About Me

Name:Michael
Biography
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Sectarianism among Muslims and Madness at the United Nations

Jim Maceda wrote a blog on MSNBC detailing his experiences with his family in France, of whom are converted Muslims. After spending extensive time in Iraq, the importance of Islamic sects was ingrained in his mind. His post is a good suggestion of the nonsense that is sectarian violence:

In the course of our table talk, I pointed to a young woman wearing a hijab - the Muslim veil - in one of the wedding reception photos and asked who it was. She was the wife of one of Nader's cousins, I was told.

"Is she Shiite or Sunni?" I asked, thinking - erroneously, it turned out - that the more conservative-looking Muslims at the reception would be Shiite. Both Nader and Juliette looked at me with blank stares. Then they looked at each other. Then back to me. "I really don't know," offered Nader, somewhat embarrassed, or confused, by the question.

"You don't know?" I replied, in disbelief and, no doubt, conditioned by my extensive time in Iraq. "How can you NOT know?"

''Because it's not something we ever talk about," answered Nader. "Shiite, or Sunni, it just doesn't matter.''



Meanwhile, I don't know how many of you were (un)fortunate enough to listen to Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech. The freaky part about it was his closing prayer, which was not mentioned in very many following newspaper reports:

"I emphatically declare that today's world more than ever before longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity, and above all longs for the perfect, righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet. Oh Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers among those who strive for his return and his cause."

After reading that, I couldn't help but wonder what world reaction would have been if President Bush had gone before the United Nations General Assembly and called for all men and women to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

Yeah. Think about that.



And the fruitcake festival continued with Hugo Chavez throwing a copy of some Noam Chomsky book around and called President Bush "the devil." Allah has the video.

And of course, he was meant with applause. I'm beginning to get queazy with the United Nations now. I'll go with Hugh Hewitt, we should keep our membership but we should stop paying for this circus.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Pope Benedict XVI.

I don't feel the compulsion to add any more commentary to the issue of the Pope's remarks, but I do feel the need to put forth some resources pertaining to the issue.

First, read the actual speech. Catholic World News has been nice enough to provide it for us. I'm pretty confident that a large amount of the Muslims that have gone up in arms over this latest outrage have not read the offending speech.

Second, get some informed knowledge. The Pope has been placed to a role so high that what he says seems to speak for all the faithful in the West. Christopher Hitchens' latest Slate column pointed this out well:

There are many popes within Christianity—the Coptic Church has one, and the Eastern Orthodox Church also boasts a patriarch or holy father—but we have acquired the habit of using the term to describe only the bishop of Rome (as the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church describe him), and this is a pity for many reasons. It confers a sort of supreme authority on the leader of only one Christian sect, and it therefore helps to give non-Christians the impression that the representative of Roman Catholicism represents rather more of the "West" than he actually does.

Michael Medved is not nearly as critical of Pope Benedict XVI as Hitchens, but his commentary is also worth reading.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Unbelievable

Sigh. The guys at Daily Kos really are off their rocker. Is there anything Bush isn't to blame for?

Bush Administration officials planted ineffectual political operatives in high level positions as a reward for campaigning for the Republicans.

Bush administration officials cut the budget and the staff for the FDA, we have all heard this before, two or three years ago.

Expect more of this lack of oversight to endanger us in every area the Bush Administration has appointed idiots and Republican operatives instead of experts.

Bush cannot protect you from anything. Not Terrorism. Not Hurricanes. Not even bacteria.


Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive



I was a little surprised to find a large portion of Aljazeera's website devoted to the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong. Most of what I've seen on their english site centers around Arab politics, though Chinese politics really does affect everyone in the world.

One of the feature articles showcases Sidney Rittenberg, the only American to join the Chinese Communist Party.

As you can see from the layout of the site, Mao isn't being treated with rough criticism. Take this article called "Mao 'the protector of the poor'":

Standing in the white clouds before a radiant sun, Chairman Mao looks down with a paternal smile on happy peasants working the fertile land.

