Hand Lions, Hook, Dennis the Menace (Walter Matthau), Arsenic & Old Lace, Operation Petticoat, Cape Fear (original), Abbott & Costello, Eight Below, Key Largo, African Queen, Jack, Jungle Book (the movie), Jericho, a half dozen more, and now August Rush.

Not everyone will like what we like, but this really impressed us all ... and there's a happy ending too.

You can get it for a $ at RedBox rentals ... so what do you have to lose?

August Rush, Movie Review

GEORGIA: What to do now that we've revealed no trump?

Duly Noted: Slogans Distort Reality | The Brussels Journal

George Handlery's twelve comments in his "the week that was" are right on concerning the West's squeamish reaction to Russia's invasion of its sovereign neighbor Georgia ...

3. Discreetly, it is being suggested that counter-measures and reactions to Georgia are to be of a sort that will not anger Russia. Absurdly, this self-created inhibition implies that strong aggressors (real or alleged) should only be criticized with their consent.

Concurrently, this kind of squeamishness teaches the aggressor that he is to claim early, possibly before the fact, the status of the insulted party.

It creates a welcome opportunity to become confused in the case of those who do not like clear-cut cases if these result in tough going. Thereby the claimed victim status becomes protection against having to impose effective sanctions on the impostor.

[...]

5. Reacting to Russia’s handling of Georgia sheds light on another inhibition. Suggestively we are asked, “are we overreacting to the crisis?” The question is made to imply that the dangerous error of exaggeration is being committed.

No, in fact we are systematically under reacting. Here we should realize that it is exactly this manicured response that is the most dangerous one among our alternatives.

How come that the mistake which we love to make is our typical response? The case is similar to the abuse of cold medicine that combats symptoms. We search for palliatives to counter-act an event that is firmly embedded in an unfolding reality.

6. Moscow’s hegemonial action in Georgia sent a message. Indeed, the message was intended and calculated by Moscow. The question is what we will learn from the un-coded smoke signals we have seen rising.

This is classic championship chess only in the deadly game of geopolitical oneupmanship ... our opponent makes his move and slaps the switch on the game clock, only the West is not aware the clock is ticking. In this case Russia takes our non-response response as weakness and confusion.

Sadly, that is exactly what it is! The world's bleeding heart do-gooders have defeated us before we can even get our of the gate!

11. A crucial detail of the “Georgia business” tends to get lost in the selective reporting of the event.

Not accidentally, this writer is alert to the matter that is easily repressed by most of us. The reason has to do with the conditioning that [normal] backgrounds can give us.

A policy of systematic atrocities against conquered enemy populations is part of the way some countries fight their wars. Russia is one of them. Mass rape, looting, the destruction of property can uproot conquered populations that are located in disputed territory. Well-planned spontaneous indiscriminate violence, if applied with stern vigor, produces high returns. [HT: Pankukas] It might make the victims submissive, demoralized and ultimately acquiescent when the conqueror imposes his system upon them.

Woe to those whose courage fails them when a clear and present threat is pointed at their hearts!

Geopolitics, Georgia, Russia

GEORGIA: A place where the West's myopic self absorption will prove deadly!

GEORGIA: A place where the West's myopic self absorption will prove deadly!

Russia, Georgia, and the Western Alliance | Brussels Journal

I'm watching NBC's local Sunday Morning news program and I'm shocked by twenty minutes of national and international news without a mention of the war in eastern Europe (the Caucasus aka Georgia). [UPDATE: 40 MINUTES IN - it's mentioned]

We are on our way to church in a few minutes and don't have time to view other news; but if the world doesn't get it, at least a few people are laboring online to document the Russian aggression ...

Thus we see the war in the Caucasus evolve into a litmus test for the basic institutions of the West itself. If those institutions fail, especially in the eyes of its most vulnerable members, then the suffering in Georgia will, in the long run, be mere prelude. [The Brussels Journal]

I rarely use the old saw "I told you so" but this morning I am saying, "I'm telling you so!"

In 1936 the world ignored Hitler and the Axis powers; years later they asked each other, "Wasn't anyone watching? Didn't anyone notice what was going on?"

ALSO: Ralph Peters, NYPost [HT: Black Kettle]

Caucasus, Geopolitics,
Georgia, Russia, War

PROPHETIC VOICE: WW III is well under way; the mindless masses haven't noticed!

