Isaac Schrödinger

The Age of The Big Zero

Victor Davis Hanson:

The difference between the 5th century BC and late 4th century BC at Athens is debt–and not caused just by military expenditures or war; the claims on Athenian entitlements grew by the 350s, even as forced liturgies on the productive classes increased, even as the treasury emptied. At Rome by the mid-3rd century AD the state was essentially bribing its own citizens to behave by expanding the bread and circuses dole, while tax avoidance became an art form, while the Roman state tried everything from price controls to inflating the coinage to meet services and pay public debts.

So much for change.

What About Islam?

I got an email this morning from a fellow who seeks a few answers. The major part of the email follows.

"... you spend a lot of time analyzing the life of Muhammad. Clearly, he performed a multitude of actions intolerable for anyone claiming to represent the Eternal Word of God, regardless of the time period he came from, what part of the world he lived in or what culture he grew up in. So I can see why moral relativism is not, at least by itself, good enough to defend him.

But the question arises, to what extent did the people of Arabia really object to Muhammad's actions and to what extent were they merely the result of his environment? The ubituitous example is Aisha. From what I've read, it seems the evidence that anyone in Arabia, pagans, Jews or Christians, objected to his marraige with Aisha due to her age simply due to her age is not there. One could argue he used revelations to gain support and intimitaded would be objectors, but even his multitude of critics never found Aisha's age objectionable. Hence, it seems that either Arabs, including Jews and Christians, had condoned sexual relations with little girls and that only modern post-Enlightment Christians have come to find it objectionable, or that ultimately it didn't really happen and the hadiths that suggest this are false. Obviously, you both reject the latter, but that would create a problematic situation for Arabs, even Christian and Catholic ones, who would have to come to terms with the fact that their culture has condoned mistreatment of women for centuries and only post Enlightment values have changed this. And although their defense of Muhmmad as a role model for all times would still fall flat, Muslim can argue that early Jews and Christians clearly did not see Muhammad's marriages objectioanble and objectioning to it today is cultural elitism. Now, I would say sex with a nine year old girl is grotesque regardless of the age but unfortunately it can be argued this results from unreasonable cultural standards.

The same goes for many issues with Muhammad and women. Critics attacked Muhammad for banditry, insulting pagan faiths and not being a convincing prophet, but never his relations to women. Marrying wifes of fallen enemies never drew objections, nor did having slave girls or polygamy. The only thing he did that Arabs found objectionable, atg least with regards to women, was marrying his son in law's wife. The changes in women's status in Arabia as a result of Muhammad seem overwhelmingly postive. Again, that's not to justify the horrific oppression of women going on right now due to his example, but merely to discuss the issue of his environement. Critics of Muhammad today suggest he was in the same league as Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Nero or Attila the Hun in terms of how he forced his people backward and oppressed them, but it seems it can also be argued his actions were more good that bad when the situation of Arabs before and after him is analyzed.

Another thing I suppose is, why do you think Muslims have been in the dark fo so long about Islamic textgs and Muhammad's character. The fact that many Muslims don't speak Arabic, and certainly not Classical Arabic, well enough to read the texts is one issue. What do you think caused it? It's indeed interesting that out of the 1.2 billion Muslims-which we must face is a huge number, there are many very smart, upstanding people in this group who look at the Quran, Hadith and Sira and see genuine beauty, wisdom and tolerance in it. Do you think it's due to mental defficiency, actual brainwashing or self denial? Sijmply a radically different interpretation that sadly not enough Muslims follow? Or simply being severely misguided by Imams who may not understand as much as they think about Islamic texts? The best case scenario is that the interpretations of the Quran, as outlined in the blogging the Quran series on the Islamocritical site Jihadwatch, are not the sole interpretation by Muslims And in the end, when all is said and done, does Islam have to be eradicated from the hearts and minds of one billion Muslims for them to live peacably? Or can Muslims modernize by critical reevaluation of texts and a mass movement to reject Islamic literalism?"

