It's Just Life

I knew that this Newsweek flap reminded me of something:

It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the probme is not always appreciated.

For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said, "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far bak in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar batttle.

The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.

A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jeweled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly be-weaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapor, and at that very moment the words I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style drifted across the conference table.

Unfortunately, in the Vl'Hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries. [...]

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

"It's just life," they say. --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Boy, he got it down exactly, didn't he? Almost right down to the last detail.

Catching a Baton!

Neo-neocon has passed on a baton to me, and I'm supposed to run with it. So, here goes....

10 Things I've Never Done

1. Eaten snails.
2. Run in a marathon.
3. Marched in a protest.
4. Sold my soul.
5. Married a rich man.
6. Watched Seinfeld; American Idol--or any other reality TV show.
7. Slept later than 9 am.
8. Told the truth about my age.
9. Had plastic surgery.
10. Lived without a cat.

Whose turn next? Shrinkette? MaxedOutMama? Beautiful Atrocities? Will anyone pick up that baton? How about GM's Corner? (Even if not, I get to link to a few friends !)

Suicidal Tendencies

Victor Davis Hanson discusses the suicidal tendencies of the West. Read it.

Fashionable Acting Out

Acting out is the process of expressing unconscious emotional conflicts or feelings via actions rather than words. The person doing the acting out is not generally consciously aware of the meaning or origin of their acts. Frequently, acting out may be harmful, as in the case where violence is used to express anger or rage. Occasionally, in controlled situations, acting out can be therapeutic (e.g., children's play therapy is a form of acting out for the child in a controlled environment).

In the last week we have seen a considerable amount of acting out -- and it has not been by children at play. Acting out has become fashionable for the Left since it conveniently allows destructive paranoid behavior that can be rationalized as politically necessary and correct.

First, we have the editors and journalist at Newsweek continuing to defend their actions in running a story that has been shown to be false. There is no awareness demonstrated in their rationalizations of why the story was run in the first place, without the necessary journalistic checking that professionalism would normally dictate. Undoubtedly they have been set up because the Pentagon didn't disavow the story before it was printed, and the Pentagon is run by....the Bush Administration.

Second, is the circling of the wagons among other journalists whose reaction to criticism of one of their own borders on the hysterical; and who then proceed to further attack any questioning of their profession. (See here) The attitude seems to be, "Who do you think you are to question a story written by a professional journalist?"

Well, who do you have to be? We know who you must NOT be: the Bush Administration.

Third, thousands of Muslims persist in believing in the truth of the story, despite its retraction. They will not let a little thing like truth stand in the way of their desire to wreak destruction and act out their rage in the most inappropriate ways imaginable. All of the problems in the Muslim world are clearly due to the lack of respect they receive from....the Bush Administration.

Fourth, George Galloway--new hero of the Left, Saddam apologizer; con artist extraodinaire and--according to multiple documents and first-hand testimony-- the recipient of bribes from the former Iraqi regime--can create a circus environment and pretend to be a poor helpless victim of circumstances and completely innocent; then turn around and blame --who else?--the Bush Administration for all the problems of the world.

Fifth, Norman Mailer takes up his pen again (unfortunately) and makes the following comment on the new Huffington blograg:

As for the riots at the other end, on this occasion, they, too, could have been orchestrated. We do have agents in Pakistan, after all, not to mention Afghanistan.

Obviously, I can offer no proof of any of the above. There still resides, however, under my aging novelist's pate a volunteer intelligence agent, sadly manque. He does suggest that the outcome was too neat. It came out too effectively for one side, one special side. (Emphasis mine)

His unproved assertion is already being warmly received in the bowels of the Democratic Underground, where paranoid rants like the above neatly fit into their preconceived templates of how people like Republicans or conservatives work unceasingly to destroy everyone's liberties; impose their religious agenda; and make life miserable for the real defenders of freedom (no, not the military, the vapid commenters at DU). Protests on the streets of academia are expected shortly to follow, demanding an end to fascism. After all, all right-thinking persons know who is really to blame for this situation, don't they?