War in the Caucasus | Brussels Journal

France: Can a Wounded Nation Heal Itself? | Brussels Journal

War in Georgia: It’s the 3 a.m. Call in the White House | Brussels Journal

These three articles and recent geopolitical events made me realize - it may become necessary to admit that I'm an alarmist! Not yet but soon ... if I am wrong!

I believe the greatly maligned and feared Third World War has already begun; it will not be a conventional war but one of stealth, yet every bit as dangerous as a shooting war.

I believe it began during the infamous protest movements of the 60s [HT: Black Kettle] and the 70s; the failed presidency of Jimmie Carter only accelerated its arrival.

I believe the presidency of Ronald Reagan only served to delay the inevitable.

I believe those world leaders and geopolitical groups, that long to unseat Western Civilization from its global throne, have discovered our leaders are fools and dupes (also here, here, and here).

I believe the bravado behind Russia's revanchist invasion of Georgia to be clear evidence of Russia's opinion of Western leaders, especially American leaders.

I also believe the world's iconification of Jimmie Carter, Yaser Arafat, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama (also here) is evidence of this.

I believe our diplomatic failures (here and here also), since 9/11, reveal American and European leaders for what they are: duplicitous - absent vision and backbone, with a yellow stripe up their backs as wide as an Interstate; for the most part they are self-obsessed, greedy, historically out of touch with reality, and incapable of speaking truth!

I believe Muslims are right when they say Western leaders have no will for the long fight; the high price is no longer exacted from totalitarian states or their leaders.

I believe an omnipotent force, far outside any and all natural forces, is at work to orchestrate a global conflict that will make the first two World Wars look like a sandbox fight between two year-olds.

I believe the world is slouching towards Gomorrah faster than Robert Bork could have ever grasped.

I believe liberalism, that pernicious and omnipresent evil and constant antagonist for common sense, is nothing more than socialism in drag.

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

NormanThomas

HT: Brain Terminal

I believe there may be a supernatural power simultaneously weakening the EU and strengthening Muslim hegonomy in Europe.

I believe the real child molesters and pedophiles are here and here; and this only plays into the hands of sycophantish globalists who use these social issues to confuse and obfuscate.

I believe the erosion of common sense and free speech in the West, in parallel with the global ascendancy of hate crimes legislation and political correctness, is evidence of a worldview so pervasive, so dysfunctional, and so corrosive most elitists ridicule its existence.

I believe an incomplete and incorrect eschatology is responsible for much of the sin in and the impotence of the contemporary Judeo-Christian worldview.

I believe events are cascading so rapidly that there may be no time left to save our way of life and the liberties we so dearly cherish.

I believe we must wake up and smell the cordite.

Geopolitics, Third World War, WWIII

DANGEROUS THINGS: Good grief, what must they be thinking!

UPDATE BELOW

Tyson Foods in Tennessee Drops Labor Day for Muslim Holiday | FoxNews.com

Our way of life is crumbling right before our eyes ... and few have the courage of their convictions to declare the emperor naked!

Union leaders say implementing the holiday was important for the nearly 700 Muslims, many of them Somalis, who work at the plant that employs a total of 1,200 people.

Did it ever occur to them they're no longer in Somalia?

And what about the Jewish workers, who would like Rash Hashanna or Yom Kippur off?

Oh, that's right, the Somalis threatened to behead all managers and burn the plant down if that's even mentioned.

And where are the politically correct that whined Christmas into "Holiday Season" and Easter into "Spring Break"? And what of the remaining 500 employees? How many Christians and Jews are now being forced to celebrate a pagan holiday?

But then, who really cares?

UPDATE: Tyson Workers Overturn Labor Day Replacement HT: New English Review

Christianity, Islam, Religion

HOMOSEXUALS: LGBT - a gaggle of bullies!

HOMOSEXUALS: LGBT - a gaggle of bullies!

San Diegan's Donation to Same-Sex Marriage Foes Brings Boycott Calls - NYTimes.com

Though the people of California have voted their opinion of same-sex marriage more than once, those a little light in their loafers have risen from their soiled beds and thrown back the majority each time.

Apparently, finding cowards and co-conspirators among California's legislative and judicial elites is as easy as staging a leftist parade in Berkley without a permit.

