If there is one movie you plan on seeing this summer, and only one movie, then you should go see The Dark Knight.  I’m not often prone to suggesting this.  Most summers I can’t decide which movie should be seen, hands down, above all others, but this summer the answer is easy.  Believe the hype.  Believe all of it.  This movie is just simply that good.

Heath Ledger steals the show, as you may already know.  But even knowing that going in, I was unprepared for the utter power of his performance.  Ledger’s Joker is insane, an agent of chaos, and he pulls it off remarkably.  The insanity of the Joker is palpable.  It infests every scene.  The madness ranges from sheer horror to black humor.  Indeed, Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker is as it gets, but it’s also funny.  You simply don’t know what to expect.

Everything else about the film is excellent as well.  Ledger doesn’t stand atop a mediocre film–this is a great film, and Ledger simply makes it greater.  All the actors do a good job.  The action and the dialogue are strong.  The special effects in no way steal the show, but where they are used they are used well.  This is not an extremely high tech movie.  In fact, for all of Batman’s fancy toys, the Joker responds with knives and canisters of gasoline.  It’s darker, grittier, and more bloody.

As the Joker says so eloquently, “This town deserves a better class of criminal… and I’m gonna give it to them.”

The Batman series needed a better class of criminal, too.  Ledger’s Joker is the villain the franchise was looking for.  It is very sad, for so many reasons, that Ledger will not be back to reprise his role.  It is a masterpiece, and not to be missed….

…but parents, please do leave your children at home.  In the theatre I was in, there was at least one two-year-old who cried each time the Joker came on screen.  I was scared watching this movie.  I can’t imagine being a little kid and having to endure it.  This is the stuff of nightmares, so unless you want to be responsible for giving your kid bad dreams, hire a sitter.

This post was originally published at my blog, birdbrain. I originally posted it on July 17 to commemorate Russia’s last imperial family. I am now posting it here as well.

It was on this night (well, okay, it was early, early morning, as in about 2.00 AM), ninety years ago, that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family–wife, four daughters, one son, and their three servants–were murdered by the Bolsheviks.

I’m no great supporter of monarchies, but I’ve always been bothered by what happened to the Romanovs. They really weren’t bad people–Nicholas was just not suited to rule. He never really wanted to be tsar, by the way; he only became tsar because he felt it was his duty. He stupidly did not want the give any power to an elected assembly, though he was later forced to allow a parliament (called the Duma). Had he given power to an elected assembly, as most of the civilised world was doing, perhaps Russia could have made a peaceful transition into a democratic country.

That was not to be. The tsar was arrested and imprisoned. After Tsar Nicholas was removed from power, Alexander Kerensky was put in charge of a more democratic government that unfortunately did not succeed. The Bolsheviks instead gained power and the Romanovs were executed early in the morning on July 17 on Lenin’s orders (Lenin was a very bad person, though history does not always seem to portray him that way), thereby ushering in a long period of Communist rule for Russia.

The following photograph (via Wikipedia) shows the family during happier times in 1913. From left to right: Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria, Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra (his wife), Grand Duchess Anastasia, Tsarevich Alexei, and Grand Duchess Tatiana. The children were tragically young when they died: Olga was twenty-two; Tatiana twenty-one; Maria nineteen; Anastatia seventeen; and Alexei thirteen.

Their bodies were unceremoniously dumped in pits. In 1998, the family was reburied in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. They have been canonized as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Just a side note: for many years, people thought that it was possible that one or two of the girls could have survived the terrible night of July 17–in fact, many women came forward claiming to be Anastasia. In recent years, extensive excavation has confirmed that none of the family survived.

To all Tennessee voters:

CAIR is a direct manifestation of Mohammed’s Sunna and jihad. CAIR is actually just one part of Islam’s strategy to annihilate the Western culture. It is far more dangerous than any Mohammed Atta or any other jihadists.

Lies and deceit are CAIR’s stock-in-trade. They claim to be akin to a “Muslim NAACP,” but everyone from the Department of Homeland Security, to FBI counterterrorism chiefs, to moderate American Muslims recognizes the extreme rhetoric that CAIR endorses. At least five of CAIR’s board members and employees have been linked to terrorism-related activities. They are fifth columnists, preying upon our values of tolerance and multiculturalism.

But CAIR is just one of an untold number of Islamic organizations in our government and university centers. People forget that Mohammed’s last words were to keep giving the money to kafir ambassadors and that is what Islam is doing in Washington, DC. Capitol Hill is awash in Saudi money and our dhimmi political types cannot get enough of it.

I only meant to take a small quote from this Front Page Magazine interview with Vijay Kumar, but I thought it was such a great little overview of the Islamist organization, CAIR, that I had to quote the whole thing. The interview itself is brilliant–if I were a Tennessee resident, you could 100% count me in on this Indian immigrant’s bid for Congress.

