The Rant

     Conan the Zen dog prays with his master, the Buddhist priest.   Conan goes through his prayer routine at the temple in Naha, the capital of Japan's southern prefecture, without prompting by the Priest Joei.         The priest thinks it may be more difficult to teach the dog to sit cross legged during Dog-Zen meditation.  

    The real war of significance in the world today is a war of ideas, not a war between armies.   Who speaks the truth?       Scientists say that truth must have evidence and logic to prove it. It must be demonstrable and have predictive power.   Supernaturalists claim that they have a secret pipeline to an invisible, omnipotent God, who gives them instructions.   Bin Laden and Pope Benedict both claim to be special spokespersons for different versions of this same God.       Why does God need spokespersons. Why does an omnipotent God not speak to all persons?  Why do the different prophets of God speak in conflicting messages?        Scientists say: judge the evidence for yourself. Use your brain and make a reasoned decision.       Bin Laden says, "If you criticize our philosophy, if you criticize our prophet, we will not listen to you, we will hunt you down and exterminate you.  You do not have the right to choose for yourself what you believe. You must submit to Islam or die....

   Bin Laden is really mad about that cartoon about Muhammad.    Retaliation is threatened.  In other words, the punishment for publishing a cartoon suggesting that Muhammad might be linked to violence (he has a bomb on his head) is more violence from the followers of Muhammad, thus proving that the cartoon was accurate.    Is this cartoon really the most pressing business facing the Islamic world?  Don't Moslems have a sense of humor?? 

Speaking as a member of the "other party."  I listened to Barack Obama give his speech today with growing admiration.   Obama seems to me to be a man of rare intelligence and subtlety, especially for a politician.  I don't think I could agree with all his policies, but I admire his intelligence, his calm, his idealism and his desire to bring people together.  I find myself wishing that I could find good reason to support this man. 

     A retired Kuwaiti superstar recently left the Gulf emirate for Afghanistan to join ranks with al-Qaeda and Taliban forces fighting there.   H e decided to leave the sinful world of singing and join the Holy Jihad against the west.    His job prior to deciding to head for Afghanistan was to warn people of the dangers of art and its sinful atmosphere.   Apparently, he now believes that killing foreigners is more holy than singing pop music, thanks to the influence of his religion, Islam.  I thought it was poverty that caused terrorism.  

    While chatting with people in America, the President of Iran advised that Iran does not have homosexuals in its country, like America does.  The sophisticated audience at Columbia University responded to this remark by laughing.  Iran would like to have no homosexuals. I t has executed 4000 persons for the crime of being a homosexual since 1980.      Why is that the left seems to be turning a deaf hear to the requests of homosexuals and converts from Islam for asylum in the West?   Perhaps it is because it is difficult for a diversity worshipper to accept the idea that all religions are not equal; that Islam is anti liberal; anti-west; and dangerous by virtue of its orthodox teachings, not by virtue of the fact that it has been "highjacked" by extreme elements. 

   Minnesota has an Islamic Charter School K 1-8 with campuses at Inver Grove Heights and Blaine. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy pocketed $65,260 in state money in 2006-2007.  It was founded by the Minnesota chapter of the MAS (Moslem American Society) which  is the name by which the Muslim Brotherhood Operates in America . Tarek ibn Ziyad is the name of the eighth century Muslim conqueror of Spain.  The Muslim Brotherhood is embarked on a "grand jihad" aimed at "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."    Welcome to America!  What a country!   

I personally do not think that prostitution should be prosecuted as a crime. It is a waste of taxpayer money to pursue such relatively victimless crimes.   Furthermore, it appears to me to be the sort of crime that is selectively prosecuted, since there seem to be ads for hookers in many common local "throw away" magazines, with the names changed to Masseurs to protect the not so innocent.   This is what totalitarian regimes do:  they create a web of laws that is impossible to obey and which no one is expected to obey completely, and then selectively prosecute those who are not in political favor.  If this was what was being done to Spitzer, then I do not approve of such a scheme.  However, Spitzer made a career out of prosecuting similar crimes ,  ( see this too )  so he has been hoist on his own petard, and I have little sympathy with him.   

Bob: Scott Horton is one of my favorite commentators. Here he raises questions reminiscent of the Nixon era enemies list. While the American public willingly like lemmings will through privacy and the 4 th amendment out the window to gain their security, our govenment continues its march to gain access to any and all information about anyone. Always couched as a necessary power to stop drug lords, terrorist and other bad guys, the rest of us give up our privacy. No doubt it is ironic that Spitzer got hoisted on his on petard, but as you read this article ask yourself, how is a SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) intiated and once filed, even if the originally claimed activity is found benign, does the statute allow the IRS or Federal Government to root around in all the financial affairs of the target without a warrant? Scott Horton, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 On Monday a friend gave me a copy of a memorandum ( pdf ) that Attorney General Michael Muka...

Islam continued to lead the world by example as the religion of peace.   A kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop was found dead.       There was no comment by Islamic religious authorities   There are 70,000 Christians remaining in Iraq.  Many have been targeted by Islamic  "extremists.      Bombs exploded earlier outside of three Christian churches.  Several Christian priests have been kidnapped.  Meanwhile, the Organization of the Islamic Conference called on Europe and A merica to take stronger steps against Islamaphobia .  Leaders warned that the perception in the west linking Muslims to terrorism, especially since the 9-11 attack, would make Muslims more radical.  In other words, America's false belief that some moslems are terrorists will cause more moslems to actually become terrorists. 

