Monday Quick Notes
Some local bloggers propound to be atheists because science is reliable, nay, infallible. It is based on fact and is unchanging. Whereas faith, is anti-science and based on foolishness. To wit: we may have already found life on Mars and killed it. (Typical Americans).
Classical Values connects the dots showing Iran's inability to export gas to Turkey. That is very bad news for Iran. They need that hard currency coming in to keep them solvent. If this continues apace, look for that deficit to have an impact on Iran's mid and long term strategery.
The information war with the Jihadis takes a nasty turn. We are fortunate they were unmasked the first time out of the gate. Look for more of these in the future and cast a very skeptical eye upon them. What matters more is that this crap is not only lapped up by Al-Jazeera but the Arab world as well.
Nerd humor
How not to apply for a job in Dubai (or anywhere for that matter)
This is just gobsmacking. I literally don't know where to begin. How on earth could this happen? How could this man live with himself? The evils visited upon the people he turned in are too grotesque to comprehend. How could a man of God be a servant of Godless evil?
Down With Absolutes enters the major leagues. Congrats, Mike. One notably thing is the lack of hostility or dismissiveness towards blogs and bloggers in the article. It's rare that the MSM and especially local papers take such an even handed view of us.
15 rules for understanding the Middle East. Read the whole thing. It's dead on in my view.
Biden rep precedes him in Iowa
Krauthammer's continues to distance himself from our Iraqi adventure. In his latest salvo he derides the hanging as a sectarian travesty. While this is regrettable but it understandable. Imagine being part of a community that was slaughtered for 30 years and you finally get a chance to serve long overdue justice to the man responsible. He was taunted? Cry me a river. I'm amazed they didn't give the Il Duce treatment. Even that is too good for him. If there's any justice in the afterlife, he'll spend it reliving the horrors suffered by his victims.
Andrew Sullivan is busy knocking down straw men again
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/an_eye_for_an_e.html
Dean Barnett said:
Sullivan responds:
I declare shenanigans. Nowhere is Barnett arguing for torture or brutality. Rather, he's arguing for ferocity, a distinction with a difference. Ask the Japanese at Guadal Canal or Iwo Jima about ferocity. They too, met savagery and brutality with ferocity. They fought them, killed them and won. Case closed. It is undisputed that there are terrorists in Iraq. Barnett is (correctly in my view) proposing that we stop screwing around and kill these men. Wipe them out and give them no quarter. When they are utterly and abjectly defeated, Iraq can then begin anew. This is very similar to the mindset of Japanese militarism which was just as fanatical and used it's own suicide bombers. Only when they were completely vanquished did they realize they had to break with their past.
Classical Values connects the dots showing Iran's inability to export gas to Turkey. That is very bad news for Iran. They need that hard currency coming in to keep them solvent. If this continues apace, look for that deficit to have an impact on Iran's mid and long term strategery.
The information war with the Jihadis takes a nasty turn. We are fortunate they were unmasked the first time out of the gate. Look for more of these in the future and cast a very skeptical eye upon them. What matters more is that this crap is not only lapped up by Al-Jazeera but the Arab world as well.
Nerd humor
How not to apply for a job in Dubai (or anywhere for that matter)
This is just gobsmacking. I literally don't know where to begin. How on earth could this happen? How could this man live with himself? The evils visited upon the people he turned in are too grotesque to comprehend. How could a man of God be a servant of Godless evil?
Down With Absolutes enters the major leagues. Congrats, Mike. One notably thing is the lack of hostility or dismissiveness towards blogs and bloggers in the article. It's rare that the MSM and especially local papers take such an even handed view of us.
15 rules for understanding the Middle East. Read the whole thing. It's dead on in my view.
Biden rep precedes him in Iowa
In Iowa, site of the first presidential nominating test in 2008, they normally take campaigns and candidates quite seriouisly.
But in his Des Moines Register humor column on Friday recounting tongue-in-cheek predictions for 2007, Ken Fuson forecast problems ahead for a First State politician in May.
Wrote Fuson: "And Delaware Sen. Joe Biden collapses from exhaustion after talking for 72 hours straight when an Iowa voter asks, 'Tell me a little about yourself.' "
Krauthammer's continues to distance himself from our Iraqi adventure. In his latest salvo he derides the hanging as a sectarian travesty. While this is regrettable but it understandable. Imagine being part of a community that was slaughtered for 30 years and you finally get a chance to serve long overdue justice to the man responsible. He was taunted? Cry me a river. I'm amazed they didn't give the Il Duce treatment. Even that is too good for him. If there's any justice in the afterlife, he'll spend it reliving the horrors suffered by his victims.
Andrew Sullivan is busy knocking down straw men again
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/an_eye_for_an_e.html
Dean Barnett said:
The only answer, as it always has been, is to stamp out that savagery ferociously and totally.
Sullivan responds:
I'm struck by how many on the hard right believe that more violence, and more brutal violence, is what is needed in Iraq. According to their logic, we defeat savagery with savagery and torture with torture.
I declare shenanigans. Nowhere is Barnett arguing for torture or brutality. Rather, he's arguing for ferocity, a distinction with a difference. Ask the Japanese at Guadal Canal or Iwo Jima about ferocity. They too, met savagery and brutality with ferocity. They fought them, killed them and won. Case closed. It is undisputed that there are terrorists in Iraq. Barnett is (correctly in my view) proposing that we stop screwing around and kill these men. Wipe them out and give them no quarter. When they are utterly and abjectly defeated, Iraq can then begin anew. This is very similar to the mindset of Japanese militarism which was just as fanatical and used it's own suicide bombers. Only when they were completely vanquished did they realize they had to break with their past.
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