Bush's SOTU


I wanted to live blog the State of the Union address last night, but as I settled into my easy chair last night, laptop at the ready, I was overcome by extreme apathy. Last night's speech was not so much an address to the nation as a collection of focus-group tested phrases, strung together by a committee. There is nothing left to say for now, except that we are indeed stuck for three more years with the worst President ever.

Nothing he said last night would stand the light of reason. Every line was intended as a blocking move against the many hits he's been taking over the last five years of his failed Presidency. Corruption. Incompetent war leadership. Failed economic policy. Divisive politics. Croneyism.

I honestly can't think of a single redemptive quality in George W. Bush.
1.2.06 02:16


We are all Danes now


The outrage over 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed has a whiff of manufactured outrage. I've seen the Danish cartoons, and frankly, they're not that funny or profound. On the other hand, it's been six months since they were first published, and news reports tell us that Islamist leaders have been shopping the cartoons around to create the outrage we are now seeing.

And then there's our own state department's condemnation of the cartoons, with the caveat that freedom of expression comes with responsibility, and offending religious sensibilities is not responsible. Tough call. Do we appease American Muslims, or do we side with our European allies who have been grappling with Islamic intolerance for generations?

What's going on?

First, I believe in the primacy of freedom of speech. A culture that doesn't value personal expression is a society stuck in the 13th century. Moderniity and all its fruits - medicine, technology, representative democracy - flow from free speech. The price of free speech is being offended from time to time. But we humans have been suffering fools since the first Cro Magnon man discovered how to make fart noises with his armpit. What makes Mohammed cartoons any different?

The difference is culture, or more specifically, the irritant of mass communications on a long-time cultural grievance. Islamic culture has been in decline for nearly 400 years, but it's only in the last 50 years that the world noticed. Western civilization reconciled religious faith with modernity about 300 years ago, and the industrial revolution, colonization of the third world and the internet followed. Meanwhile, the Islamic world looked out the window at the new day dawning, yawned and went back to bed. The only thing that saves the Middle East from African style poverty is oil, and the western technologies to extract it.

It's interesting to note that anger felt in the Islamic world this time is not the actions of foreign governments, but the collective actions of secular cultures, via their newspapers. The Danish government has no authority over the artists and newspaper publishers who exercised their right to publish drawings. That newspapers in other countries chose to reprint the cartoons, knowing full well the outrage they would cause, is a sign that Europeans are feeling more connected to the Clash of Civilizations than Americans.

Could that be because Europe understands what's really behind Bush's so-called War on Terror better than Americans? The first war of the 21st century is not really a war, at least not in a 20-century sense of the word. The
terrorist enemy is not a massed army, and there are no capitals to bomb, no flags to capture. This war will be won with ideas. Surrender will come not with bang, but when a billion Muslims choose western style freedoms over a 13th century caliphate.

That's why the cartoons were necessary. They were an expression of one culture's values, delivered by a population that is slow to anger, but once roused, cannot be stopped. That's how democratic ideas spread. It's ironic that a continent supposedly steeped in socialism could deliver such a potent and historic message with zero government involvement. This is as pure a revolution as Europe has ever spawned.

Americans for their part need to join in, even if it means leaving their idiot President behind. Just as Europe lit a candle for the US after 9/11, we need to remember Europe's struggle against the voices of intolerance and religious bigotry. This is not a left v right subject. Liberals need to take a stand against illiberalism, and the Islamist thugs who are burning embassies and trashing breweries are a good place to start.
5.2.06 17:06


Fake news




Norway's Lars Halverson, 2002 gold medalist in the biathlon, guards the Mohammed snow sculpture, located at the Torino Olympic Village.
6.2.06 19:26


Those darned cartoons


Too many left o'center bloggers are missing the point about the Cartoon Wars. It's not about the right-leaning tendencies of the Danish newspaper, or the "rascist" nature of the cartoons, or that the Danish editors should have known better. It's about responding to offensive speech with violence. The Islamist reaction is deeply illiberal, and should not be tolerated by anyone, especially people who are proud to call themselves liberal. The fact that religion plays a part in this curious event should give secularists pause. Hume's Ghost gets right to the point in an excellent post:
Why should Islam, or any religion, be granted legal or social protections from criticism? Faith must stand or fall on the intellectual defense of its claims, not on legal prohibitions against critique, or upon violent intimidation of those who would question it.
I'm as annoyed at anyone at the right's glee (cough* - Michelle Malkin - cough*) over Islamist rage, but get over it. We're smarter than they are, and this one's a no brainer.


Valentine's Cards

For Law and Order fans.
7.2.06 16:07


Two suicide bombers walk into a bar


Muslim humor site. Check it out.
10.2.06 17:44


Death to Aunt Jemima




Muhammed's image on a pancake.
12.2.06 02:27


Happiness is a warm gun


Check out Ehrensteinland's coverage of Dick Cheney's mea culpa interview with Brit Hume.

Imagine how much worse it would have gone for the veep if a real journalist interviewed him.
16.2.06 16:07


 [next page]