Media Missing The Target

The mainstream media get their collective panties in a wad when confronted with evidence of political bias in their reporting. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of journalists don't set out to write "hit pieces" against those viewed as political opponents; however, many are not doing enough to staunch the flow of subjective opinions and political commentary into their reporting. Jay Tea at Wizbang! takes a look at the New York Times and observes a common thread in some of the more egregious mistakes made in their reporting over the past few years. It's worth the read.

Appeasing Radical Islam

A post up at Little Green Footballs shows what's really behind the cowardly policy of Borders Books and Waldenbooks refusal to carry a magazine with reprints of the Jyllands-Posten's cartoons of Mohammed on the cover. Charles Johnson concludes,

This has nothing to do with sensitivity; it’s all about pure, simple fear. If a Christian group complained to Borders about Bibles being placed on a bottom shelf, they would be laughed out of the room. But when Muslims do the same thing, Borders institutes a store-wide policy. The difference? The implicit or explicit threats of violence that accompany the latter.

In a guest appearance at Michelle Malkin's blog, Allahpundit follows up on the controversy with a report about a panel discussion of the Objectivist's Club at NYU held last evening. He writes,

On a night when many trenchant points were made, the most trenchant belonged to Peter Schwartz of the Ayn Rand Institute, who noted that the goal of Islamists isn't merely to intimidate the west into censoring itself. It's to have the west accept self-censorship by dressing up its fear as something principled, such as "tolerance" or "respect for religion."

Another blogger who attended the event takes NYU administrators to task for not allowing the cartoons to be shown during the discussion.

NYU’s shameful actions violate both the moral principle of freedom of speech and, as UCLA Professor of Law Eugene Volokh recently noted, its own policies. FIRE has archived the relevant policies, in which NYU shockingly claims to be “committed to maintaining an environment where open, vigorous debate and speech can occur.” But NYU’s actions last night show that its real commitment is to censorship.

Getting Chilly In the Great White North

This is an interesting discussion about the passage of "hate crime" legislation in Canada that outlaws speech condemning homosexuality. The concern is that criminalizing public criticism of homosexuality will place members of religious groups who speak out in opposition to gay marriage, for example, in legal jeopardy. The law, which passed in 2004, is disparagingly called the "Bible as Hate Literature" bill by its detractors.

One commenter to the post had it right, saying:

The "War On Christians" conference in Washington, D.C. has it right. In Canada, as in America, the only free speech the Christophobes are interested in preserving is that which agrees with their agenda.

And no matter what their intent may be, "hate crime" laws are the fascist first cousin of Orwellian "thought crimes".

Reformer Calls Muslims Out

Dr. Kamel Al-Najjar calls for some badly needed reforms in the Muslim world. Here's a sampling:

"If the Muslims are serious about presenting the radiant face of Islam, they must drop this false, hollow arrogance, and acknowledge their dark past and their even darker present. They must establish a global judiciary council whose function will be to punish any sheikh that issues a fatwa encouraging or permitting violence – whether physical or ideological... They must also re-interpret the Koran, putting the warlike verses – the verse of the sword and similar hadiths – in historical perspective as verses that are no longer valid...

V For Vindictive

I had the displeasure of contributing money to a pile of crap disguised as a film last Saturday night. Being a fan of the Matrix movie, I was curious to see the Wachowski brothers’ newest offering. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of the Wachowski brothers any longer.

Although the movie is set in England predominately in the Year 2020, it is a (very) thinly-veiled allegory aimed squarely at the current political leadership of the United States. The Wachowski’s studiously borrowed from Leni Reifenstal’s Triumph of the Will, the Nazi propaganda film of 1934, to inform their depiction of Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt), a menacing, fear-mongering, gay-bashing, Islam-hating dictator (there’s even a scene showing a poster, presumably from a banned drama production, entitled “Coalition of the Willing” with a Nazi swastika as its centerpiece). Take a wild guess who the Chancellor is supposed to symbolize.

The film has all the endearing charm that we’ve come to expect from the extreme political left. The government planned and executed a genocidal attack on its own people (hey, did Charlie Sheen co-write this flick?) with biological weapons, killing 80,000 of its own people, including women and children, and blamed it on terrorists in order to scare the general population into giving up their civil rights in exchange for security.