But the tables were recently turned when the state's Supremes ruled an amendment to the constitution to declare marriage in California "between a man and a woman" could go forward on the November 4 ballot.

Not being able to take no for an answer, even since childhood, these middle-aged neo-hippies took up bullying as a means to their ends.

LGBT's inability to allow the majority to rule reminds me of what Antony Flew recently said of atheist Richard Dawkins: "they have become what they and their fellow secularists typically believe to be an impossibility: namely, secular bigots." [CRIB paraphrase]

Flew clarifies that his "copy of The Oxford Dictionary defines a bigot as ‘an obstinate or intolerant adherent of a point of view.’"

There is no question in my mind any longer, some of the biggest bigots in our culture today are gays, black activists, democrats, feminists, and liberals of every hue.

I find it offensive to the nth degree that the lucre-marinated, boycott obsessed, free speech spouting LGBT would object to Doug Manchester and others exercising their freedom to speak their convictions and spend their money as they see fit.

California, Christianity, Homosexuals,
Marriage amendment, Religion

JUDICIAL TERRORISM: The rising tide of anti-American "lawfare"!

Foreign Courts Take Aim at Our Free Speech |- WSJ.com

Sens. Arlen Spector and Joe LIbermann have teamed up to bring legislation before the Congress that needs our support.

In today's Wall Street Journal's Op Ed page is a marvelously encouraging summary of "the Free Speech Protection Act of 2008."

Our bill bars U.S. courts from enforcing libel judgments issued in foreign courts against U.S. residents, if the speech would not be libelous under American law. The bill also permits American authors and publishers to countersue if the material is protected by the First Amendment. If a jury finds that the foreign suit is part of a scheme to suppress free speech rights, it may award treble damages.

This is much needed legislation ...

Our Constitution is one of our greatest assets in the fight against terrorism. A free-flowing marketplace of ideas, protected by the First Amendment, enables the ideals of democracy to defeat the totalitarian vision of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

That free marketplace faces a threat. Individuals with alleged connections to terrorist activity are filing libel suits and winning judgments in foreign courts against American researchers who publish on these matters. These suits intimidate and even silence writers and publishers.

HT: Black Kettle

Let's contact our senators and congressmen and put our support where it is needed. This one area of a free press I can get behind.

Anti-Americanism, Free Press,
Free Speech, International Courts, Terrorism, WOT

ISLAM: The making of strange bedfellows!

Diane West, NRO, has written ...

I have come to believe that the Western way of life – which I’ll define in brief as life lived according to Judeo-Christian-evolved morality and liberty – is imperiled by the demographic spread and influence of Islamic ideology and laws.

[...]

In the cause of not-giving-offense – the highest cause of Westerners-turned-multiculturalists – we have prevented ourselves from undertaking a hard-eyed appraisal of Islamic ideology as a whole, jihadism included, and engaging in a serious discussion of how to contain it. [HT: Brussels Journal]

She says what many have realized for some time: we're our own worst enemies, preventing "ourselves from undertaking a hard-eyed appraisal of Islamic ideology ... and engaging in a serious discussion of ... it."

Recently I've found well-reasoned, anti-Islam apologetics available to the public both online and off-line. The above is an example; found this morning as I prepared to publish the following.

****

The thoughts and opinions of internationally acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan have encouraged my hope that it is not too late to stop the global, Muslim tsunami; McEwan ... in defense of a friend under attack as an Islamophobe ... told reporters ...

He was glad to leap to the defence of his old friend Martin Amis [CRIB link] when the latter's attacks on Muslims brought down charges of racism on his head. He made an exception of the Islamic issue out of friendship to Amis, and because he shares the latter's strong opinions.

"A dear friend had been called a racist," he said. "As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist. This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable."

A few days ago I realize how often I felt like Diogenes, yet instead of looking for a man of honesty, I'm looking for men of honesty whose honesty results in courage and conviction. Perhaps I've found one in David Thompson, who wrote in a recent post ...