Can you see that these behaviors all have a common unifying thread? Can you guess what the underlying emotional conflict might be?

Go ahead, take a guess.

Perpetual Adolescence

Shrinkwrapped thinks the MSM and a lot of modern pop culture behaves in an adolescent fashion:

This brings me to the Main Stream Media, and its most recent melt down. Newsweek reported a rumor as a story in a way which mirrors adolescent behavior. The consequences of their action were not just misjudged, but were not even considered. They demand perfection from the American Military and the Republican leadership of the country, while at the same time ignoring the myriad ways in which the opposition to Bush have failed time and again to behave responsibly or take responsibility for their actions.

I think, though, that maybe we are giving adolescence a bad rap by comparing it to the MSM. Adolescents, for the most part, will eventually "grow out of" their bad behavior as they mature and interact with the world. I for one, don't hold much hope that the MSM will mature; nor are they likely to learn from their mistakes--otherwise why would we have yet another "Rathergate"-type moment brought to us by the "professionals" at Newsweek?

No, sadly, the MSM seems completely unable to learn from their mistakes, because the first thing that needs to happen is that you have to recognize you have made a mistake in the first place. That's the glitch. Psychological insight and growth can only occur when you are willing to honestly admit your mistakes, and evaluate why you did what you did.

Did you know that Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were just given the Peabody Award for excellence in journalism? Does that sound like any lesson has been learned?

If anything, the MSM is locked in a perpetual adolescence and will continue on its tiresome, irrational and self-destructive quest in the hopes that the next breaking news story will finally bring down their nemesis--the Bush Adminsitration.

Tolerating Militant Muslim Savagery

Andrew McCarthy puts it in perspective:

In the affirmative-action context, conservatives have written trenchantly about the "soft bigotry of low expectations" — the promotion of a vile dependency-ethos that says "you don't need to strive for better," as a result of which many people who might, don't. Our cognate sense of the Islamic world has become the smug delusion of base expectations.

Someone alleges a Koran flushing and what do we do? We expect, accept, and silently tolerate militant Muslim savagery — lots of it. We become the hangin' judge for the imbeciles whose negligence "triggered" the violence, but offer no judgment about the societal dysfunction that allows this grade of offense to trigger so cataclysmic a reaction. We hop on our high horses having culled from the Left's playbook the most politically correct palaver about the inviolable sanctity of Holy Islamic scripture (and never you mind those verses about annihilating the infidels — the ones being chanted by the killers). And we suspend disbelief, insisting that things would be just fine in a place like Gaza if we could only set up a democracy — a development which, there, appears poised to empower Hamas, terrorists of the same ilk as those in Afghanistan and Pakistan who see comparatively minor indignities as license to commit murder.

"Minor indignities? How can you say something so callous about a desecration of the Holy Koran?" I say it as a member of the real world, not the world of prissy affectation. I don't know about you, but I inhabit a place where crucifixes immersed in urine and Madonna replicas composed of feces are occasions for government funding, not murderous uprisings. If someone was moved to kill on their account, we'd be targeting the killer, not the exhibiting museum, not the "artists," and surely not Newsweek.

I inhabit a world in which my government seeks accommodation with Saudi Arabia and China and Egypt, places where the practice of Christianity results in imprisonment...or worse; in which Jews have been driven from almost every country in the Middle East, and in which the goal of destroying their country, Israel, is viewed by much of the globe as legitimate foreign policy; and in which being a Christian, an animist, or the wrong kind of Muslim in Sudan is grounds for genocide — something the vaunted United Nations seems to regard as more of a spectator sport than a cause of action.

In my world, militant Muslims, capitalizing on the respectful deference of others, have been known tactically to desecrate the Koran themselves: by rigging it with explosives, by using it to secrete and convey terrorist messages, and, yes, even by toilet-flushing parts of it for the nuisance value of flooding the bathrooms at Guantanamo Bay. Just as they have used mosques as sanctuaries, as weapons depots, and as snipers' nests.