Feel free to comment. I'll reply in the coming days.

The Master

I consider David Lean to be the greatest director to ever come out of Hollywood. The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago should be seen by every student of cinema.

The flickering myth has posted a profile of this craftsman. Click to visit Parts One, Two, and Three.

Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter come closest to showcasing the gift of photography which Lean possessed.

Gates of Fire

Steven Pressfield, who wrote a most visceral novel about one of the greatest battles of Antiquity, was recently interviewed by Glenn Reynolds.

8 Years Later

Four years ago, I wrote about 9/11 and its impact on my life.

It was the third part of this series:

1.0. In Darkness

2.0. The Land of Trinity

3.0. IX . XI

4.0. In Delirium

The Idiocy of Bangalore Tom

Jonah Goldberg on Thomas Friedman:

If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman's intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are "drawbacks" to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say.

A great post. Read it all.

Rose Goes To Milton

Remembering Rose Friedman:

Rose, who died Wednesday at the age of 98, was also an economist and no less radical than her husband in her support for free-market solutions and stressing of the importance of individual responsibility. The Rose and Milton Friedman Foundation for school vouchers came about at Rose's initiative. Together, she and her husband co-authored three major books that go beyond economic theory: They explain the political and personal philosophy behind free markets.

If you haven't seen Free to Choose, then you should. Its message is still valid.

I Want!

Who knew it would become so easy to play Patton?

Though, I'd prefer to be in charge of Operation Overlord.

No Love for Jews

Michael Totten interviews Jeffrey Goldberg:

The settlements aren’t the central question. They’re a tragedy in part because they obscure the central question of this conflict. The only question is: can the world of Arab Islam accept the idea of Jewish national equality? That’s the question, and I don’t know the answer to that.

Naturally, I shade toward pessimism on that question. I’m recalling, among other things, that the Six Day War wasn’t started because of the settlements. If you study the history of the last one hundred years, you’ll see that this is the central animating cause of the conflict. And I don’t see much evidence that Arab Islam can assimilate this idea right now.

The broader Muslim world doesn't accept the idea of Jews. Period. Forget about "Jewish national equality". It's important to remember that the concept of a dhimmi -- a perpetual, conquered, slave -- started with Jews under Muhammad:

A classic precedent of the dhimma was an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews of Khaybar, an oasis near Medina. Khaybar was the first territory attacked and conquered by the Muslim state ruled by Muhammad himself. When the Jews of Khaybar surrendered to Muhammad after a siege, Muhammad allowed them to remain in Khaybar in return for handing over to the Muslims one half of their annual produce. The Khaybar case served as a precedent for later Islamic scholars in their discussions on the issue of dhimma, even though the second caliph Umar I subsequently expelled the Jews from the oasis.

Try telling one billion Muslims that Muhammad's example should not be followed.

SAT Madness

Sine Qua Non:

Smoot-Hawley is to Waxman-Markey as ...

"Ishtar is to Heaven's Gate," is my personal favorite.

"Concerned"

Once upon a time:

...we had a POTUS who was packin' the gear.

A commenter there says:

I wondered pretty much the same thing about the english-language protest signs. They are reaching out, and B.O. is all "talk to the hand."

65 Years Ago

Blackfive:

the largest amphibious assault fleet the world had ever seen, drawn from 8 allied navies (6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 transport vessels (landing ships and landing craft), and 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels), began gathering. 19 and 20 year old young men, who to that point had never seen a shot fired in anger nor fired one themselves, would get their baptism in war on Omaha, Gold, Utah, Sword and Juno beaches. In all 160,000 allied troops would land that day.

More:

65 years ago, as the guns boomed, the shells exploded and desperate and courageous men made life and death decisions on the bloody sands of Normandy beaches, the fate of the world literally hinged on their success.

John at OPFOR links to a You Tube video:

In what I consider to be the finest speech ever delivered by a US president, including Gettysburg.

Relatively Good

The job market for new graduates is a bit harsh today. Though, historically, we are in a far better position.