Hmmm. Where have I heard that before?

The main religious figure is a high-ranking Catholic church official (bishop) who is, of course, an aggressive pedophile in bed with (so to speak) corrupt politicians. The filthy-mouthed TV commentator, Prothero (Roger Allam) is a former military leader and Orwellian boor who serves as the government’s spin doctor, lacing his appeals for “unity through strength” in Christian religious metaphors and imagery. Homosexuals, artists, and Muslims are oppressed, detained (would you believe they still use those Abu Ghraib hoods 15 years from now?), or outright murdered by Christian brownshirts (die Kristallnacht, anyone?). Secret files are kept on everyone (read: NSA surveillance program), unless those files are damaging to the government, at which time they are placed down the memory hole.

The only positive references to religion have to do with a Koran illegally possessed by its owner for its "beautiful poetry" (I think he was referring to the part about killing infidels) and some nonsensical reference to “God being in the rain” by Natalie Portman.

The protagonist is a terrorist who promises to bomb Parliament “to bring hope” back to the people. Seemingly all of England gratefully responds by donning the terrorist’s garb in a massive show of solidarity, which is a cinematic reminder by the film creators that everyone really thinks like they (leftists) do, except for the evil people in power and those who vote for them, who are either deceived or stupid (or both).

The Wachowski’s “final solution” for the Chancellor involves a faustian deal struck between “V” the terrorist, and the shadowy Dick Cheney character, Creedy (i.e. greedy), who kidnaps the Chancellor and delivers him to “V” groveling for his life before Creedy offs him.

The “moral” of the film (if you want to call it that): It’s okay to commit terrorist acts against an oppressive government (i.e. the United States) run by “Christian” Nazi fascists.

It was like sitting through a wet dream of the political left. Disgusting.

Sticking Our Necks Out For His Faith

Mark Steyn is brilliant, as usual, in this article about the case of the man in Afghanistan who is on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity:

Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Read the whole article.

Bummed In Berkeley

Don't you just love arrogant, condescending liberals who like to do studies "proving" how stupid and childish conservatives are? The study, which sampled kids in Berkeley, California-an ideal place to find a balanced demographic-reportedly found that whiny, insecure kids in nursery school, grew up to be conservatives, while the confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

Evidently, things change.

This recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that conservative adults are happier than liberal adults -- in all income groups. Reportedly, while 34 percent of all Americans call themselves "very happy," only 28 percent of liberal Democrats (and 31 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats) do, compared with 47 percent of conservative Republicans.

Interesting. Perhaps the idiot professor from the Journal of Research Into Personality, who also happens to teach at that bastion of conservatism, UC Berkeley, could have obtained a credible result in his study if he had selected children from a more diverse demographic region (after all, they love diversity at Berzerkley, don't they?).

Maybe conservatives in Berkeley were whiny and insecure as kids because they were conservatives in Berkeley. Just a thought.

Afterfall @ Awakenings Cafe

Afterfall has a show this Saturday night at Awakenings Cafe in Lomita, California. More details to come.

Also, stay tuned for some upcoming Lower Than Angels shows in the Orange County and Los Angeles areas.

Hatred From The Right

Hatred is ugly no matter which side of the political spectrum it comes from. Normally, I take the political left to task for their blind hatred of conservatives, Christians, traditional values, President Bush, etc. (there's too many to count). But, most of those individuals can't hold a candle to the psycho cultists at the Westboro Baptist Church. According to this article, this organization:

...first gained national notoriety when they picked the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 for being gay.

They have since picketed the funerals of Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton's mother, celebrated the terrorist attacks of September 11 as an act of God's wrath, and have even targeted Santa Claus and the Ku Klux Klan.

But it was the callousness and cruelty of harassing the grieving families of soldiers at dozens of funerals across the country that has sparked a grassroots movement of bikers determined to drown out the jeers and taunts.

***

[Pastor Fred] Phelps said he and his congregants are targeting the funerals because God's way of punishing an "evil nation" of "fags and fag enablers" is to "pick off its children."