Vote him in!  We need more like him…

He goes on to decry the Left’s pandering to Islam, revealing the dhimmititude inherent in the politics of the Nanny State:

The Left and Islam share many of the same values. Both deny that individuals have a personal ethic. A central authority should control all things. Both insult and denigrate their opponents and see themselves as victors in the movement of history. Both hate the native cultures and individual efforts.

The mindset of the Leftist is one of deliberate ignorance.  I was a Leftist, a bleeding heart liberal until a few years ago.  I came from a Marxist family in India.  The Left, by its silence on the issue of radical Islam, has betrayed its own professed ideals, if it has any.

The fight against Political Islam should have been led by the liberal intellectuals in our universities, but instead they deliberately and systematically support a seventh century totalitarian ideology that negates all forms of rational thinking, intellectual pursuit, and pluralism - the very ideals which are supposed to be central to the philosophy of the Left.

Mr. Kumar, you say it all so well.  Truly, America needs more immigrants like you…

The Jerusalem Post has published an incredible interview with writer Bat Ye’or.  She is an historian and a prolific critic of the rise of Islamic extremism, especially in Europe.

She is the author of eight books, including The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (1985); The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (1996); Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2001); and - the one which captured international attention and catapulted her into the center of controversy - Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005). Saying that Europe is basically finished, due to its kissing up to the Arabs, will do that.

Eurabia was an instant hit, and has added real intellectual power to the counter-jihad movement.  It describes Europe as having shifted from its Judeo-Christian Post-Enlightenment grandeur, into one increasingly subservient to the oppression of Islamic law, or Sharia, where all non-Muslims live as dhimmis.

Bat Ye’or is a powerful, controversial writer, and I think the interview should be read in full at the Jerusalem Post, but I’ve reprinted a bit of it here to give you a sense of the woman’s character:

When you heard about the peace treaty that Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin signed with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1979, how did you feel?

I wasn’t following it that carefully, due to family problems. Nor was I familiar with Israeli politics at the time. But I trusted Begin to do the best thing for Israel. So, I did have hope. Still, what you have to understand is that the problem is much larger than Egypt. The whole Muslim world is becoming more and more radicalized - more rooted in Shari’a, and less open to anything outside the religion. This is due to the policies of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with 57 Islamic member states and a permanent delegation to the UN. At its last summit in December 2005, it decided upon a 10-year plan, one of whose resolutions was to root the Islamic uma - the world Muslim community - in the Koran and the [oral tradition of the] Hadith, which, of course, means Wahabbism. They also resolved to make the Palestinian issue the central issue of international politics. This is why we see relentless pressure on Israel from different countries. Because the OIC is an extremely powerful body, demographically, politically and economically.

The OIC is an Islamic body. How has it managed to turn the Palestinian issue into a Western focus? And to what do you attribute the political and cultural success of its ideology in Europe and the United States?

First of all, a distinction has to be made here between Europe and America, which have chosen opposite paths in relation to the Middle East.

As for OIC influence on Europe: It is visible in immigration policy toward Muslims, and in the Muslims’ refusal to integrate into European societies.

The OIC considers nationalist-European movements, European history, European culture, European religions and European languages as Islamophobic. Why? Because Europeans have begun to feel that they are losing their own identity, due to their efforts to welcome immigrants who don’t want to integrate. As a result, they have adopted measures to stop illegal immigration, to control legal immigration and to curb terrorism. Europeans fear losing their historical and cultural assets - particularly those of democracy and human rights - to Shari’a law. They want one law for everybody - and it’s not Shari’a, which involves things like honor killings. It is thus that in all international forums, the OIC attacks Europe and demands that it apply multiculturalism.

Now, Europeans do not want multiculturalism. But this is a problem, because European governments - and especially the European Union - do not want to fight the OIC, and so they collaborate with it. Therefore, what we have inside Europe is a clash of interests between the European citizens and their governments.

A similar claim is often made about Muslim-Arab citizens and their governments - that a majority of the former is moderate, while the latter is extremist. Do you agree with this assessment?

No, I don’t agree with it at all. In fact, the opposite is the case. In the Arab world, it is the governments - as we see so well in Egypt - that are at the mercy of the radicalized, Islamized, anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel masses who are in a dynamic of jihad. Certainly the majority of Muslims follow the ideology of conquest; it is in the Koran and the Hadith! And every time they go to the mosque, they hear it. I mean, the first shura, that is recited five times a day, is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. So they cannot escape from it.

Unfortunately, the Muslims who are against this trend don’t have the courage to make the effort to change it. And those who do have the courage are threatened with losing their jobs and having harm done to them and their families. So Islamism is the natural culture of the Arab-Muslim world. Even in Turkey an Islamist government has taken over. So, how can we deny the reality? And anyway, if the moderates were in the majority, they would be making protests and issuing manifestos against Osama bin Laden, instead of against America and Israel.

