This is something out of the Onion, right?
A Bogra court yesterday discharged a two-year-old child of adultery and theft in a case filed against him along with seven others in the northern district.
Apparently not.
In March, Bangladesh's High Court stepped in to halt the trial of four infants - all members of an extended family - who were accused of looting and causing criminal damage.
Their bail was set at $50 a child in a country where the average yearly wage is $2000.
Lorie Byrd provides some helpful definitions used by the Democrats. I liked these:
LOSER: Someone who just finished beating you like a redheaded stepchild in the last election cycle.
WEALTHY: 1.) A word to describe any person making at least $1 more per year than you do, who therefore must be taxed back to the Stone Age to save the country from bankruptcy and ruin. 2.) A term NEVER to be applied to Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, et. al., who, despite their vast wealth, can identify with working class America with ease - unlike all those evil, rich Republicans.
Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views.
The School of Education at the CUNY campus initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom performance.
[Emphasis mine]
"Well, this science teacher failed the science test. Seems he's not fit..." Oh, no no, he can still teach because he's such a saint*. "Okay, we'll keep him." So, now kids in Brooklyn will have supposedly well-meaning, but still, incompetent teachers.
* Whatever that means is defined by the administration.
Link via Instapundit.
Awww, the poor Palestinians, they have such hazardous jobs.
It's a sensible response but sadly we won't get that in reality.
I have heard or rather read horror stories about Best Buy but this response by a customer crossed the line.
Read this post before continuing. My take on the four points follow.
1. Americans want to dominate, by brute force if necessary.
Americans simply wish to live their lives in peace and prosperity. I know. It's shocking. I lived for two years in the US and in all that time I didn't meet a single American who wished to 'dominate' any part of the world. America had control of Japan and large parts of Germany after the Second World War. These are presently the second and third largest economies in the world. In 1945, the American public didn't want the troops stationed there indefinitely so that they could 'dominate' these two Axis powers. When these two countries reached stable, democratic and decent governments, the Americans were content. How many other nations have shown such magnanimity, towards their foes, in defeat?
Today, the Japanese and Germans can kick out the American troops whenever they desire. There is absolutely no domination of these two rich countries. They are free to decide their foreign policy as they see fit. For example, Germany decided to stay out of the Battle of Iraq whereas the Japanese have lent a helping hand.
America is taking care of the root cause, Islamism, in the Fourth World War. Throughout the 80s and 90s, there were small-scale attacks on Americans and the federal government did little in response. Now, after 9/11, America has to retaliate and liberate the Muslim world (there are other options but they don't involve liberation). Americans are fighting to liberate because it's the least bloody method of winning the war.
New Americans come to America to leave behind the rest of the world. They're not interested in conquering resources by spending treasure and spilling blood. They wish to live a life. They're only responding because that life was threatened by a band of evil thugs and the demented culture that spawned them.
2. Europeans know more about Americans and their leaders, than we do about European leaders and Europeans.
So?
3. Americans, per-capita, do not give to charity nearly as often as Europeans.
How is charity defined? There were over 300,000 US troops in Europe during the Third World War holding off the Evil Empire. The US spent over 5% of her GDP on defense in the 1980s to crack the Soviet Union. The US sent around 500,000 troops to save Kuwait, or whatever was left of it, in 1991. The US single-handedly destroyed the Taliban and captured or killed most of the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Now, the Iraqis laugh at Saddam.
To this day, there are large numbers of US troops in South Korea, Japan, and Germany. The US Navy, ahem, dominates and protects the oceans for world trade. The stingy US sent quick relief to the tsunami victims thanks to the tools of death.
Yet, all this is not counted as charity. Thus, giving a completely false impression of American generosity.
4. In general, Liberals and Socialists are just as patriotic as Conservatives.
Bwahaha. Sorry.
Here is a simple test of "you might be unpatriotic" in the US.
That's it.
Family and friends destroy a woman's life in Pakistan.
The enemies of freedom and civility will never stop envying and hating this country, nor will they cease trying to destroy it. But as long as we’re willing to protect ourselves against whatever threatens our freedom and sovereignty, the deaths of the fallen will not have been in vain.
An expressive member of the Religion of PeaceTM. Tolerance oozes from the man.
Too hot for comfort.
The Instadude has a most comprehensive post on the French rejection (sob) of the EU constitution.
Austin Bay provides some quaint commentary. Attention should be paid to Plan C.
You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.
Contempt is precisely the word to describe the attitude of these statists towards the majority of Europeans.