There's a problem here. But it's not insensitivity, and it's not media bias. Those things are condemnable, but manageable. The real problem here is a culture that either cannot or will not rein in a hate ideology that fuels killing. When we go after Newsweek, we're giving it a pass. Again.

I think McCarthy says it very well. Let's put the blame for the violence and deaths where it belongs--on Islam; not on the biased imbeciles of Newsweek who aren't worth the time to think about.

Breaking News!

Scrappleface:

Muslims Riot Over Spelling of 'Koran' in U.S. Media

As many as 25 people died and dozens more were injured during riots in Afghanistan today which erupted over what one Muslim cleric called "the U.S. media's desecration-by-mispelling" of the name of Islam's most holy book.

Indeed, American editors have failed to reach consensus on how to render the holy book's name. Some spell it with a 'K' others with a 'Q' and -- perhaps most offensive to Muslim sensibilities -- some insert a meaningless apostrophe in the middle of the word.

"They're mocking our religion and our God by using a wide variety of spellings for the holy book," said the unnamed imam....

Read it all and laugh at the insanity of the world. I love this guy.

The Party of NO

Sermon of Hate

This is the kind of thing that is being promoted by Islamic clerics on a daily basis: (hat tip: JimO)

The following are excerpts from a Friday [May 13] sermon on Palestinian Authority TV. The preacher is Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris. PA TV aired this sermon on May 13, 2005

Ibrahim Mudeiris: Allah has tormented us with "the people most hostile to the believers" – the Jews. "Thou shalt find that the people most hostile to the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists." Allah warned His beloved Prophet Muhammad about the Jews, who had killed their prophets, forged their Torah, and sowed corruption throughout their history.

With the establishment of the state of Israel, the entire Islamic nation was lost, because Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation, and because the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers.

You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations.

Ask Britain what it did to the Jews in the early sixth century. What did they do to the Jews? They expelled them, tortured them, and prevented them from entering Britain for more than 300 years. All this was because of what the Jews did in Britain. Ask France what it did to the Jews. They tortured them, expelled them, and burned their Talmud, because of the civil strife the Jews wanted to spark in France, in the days of Louis XIX. Ask Portugal what it did to the Jews. Ask Czarists Russia, which welcomed the Jews, who plotted to kill the Czar - so he massacred them. But don't ask Germany what it did to the Jews. It was the Jews who provoked Nazism to wage war against the entire world, when the Jews, using the Zionist movement, got other countries to wage an economic war on Germany and to boycott German merchandise. They provoked Russia, Britain, France, and Italy. This enraged the Germans toward the Jews, leading to the events of those days, which the Jews commemorating today.

But they are committing worse deeds than those done to them in the Nazi war. Yes, perhaps some of them were killed and some burned, but they are inflating this in order to win over the of the media and gain the world's sympathy. The worst crimes in history were committed against the Jews, yet these crimes are no worse than what the Jews are doing in Palestine. What was done to the Jews was a crime, but isn't what the Jews are doing today in the land of Palestine not a crime?!

Look at modern history. Where has Great Britain gone? Where has Czarist Russia gone? Where has France gone - France, which almost ruled the entire world? Where is Nazi Germany, which massacred millions and ruled the world? Where did all these superpowers go? He who made them disappear will make America disappear too, God willing. He who made Russia disappear overnight is capable of making America disappear and fall, Allah willing.

We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relived of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.

Any person of rationality and goodwill should read this and shiver. It is absolutely chilling to think that a human mind could be filled with such hatred and vitriol. In an abstract sense one can barely imagine it, and then you read something like this.

In my earlier post on Why Grown People Use Immature Psychological Defenses, I wrote:

Defenses may be difficult to detect by the user unless conscious thought and emotional honesty are applied to the problem; but they often can be detected by a disinterested observer who can see the distortion of reality that is being displayed. Sometimes the observer may be actually flabbergasted at the way an individual can deceive him or herself.

Well, I continue to be flabbergasted (and I am a psychiatrist) at the level of distortion, denial, delusional projection, and fantasy that flows from the adherents of Islam. This sermon was televised on TV by the Palestinian Authority!