The environment is one of jihad on the one hand and of dhimmitude [the state of being a non-Muslim subject living in a country governed by Shari'a law] on the other. European countries are becoming dhimmi countries, and people don’t realize it, because they don’t know what jihad and dhimmitude are, so they don’t recognize what condition they’re in. When you have an illness, but are unfamiliar with its symptoms, you don’t know that you are sick. You feel sick, but you don’t know what you’ve got. You therefore can’t make a diagnosis or embark upon a method of treatment to cure yourself. This is the current condition of Western civilization right now.

How, then, do you explain the electoral victories of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and London’s replacement of mayor Ken Livingstone by Boris Johnson? Wouldn’t you consider this phenomenon as indicative that Europeans are making a diagnosis of and seeking a cure to the illness you say they suffer from?

Oh yes, they are extremely important developments which prove what I am saying about European citizens having had enough of this attempt to merge - culturally, religiously and demographically - the Arab and European sides of the Mediterranean. But the pressure exerted by the OIC on European governments is very strong. In addition, there is the pressure of terrorism inside and out of Europe, and that of the oil. So the task of these new governments you refer to will not be easy, to say the least. I don’t doubt their good intentions. But I don’t know if they will succeed in bringing about the change their citizens want.

Furthermore, unlike President Bush - who recognizes that Israel has a legitimate right to exist as a normal nation in its homeland - the Europeans think that Israel’s legitimacy should be granted by the Palestinians and the Arab states. In other words, Europe is putting Israel into a position of dhimmitude, whereby it will be recognized by Muslims if it abides by certain rules and duties.

This is in keeping with its own mentality. When the European community, in December 1973, published its document on European identity in the Copenhagen Declaration, they themselves were adopting a dhimmi mentality toward the Arab League countries. After World War II, Europeans decided that they didn’t want any more wars. Then, when they suffered aggression, such as the oil boycott and Palestinian terrorism that emerged in Europe in the late 1960s, instead of fighting, they joined their aggressors. This was their concept of multilateralism - thinking that by joining those who attacked them, they would be protected. This is when a tremendous Muslim immigration into Europe began.

Read the rest at the Jerusalem Post…

As you can see, Ye’or is not one to play into the hands of apologists.  She describes the Muslim world as being in a “dynamic of jihad” wherein the it is the governments themselves “as we see so well in Egypt - that are at the mercy of the radicalized, Islamized, anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel masses.”

Brilliant interview all around–and important words.  Europe has let the thief in through the front door, and now they have no way of turning him out again…

You might recollect the Danish cartoons that got the jihadists all crazy, and sparked a world-wide “Lego-burning” phenomenon. Well, I’m publishing them out of principle.

America has self-censored itself plenty, along with the rest of the world, because members of Islam are offended by cartoons. Muslims burn American and Israeli flags, and extremists incite violence and terror on the civilized world, yet the Islamic world takes offense when a Danish cartoonist draws their Prophet. They should take more offense when a suicide bomber blows himself up in the name of their religion, their prophet, and their Allah.

Can anything even come remotely close to this preposterous? I don’t mean to bash Islam–though I guess, actually, yes I do mean to bash Islam, in a sense. I mean to bash Islamism, which is the attempt by Orthodox Muslims and radicals to bring about a global Caliphate.

I’m not big on organized religion in the first place. Radical Christians scare me. There are plenty of moderate Christians, though, who can shrug off any satire of their religion. They may not like it, but they can take it with a grain of salt.

They aren’t too concerned that Jesus will be offended, using the logic that he is probably above such things, you know, being a divine entity and all….

Can’t You Take a Joke?

Muslims are so prickly when it comes to Muhammad that they threatened to behead a school teacher when she lets her class name a Teddy Bear after him. Half the Muslim world is named Muhammad but if you name a toy after the Prophet, that is obviously a crime against Allah, and punishable by lashings, imprisonment, and death.

Like Jesus, I’m pretty sure the Prophet himself wouldn’t have been too concerned with a stuffed animal sharing his name. He might have even thought of it as cute. What’s cuter than a Teddy Bear named after a Prophet? And after all, when Mr. Muhammad showed up on the Mesopotamian scene he came as a reformer.

Muslims today seem to forget this, using the inherent Orthodoxy of Islam, and the Prophet’s writings as a means to subjugate the masses, elicit violence, and justify all sorts of violence against women, members of other faiths, and innocents across the globe. You can even use the Koran to justify “wiping Israel off the map” if you try hard enough.

This is not to say that all Muslims are bad. Far from it. Many are educated and moderate.

But “many” here equates to a minority–at least in terms of the ripple effect that Islamism is having on the world, if not in actual numbers. Moderation is not accepted in this religion. Adherence to extremism, salafism, and blind orthodoxy are the status quo. Perhaps this isn’t the religion itself; perhaps Islam is undergoing its own Dark Ages.