 

For Wang, Mao is the father of modern China.


"I remember Chairman Mao looked after the poor," she says. "Before liberation we couldn't find food, but afterwards Mao made sure the poor people could eat. There were no beggars in Mao's time."

 

And from Aljazeera's Q&A on the Dear Leader:

Many see him as a visionary and patriot who allowed China to become independent of what they see as foreign humiliation and put the nation on its rightful path to becoming a world power.

 

Others, particularly among the younger urban generation, view Mao as an historical figure of little relevance to the consumerist China of today.

 

Many older Chinese, however, irrespective of their views on the man himself, look back on Mao's time as more egalitarian and less corrupt than China today.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Political Test

I think I can live with this. Though the survey did seem to tilt one to the left.

ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS,

The political description that
fits you best is...

.

CENTRIST

 

CENTRISTS espouse a "middle ground" regarding government

control of the economy and personal behavior. Depending on

the issue, they sometimes favor government intervention

and sometimes support individual freedom of choice.

Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind,

tend to oppose "political extremes," and emphasize what

they describe as "practical" solutions to problems.

 

The RED DOT on the Chart shows where you fit on the political map.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 50%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 60%.
(Please note: Scores falling on the Centrist border are counted as Centrist.)

......................................................................

8,022,325

.

THAT'S HOW MANY TIMES THE QUIZ
HAS BEEN TAKEN SO FAR.

(Results are renewed after each submission.)

......................................................................

How People Have Scored


Centrist 33.16 %


Right (Conservative) 8.68 %


Libertarian 32.73 %


Left (Liberal) 17.51 %


Statist (Big Government) 7.91 %


Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (4) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Zinn

For some reason I find myself blogging overtime on the weekends. Seeing as my work doesn't really require me to go anywhere, it's not like I'm not around the computer enough to blog. Hmmm...

Earlier this week, Dennis Prager posted an article, which is available on Townhall.com, which documented a discussion he had with the legendary Leftist, Howard Zinn. Zinn is author of The People's History of the United States, which I have somewhere in the house. Their dialogue was very interesting:

HZ: That's true that the great majority of Indians died of disease in the 17th century when the Europeans first came here. But after that -- after the American Revolution -- when the colonists expanded from the thin band of colonies along the Atlantic and expanded westward, at that point we began to annihilate the Indian tribes. We committed massacres all over the country . . . .

DP: What percentage of the Indians do you believe we massacred, as opposed to diseases ravaged?

HZ: Oh, well it might have been 10 percent.

DP: But 10 percent is very different from the generalization of "we annihilated the Indians."

HZ: Oh, well 10 percent is a huge number of Indians, that is. So it's pointless I think to argue about whether disease . . . or deliberate attacks killed more Indians . . . .

DP: No, but 10 percent is very different from what the general statement of "annihilate" tends to indicate. That's all I am saying.

HZ: Okay.


Prager's interview with Zinn is also available as a podcast.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Hugo Chavez with Action Grip

So it appears as if every world leader worth his salt has an action figure.

George Bush has several:

Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12
George W. Bush Talking Action Figure

But the real sculpting comes out when we look at the world's most vile dictators and tyrants.

Usuals like Saddam:


Of course, Osama bin Laden:


But a new breed is coming, and this is by far the best looking one I've seen of a dictator:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

It gets me wondering. How long until we see an Ahmadinejad action figure? Does Qaddafi have one? And I'd expect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would already have his martyr figure being produced to lure in young followers.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Canadian pullout?

Last month, I was vacationing in the Galeano Islands, a beautiful region of British Columbia. There were no computers or televisions where we were staying and I didn't feel like going to the nearby town whenever I desired to know what was going on in the outside world. To sum things up, the only real access I had to the outside world was through the local CBC radio station.