"I don't have any sympathy for these parents. They're all going to hell," Phelps said. "The family's in pain because they haven't obeyed the Lord God."

These people are insane and morally repugnant. They bare no resemblance to Christ, nor do they embody His principles and commands-one of the foremost of which is to love thy neighbor. They are not in any way representative of Christianity.

I think Mark Potok, the director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, had it right when he said,

"This man probably thinks more about gay sex than any other person in the United States of America and one can only guess at what that means," he said. "Many of the most homophobic people are deeply afraid that they might be gay."

Is Fighting "Always the Wrong Answer"?

A thought-provoking post over at The Belmont Club regarding the recent execution of Tom Fox, a Christian peace activist, in Iraq:

Can we ever simultaneously acknowledge the necessity of a deed and the absolute immorality of doing it? That in a nutshell is the Problem of Evil: that evil exists and that by and by we will have to face it. The question Tom Fox should have posed is "how do you stand firm against a car-bomber headed straight for a schoolbus?" And if you say, "shoot to save the children" ask yourself if it ever justified to be glad that God had sent someone else to shoot the bomber and go [to] hell in your stead. Tom Fox stood for his beliefs to the bitter end. And now the men who killed him are out there, waiting to kill again.

An Unfair Fight

Cliff May:

Asymmetrical warfare would be less effective if suicide-bombing women and children, decapitating aid workers and using civilians as shields evoked widespread public outrage and revulsion, if it brought shame and disrespect upon those who committed such acts and on the causes they claim to champion.

But, on the contrary, the trend has been to legitimize the tactics used against the West and indulge those employing them. Mass murdering civilians, torching churches and even mosques do not spark major protests anywhere. Nor has there been serious action in response from the United Nations, the international courts and prominent human rights organizations.

By contrast, what are alleged to be American violations of international laws are a constant source of media controversy and public protest. The publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed set off riots in a half a dozen world capitals, as well as death threats against the cartoonists and those who dare publish them.

***

A democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back,” wrote Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, “as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it.”

That's right of course. But if at some point democracies must fight with both hands tied behind their backs, the likelihood that they will prevail can not be high.

Amercian Left Engages In Subversive Activity

This post at The Belmont Club provides keen insight into the adverse impact leftist thought in the academy, media, and Hollywood is having on our efforts in the Global War On Terror.

The underlying reason why America is doing so poorly in the field of "information warfare" against the Jihad is that its traditional organs of articulation -- the academy, media, Hollywood -- are largely hostile to the War on Terror itself. It's conceivable that an Iranian might flee persecution only to be taught at a US university that he ought to embrace it by the many academic departments whose point of view is exactly that. In a fundamental sense, the War on Terror is twinned to the greatest single issue dividing the Left and Right, which is whether the United States, as a nation, is legitimate or whether, as some would maintain, it is Amerika: an abomination whose demise must be hastened by any means necessary.

Stunning Sidewalk Art

This guy's art is amazing.

Some Sunnis in Iraq Are Beginning to Get It

Al-Qaeda may be a formidable foe, but they sure do stupid things...like turn their only allies in Iraq against them.

Residents reported curious declarations hanging from mosque walls and market stalls recently in Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The fliers said Iraqi militants had turned on and were killing foreign al-Qaida fighters, their one-time allies.

Hopefully, the Sunnis are finally realizing how evil these people are.

The Last Bastion of Liberalism

Via Powerline:

Scott [Johnson] did not miss what he called the irony of Yale attempting to keep the U.S. military off its campus for not sufficiently embracing gays, while at the same time admitting a former official of a regime that executed people for alleged moral corruption.

Yale's behavior illustrates how bankrupt academic liberlism has become. Other than deeply-rooted anti-Americanism, I can think of no coherent theory that would justify admitting a former Taliban official as a Yale student while not permitting the U.S. military to talk to Yale students on campus.

When one considers this issue, the recent mock trial of President Bush for war crimes in a New Jersey High School, and the the rantings of a leftist teacher to a captive audience of high school students, it is no wonder people are concerned that a virulent strain of liberal anti-Americanism has infected our schools. Conservatives/traditionalists need to take our schools back, just as we have the Supreme Court.