Nevertheless, like the Catholic Crusades, the Islamism of today seeks to bring about the institution of Sharia, or Islamic Law, across the globe.

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This is a very enjoyable post from the Gates of Vienna:

At the Battle of Poitiers in 732, the Frankish king Charles Martel defeated the Saracens and pushed the forces of Islam back into the Iberian Peninsula. It was not until 1492 that the Moors were finally thrown out of Europe, but in the meantime the Islamic virus was contained in Spain and Portugal, and thus kept out of the heart of Western Europe.

One of Charles Martel’s comrades-in-arms at Poitiers was a warrior of the North known as Ogier le Danois, later Holger Danske, or Holger the Dane. Although Holger was a historical figure, little is known of him, and most of the written material about him is drawn from legend.

According to the chroniclers, Holger had previously done battle with the Franks over their incursions into Danish territory. But in 732 the menace of the Saracens forced him to set aside his differences with Charles Martel and journey southwards to fight side-by-side with the Frankish forces against the common enemy.

At the end of his days, Holger, like King Arthur, retired to a secluded keep to enter a twilight sleep from which he will awake in the hour of his country’s need. The location most frequently cited for Holger’s rest is Kronborg castle at Helsingør (or “Elsinore”, per Shakespeare).

Hans Christian Andersen has distilled the popular form of the ancient tale into one of his stories:

Men pragten i det hele er dog det gamle Kronborg og under det er det at Holger Danske sidder i den dybe mørke kælder hvor ingen kommer, han er klædt i jern og stål og støtter sit hoved på de stærke arme; hans lange skæg hænger ud over marmorbordet hvori det er vokset fast, han sover og drømmer, men i drømme ser han alt hvad der sker heroppe i Danmark. Hver juleaften kommer en Guds engel og siger ham at det er rigtigt, som han har drømt, og at han godt kan sove igen, for Danmark er endnu ikke i nogen ordentlig fare! men kommer det i en, ja, så vil den gamle Holger Danske rejse sig så bordet revner, når han trækker skægget til sig! så kommer han frem og slår så det høres i alle verdens lande.

This is in formal Danish, so I made a go of translating it. Forgive me, Kepiblanc, Yorkshireminer, Asger, and all the rest! I am a novice at the tongue of the Vikings:

But the fairest sight of all is the old castle of Kronborg, and under it sits Holger Danske in the deep, dark cellar which no one enters; he is clad in iron and steel and rests his head on his stalwart arm; his long beard hangs down upon the marble table where it has become stuck fast; he sleeps and dreams, but in his dreams he sees everything that comes to pass in Denmark. Every Christmas Eve an angel of God comes to tell him that all he has dreamed is true, and that he may go to back to sleep again, for Denmark is not yet in any danger! but if it should ever come, then old Holger Danske will rouse himself, and the table will break apart as he pulls out his beard! Then he will come forth, and strike a blow that shall be heard throughout all the countries of the world.

~read the rest at The Gates of Vienna….

I wrote previously on “The Ingrid Betancourt Rescue.” Yet, the more I learn of Betancourt’s ordeal, the more powerful is her story of moral courage.

André Glucksmann, at City Journal, argues for seeing Betancourt’s six years in captivity as a story of personal bravery and the ultimate rejection of slavery and terror:

Public opinion, government officials, ordinary citizens, and her friends and family—all are moved by, and rejoice in, Ingrid Betancourt’s liberation from the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). Bravo to the woman who survived and stood fast in her tropical gulag; to her family, who moved heaven and earth to secure her release; to the organizations that fought against forgetfulness; and to the politicians who worked tirelessly to free her. Such joy aside, however, I fear that the thunderous worldwide applause may smother, with flowers and compliments, a troublesome and insistent truth—one that the hostage pondered ceaselessly during her six-year ordeal and has sought to deliver to us since her arrival on the Bogota tarmac. This truth alone gives absolute meaning to her liberation.

From the outset, Betancourt has congratulated the Colombian army and President Álvaro Uribe for the military operation that saved her. She praised not only its impeccable success but also—as she deliberately pointed out—its daring, for any military operation risked going awry for some unforeseen reason and leading to the execution of the hostages, as has sometimes happened in earlier attempts. Unlike her family members—who, she is careful to emphasize, have always so feared losing her that they distrusted and criticized Uribe’s adventurism and militarism—Betancourt congratulates the Colombian president. To be sure, Operation Checkmate could well have ended in bloodshed; but Betancourt had long wished for it, ready to face death if necessary. This had become a matter of principle for her. Better, she said, “a second of freedom,” even deadly freedom, than an eternity of slavery. She had attempted five escapes, and in retribution the guerilla fighters had chained her up by the neck. “I always avoided imagining my wife’s living conditions,” her husband said. “Now I know she lived like a dog.”

