Boy, I’ll be that Iran and Syria are quaking in their collective boots by threats from the “realists.”

Democracy in Iraq? Who cares? Not James Baker, or the New York Times, obviously.

Boy, I’ll be that Iran and Syria are quaking in their collective boots by threats from the “realists.”

Democracy in Iraq? Who cares? Not James Baker, or the New York Times, obviously.

France and Italy have been funding terrorists in Iraq:

Another challenge for the United States, the report says, was to persuade foreign governments to

Victor Davis Hanson says that we’re still in the “phony war” stage:

…why would either Damascus or Teheran wish to talk? The answer is plain. The former wants to profess to cool it a bit in destabilizing Iraq in exchange for us turning a blind eye in Lebanon; the latter wants to act like stopping the sending of agents of our destruction into Iraq in exchange for cooling our rhetoric about their bomb. What we would be doing in essence by

Victor Davis Hanson says that we’re still in the “phony war” stage:

…why would either Damascus or Teheran wish to talk? The answer is plain. The former wants to profess to cool it a bit in destabilizing Iraq in exchange for us turning a blind eye in Lebanon; the latter wants to act like stopping the sending of agents of our destruction into Iraq in exchange for cooling our rhetoric about their bomb. What we would be doing in essence by

Victor Davis Hanson says that we’re still in the “phony war” stage:

…why would either Damascus or Teheran wish to talk? The answer is plain. The former wants to profess to cool it a bit in destabilizing Iraq in exchange for us turning a blind eye in Lebanon; the latter wants to act like stopping the sending of agents of our destruction into Iraq in exchange for cooling our rhetoric about their bomb. What we would be doing in essence by

In a victory for freedom of expression, Nonie Darwish has been reinvited to speak at Brown:

Any Arab who speaks differently from the status quo is immediately just branded as traitor, and they want to shut us up. We left the Middle East thinking we

Jonah Goldberg thinks that Battlestar Galactica’s writers have fallen into the “why do they hate us” trap, in a completely absurd way (and one that continues to mislead the public about the nature of our real-life enemy):

Adama concludes it’s all his fault because he led the mission that proved the human race really were “war mongers” in the eyes of the Cylons.

I don’t want to use a lot of philosophical or literary lingo here, but this is really stooooooopid. Let’s say I’ve been feuding with my neighbor a lot. We’ve called a draw and built a tall fence to avoid each other. But I don’t trust him and I think he may be up to something. So, I peek over the fence. Maybe I even climb over it and look around his back yard for a minute. When my neighbor sees this his immediate response is to get a hatchet and slaughters my entire family, including my relatives in other homes far away. Clearly: It’s all my fault!

What is so depressing about this is that Ronald Moore and the other creators of BSG seem to think that “instigating” a conflict in any way assigns the moral responsibility to the instigator. If I step on a psychopath’s toe, it’s my fault when he buries a ballpoint pen in my forehead. Or, to be fair, they think this is a reasonable, morally serious view. And since they believe it’s their job to illuminate the issues in the war on terror, it cannot be denied that they think this is a serious position in the debate over that conflict.

Again: This is really stooooooopid. The idea that the human race had it coming from the Cylons is moral flapdoodle (and flatly unbelievable; the creators seem to think decent humans would be deeply conflicted about declaring total war on a bunch of artificial lifeforms who slaughtered 99% of humanity).

Judith Weiss has some questions for Brown University, after it rescinded an invitation to a former Muslim speaker that is critical of Islam:

1) Does the Brown Muslim student group have the same compunctions about bringing in a Jewish speaker who criticizes Judaism?

2) If they planned to bring one in and the Jewish students protested, would the Muslim students defer to them?

3) Has a Jew ever been silenced on a college campus for misrepresenting or denigrating Judaism?

4) Is the problem just that Darwish criticizes Islam, or that she compares it unfavorably to Judaism? For example, this appreciation of the self-reflection demanded during the High Holidays, contrasted with the shame/honor imperative of the Islam she grew up with. Is it that Darwish criticizes the Arab Middle East, or that she defends Israel?

5) Is it an acceptable stance at a university supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas for either group to have veto power over the others’ invited speakers? Whatever happened to reasoned disagreement? If Darwish is saying things that aren’t true or are unfair, let the Muslim students attend her speech and respectfully ask her tough questions.

The double standards and hypocrisy here are astounding, considering the kind of enthusiastic audiences that colleges can get for Palestinians and their sympathizers who criticize Israel and Jews.

The Dutch have banned the burka. A small step toward the liberation of women, at least in Europe. And yes, it is that, despite their no longer having the “freedom” to hide their faces.