Juncker is a man from Luxembourg, a country two-thirds the size of your rec room, and, under the agreeably clubby EU arrangements, he gets to serve as "president" without anything so tiresome as having to be voted into the job by "ordinary people." His remarks capture precisely the difference between the new Europe and the American republic.
Beautifully put by Mark. Read the whole column, it's well worth it.
That's one mean American.
It's nice to see the Iraqis publicly and comfortably use humor. Click here for the sad story of Moojahdeens. The Donkey from Shrek makes an appearance.
Link via Iraqi Expat.
A funny take on the "no driver alone" rule in Iraq.
What the HELL happened to the Brits?
Perhaps, the readers can answer that question. Also, take a look at Kevin's earlier post about the state of Britain.
... I finally figured out why Hayden Christiansen's line delivery was so …off… in both movies he starred in. Listen closely, and you'll realize he's trying to imitate James Earl Jones. His pauses, his inflections, are all pure "THIS!… is C!NN!" Really, he should have played it straight, and let the transformation been made complete by Jones's voice and the breathing machine.
Blasted! Stephen ruined the movie for me.
Senator Frist is a surgeon but he can't transplant backbone to Senate Republicans who don't have any.
Ouch.
The basic question is - how do we achieve this [the separation of reporting and editorializing] while the preserving the openness of blogs and blogging, which is their hallmark?
There are many sub-questions as well: Who makes the decisions about what is accurate? To what extent are standards different for individual blogs in our ad network and for the Blog News Service portal? (Someone has suggested we have a sticker of sorts on posts differentiating fact and opinion.) Do we need to apply particularly high standards to breaking news we might syndicate for sale to established media? If so, how do we do that given the speed necessary in those situations? Traditional editors? Committees of bloggers? A combination? Some have dreamed of creating a "Blog AP" - indeed we will try to do this - but how do we meld scrupulous accuracy with the spontaneity and freshness that make blogging what it is?
Do add your suggestions in the comments.
On Thursday last, I linked to this post where Juan Cole said:
All religions produce fanatics at the same rate.
Today, I read this from Robert Spencer:
All religions are not the same, and do not have the same capacity to inspire violence. As un-PC as that is, it is the truth. It must be faced. Regan reflects conventional PC wisdom, to be sure -- views that are held across the spectrum, from the New York Times to National Review -- and until this wisdom is seen for the hollow and deceptive thing it is, we are all that much more vulnerable.
[Emphasis mine]
One of them has to be wrong. Hint: It ain't Spencer, and I state that based on my experience in the Middle East.
The Big Pharaoh says it like it is.
Fud is down to room temperature? So, who'll be the new king? Two thugs are in line:
This could get very ugly. It'll be fun to watch.
This is just wrong.
Wow. Take a look at the graphs in this post. Only 24% of Arab Americans are Muslim! That figure seems incredibly low. It makes sense for more non-Muslims to leave the Middle East since they are the most repressed in the society but I didn't think the number would be as high as 76%.
This must have a very distorting effect on the Arab societies. They lose, or rather push away, competent and skilled people. American society is richer and thus better off for it. This loss is in addition to the highly skilled Muslim labor these socities lose every year. On a related note, I once read a sad statistic about Iran: there are more Iranian doctors in Canada (pop. 33 million) than in Iran (pop. 68 million).
I wonder what the religion breakdown figures are like for Iran, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan?
Egypt, remember, is at "peace" with Israel. I'd hate to see what lies and distortions the government's website would come up with if they were still at war.
Antisemitism is mainstream in the Muslim world. Hating the Jews gets one street-cred in the Muslim community. The opposite could be hazardous to ones health. On a related note, our friends, the Saudis, don't even allow Jews in the country. They only make exceptions for PR reason like allowing Thomas Friedman to enter the kingdom. So, how many other US allies do you know of that bar Jews?
The quotation marks around peace are well justified. They're in no way shape or form at "peace". Terrorists enter into the West Bank through Egypt at will. The Egyptian government yearly accepts over 2 billion dollars from the US while simultaneously allowing the terrorists to do what they please. It's a sham.
Engadget on Blu-ray and HD-DVD:
... wading past the verbal acrobatics for a moment we can see that the idea of both camps of what “unified” means is that one or other of the sides has to go — no wonder they haven’t reached any sort of agreement.
Boobs.
Yes, it is very late, kufr. But never too late for a quote from Muhammed.
"I was ordered to fight people until they say La ilaha illa Allah, and if they say it, then they protect their blood and their property from me except for its dues, and Allah, The Almighty, The Supreme, will judge them."
Yup, the Prophet Muhammed. Charming pedo fellow.