Is there no leader anywhere who is capable of penetrating through the self-deceptions, rage and hatred; and lead the Muslim population out of their self-imposed exile from reality?

Until there is, they will only continuously act out their destructive fantasies and every setback will confirm the delusion that they are victims of some massive world-wide conspiracy. If it is a conspiracy they want to find, they need look no further than the venal and fanatical men who lead their nations and coordinate their jihads.

All the evil they so adamantly assign to the Jews lies festering within their own souls.

Huzzah, Huzzah

According to the BBC, the Kuwaiti parliament has granted full political rights to women:

The Kuwaiti parliament has voted to give women full political rights.
Conservatives in parliament have been blocking the law since 1999
The Kuwaiti parliament has voted to give women full political rights.
The amendment to the Kuwait's electoral law means women can for the first time vote and stand in parliamentary and local elections.

It was passed by 35 votes for, 23 against, with one abstention. Council elections are due this year.

The result, announced by the speaker of parliament, was greeted with thunderous applause from the public gallery where backers of the amendment were gathered.

"I congratulate the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights," said Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

Yes, and I think that President George W. Bush should also be congratulated, since his clear vision of freedom in the Middle East is the real force behind this amazing change. On to Saudi Arabia!

Media Meltdown

In the shadow of the Newsweek debacle, two stories highlight the mainstream media meltdown.

The first finds a growing discrepancy between what the public thinks and what journalists think:

Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than 7 in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy -- but only 4 in 10 among the public feel that way. And a solid 53% of the public thinks stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all.

Read it all; then read about NPR, who is upset that they could be monitored for bias.

Is anyone else out sick of NPR? After 40 years of listening, I have monitored its descent into a reprehensible mouthpiece for the academic Left. I can barely stand to listen to the holier-than-thou reporters on the news shows, and find myself continually outraged at the relentless harping on their political agenda. Not to mention the tacit assumptions they make about the orientation of their listeners--both in the type of stories they cover; and the pathetic manner in which they cover them. I used to think their might be a role for such programming and even supported it in the past. Not any more.

Glenn Reynolds gets it exactly right in his MSNBC column:

In light of these events, people may be forgiven for doubting the patriotism of many folks in Big Media. And there's evidence that they should. In his book Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy, James Fallows describes an episode of PBS's program, "Ethics in America," in which host Charles Ogletree asked leading journalists if they would allow American troops to be killed in order to get a story. CBS correspondent Mike Wallace said yes, he'd go for the story, and denied any ethical conflict: "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!" After some hemming and hawing, Peter Jennings agreed. Should American reporters worry about the death of American troops? No -- their only loyalty is to the story.

This seems to be the spirit that's alive at Newsweek, with the added caveat that it doesn't even matter that much if the story is true. And with this kind of pattern established, journalists shouldn't be surprised that so many Americans are questioning their patriotism -- to the extent that they feel there's any question left.

What is so amazing to me is that the journalists in the MSM seem completely unaware of how appalling their priorities are to other Americans. Don't they understand that by "not worrying about American troops" and only having a loyalty "to the story" (as Jennings and Wallace stated above) that they have already established a bias toward those who would kill American troops? And what do you suppose will happen if truth gets in the way of "the story"?

So far, first at CBS and now at Newsweek, we have seen which priority will be chosen and which will be sacrificed with this philosophy.

Thank You Very Much, Mr. Lucas

Ace has a bad feeling about the new Star Wars movie, The Revenge of the Sith, and George Lucas's attempt to inject some local issues into a galaxy far, far away.

I'm not too hopeful that I'll like it, but I'm seeing the movie anyway this Friday with the Boo. To me it has always been a story about good and evil, and I'll decide--thank you very much, Mr. Lucas--what is the good and what is the evil.

The entire prequel trilogy has some serious flaws as far as I'm concerned--not the least of which from my perspective is that I couldn't care less about Anakin Skywalker and his descent into evil.

Now I read that Lucas is possibly thinking that this movie WON'T be the last one. This only supports the idea that real evil will persist long beyond its time.

But, maybe Lucas can collaborate with Michael Moore on the next one. I understand that Moore has some experience in doing fantasy.