(image by: Cox and Forkum)

More Of This, Please

This video clip shows an Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan verbally bitch slapping an Islamist sheikh on Al-Jazeera. Apparently, the clip has been viewed more than 1,500,000 times in the last week. MEMRI has also posted a transcript of the clip with related information. Check it out.

Hollywood, Then and Now

My wife and brother-in-law were pretty caught up in the Academy Awards show Sunday night, so I ended up watching the last half-hour or so. I try to make it a habit to skip this orgy of pretense and self congratulation, but since so many of the nominations involved movies featuring "controversial political themes," I thought it might be mildly interesting.

I didn't get to see much of Jon Stewart, but heard he was funny. I was most surprised by the total absence of charisma during the speeches of most of the award recipients. I've hadn't seen that many boring, uninspired speeches since those oral reports in my "Anthropology of Ancient South American Indian Society" class in college. Actually, I really liked Reese Witherspoon's acceptance speech-it seemed genuinely grateful. George Looney's speech (which I heard was also pretty good) got a lot of play because of his admission that Hollywood is out of touch with mainstream America. He was actually proud of that fact.

It was refreshing to hear a major Hollywood star admit to being out of the political mainstream. Hollywood types typically sit on their perches like peacocks and preen for the camera as they look down their noses upon those who hold to traditional family values and political conservativism-people they consider modern-day neanderthals.

There was a time when Hollywood wasn't so full of these characters. This post over at Little Green Footballs takes a look back at some of the most famous actors in Hollywood who, sometimes at the apex of their popularity, chose to put their careers on hold and serve their country. Here's a few names you will recognize:

James Stewart entered the Army Air Force as a private and worked his way to the rank of Colonel. During World War II, Stewart served as a bomber pilot, his service record crediting him with leading more than 20 missions over Germany, and taking part in hundreds of air strikes during his tour of duty. Stewart earned the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, France’s Croix de Guerre, and 7 Battle Stars during World War II. In peace time, Stewart continued to be an active member of the Air Force as a reservist, reaching the rank of Brigadier General before retiring in the late 1950s.

Clark Gable (Mega-Movie Star when war broke out): Although he was beyond the draft age at the time the U.S. entered WW II, Clark Gable enlisted as a private in the AAF on Aug. 12, 1942, at Los Angeles. He attended the Officers’ Candidate School at Miami Beach, Fla. and graduated as a second lieutenant on Oct. 28, 1942. He then attended aerial gunnery school, and in Feb. 1943 he was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group at Polebrook where he flew operational missions over Europe in B-17s. Capt. Gable returned to the U.S. in Oct. 1943 and was relieved from active duty as a major on Jun. 12, 1944, at his own request, since he was over-age for combat.

And, of course:

Audie Murphy, little 5’5“ tall, 110-pound guy from Texas who was the most decorated serviceman of WWII earned: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Star Medals, Legion of Merit, 2 Bronze Star Medals with ”V", 2 Purple Hearts, U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, 2 Distinguished Unit Emblems, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with One Silver Star, Four Bronze Service Stars (representing nine campaigns) and one Bronze Arrowhead (representing assault landing at Sicily and Southern France) World War II Victory Medal Army of Occupation Medal with Germany Clasp, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Combat Infantry Badge, Marksman Badge with Rifle Bar, Expert Badge with Bayonet Bar, French Fourragere in Colors of the Croix de Guerre, French Legion of Honor, Grade of Chevalier, French Croix de Guerre With Silver Star, French Croix de Guerre with Palm, Medal of Liberated France, Belgian Croix de Guerre 1940 Palm.

These people put the current crop of clowns to shame.

Bush Is Stoopid

...according to Barbra Streisand, who mocks the president for being a 'C' student in a spelling error-ridden screed on her website. In one case, she reportedly makes four spelling errors in one sentence.

"The arrogance of this C student," Streisand says of Bush.

Indeed.

Walter Williams on Socialism

Here's an interesting article by Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, on the immorality of socialism. Here's a quote:

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people).

Strong Bad Advice

Strong Bad has some great advice for those of you interested in writing lyrics for death metal bands (and I know that's most of you).

Make sure you click on "fresh juice" & "deafening" on the worksheet at the end.

(hat tip: Dale)