Betancourt’s choice, which she has proclaimed loud and clear since her first breaths of free air, is the result of mature reflection: rather the possibility of a bloody outcome than the life of a dog. She does not tell us that anything is better than death; she says rather that freedom is worth any price….

Ingrid Betancourt’s physical, moral, and intellectual courage reminds us of what is fundamentally at stake in a civilization: the refusal of slavery.

Betancourt, who was interviewed on Larry King Live the other night, cannot talk of some of the sheer inhumanity she witnessed while in captivity: “The memories are better left in the jungle,” she said thoughout the broadcast:

Charles Krauthammer writes on the larger implications of the Betancourt story for international politics, “How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated” (on the hard power of military force and moral clarity).

~cross-posted at American Power

Harry’s Place, a UK blog dedicated to promoting the ideals of freedom and democracy, is being sued by Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, which has been linked to Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood, both terrorist organizations. The blog reports that Mr. Sawalha, according to the BBC…

“master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

In their revelation of the impending lawsuit against them leveled by Mohammed Sawalha, they write:

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha has been the prime mover in a number of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood associated projects. He is President of the British Muslim Initiative. He is the past President of the Muslim Association of Britain. He was the founder of IslamExpo, and is registered as the holder of the IslamExpo domain name. He is also a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque….

…Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas.

It looks like Harry’s Place is going up against some pretty top-notch lawyers on this one, and they’ve got guts, but as the post goes on to say:

If Mr Sawalha persists in attempting to silence us with this desperate legal suit, we will need your help.

We won’t be able to stand up to them alone.

This is why we’ve started this blogburst, to get the word out that we won’t let members of Hamas or any radical terrorist group censor us or any of our fellow bloggers.

If you’d like to add your site to the blogroll, simply email us at admin @ neoconstant . com, and include your site’s URL.

Then copy and paste this (or write your own) entry into one of your posts. Future posts will be emailed to you. Thanks, and don’t forget to head over to Harry’s Place to show your support of their freedom of speech!


________________________________________________________

~by Robin Simcox

[TO JOIN THE BLOGBURST CLICK HERE]

Events are currently unfolding in Britain which will almost certainly not penetrate any international newsreels (or any in the UK for that matter), but the importance of which transcends the geographical boundaries of the British Isles. It concerns an organisation known as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI).

The BMI have been accused of being a front group for terrorist organisation Hamas. BMI President Mohammad Sawalha was formerly the head of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas are the Palestinian wing). He has been accused by the BBC in 2006 of being a key political and military strategist for Hamas, and one of BMI’s senior members, Azzam Tamimi, has declared his wish to become a suicide bomber in Palestine.

On 29th June, a rally celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday was held in London’s Trafalgar Square. In response, Sawalha gave an interview in Arabic to the al-Jazeera news channel. This interview was translated by the UK blog Harry’s Place, which describes itself as “an open forum for the democratic, secular, anti-fascist, liberal, anti-totalitarian left”. Their translation of al-Jazeera’s initial transcript showed Sawahla commenting that “We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the evil/noxious Jew in Britain”.

Harry’s Place dutifully reported its findings, which is where the controversy begins.

Al-Jazeera physically changed its report, with the word “?????? ” (translated as a variant of “evil”) replaced with “?????? ” (“lobby”). Harry’s Place then received a letter from BMI saying they had “inexplicably grossly mistranslated [Sawalha’s] reference to the Jewish ‘Lobby’” and that unless an immediate apology was issued, they would pursue the matter legally. An al-Jazeera reporter explained that he had made a mistake in his initial report, and Sawalha had, indeed, referred to the “Jewish Lobby”. Al-Jazeera, then, had made the error; Harry’s Place were simply reporting the translation as it originally appeared.

(more…)

On our most recent sortie through Sir Winston’s old papers and notes, we came across an item of interest, particularly in light of the philosophical divide that is the subtext of the current United States presidential contest.

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by Bill Harrison

Much has been made in this year’s early presidential campaign of voter concerns about John McCain’s age as an alleged defect for his candidacy. These concerns are clearly indicated in polling on the matter but should they really serve as a cause for worry? History suggests they should not.

By all accounts Senator McCain’s health and energy levels are excellent notwithstanding the injuries he suffered as a result of his service to our country in Vietnam and his bout with skin cancer. And, of course, his genetics would suggest that he is likely to be long-lived if his lively 96 year old mother Roberta is any indicator. But let’s take a little stroll down history’s memory lane of the past century for some examples of “seasoned” leaders who proved crucial to their countries at times of great change and tumult.