UPDATE: The Vodkapundit has some simple requirements for Revenge of the Sith: just don't suck.

FLUSH

(From Cox and Forkum)

And while we are flushing, isn't it time to also eliminate the phrase "religion of peace" in connection with Islam?

"There is Nothing in This Religion But Stupidity and Ignorance"

This is a letter from an Iranian cleric that Michael Ledeen posted on The Corner:

If this letter by the shiite cleric Hadi Ma'ssumi published on the iran-chabar site is true then this is just mega explosive: http://www.iran-chabar.de/1384/02/20/masoomi840220.htm

The letter to Rafsanjani is written by a Karaj based cleric. He says in the letter that he is ill and near death, so presumably that is what has given him the extra ordinary courage needed to write this letter.

If this letter was from an exiled opposition, it would not have been so controversial but to read this sort of thing from a Shiite cleric is truly remarkable.

In the letter, the cleric Hadi Ma'ssumi starts from the beginning of Islam in Iran. How the religion was forced upon Iranians, how the invading Arabs raped the Iranian women, massacred the population, looted our wealth, tried to run the windmills with the blood of Iranians and how they burned all our books and destroyed so much of our knowledge.

He then starts scrutinising 26 years of Rafsanjani's unrelentless power. He reminds Rafsanjani of what went on in Iran's political prisons in the 80s. How young virgin girls were raped before their executions using Koranic justifications - virgin girls go to heaven no matter what, so young female political activists were raped to ensure they didn't go to heaven - how thousands suffered torture and the massacre of Iranian political prisoners in 1988.

The many extra-judicial killings of Iranian dissidents both inside Iran and outside Iran. "Ayatollah Rafsnajani, you know how murder, kidnapping and torture has become synonymous with your name" Ma'assumi writes in his letter.

Hadi Ma'ssumi asks about Rafsanjani's close relationship with the likes of Saeed Emami, responsible for murder of dissidents inside Iran and Vahid Gorji who is responsible for many assassinations of Iranian exiles outside Iran.

Ma'ssumi recalls how Rafsanjani unnecassarily prolonged the war with Iraq, casuing the death and injuries to millions and how he himself hugely profitted from the war instead.

Ma'ssumi asks Rafsanjani to comment on the imprisonment of many of Iran's dissidents today. What he thinks of stoning, public flogging, cutting limbs and forcing women to wear the veil.

He asks Rafsanjani why women in Iran are forced to wear the veil in summer heat and yet Rafsanjani's daughter Faezeh dresses up in skimpy clothing when she travels through European cities of Paris, London and Geneva.

Even perhaps all this is not that controversial, there are after all many Iranian clerics who oppose the Islamic Republic and the rule of mullahs. But just read this below. This is an exact translation of one paragraph of an elderly Shiite cleric's statement on his death bed:

"You know like I do what lies behind this religion (Islam), after all this crime carried out against Iranians. lets do one good thing and tell the people what is behind this religion. Lets tell everyonel that this religion is neither "martyr generating", nor pro-science nor pro the people, this religion tells the elite that it is for the plebs and it tells the plebs that it is for the elite, it tells the elite that all its silly laws are for the stupid plebs, in fact this religion is "ignorance generator". It has come about to humiliate people. As you (Rafsanjani) once told me, it is one religion for the elite and another for the plebs. You rightly regard yourself, the supreme leader and your Guardian Council as the elite, and the "martyr generating" nation of Iran are the plebs. Now for the sake of God tell the truth to the people that there is nothing in this religion but stupidity and ignorance, other than silly laws about what is considered clean and what is untouchable, what is allowed and what is not allowed, believe me that God and the people will then forgive you, although I know you are conscious enough NOT to believe in God!"

Fascinating, if true. I wonder how many people forced by the oppressive regimes of the Middle East to believe in Islam and who--despite everything, still retain a capacity for independent thought--have thoughts like this?