Alan Dershowitz on 'The Case for Israel':
The implication was that some Israeli intelligence agency or propaganda unit wrote it and had me sign it—as they claimed was the situation with Peters’ book. The problem for them is that I don’t type or use a computer, so that every word of the text was handwritten by me in my own handwriting—and I still have the manuscript.
Doh, Finkelstein didn't account for...what do you call that..FACTS. Read the whole article in which Alan Dershowitz surgically takes apart Chomsky, Finkelstein, and Cockburn*. It's a sight to behold. Bravo, Prof. Dershowitz.
*Hunh, burn.
Democratic advances, and popular rumblings, are making many people in this region [the Middle East] very, very nervous, and upset.
That is the price they have to pay for their virulent antisemitism and noxious anti-Americanism. Read the whole article for some choice comments by a few Arabs at the World Economic Forum.
Update: The above link is Part III. Here's Part I and Part II of Nordlinger's reports. Loved the comments by Bob Zoellick in Part II.
True:
A quite trivial note: Remember pull tabs, the kind of thing we had on cans of pop — you pulled them out, then threw them on the ground, for people to step on, and for tires to get punctured by? Well, I hadn’t seen them in eons — and Jordan has them.
Ah yes, and so does Saudi Arabia. I've seen deformed pull tabs all over the place in that country.
Jacoby is so wrong that I hardly know where to begin. All religions produce fanatics at the same rate. It is a constant.
[Emphasis mine]
I have a question for Juan. What is that constant rate? I'm sure a lot of folks would like an the answer to that burning question.
A spectacular, but alas failed, attempt to start a riot. Better luck next time, kufr!
Dymphna provides an excellent fisking of an Amnesty International Report. This sentence from the report is peculiar.
Guantanamo has become the gulag our times, entrenching the notion that people can be detained without any recourse to the law.
How many people gained weight in the real gulags across the Soviet Union?
Terrorists in Iraq sentenced to death.
The U.S. economy grew at an inflation-adjusted rate of 3.5 percent last quarter. That represents an upwards revision, from the initial estimate of 3.1 percent.
At present, the Europeans can only dream of such a performance.
This is really funny.
$399 for a 2.1 system! Jeebus, that's pricey. I bought a 4.1 THX-certified system for my computer almost 5 years ago for $260. It's still goin' good.
There is no doubt that the media is very biased in an anti-American way, but why? What are the root causes of this bias? Those working in the MSM generally make a very good living. Their living is derived directly from living in free societies where they are able to print or televise virtually anything that constitutes "news".
So why the bias? Why be so against the spread of freedom and liberty? If a society is no longer free, then what purpose does a "news" agency have other than being a propaganda instrument?
I'll attempt to answer these questions by giving a few reasons.
REASON #1: Liberal Cocoon
I don't think there is any question that the majority of the MSM is left-of-center in the US. The opposite is true for the majority of Americans. Thus, in the MSM, one gets liberals/socialists for whom the policies of Democrats seem to be mainstream. This false impression is reinforced by their colleagues. This manifests itself in both national and foreign policies.
Often times, I'll see such liberals interviewing Republicans and they'll come off as combative even though they might think that it's just fair questioning. Similarly, they'll lob softballs to a Democrat because hey, the Democrat has no bad policies to be questioned on. To them, there is no bias.
For certain liberals in the MSM, the enemy is President Bush with Cheney as Darth Sidious. They can do no good. Tax cuts FOR THE RICH. Social Security privatization FOR HIS BUDDIES IN WALL ST. The war in Iraq IS ALL ABOUT THE OIL. Often, it comes down to who's in office. Clinton, war in Kosovo, good stuff. Bush, war in Iraq, quagmire.
Their view of the US military is, needless to say, distorted. The US military kills people. Hence, it's bad. Do we really need thousands of nuclear warheads, fighter jets, tanks, and all the different kinds of guns? Just think of all the hungry kids we could feed in the world. Think of all the poverty we could eradicate with the billions of dollars that the US military wastes on new gadgets of death. And remember since poverty causes terrorism, we'll be reducing the number of terrorist as well!
There are even some in the MSM, especially in foreign countries, who think that the US is the source of evil on this planet. Hey, we created Osama bin Laden, don't you know. Perhaps, you've heard of Giuliana Sgrena.
REASON #2: Differing Standards
I long for one objective standard for everyone. The MSM has its own undecipherable formula. Though, the West is always judged by a harsh 21st century standard whereas the non-West has, at best, the 19th century as its benchmark.
Take Saudi Arabia for example. Here is a country that punishes alcohol possession by beheading. Hands are cut off for stealing. Women are lashed for getting raped. (No, I did not mistype that last sentence) The Mutaween, the religious police, enforces the law of Islam all across the country.