Most famously we have the case of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, born in 1874, who became British prime minister in May1940 having attained the age of 65 and would lead Britain through its “darkest hour” of the Blitz and World War II which ended shortly before his 70th birthday. Although turned out of office in favor of Labor’s Clement Atlee before war’s end, Churchill would be returned to the prime ministership in 1951 shortly before his 75th birthday. During this second prime ministership he successfully ended the Malay rebellion that had plagued the Atlee regime as the British Empire began to unravel.

Across the English Channel we have the examples of two of the greatest political figures of the twentieth century in continental Europe in the form of Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle. Adenauer, fondly (or not so fondly depending on one’s political perspective) referred to as “Der Alte”, became West Germany’s first postwar chancellor at the age of 73 and served in that capacity until leaving office at the age of 87. During this crucial period of German history Adenauer, in concert with De Gaulle, sponsored the German-French rapprochement that has continued to this day along with sponsoring the precursors of what was to become the EU and Germany’s entrance into NATO.

De Gaulle, of course, was a mere younster of 50 when he became head of the Free French forces following the fall of France in the spring of 1940 and the establishment of the collaborationist Vichy regime by the Nazis. Following the end of World War II and playing a brief role in the provisional French government that followed, de Gaulle retired from politics before being summoned to power and forming the Fifth French Republic in 1958 at the age of 68. During this time of crisis for France over independence for the former departement of Algeria, de Gaulle forever marked his greatness by standing up to the revanchist forces who opposed Algerian independence and such opposition was marked by no small threats upon his own life. He remained in power until 1969 and under his leadership France regained some of its former glory by setting forth something of an independent stance between East and West while at the same time standing foursquare behind the forces of liberal democracy against the threat of Soviet communism. If ever a political leader were named appropriately it would be de Gaulle.

Moving further along the timeline of the twentieth century we come to the figure of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir who took office shortly before her 71st birthday on March 17, 1969. Known as the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics, before that sobriquet was applied to her British counterpart Margaret Thatcher, Mrs. Meir’s term of office was marked by her singlemindedness in hunting down and eliminating the Palestinian perpetrators of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and by her stalwart leadership during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the acceptance of a “two state” solution to the Palestinian question whose framework, no matter how tenuous, continues to this day. But it was her leadership before and during the Yom Kippur War which will mark her place in Israeli history. Against the advice of such firebrands as General David Elazar who urged a preemptive strike on massing Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, Meir resisted (wisely) along with Moshe Dayan knowing that Israel might need outside assistance if the Arabs attacked and that a preemptive strike no matter how warranted might jeopardize that support. As we all know, Israel prevailed in that war following the “surprise” attack by the armies of Egypt and Syria and the smashing of Egyptian forces finally resulted in what would later become the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty signed during the Carter administration which while hardly guaranteeing peace for the region has prevented another Arab-Israeli war during the past thirty years.

Our tour here ends with a man whose 90th birthday we will celebrate next month, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of South Africa. Mr. Mandela, long held prisoner under South Africa’s apartheid regime, became president of that nation shortly before attaining his 76th birthday and who, with his deputy president the Afrikaaner F.W. de Klerk, ushered in a new era in the history of that rich and beautiful nation which stands today in stark contrast to the horror of its neighbor Zimbabwe under the ruthless oppression of Robert Mugabe. Under Mandela’s leadership South Africa started the process of racial reconciliation that continues to the present and the reintegration of that country into the international community.

In this silly season of presidential politics before the real game begins in late August, there’s little sillier than focusing on a candidate’s age.

4 July 1776 fired off a crazy rocking rolling ride that hasn’t stopped ’stirring things up’ on a global scale.

Advancing arrogance into an art form with a remarkable relentless risque commitment to liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, and laissez-faire values.

America differs qualitatively from all other nations, because of her unique origins, nat’l credo, historical evolution, and distinctive political and religious institutions.

Great Satan is magically especial because she was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.

Loud, proud and rowdy - early America forecast future stuff with a provocative lingo that still fits today. “Don’t Tread On Me!” “Liberty Or Death”, “Live Free Or Die”

The belief in the superiority of the American model is reflected in the perception among Americans of America’s role in the world. That American foreign policy is based on moral principles is a consistent theme in the American discourse – a phenomenon recognized even by those who are skeptic of such an assessment.

This inclination to do right has been virtually unique among the nations of the world - and for this very reason - America has been totally misunderstood. How could a nation so rich, so successful actually, really be so unselfish and so caring?

Critics cry America must have darker motives! America must be seeking imperium - to dominate everyone else, suck up all the oil, to trade and rob blind for America’s selfish purposes.

People from more grasping, less idealistic societies find it nigh impossible to accept that America honestly believes that giving everyone opportunity is the real roadmap for abundance and happiness everywhere - not merely in the magical Great Satan.

Americans honestly believe that securing other people’s freedom is actually like the best guarantee that America can keep her own.

America does not want to dominate the world. Americans want to live in peace and hope other people will too.