A Famous Bomber

OPFOR has a brief post about a great American.

Jon Stewart Gets Nuked

Bill Whittle does the honors. Link via Instapundit.

Bill Maher offered similar drivel a few years ago. My response is here.

Ignorant of History

Code Monkey Ramblings:

Coworker: "I think there should be a maximum income allowed." Me: "You know what they did in the last major society that practiced Socialism?"

My best guess: everybody got a pony!

Lovely Incentives

Mark Steyn:

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Ayatollah's fatwa against Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses. Two decades on, who needs the mullahs? These days western nations are happy to fatwa their own. It's now a familiar pattern.

If you threaten violence, the authorities cave in, and do the mob's bidding in the interests of "public order" — as they did in Toronto on Wednesday, when thugs attacked a Jewish center.

Here's what happened:

On the campus of York University, a Muslim mob attacked the Hillel House, pounding on the door and yelling antisemitic slogans. Unbelievably, according to this account in YNet, the police demanded that the center itself close down -- punishing the innocent and achieving the goal of the mob.

Thuggery pays.

Feel the Peace

Tambi Dude emailed me this link recently.

The Religion of Peace Explained II

From the comments of this post:

Their vision of the Prophet (saws) and the Sahaabah are 1960’s hippies or Code Pink radicals. I get the feeling that if they knew the REALITY of the Prophet (saws) and his blessed Sahaabah that they would not only not like them at all - but they would be repulsed because of their Western brainwashing.

What brainwashing might that be?

If they saw sex slaves being taken, they would complain of so called “women’s rights”. Many of them think that slavery itself is unislamic and even think that Islam calls for its banishment or some “abolition” movement. These same people would protest that the kufaar have to pay jiziyyah in the Islamic government. There was never any such movements in the history of Islam until the advent of Muslims learning values from the West.

Yes, those filthy! horrible! Judeo-Christian + Greco-Roman values have truly poisoned the minds of Muslims who live in the West.

Can't a brother get a sex-slave?

Another precious commenter:

Denying the zakaah is KUFR. And the penalty for kufr is death. That is why Abu Bakr declared war on the apostates. This story is a thorn in the necks of those who claim that there is no mandate to kill apostates in Islam.

More from this lovely fellow:

One othe thing that has not been mentioned here is that Islam is not complatible with democracy or any system in which the kufaar are considered to be equal to the believers. Far too many muslims think that participation in “the system” is somehow beneficial to the Muslims when in fact we have our own divine and COMPLETE system of gov’t from top to bottom that we can live by.

Where everyone shall submit to Allah ... or else.

The Religion of Peace Explained

Umar Lee:

This was put together on my behalf from the former imam of a masjid in response to many liberal-minded, unaware or just uneducated Muslims who alleged I have slandered the sahabah by referring to many of them being killers and unromantic men. What is written is for your information and I encourage you to use this and study more. However, do not read this and then start going out and robbing kufar, committing acts of violence, or taking sex slaves ( and I have known brothers right here in America to do all three).

What lovely company.

Umar Lee, then goes on to provide some statements which are backed up with historical accounts. Here's something he said:

The Prophet {s.a.s.) was a warrior and many of the Sahabah [his companions] that he loved were straight-up killers.

More:

Others were robbers (robbing the caravans of the kufar).

More:

Others took women and young girls as the booty of war.

More:

Islam spread through jihad and was sustained by the sword of very masculine men.

Arguably, the most hideous point comes at the end:

Ibn Taymiyyah on the concept of “love”. From Majmoo’ al-Fataawa (10/129): Love is a psychological sickness, and if it grows strong it affects the body, and becomes a physical sickness, either as diseases of the brain, which are said to be diseases caused by waswaas, or diseases of the body such as weakness, emaciation and so on.

Why do over a billion people believe in, and follow, this trash?