The Fundamentalism Difference

New Sisyphus give an example of the fundamentalism difference:

James Dargie (32), a 1995 geography graduate now working as a marine data manager with the Countryside Council for Wales, told how passengers "screamed with terror" when a man of Muslim origin started shouting "Allah Achbar" or "God is Great" as their plane taxied for take-off at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus yesterday afternoon.

Mr Dargie, who had boarded London-bound BA flight 663 with his wife Mona and young son Tomos just minutes earlier, told how a "wave of panic" spread among passengers as the chanting began.

Had a man of Western origin started shouting "Jesus Saves" and "God is Love," the passengers reaction would have been exactly the same. If you don't believe this, you are an insensitive racist. (Emphases from the New Sisyphus post)

Read the whole thing. I agree, there is definitely a fundamental difference between a religion that encourages Life, and one that exalts Death.

Why I Read Blogs

This is exactly the reason why I read blogs now instead of newspapers: Bill Roggio comments on an analysis by Wretchard about Operation Matador:

Wretchard's conclusion is very insightful, but it is not based on rocket science. It is a very simple and sound conclusion reached with an understanding of military affairs and history, and careful culling of the available news accounts available to all journalists.

The media has a serious problem with covering military actions of this nature. There is a basic lack of understanding of military affairs within the journalistic community. This often leads to a misunderstanding of how operations are conducted and disjointed reporting of the battles.

The articles written from the embed accounts only give a small portion of the overall picture. These first hand accounts are very important, but they are single trees within the forest. There is no effort made by the editors and producers of the print and television media to draw together the disparate reports and attempt to gain a larger understanding of the scale, pace, tempo and importance of the operation.

During Matador, Wretchard, Chester, Donald Sensing, Joe Katzman, a host of other bloggers and I attempted to do exactly what the media cannot - provide a comprehensive briefing based on sound logic and experience. No doubt some of the information and conclusions presented in the various maps and analyses are inaccurate as we were dealing with incomplete information. However it is highly likely our conclusions are more accurate and complete than those presented by the traditional media. Our conclusions were based on an understanding of military history, basic tactics and strategy, map reading skills, the careful observation of the situation in Iraq over a long period of time, and in some cases prior military service. I strongly believe this gives us an advantage the traditional media sorely lacks when covering events such as Fallujah and Matador.

I am by no means an expert on military operations, but because of my experiences as a flight surgeon I have had to work closely with various services and commands. When the war in Afghanistan first began, it became clear to me that I knew much more than almost all the journalists I was reading or listening to; and I began to get very frustrated because of all the contradictory things they were saying. Some of the confusion may have been from the "fog of war", but most it seemed to me to be due to a complete misunderstanding about what the military does and how they do it.

For example, it was clear from the beginning of the Iraq war that the second front that was planned to come down from Turkey toward Baghdad, and which was blocked by the Turkish government, caused profound repercussions on the development of the war since it opened up an escape route for Saddams forces--consequences that we are still dealing with today. I am not a military tactitian, and I understood this. The question is why didn't the media? Soon, there were many bloggers with past military experiences discussing this; and there were also numerous military bloggers right there in the field reporting daily. Why waste any time on the newspapers?

If the journalists who cover the war would bother to learn something about how the military works and why they do things the way they do, the American public would be much better served by their reporting.

But then it's clear that many journalists consider the US Military the real "enemy."

Carnival of the Insanities

Time for the weekly insanity udate, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). Calling all bloggers! Be sure to send in your entries to the Carnival, which will be posted every Sunday. Entries need to be in by 8 pm on Saturday to make their way into the list that week.
SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. "Use the Force, Cuke!"

2. How lightsabers work. Cool. I didn't know they were real...

3. Hands-on training takes on a whole new meaning.

4. Yes, this is a real place. I wouldn't want to go there, though.

5. Just when you thought it was safe to be fat!

6. Restraint? In the Media? Yeah. Right.

7. Did you know there were economic reasons why people don't have more sex?

8. And speaking of sex.

9. Who's on First--updated for the computer generation.

10. Protesting the use of untested nano-fibers by using unclothed nano-idiots. (Have you noticed there's a lot of sex in this week's Carnival??? Must be one of those weeks.)