America will go out into the world, redress errors, stop unacceptable behaviour, to first challenge then annihilate threats to our liberty.

Creative destruction is Great Satan’s middle name. It is her natural function, for she is the one truly revolutionary country in the world for more than 2 centuries.

She does it automatically, and that is precisely why tyrants hate her guts, and are driven to attack her. An enormous advantage, tyrants fear her, and their oppressed peoples want what she offers: freedom.

Amazingly, some suspect states, illegit leaders and some people have not yet comprehended that America’s primary intention is to preserve and keep our own land and liberty and all it’s prosperity and that America will do anything and go anywhere to make it happen.

Great Satan built the modern world.

And She knows her way around.

Happy BDay America!

There is an ancient wax like thingy from way back in the last millenium called a ‘Long Play Record’ or LP in the ancient tongue. Kinda round and frisbee like - they have a tiny tiny hole in the center.

They were packaged in ‘Album Covers’ and on the back of it they featured ‘liner notes’. Ancient PR - way before the net, blogs, satellite radio and MTV, MTV1, MTV2,VH1 and videos in general.

During this Nick at Night TV Land era, before Rock and Roll was transformed into Rock, bands of Brit Cats ‘invaded’ the states with a wild, new sound that wiped clean and drew again the face of pop music.

Hot on the heels of the Moptops (who were alledgedly bigger than Baby Jesus) were a gang of 5 that are still around in name today - The Rolling Stones.

On one of their first ‘records’ the liner notes featured a crazy, cool rant by their manager - Andrew Loog Oldham. Appealing to the inherent ‘hooliganism’ of baby booming kids in the Great Satan these notes commanded the kids

“If you haven’t the money for this record, then knock a blind beggar on the head
and steal his money”

In a way, this could be applied (in jest y’all - that means teasing - harmless joshing) to the latest pub by Dr Fred Kaplan. (more…)

As electile dysfunction begins to attract and distract Great Satan concurrently with world events, perhaps it’s time to reflect on sexy bits of military diplopolitical history and the resulting nigh indestructable sexy appeal of Straussians, Pentagon Vulcans and neoconservatism in the New Millennium.

Disaster, quagmire, catastrophe, failure. Like witches cackling about a bubbly cauldron, critics and critiques enchant and re enchant a totally cursed cacophony. A pox on Pax Americana, defeat, retreat and repeat.

Such inappropiate (and boring) wickedness summoned something more than shades, spectres and hissing dissing daemoneocon denounciations. (more…)

One of the main problems in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict today lies in the fact that Israel and the Palestinians do not come to the negotiating table with equal rights. However, the U.S. State Department, in playing the role of mediator, has decided to treat this conflict as if two equally deserving parties are fighting over issues to which each have equal rights.

Secretary Rice and the State Department attempt to equate Israeli and Palestinian rights to the disputed territories. One of the prevalent global misunderstandings today about the Arab-Israeli conflict is that Israel occupied the West Bank after conquering it in June 1967. What ought to be made clear, is that in order for land to be occupied, it needs to have belonged to a sovereign power first. From 1948 through 1967, Jordan controlled the West Bank after having illegally annexed it (and renamed it), but they were never an internationally recognized sovereign power. The West Bank was not Jordanian sovereign land when the Israeli army conquered it in 1967.

Another misunderstanding is that Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, which addresses the laws an occupying power must abide by. This claim is unfounded. Israel did not forcibly transfer its own population to the newly captured territories and allowed full freedom of movement for Palestinians who wished to leave the West Bank on their own accord, as outlined by the Convention.

Israel’s detractors have long preferred to use the politically loaded term “occupation” since it conveniently lends emotion to their argument and falsifies the reality of the dispute. Just as land disputes in Northern Cyprus, Mont Blanc and Abu Musa are not considered occupied territory, the West Bank certainly cannot be considered as such either.

B’Tselem, a left-wing Israeli NGO calling itself an “Israeli human rights organization,” wrongfully declares on its website that Israeli settlement “in occupied territory is itself a breach of international law.” It is unclear from their site what specific law, if any, Israel is violating. B’Tselem proudly quotes the Fourth Geneva Convention as one of their reliable sources for their accusations but it is due to their misinterpretation of the article that they are mistaken. In the end, their vague accusations lend credence to their followers and provide them with a false base of support for which there exists no real documentation or proof.

The State Department consistently uses reports by groups such as B’Tselem to support their positions on various issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In light of the last paragraph, this is a worrying phenomenon and Secretary Rice needs to take responsibility for the positions she maintains especially if they are based on a misunderstanding of key documents and international agreements.

It is important to remember that in negotiations after a war, the losing side always makes the concessions. In a defensive war on non-sovereign land, the winning country always has rights to the land it conquered without being considered occupying it.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s statement at the Annapolis Conference that she understands “what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian” and “the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness” is very worrying. This comment is ultimately misleading since it equates racist whites with non-racist Israelis and lends value to Palestinian claims that Israel violates their rights.