Gladstone's Ghost Weeps

Robert Spencer via Infidel Bloggers Alliance:

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) was Prime Minister of Great Britain four times: 1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94. He called the Qur'an an "accursed book" and once held it up during a session of Parliament, declaring: "So long as there is this book there will be no peace in the world."

That was then:

Now the votaries of the book he saw as such an impediment to peace have triumphed: an Islamic reading room is being set up at the library Gladstone founded near his home in North Wales. In this BBC audio report (thanks to Andrew), Gladstone's great grandson Christopher Parish and Professor Richard Aldous, head of history at University College Dublin, tie themselves into knots trying to come up with a reason why Gladstone would have approved of this reading room.

Useful Idiocy on Celluloid

Joe Lima via David Thompson:

“Che” fails on a much deeper level. It attempts to depict actual historical events, the effects of which still play out today and affect millions of people. Does the movie tell the truth? It barely even tries. It is in this failure to connect with historic truth that the film sinks from being a mere failure to being an ugly lie.

I doubt the people involved were interested in the truth to begin with.

The first comment there says it better than I could:

That Che Guevara is a hero and American soldiers are villains tells you everything you need to know about Hollywood. They could not be more idiotic. It would be thoroughly disgusting if it weren’t so laughable.

The Chosen Scapegoats

Yaacov Lozowick:

What Cole has just told us is that his mind can live with the explanation that Mohammad Atta murdered thousands of people in New York, because five years earlier he'd been absolutely and totally furious at an Israeli killing of one hundred people in Lebanon. Moreover, Cole implies, it is well likely that another act of Israeli killing today will have a similar result sometime down the road. Furthermore, he then goes on, he's telling us this because the Obama administration must stop the way Israel is purposefully putting Americans in danger merely because Israelis are that kind of people.

It's amazing how some people adamantly refuse to see evil.

Hell in a Cannon

An atomic cannon to be precise.

Sum of All Fears

BBC News:

The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968, a BBC investigation has found.

That's comforting.

The Unnecessary Book

Uncommon Knowledge:

Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens take on the WWII revisionists, centering on Patrick J. Buchanan, the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. In terms of the origins of the conflict, Buchanan says essentially that Britain’s guarantee to protect Poland in the event of a German invasion made the war inevitable.

Apparently allowing Germany to gobble up Europe, and likely the beyond, would have avoided a war. Hanson and Hitchens offer lessons in five videos. Here are the links to the rest of them:

• Part two.
• Part three.
• Part four.
• Part five.

Exposing Lies

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has passed away.

Read this:

Following is the full text of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's essay "Live Not By Lies." It is perhaps the last thing he wrote on his native soil [before the collapse of the Soviet Union] and circulated among Moscow's intellectuals [at that time]. The essay is dated Feb. 12, the day that secret police broke into his apartment and arrested him. The next day he was exiled to West Germany.

Showcasing War

OPFOR: Top 10 War Movies.

The second entry on the list is technically not a movie. Still, Band of Brothers deserves a viewing -- for the first few minutes of the second episode alone.

A Stranger Passing By

Izzy Mo:

300 was awful. I just had to say that. The film 300 was terrible. I couldn’t get through 30 minutes without pointing out the historical and cultural inaccuracies. I just couldn’t do it.

Poor soul.

Why are all the bad guys non Caucasian? So the all white, oops I mean, Spartan army is good but the multi-culti Persian army of Indians, Africans, Arabs and Persians is bad?

Yeah, it would have been certainly historical to have a multi-racial Spartan army.

This asinine critique always amuses me. Reverse the situation. Imagine a movie about the Germans losses in North Africa and a reviewer who complains that the movie made the white guys look bad and that the multi-culti army of Brits, South Africans, Indians and Australians were made to look good.

As though it would have been prudent or historically accurate to add a little color to the Wehrmacht. You know, just so that whites don't feel bad.

Hilter Off the Hook

Michael C. Moynihan: Pat Buchanan Prevents the Holocaust.

Churchill was such a doofus for provoking Hilter.

Link via Daimnation.