Last year, I wrote a short post titled It’s Okay to Dislike Islam. In it, I argued:

One of the creeping, unanalysed [sic] myths of our time is that it is somehow wrong to dislike Islam, or any part thereof, and wrong to take a dim view of its tenets and demands, and wrong to take a still dimmer view of the figure who founded it. I can practically hear the distant tutting and grunts of disapproval. Poor Islam. Poor Muslims. Their beliefs are being mocked. How hurtful. How “racist”. How terribly unfair.

No. It's not unfair at all. What’s unfair is a demand for unearned deference and a unilateral exemption from the testing of ideas. What’s unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives. Pretending to be hurt in order to assert one’s will over others [CRIB link], or to gain unreciprocated favours, or to exert control over what others may say and think, is cowardly and malign. Let me say that once again. It’s cowardly and malign.

At the time, I feared I might be stating the blindingly obvious.

I like that: "unearned deference" and "unilateral exemption";

the first being the expectation of social profit without incurring any expense for that status, and,

the second, being the expectation one is free to do to others what one will not tolerate in return from those same others (again without cost for that freedom).

That the inmates have taken over the asylum is evidenced in worldwide capitulation to both expectations by individuals, groups, corporations, governments, NGOs, religious personalities (also here), and agencies of governments.

That the line between peaceful Joe Muslims and authoritarian fanatic Muslims has been blurred is no secret, but to blame those in the West for the blurring is cowardly. I'll no more accept the blame for this blurring than a Muslim should for the blurring of the line between myself and Fred Phelps as Baptist preachers; that blurring began in my backyard.

Muslims chant "unfair, unfair"; but as Thompson points out, criticism of Islam is not unfair:

What’s unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives.

The West has been found standing on the road, showing their support for the poor Muslim victims, when in fact they've been trooping by naked as Jaybirds:

It is a widespread notion that deeply held convictions are at least entitled to respect - when in reality there is no “at least” about it, and no entitlement either. The challenging of beliefs is an often brutal business, but the ensuing and almost inevitable hurt is emotional and not physical. There is nothing wrong in this; it is how knowledge advances. [Oliver Kamm; HT - David Thompson]

What concerns me about my joy at finding fellow travelers on this road is that one is pro-homosexual and anti-religious and another is as liberal as liberal can be. Who knows where the others stand?

For all I know McEwan would despise the society I would like to see and Thompson would consider me a religious sycophant. But on the issue of Islam and its demands on the world today we're in agreement and that is all that truly matters at this juncture.

Muslims, their supporters, and those who believe there is a politically correct way to live life have, sans debate, foisted the lie that ALL people and ALL ideas deserve respect upon the world. Governments, especially leftist/socialist entities (read EU and UN), have likewise come to believe it is their job to ensure such respect is forthcoming from those with whom they disagree.

Ideas have no claim on our respect; they earn respect to the extent that they are able to withstand criticism. [quote by Kamm]

Our litigious society is the direct result of the convergence of two social pressures:

first, the insatiable appetite of the legal community to attain ever greater altitudes of legal gobbledygook and the servile response of justices to such attainments and,

second, a permissive, egalitarian mindset that informs bad behavior such behavior is the fault of any number of others, each of which needs to be sued ... but under no circumstance must the actor to take responsibility for his or her actions.

Modern Islam has exploited these pressures well, using our laws and courts to prove just how well.

Someday a generation will exist to judge this generation. I wish to be counted as one who stood up to the inmates and tried earnestly to recapture the keys to the control room. Though the following was written on the subject of abortion, I found it germane to this post:

Future generations may well condemn our society's countenance of abortion in the same way we look back in wonder and revulsion at those who defended slavery. Men such as William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln are rightly revered today for their opposition to that peculiar institution -- but we must recall that they were outnumbered and reviled in their time.

Indeed, both men were stretched to the limit of their political skills, and their lives, to obtain justice. The nobility of their cause, though clear to us, was nowhere near apparent to their contemporaries. Then, as now, the most dreadful things can become convention if enough folks go along. [Theo Caldwell, National Post; HT: The Black Kettle]

As author McEwan told the NYT last year ...

"All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, 'I find some ideas in Islam questionable' without being called a racist."

Notice McEwan's prerequisite: "an open society." Islam will not tolerate an open society in their totalitarian world; even if a "peaceful" Islam exists and wants such a society, Islam's leaders will not allow it!

Let's put a stop to this for the sake of generations to come!

Islam, Muslims, Religion,
Respect, Victimhood