     Issue: An Iranian Man was arrested and sentenced to 4 months in jail and 30 lashes for walking his dog, since dogs are considered "unclean" in Islam (along with unbelievers).  So if you went for a walk with an unbeliever, would you risk the same fate?        Muhammad did not like dogs.  "Angels do not enter a house wherein there is a dog." Bukhari 4.54.448 " Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of praying people)" Bukhari 1.4.173  Apparently women and donkeys are also unclean.   "Were dogs not a species of creatures I should command that they all be killed; but kill every pure black one."  Sunan Abu dawud 16.2839

Mahatma Gandhi's fight with his ego is an example of true Jihad, sa id eminent spiritual leader from Turkey, Sheika Cemainur Sargut .      "It is unfortunate that the west is trying to project Muslims as using violence, there are lots of so called Jihadi groups in Christianity ready to kill Muslims."  I did a search in Google for Jihadi Christian but could find no hits.  I do not recall any stories of suicidal Christians blowing themselves up to kill Islamic women and children.   Assuming that there are any such groups, can they justify such conduct from the words of their founder, Jesus, who said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the j...

Well, I must concede that J.D. is more knowledgeable about political history than I am, in the sense of being able to quote various scholars.  However, after reading his entry, I am, if anything, yet more confused as to a clear definition of Fascism.  I still seem to sense that it is totalitarianism: a faith in the state to set things right, and also a choice to use force to eliminate the opposition.   Hopefully, such ideas represent a minority in the United States in both major political parties.  The libertarian response to arguments about the left and the right is to throw out these categories as vague and unhelpful and instead look at the basic political division as between statists and individualists.   By this way of thinking, leftists and rightists (fascists) are both statists and on the opposite scale to lovers of freedom.   I also prefer arguments based upon reason, evidence and science, and so hope to find some agreement with J.D. on this subject.  In addition, I prefer poli...

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg (Doubleday, 496 pages) * * * The public understanding of World War II history and its precedents has suffered in recent years from the depredations of revisionist historians -- the David Irvings and David Bowmans of the field who have attempted to recast the meaning of, respectively, the Holocaust and the Japanese American internment. Their reach, however, has been somewhat limited to fringe audiences. It might be tempting to throw Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning into those same cloacal backwaters, but there is an essential difference that goes well beyond the likely much broader reach of Goldberg's book, which was inexplicably published by a mainstream house (Doubleday). Most revisionists are actually historians with some credentials, and their theses often hinge on nuances and ...

I used to get enraged when lefties accused Republicans of being fascists or Nazis.  There seemed to me little in common between American conservatism:  limited government, rule of law, strong national defense, "family values" and Hitler's rascist and imperialist dream to conquer the world in the name of White German Teutonic superiority.        Jonah Goldberg has proven that both political parties can play this Fascist name calling game and written a book in which he argues that Fascism is really a phenomenon of the left, not the right . "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning."  I have just started the book but one of his observations seems true enough to me; that lefties use "fascism" as a very vague adjective to label any phenomenon they do not like. It means nothing more specific to them than bad, which sounds about right to me.   In general, I have always felt that Communism and Fasci...

Why does the west have such a hard time understanding the doctrine of Jihad? All Moslems (except a few radicals who have hijacked the religion for political purposes)  know that it is a spiritual doctrine that has nothing to do with terrorism, don't they? It is sort of like our War on Poverty in the west.   It is the interior, spiritual struggle against evil.  But wasn't the Prophet a general?   Didn't he conquer Arabia ? Didn't his immediate followers sweep out of Arabia in a war of conquest which extended Islam from Spain to India, a domain as large as the Roman empire, conquered in a far shorter time?   By comparison, Jesus and Buddha were practically pacifists and held no political power. 

    Well the Democrat Nominating Process is anything but dull this year.  I can't even understand the rules for selecting delegates in Texas, let alone for the entire party.  It probably doesn't help that I have been enduring the slow, somewhat boring process with a couple Jack Daniels.   What happens if it is a draw?   Well, we will find out in a few months I guess, unless the lawyers get involved.  Perhaps the Supreme Court will decide the Democratic nominee this year, sometime in 2010?  

     The Islamic Conference, comprised of 57 Islamic member states, suggests that the West must replace notions of free speech with different principles fundamentally based upon Sharia law which prohibits any insult to Mohammad.  They previously called upon the U.N. to pass rules prohibiting any negative reference to the Prophet.  This is another example that we do have a war of ideas, a culture war, between Islam and the West, and also that Islam is very willing to make it a fighting war, as reflected in the fact that the author of the Cartoons was the victim of a conspiracy to murder him in retaliation for his silly little cartoon.   Meanwhile, his hotel is so afraid of violent reprisal against him that they threw him out, and the 73 year old cartoonist is now homeless because the brave Danes do not want to face the risk of ending up like the Director Theo Van Gogh (who was butchered on the street by a Moslem for directing a movie about how Islam treats women that the Moslem did not...

     Baghdad, Iraq - -  A suicide bomber killed at least 40 Moslem pilgrims and wounded 60 others Sunday as the pilgrims made their way to the Holy city of Karbala on one of the holiest days of the Shiite Calendar.  Women and children were among the casualties.   The suicide bomber was likely a member of a different sect of Islam, the Sunnis, and probably felt that Allah would reward him by giving him 72 virgins in exchange for his murdering other Moslems of slightly different theology, including women, children and those on a holy pilgrimage.   Not really news in the World of Islam; not man bites dog, but just another typical headline from the so called religion of peace. 

Don't forget to pack the necessities when boarding a plane.  Benjamin Baines remembered to bring his copy of the Koran and "The Prophet's Prayer" along with a boxcutter hidden inside a cut out book.   The picture to the left is the book that Benjamin hid the Boxcutter in, a book titled "Fear Itself."   At least Mr. Baines has a sense of humor.   What was he going to use the boxcutter for?  Thanks to the TSA, we will never be sure.  bob cat