Damian Penny has a one-sentence summation at the end here.

64 Years Later

D-Day Today.

What is Stress?

Here's a brief example.

Sissy-in-Chief?

Hillary Clinton comes off so small in comparison to the other mentioned women. She's practically microscopic!

Link via Foreign Dispatches.

Give Appeasement a Chance

Pat Buchanan:

Chamberlain's negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war -- at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.

German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson's 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

Later:

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

You read that right: The deadliest war in human history was started because the Poles refused to appease Hitler!

Fools can often see that appeasing a monster only increases the appetite of the beast, yet Buchanan extracts the exactly wrong lesson from history.

James Taranto:

One wonders if there is any point at which Buchanan would have said, "This time, Herr Fuehrer, you've gone too far!"

Apparently not.

Links via LFG.

Just How Dumb Can One Be?

This dumb (via LFG):

Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What bothers me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists, particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference of 1938.

The narrative we're given about Munich is entirely in hindsight. We know what kind of man Hitler was, and that he started World War II in Europe. From the view of 1938, what Hitler was demanding at Munich was not unreasonable, according to the prevailing idea of the nation-state.

Stefan Sharkansky:

promoting appeasement of Hamas and Iran now by saying that appeasing Hitler in 1938 was reasonable at the time, is not a very persuasive argument.

Indeed.

Happy Birthday

For sixty years she has been a beacon of light in a neighborhood filled with darkness.

May she forever shine bright.

Muhammad The Merciful

Cafe Alpha asks:

Wow. Mohammad raped a women - and took her as a slave "wife" immediately after torturing her husband to death and killing her father.

What's the source for this one?

This occurred at the end of the Battle of Khaybar in 629.

A Jewish tribe called Banu Nadir was present at Khaybar during that time. Safiyya was the daughter of the chief of Banu Nadir. She was married to the treasurer of the tribe. Muhammad had interrogated her husband but he refused to divulge any information about their precious belongings.

So, Muhammad had him tortured.

The fellow died and took the secret to his grave.

Muhammad on the same day beheaded all the adult males of the tribe. Safiyya lost her father and husband within a few hours.

Then Muhammad took her as his wife and raped consummated the marriage on the same night. Truly what a glorious example of morality!

Update
Islamic sources follow:

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367. An excerpt:

Anas said, 'When Allah's Apostle invaded Khaibar, we offered the Fajr prayer there yearly in the morning) when it was still dark. The Prophet rode and Abu Talha rode too and I was riding behind Abu Talha. The Prophet passed through the lane of Khaibar quickly and my knee was touching the thigh of the Prophet . He uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet. When he entered the town, he said, 'Allahu Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. Whenever we approach near a (hostile) nation (to fight) then evil will be the morning of those who have been warned.' He repeated this thrice. The people came out for their jobs and some of them said, 'Muhammad (has come).' (Some of our companions added, "With his army.") We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, 'O Allah's Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.' The Prophet said, 'Go and take any slave girl.'

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 2, Book 14, Number 68. An excerpt:

Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) offered the Fajr prayer when it was still dark, then he rode and said, 'Allah Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. When we approach near to a nation, the most unfortunate is the morning of those who have been warned." The people came out into the streets saying, "Muhammad and his army." Allah's Apostle vanquished them by force and their warriors were killed; the children and women were taken as captives.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 3, Book 34, Number 437. An excerpt:

The Prophet came to Khaibar and when Allah made him victorious and he conquered the town by breaking the enemy's defense, the beauty of Safiya bint Huyai bin Akhtab was mentioned to him and her husband had been killed while she was a bride. Allah's Apostle selected her for himself and he set out in her company till he reached Sadd-ar-Rawha' where her menses were over and he married her.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 513.

Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet took Safiya as a captive. He manumitted her and married her." Thabit asked Anas, "What did he give her as Mahr (i.e. marriage gift)?" Anas replied. "Her Mahr was herself, for he manumitted her."