11. And moving right along....Did you know that this part of the anatomy apparently does not have free speech!

12. Bendable concrete. And the point of this is...?

13. Magical thinking, unfortunately.

14. ARGGGGG....Cuteness Alert! BEWARE!

15. Alas, another progressive hero is about to bite the dust.

16. This article seems "blissfully unaware" of its snarkiness. But that's what I'd expect from Dana Milbank.

17. "It is an honour for a lady to undergo the practice of FGM." Oh, yeah? I'd like to see how honored you'd feel, mister....

18. Meanwhile, doesn't this seem a bit over the top to you? Especially considering #17 and #19.

19. Let's see...they're upset about the idea of flushing a Qu'ran down a toilet, but it's OK to run this cartoon in the Arab News, with the caption "Next time...." I see.

20. Even more ridiculous reactions that seem (see #17 also) like something out of a Douglas Adams novel. Besides, some might say comparison to a dog is a compliment!

Imagine That !

This photo of Yoko Ono addressing the UNmakes me wonder how seriously the UN actually takes the issue of Nuclear Weapons? (Note: this is a rhetorical question). If Yoko Ono is considered an expert on the Nucluear Nonproliferation Treaty, then I don't see why Mickey Mouse wasn't also invited to speak to the General Assembly. Or, better yet...I'll bet Michael Moore also has some useful ideas! Is this the best that the UN can do?

But then, what else would you expect from the scandal-ridden, morally bankrupt world body? All talk, no action. Enablers of the world's dictators. And so on, etc. etc. etc.

Taking a page from the Lennon-Ono files:

Imagine That! (sung to the tune of Lennon's "Imagine")

Imagine there's no Jihad
It's easy if you try
No more suicide bombers
Who plan for you to die
Imagine every nation
with all their people free...

Imagine no Osama,
It isn't hard to do,
And no Zarqawi
(He discovered he's a Jew!)
Imagine all those mullahs,
buried under ground...

Imagine Mr. Castro,
like many Cubans try,
locked inside his own jail,
It makes me want to cry
Just thinking of that image,
Sweet and just and true...

Imagine Kim Jong Il,
I wonder if you can,
Losing all his marbles,
in a nuclear weapon ban,
Imagine North Koreans
Finally having food...

You may say Im a dreamer,
But it's easy don't you see,
To imagine life in freedom
And the end to tyranny.

The Refuge of the Incompetent

Here's a proposal I could get behind: (read it all!)

No equivalent for chief executive officers or for dishwashers exists. Politicians, lawyers and others who take unpopular stands also lack guaranteed jobs. Doctors do not enjoy them. They can lose their posts, despite 30 years of reputable work, because of a single missed diagnosis.

Professors, however, after an initial probationary period of six years, win the equivalent of lifelong employment from their peers. Why does this strange practice linger on?

The standard rationale is that the stuff of higher education is unfettered inquiry. Only by enjoying shelter from the storm of politics can professors be bold enough to take up the tough task of challenging young minds to question orthodoxy. McCarthyism is evoked as the only bleak alternative to tenure. Once untenured professors find themselves on the wrong side of popular majority opinions, politicized firings will supposedly follow.

Why then does uniformity of belief characterize the current tenured faculty? Contemporary universities are among the most homogeneous of all American institutions, at least in attitudes toward controversial issues of race, gender, class and culture.

Faculty senate votes aren't just at odds with American popular opinion; they often resemble more the 90 percent majorities that we see in illiberal Third World stacked plebiscites.

Sometime in the 1960s, many faculties felt the proper role of the university was to gravitate away from the Socratic method of disinterested inquiry, and instead to press for a preordained and "correct" worldview. Since America was supposedly guilty of being oppressive to those not white, conservative, male, capitalist, Christian and heterosexual, the university offered a rare counterpoint.

Tenure became part of protecting this strange culture in which the ends justified the means: Bias in the classroom was passed off as "balance" to an inherently prejudiced society. Academia came to resemble the medieval church that likewise believed its archaic protocols were free from review, given its vaunted mission of saving souls.