During the time I was there, Fidel Castro had handed power to his younger brother Raul, huge news in the eyes of many in the world. CBC covered it, but their coverage pailed to the coverage of what was a deadly week for Canadian troops in Afghanistan. It was nearly all that was talked about.

While Canadian voters recently backed a political leadership that is less likely to try to "negotiate" with Islamofascists, I could tell from the coverage that there was unease with the situation in Afghanistan. One interview which was played several times had a female soldier describing Afghanistan as a "hellhole."

It seems the attacks on Canadian troops are continuing. I don't claim to be an expert on domestic Canadian politics, but it seems there's a tactic being played by the terrorists. Hit civilians, hit local governments and hit allied forces. The terrorists have realized that Bush isn't one to back down, but they know that America's allies are not as steadfast.

The mission in Afghanistan is not over, and Afghanistan has been abandoned too many times in history to let it be abandoned once again. I hope the tactic of terror doesn't work on the people of Canada.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

"How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair"

LIBERTAS reports on yet another film involving the murder of a world leader. This time the world leader in question is Tony Blair and the film is entitled The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair.

While I am a huge advocate for free speech, as I laid out in my Death of a President post, this trend is beginning to be worrisome.

And while the music emphasis of Le Mole is gone, don't think for a minute that the Deschamps Blog will be absent of music. Today I'd like to send you towards a few artists that have infiltrated my iPod:

Joe Purdy
- While I'm not astounding by most of this guy's work, the song
'Wash Away" is absolutely mandatory for anytime when you're feeling like you're in a bad mood. I first heard the song on Lost, where it fit perfectly with the characters of the show, who all have problems that need to be washed away.

Rockie Lynne - A corny song. A patriotic song. A powerful song. "Red, White and Blue" honors the American soldier without getting political. Definitely recommended.

Gram Rabbit - This band is amazing. They're a bizarre hybrid between Garbage and classic rock bands like America (and I know how strange that sounds). Worth the listen.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Live out your dreams!! A night of Bush capturing



You get to fight the Great Satan himself in a video game, thanks to your friendly jihadist game developers.

I have to say that the fact that the video game's mission is limited to Bush capturing gives a little bit of hope that the Bush-killing frenzy may be dying down. Or not.

And it seems the story about Air America Radio filing for bankruptcy may not be true after all. Still, you can't say it wasn't believable. I'm surrounded by liberals, and very few of them that I've met listen to AAR. Most that listen to radio for news and information seem to go towards NPR.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The Liberal Post

This post is dedicated to that most haunting of phantoms, the Liberal Media. I'm going to go through several liberal outlets that I frequent on a fairly regular basis, and will tell you why you should visit them yourself. Some of my favorite writers and pundits were once members of not just the Left (which is not inherently bad, by any means. I would take John F. Kennedy over George W. Bush any day.), but the far Left. Examples include Christopher Hitchens, David Horowitz and Michael Medved.

Now, let's begin....

Hitchens Watch - I'm proud to say I read this on a regular basis. Hitchens Watch is run by Sonic, a witty New Zealander who is an expert at quoting Hitch out of context (wink wink). Sonic's blog is actually more up to date than Christopher Hitchens' own site, with the added bonus of opposing commentary.

Eat the State - This small little newspaper is seen throughout the streets of Seattle, and has been in production for the last ten years. It has touted the ideas of today's Democratic Party since back when the Democratic Party was fairly mainstream.  Their commentary is much more entertaining than The Nation and relates as much to national and international events as it does to Seattle-area news.

Their website leaves much to be desired, and it seems that ETS is far more focussed on their print edition. Operating like a college newspaper may suit them, but it doesn't help get much attention.

Given, if you want to know what the hard left is really thinking, ETS is a must.

Slate - Slate is liberal, as Jacob Weisberg has admitted himself. All one needs to demonstrate this is to take a listen at the weekly "Political Gabfest," where John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon and others gather around and hash over the week's events. Dickerson is the moderate news analyst, while the others are unabashed in their disdain for George Bush.