How generous of him. A Muslim man gives her wife a gift. Muhammad provided Safiyya a simple one: he freed her from slavery.

Who was her owner? Muhammad.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 523.

The Prophet stayed with Safiya bint Huyai for three days on the way of Khaibar where he consummated his marriage with her. Safiya was amongst those who were ordered to use a veil.

But, I thought that these women wore the veil by choice.

So Perfect

Hassan Radwan: Prophet Muhammad.

I've written quite a bit over the years about this "flawless" role model of humanity. Here's one that deals with his behavior towards the Jewish tribe Banu Quraiza.

Also, see this post where his personality is distilled down to seven words.

What the West Needs to Know

Google Video: Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Spend 98 minutes of your time and be utterly depressed.

Link via Connie in the comments.

Herstory!

You Tube: How Hillary Can Still Win.

Pejman:

She should major in miracles.

Our World War

An excellent topic is discussed at Uncommon Knowledge:

Professor Bruce Thornton of Cal State Fresno describes a European civilization that after twenty-five centuries is drawing to an end. He lists the symptoms: Economies are less adaptable and competitive because of an enormous regulatory burden; social welfare entitlements are incredibly expensive; and, demographically, Europeans simply aren’t reproducing. At the source of this demise is a loss of the foundational belief system that created the West — that created Europe — in the first place.

The interview -- The Decline and Fall of Europe -- is divided into five parts. Here are the links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Here Obedient to Their Laws We Lie.

Chicago Boyz:

Thermopylae and The Spartans can be profitably read by specialists yet also serve as an enjoyable introduction to the world of ancient Sparta to the general reader. Cartledge concisely explains the paradox of Sparta, at once the “most Greek” polis among the Greeks yet also, the most alien and distinct from the rest of the far-flung Greek world.

The Neocon Identity

Ummah Pulse:

"Trickle-Down Theory", which first surfaced in the 1930s, is an old con-trick idea which promises that if rich people were encouraged to make themselves as wealthy as possible through huge salaries, tax cuts, bonuses, stock options and perks, their wealth would trickle down to the rest of the population and thereby raise the standard of living for all. Although in theory it appeared appealing, in practice it has always led to a drastic increase in the gap between the rich and the dispossessed. The rich always get richer and the poor are always swamped by more destitution.

So what if the income gap got larger? Relative poverty ought to be meaningless. What matters is that one can live a comfortable, individual, debt-free life in most of the US for under $1,000-a-month.

Another point: There will always be poverty because some people just do not know how to save and spend money. One can give them a million dollars and a few years down the road they would be broke and wallowing in debt. Blaming Neocons (hunh?) for the poor in the US is asinine.

During the Reagan administration, the Neocon darlings could not tout Trickle-Down Theory for it was by then thoroughly discredited through bitter experience. So they came up with a new disguise for it. Trickle-Down Theory was re-branded as the Laffer Curve, named after its inventor Arthur Laffer, a colleague of Milton Friedman who had famously written a column, Hooray for Magaret Thatcher, in Newsweek magazine urging American politicians to follow her example.

What will those Jews Neocons think of next!

Throughout the 1980s there was continuous decline in the long-term capital investment upon which growth and jobs are dependent. In that same decade a recession began, the Federal Reserve was forced to raise interest rates to dampen inflation and unemployment rose, for the first time since the 1930s, above 10 per cent.

Correct. The unemployment rate in 1982-83 was the worst since the Great Depression. So, an interesting question presents itself: Why didn't Americans vote out Ronald Reagan in 1984 like they did Herbert Hoover in 1932?

The Curse of the Black Gold

Pedestrian: Economic Prosperity: A Hurdle to Democratic Reform.

I think the Gulf region is the only place where you will find men in their prime “hanging out” at shopping malls during the day when all around the world, men of that age are at work.

This is the only place in the world where, if you step into a shopping mall in the middle of the day, you will be faced with the weird sight of young and middle aged men, in their long white robes – dishdashas - roaming around the mall, sitting around at Starbucks … in short, doing nothing.