Now, the regime in Saudi Arabia recently allowed sham municipal elections in which women were not allowed to vote. I read quite a lot of praise in many corners for this utterly meaningless PR event. Now think of the reaction the MSM would have if a Western country, where citizens are not murdered for drinking alcohol or their hands cut off for stealing or the females lashed for getting raped, decided to outlaw only women from voting.
Clearly such a Western society would still be light years ahead of Saudi Arabia but still it would be ripped to pieces in every MSM outlet. So, why the out of whack reactions? It's because the MSM has a much lower standard for non-Western societies. The US authorities get hammered on every little detail, true or not. Unfortunately, the many thugs in the world, like Castro, get away with decades of brutality.
REASON #3: Political Correctness
Ah, yes, the deadliest Western disease of all. Charles Goggins asked:
Why be so against the spread of freedom and liberty?
Do imagine if a member of the MSM was for the spread of Freedom and Liberty. Then, s/he would be implying that Freedom and Liberty are superior to the laws derived from Islam. That would be outrageously bigoted!
On more than one occasion I've seen roughly this fomulation. "We are white and thus superior. They are brown and thus inferior. Our culture should replace theirs. All will be well then." Forgetting the fact that the US is a multiracial society, to some, WWIV boils down to racism. Of course, it'll come as a surprise to the Japanese and the South Koreans that they sold their cultures to the White Man by embracing democracy and human rights.
REASON #4: Access
Obvious. For access to the [non-democratic country], the MSM never showcases the horrible news from such a country. Hence, complete freedom in US to report whatever they please and almost always good news from wretched countries.
REASON #5: Attracted to Negativity
The MSM always leads with the latest atrocity in Iraq. Just compare with the good news that Arthur Chrenkoff presents. Thousands of projects completed and in progress: YAWN. Car bomb exploded in Baghdad: ROLL CAMERA.
That's it. Not everyone in the MSM is perpetually biased but sadly enough are. The Blogosphere has certainly helped the situation. Here's hoping that Pajamas Media will make it even better.
Update: Today, Ernest Miller answers three questions relating to journalism. His answer to the third question is very sound. Link via Instapundit.
The principal, Rhonda Holton, should be ashamed of her puerile behavior.
Link via Vodkapundit.
Tom Wolfe once said that Fascism is forever descending on the United States, but that somehow it always lands on Europe. Perhaps the same is true with theocracy?
I'm afraid that the Professor is right. The Fourth World War, like the three before it, will also be fought in Europe.
The Alternative Minimum Tax is a pathway to many revenues some consider to be 'unnatural.'
Hunh. Read the entire post to see the harmful effects of the horrid tax system.
Mankiw is Karl Rove's puppet. This proves it:
It's strange what's happened since then. When he became a New York Times columnist, he decided to abandon writing about economics as an economist does. He's very liberal, which is fine—most of my friends at Harvard are liberal—but whenever someone disagrees with him, his first inclination is to think that person is either a liar or a fool. It's amazing to me that an academic would behave that way. The one thing that I value about academia is open-mindedness, the premise that all ideas and different points of view should be considered. No one has a monopoly on the truth. The one defining characteristic of a good professor is to be open to all viewpoints.
Neo-con!
Link via Marginal Revolution.
Incredible. Pentium M, the newest generation of Pentium III, thrashes the top of the line Intel and AMD processors on a clock-for-clock basis. The Pentium 4 has turned out to be not so, ahem, hot.
This leads me to these questions. Why has Intel spent so much time and money in pushing a relatively inefficient processor? Why are they not making available a better product for the desktop market?
... we have Howard Dean looking at a socialist and saying, "He is basically a liberal Democrat" who "votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time." Well, of course Bernie Sanders fits right in because today's Democratic Party is dominated by socialists. Now will people like Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, & John Kerry admit that they're socialists? No, but even the head of the DNC is publicly saying there isn't a dime's worth of difference between a socialist like Bernie Sanders and liberal Democrats.
[Emphasis mine]
I like honest Democrats. They always lose at the national level.
The following picture was stolen from this post:
Wow. Guns, like most other pleasures, are banned in Saudi Arabia. So, the closest I've come to firing a weapon like this is in Counter-Strike.
The AS50 looks like just the thing for those occasions when you really want to reach out and touch something, or someone.
Bwahaha. Oh, the blurb under the AS50 and five bullets is priceless.
Klaidman: We are neutral on whether any form of Koran desecration took place.
Spoken like a true Dhimmi.