The civil rights movement in 1960’s America cannot be compared to the 21st century Middle East conflict by any stretch of the imagination. Israel does not prevent Palestinians from going through a checkpoint because of who they are but because of the potential danger involved.

Furthermore, Palestinians seek to destroy Israel whereas the black population and their leaders did not seek America’s destruction and did not promote the terrorization of Americans. They also did not educate their youth to hate white people nor did they send them to summer camps for hate training. Secretary Rice is mistaken if she believes that she is being “even-handed’ and “fair” by equating the conflict and comparing it to America’s south.

The Palestinians, and the Arab leaders who have led them astray, are the ones responsible for their past mistakes. There are consequences in losing an aggressive war, and the Palestinians, as the aggressors, now must face up to their obligations and recognize that they do not have equal rights in this conflict.

The Americans must realize this too and, in lieu of trying to appease the Palestinians and show even-handedness, should be talking tough and making more demands of the Palestinians – not Israel.

The Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be resolved fairly unless the U.S. State Department resolves to be impartial in approach while simultaneously recognizing the differing degree of rights between the two sides.

“Imagine there’s no countries/it isn’t hard to do/nothing to kill or die for/and no religion too/imagine all the people/living life in peace.”
- John Lennon, Imagine

With the American Democratic Party’s formal consummation of its dalliance with the Fresh Prince of Thin Air, we had anticipated at least some airing of the lamentations of regret typically following such ill-advised intercourse. Hearing little to none, we are compelled to re-examine the cultural circumstances which make it possible for a farce such as this to come to pass.

Though much discussed, the Obama ascendancy still baffles: the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy has turned the keys over to a very junior Senator whose scant voting record is the furthest left of any in the Senate. Really? It has been called “the audacity of hope.” We call it merely, audacity; that strain of defiant, reckless, irresponsible audacity one expects from a sixteen year old, not from a national institution that – at one time anyway – was of significant weight and consequence.

(more…)

In 2004, Scotland Yard detectives slept on the floor of their offices as they gathered evidence that could be used in court against a terrorist network led by Dhiren Barot. The intelligence was overwhelming but it was only in the final moments of the two week time period that they were able to prevent the release of Al Qaeda terrorists onto the streets of London.

As The Telegraph noted: “Two years later, they pleaded guilty to plotting to make a dirty bomb and to kill fellow citizens in huge numbers.”

Many journalists, politicians and bloggers like to make comparisons of Islamic terrorism to the atrocities of the IRA. Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major made the astoundingly naive claim that the United Kingdom had, “faced far more regular - and no less violent - assaults from the IRA”.

(more…)

~from Churchill’s Parrot

This March 17, while the civilized world dutifully besots itself in taverns the world over, Lefties will be taking their impaired judgment to the streets and parading it about for all the world to see. This March 17, you see, is especially significant to Lefties as it represents the 40th anniversary of the 1967 March on the Pentagon as well as the 4th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Massive demonstrations (such as these planned here and here) have thus been organized to commemorate the first and decry the latter: the “criminal invasion of Iraq.”

No doubt among these Lefties are a few who sincerely believe Bushie’s decision to invade Iraq was a something he concocted out of thin air at his ranch in Crawford, or a misguided attempt to avenge the attempted assassination of his father, or the desire to line his cronies’ pockets with oil money, or his unthinking allegiance to those neo-con Jews who just don’t like Arabs and were itching for a fight.

(more…)

There is an absurd notion floating (or perhaps burning wild-fire-like) throughout the anti-war camp that Iraq is some invention of the Bush Administration.  Now, while I have professed many times to having been a critic of our entrance into Iraq due to what I perceived as poor (and avoidable) timing, I take offense at the notion that somehow this is Bush’s war, pawned off on the American public and the US Congress alike in some epic hoodwinking–as though there was no lead-up whatsoever during the Clinton years.

This ignores history, of course, and parces quite selectively the situation in Iraq in ways that are utterly untrue. (more…)

~by Jillian Becker

I am a convinced law-and-order conservative, an eagerly practicing capitalist, an ideological libertarian. I accept enthusiastically the whole package of US Republican Party policy and sentiment - pro-America, pro-victory in Iraq, pro-gun, anti-abortion (with sensible reservations), pro-death penalty, pro-tax cuts, pro-smaller government, pro-spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world, pro-Israel, anti-welfare - all except one of its usual ingredients: belief in God. I do not accept God.

Quite simply, I cannot believe in God. I am old, past my three score years and ten, and decade upon decade I have read and listened, and there cannot be much that is old or new, famous, terse, verbose, smart, innocent, insidious, widely published or commonly uttered, learnedly debated or popularly discussed on the subject of God that I have not read or heard.

(more…)