Apparently nobody is in a hurry to get back to work.

Yup. They gained almost all their wealth by chance since it doesn't take any skill to be born in a land that is floating on oil. Their mentality is largely the one that has persisted for over a millennium. That's why after a quarter-century of amassing wealth, we still don't see Arabs managing their own oil infrastructure! They, collectively, simply have no desire to learn and be productive people.

What they are good at is sugarcoating their intellectual emptiness and civilizational void with spectacularly grotesque projects.

Not only is the emirates trying to outdo itself in towers – to a point where it’s even difficult to keep up with what they’re building today and how high it’s going to be – they are outdoing themselves in everything … What’s the deal with Abu Dhabi’s “Green City”? 22 BILLION dollars is going to be spent on creating it. And more than a haven for the environment, it seems just another vacation resort for those whose salaries go above 6 digits. More than that, not a single one of these projects are led or engineered by Arabs. Most often times, it is a British or American architectural firm doing the work.

Of course.

When the oil runs out or when the West finds another source of energy, the Middle Easterners will be in a grand world of pain.

One Smart Infidel

International Herald Tribune via Israellycool:

A mathematical mystery that has baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has recently been cracked — by a 63-year-old former security guard.

Avraham Trakhtman, a mathematician who worked as a laborer after immigrating to Israel from Russia, has succeeded where dozens have failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem."

Dang.

One War Hero

Gateway Pundit:

On this day in 1973, Lt. Commander John McCain was released from a North Vietnamese prison after spending five plus years as a prisoner of war.

Will a Mirage Materialize?

Ibn Warraq via Samizdata:

1. What is a Reformation? Defined from the UDHR 1948 perspective
Since there is no Pope or even, in principle, an organized clergy in Islam, how would we ever know if an Islamic Reformation had taken place? One person’s reformation will be another person’s decadence. My perspective will be from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which many Muslims still do not accept—indeed several Muslim countries got together in 1981 and issued their own Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, where individual freedoms are denied. Muslims were particularly horrified by Article 18 of the UN Declaration which guarantees the right for anyone to change her or his religion.

Islam is a psychological prison. That's why Muslims were horrified. If people were truly free to leave, then the hollow religion would quickly fall apart. That's also why any criticism of Islam, or its decrepit prophet, is met with harsh punishments.

Wafa Sultan Stands Tall

I linked to this post regarding the Holocaust yesterday. Now, I just finished watching a disgusting creature who considers that evil to be a fabrication.

Charles Johnson:

Here’s Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan in another amazing appearance on Al Jazeera, facing down a lunatic moderator and a lunatic Islamist with righteous anger.

This is what “speaking truth to power” really means.

Please note again, the sheer hatred and irrationality that is Al Jazeera’s stock in trade. The “moderator” is just as bad as—or worse than—the Islamist, denying the Holocaust over and over.

Go there and watch the video.

Good on Wafa Sultan for bringing up the undeniable history of Banu Quraiza -- a Jewish tribe whose men were massacred and their women and kids taken as slaves by Muhammad and his followers. That is the glorious period which the Islamists want to revive.

Where God Died

Notes from Here and There:

It's raining. It's windy. The sky is bright. Not enough to wash away the blood, and not enough to lift the eternal darkness that Wiesel speaks about. I was reading the book - Night - on the way to Oswiecim from Krakow. Some words come back to haunt me. "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." I take a breath in - and smell the burning flesh.

Link via DesiPundit.

Fierce Feynman

Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering.

President Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the [Space Shuttle Challenger] disaster. Physicist Feynman was invited as a member, but his independent intellect and direct methods were at odds with the commission's formal approach. Chairman Rogers, a politician, remarked that Feynman was "becoming a real pain." In the end the commission produced a report, but Feynman's rebellious opinions were kept out of it. When he threatened to take his name out of the report altogether, they agreed to include his thoughts as  Appendix F - Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle.

I've bookmarked it.

Link via Slashdot.