Let's put the universities that supposedly teach our children how to think back into the marketplace of ideas. The professors should have to continuously earn the trust of not only their peers, but their customers.

Instead of protecting academic freedom, tenure has become the refuge of the incompetent. It's time to change.

How Paranoia and Denial Kill

This article from Strategy Page demonstrates how DENIAL and PARANOIA have led to the deaths of many: (hat tip: Instapundit)

It turns out there are there are Islamic “Weapons of Mass Destruction” after all. In particular, biological weapons. But these mass killers have been developed within Islamic nations, and are doing most of their damage there. The war on terror has taken many American doctors to Islamic nations, and they have discovered a heretofore hidden AIDS epidemic. This is not the first time this has happened. AIDS quietly entered India, and South East Asian nations, but was finally discovered, and received attention. But in most Islamic nations, AIDS is not supposed to happen, and the governments, religious leaders and general population will not even admit the disease is there. But it is, and in large numbers. While promiscuity and prostitution are common in Islamic nations, talking openly about it is not. As a result, AIDS has spread for years through the Middle East and other Islamic nations without much, if any, official or media attention. This is nothing new. Same thing happened in Africa, even in nations with few, if any, Moslems. Cultural traits made it difficult for many African nations to admit AIDS, and its favorite methods of transmission (drugs, homosexuality, promiscuity) existed. Now some African nations have a third or more of their adult population infected. Billions has been donated by Western nations to provide medical assistance to African nations that now admit they have a problem, but infrastructure and corruption problems are preventing many of the infected from getting any care. Same pattern is developing in the Islamic world. No official statistics yet, but the medical underground hints at high, and rising, infection rate. And little, if any, local willingness to recognize a problem exists.

But it’s not just AIDS. In Nigeria, faith based paranoia on the part of Islamic clergy, and politicians, caused a polio epidemic, which is now spreading to other Islamic nations. The UN has been trying for years to wipe out polio (which has been eliminated in most Western nations). In the last few years, UN medical resources were massing to wipe polio out in one of the last places where it still thrives; northern Nigeria. But some local Islamic clergy got the idea that these foreigners and their medicine (polio vaccine) were actually out to poison young Moslem females and make them sterile. Yeah, it’s nuts, but it went over big in northern Nigeria and stopped the polio eradication program cold. The Islamic clerics finally relented (after the UN brought in Islamic medical experts, and jumped through a lot of hoops), but by then it was too late. The polio was moving to areas where it had earlier been eliminated. Since you can track where a polio strain came from, it is now known that the “Nigerian strain” is responsible for outbreaks as far away as Indonesia. So far, there are only about 1,300 cases in Nigeria and elsewhere. Polio is not nearly as bad as AIDS. Many of those infected with polio never know they have it, but they can spread it. About one half of one percent of those who get it can end up paralyzed for life, usually in the legs. Polio mostly hits young children.

Many Islamic radicals continue to blame Western conspiracies for the polio outbreaks, which are hard to hide. AIDS, on the other hand, causes a breakdown in the immune system, and the actual cause of death is always something else (that makes you sicker, quicker, because your weakened immune system cannot deal with it.) But the Islamic radicals, when confronted with the AIDS outbreak in their midst, blame it on outsiders. This sort of things does not happen in an Islamic culture. (Emphases mine)

As I mentioned in an earlier post about psychological defenses, the capacity of individuals and groups for self-deception is extreme when they feel threatened by reality. It is expecially difficualt for groups to develop the kind of insight and awareness necessary to counteract such insanity; particularly when the institutional or religious heirarchy of the group prohibit the questioning of authority or any reasonable discussion of new or controversial ideas.

The excessive rage and murderous behaviors displayed adherents to Islam at the slightest questioning of their faith or their founder is evidence that the "self" or identity of Islam is based on a foundation that is psychologically impaired. Just as individuals with such defects and immature defenses are capable of self-annhilation as well as extensive mindless violence--so too are the members of groups with similar methods of coping.

Any religion based on denial and delusional projection is not capable of bringing peace to their own believers, let alone to the rest of the world.