Given that, Slate is great. They recently finished publishing an excellent graphic adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report, and publish the legendary Chistropher Hitchens' weekly column. Must read, indeed
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

I Heart Townhall.com

I'm still surprised at how great Townhall.com has become. Before they relaunched it, I used it only as a means to get Thomas Sowell's column for my Economics class. Now this site seems like a constantly updated smorgasboard (I know I didn't spell that right) of intelligent and well-articulated commentary and information.

One of my favorite aspects has to be the blog. Mary Katherine Ham cracks me up on a regular basis with quips like this:

Ahh, the classic Reuters lede:

Four gunmen shouting religious slogans attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, but failed to harm any American diplomats before all four were killed, a Syrian official said.

Unspecified religious slogans? Perhaps it was something like, "Jesus loves me, this I know."


I also really appreciate the intelligence of Dean Barnett. Check out his great post on "suitcase nukes."
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

"Death of a President"



This may surprise those reading this blog, but I do not by any means object to the creation of Death of a President, a fake documentary portraying the 2007 assasination of President Bush. I'm intrigued by the idea of the film and find it pretty creative.

Also, I almost always find it disgusting when a film, book or other work of expression is called upon to be censored. I don't stick to defending those films I agree with. If someone believes that FDR had prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, that the Holocaust didn't happen, that JFK's assasination was ordered by George H.W. Bush or that the second plane that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11 was being followed by an F-16 (as Michael Moore himself claimed after the attack), they have the right to say it.

So to those who think this film shouldn't be allowed to play in American theaters, can it. It should be. Like any work of art, it's fair to criticize. It's not fair to censor.

Wall Street Journal today has a review for the film:

TORONTO -- The first question posed by "Death of a President" is whether a filmmaker has the right to shout Assassination in a crowded theater. That's what happened, in effect, on Sunday night at the Toronto International Film Festival when Gabriel Range's film was screened for the first time, to a turnaway audience. A fake documentary set one year in the future, "D.O.A.P.," as it has also been called, depicts the assassination of President Bush by a lone gunman, and the prosecutorial rush to judgment that follows.

The answer to the question is yes, of course a filmmaker has the right. A distinction must be made between provoking controversy with obviously fictional, albeit incendiary, events, and provoking panic over a nonexistent fire. What's more, Mr. Range, an Englishman with an uncommon gift for simulating reality on screen, plays a clever game with his audience, inviting a rush to judgment on the merits of his film. I confess to having done just that -- jumped to the conclusion, sight unseen, that nothing the film might contain would be likely to justify the implicit opportunism of its premise. Now that I've seen it, I think that sometimes one jumps to the right conclusion.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Ze Olbermench


I'm beginning to wonder if Keith Olbermann is really a Republican doing some sort of Stephen Colbert-style spoof of a liberal pundit. The words coming out of his mouth are just too ridiculous:

"A mini-series, created, influenced possibly financed by the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes."

Hahahahaha!!!!

Olbermann blothers on about America being an Orwellian 1984 society where our freedoms have been crushed, but his outrage at the airing of The Path to 9/11 shows a contempt for free expression that doesn't match his views.

Then again, why are we taking anything he says seriously?



Speaking of The Path to 9/11, I looked up Ahmed Shah Massoud and enjoyed reading his Wikipedia entry. From what I read Massoud sounds like he was a very heroic and good man, something that seems to be in short supply in that part of the world. Above is a picture of the man himself, below is Mido Hamada, the actor who portrayed him.

Mido Hamada
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Solemn tributes mark 9/11

I surprised myself last night, when I saw President Bush leave a wreath at Ground Zero, where the WTC once stood. (I realize that that is not what the above picture portrays, but stay with me here.) I burst into tears, and as I thought about that image throughout today I had to fight welling up. I found myself crying again when I saw the flag at half mast at a nearby fire department.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive