musing minds

From the International Herald Tribune:

More importantly, Iran’s admission came only after it was confronted with the evidence. I’m no expert, but 18 years seems like a long time to develop weapons systems. Awhile ago I wrote about the Left’s failure to appreciate the dangers of a false negative in such circumstances. Hard choices are approaching. The Left can await the outcome of this one and then preach about errors made in hindsight, but it would be nice for them to actually constructively enter the debate for the good of the country.

Even after raising the bar, Rall concedes that his ridiculous challenge has been met:

Believe it or not, no, I did NOT know that any of this stuff was out there. I’d read references by Republican bloggers to such things, but no one ever provided a link and I could never find it. Suffice it to say, this stuff pisses me off and should not be tolerated by anyone who purports to be a law-abiding American. And again: mainstream blogs like Kos should delete this shit as soon as it appears–as should the nasty right-wing sites like Little Green Footballs.

Has the challenge been met? Yes.

He has the nerve to express surprise, as if his ignorance wasn’t based on his own blinding bias, but on some blogosphere wide conspiracy to keep the truth from him.

Blindingly biased left wing media expresses bewilderment at their ignorance after being force fed the facts by conservative bloggers – pretty much an average day in the blogosphere. (Update: scroll up to get Rall’s admission, he doesn’t seem to have links for each posting.)

As usual Mark Steyn hits the nail on the head. His latest is an article entitled “U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode.” He writes:

Europe’s problems — its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed — are all of Europe’s making. By some projections, the EU’s population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches — and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

I seem to recall two previous implosions in Europe that were pretty messy and violent.

Update: Welcome Modern Tribalist readers.

Mubarak is calling for a change to the constitution to allow for multi-party presidential elections.

I guess the left will have to stroke off “what about Egypt” from the list of canned responses to the success of democracy in the region.

You all probably know about Rall’s challenge to conservative bloggers. Well take a look at his original challenge:

Several Bushist blogger types have written to assert that there are as many violent and threatening remarks and insults coming from liberals online as there are from conservatives against liberals. I’ve spent many sadly-lost hours online, and I say: no way.

So here’s my challenge: Please email your worst, most vicious examples of liberal/leftie blogger vitriol (with links, natch), and I’ll post ’em right here. If they exist, obviously.

Note he’s asking for violent and threatening remarks and insults. The most vicious vitriol we could find.

Then it’s:

Remains totally unanswered. Come on, righties–show us these supposed death threats against conservative pundits and politicians written by leftie bloggers.Remember the standard: we’re talking threats of death, dismemberment, etc.–the kind of stuff I wrote about in my column this week as well as on my blog.

OK death threats, and dismemberment. Note he asks us to remember what he posted before, but it gets better.

Now it’s:

Remember, we’re looking for specific threats of violence and/or murder against specific media and political personalities on the right, authored by lefties. “I hope Ann Coulter dies painfully” qualifies. Generic threats, like “I hope Republicans die,” do not.

Specific threats of violence and/or murder. Again, he asks us to remember. Do you think Ted realizes how foolish he looks? Not a chance.
UPDATE: PoliPundit has a great reply.

Here’s a few quotes from the Guardian:

Welcome though these assurances on Iran are, they do not go to the heart of the matter, which remains the neocons’ agenda for the Arab world and their support for the most hardline elements in Israel. Europe needs to be highly wary.
…
But it is Syria’s support for Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon and the Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories which irritates Sharon most.
…
Hizbullah’s reputation within the Arab world as the only group which has forced the Israeli army to retreat is a constant source of annoyance….
…
As the US campaign developed last year, Damascus reacted in confusion. It made the mistake of pressing the Lebanese parliament to extend the pro-Syrian president’s term. On the other hand it accepted several Washington demands. It agreed to joint US-Iraqi-Syrian controls over its border to stop insurgents passing into Iraq.
…
Europe has to resist the Bush-Sharon agenda of wanting Abbas to “crack down on terrorism” in advance of Israel’s Gaza withdrawal… (emphasis mine)

Get that folks. The problem isn’t Syria. They’re simply confused and mistaken. The problem isn’t Hizbulla, who by the way are not terrorists but “guerrillas”, as they are merely a source of irritation and “annoyance”to Sharon ( those bloody body parts all over the street after a car bomb sure are an eye sore). No, Europe should be wary of the “Neocon agenda” and the “hardline elements in Israel.” There’s also no legitimate terrorism in Gaza on which to crack down, only a “Bush-Sharon agenda.”

What’s sad is that this kind of thinking is the norm in Europe.

The judge has ruled that Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube can be removed in three weeks, stating “The court is no longer comfortable granting stays simply upon the filings of new motions…”

How could a court make such a callous statement, as if it wasn’t a human life at stake, but rather a house deal gone bad, or a contested will? The problem isn’t the judge, though his statements seemed to be grotesquely insensitive. The problem is the fact that courts determine legal issues and nothing more. The same courts, the same judges and the same legal procedures that were developed to determine the validity of a will, or a house sale, are now determining the existence of someone’s life.

This is why the court coldly stated that “there will always be new issues” in refusing to allow further stays. In a court of law, a life is no longer a life, but a mere legal issue. This is what it has come to.

As usual, Ann Coulter’s razor sharp claws are deadly accurate. When you separate all the frivolous allegations the attacks all come down to the fact that he’s gay. Here’s some Ann:

On the op-ed page of The New York Times, Maureen Dowd openly lied about the press pass, saying: “I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the ‘Barberini Faun’ is credentialed?”

Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from “Talon News” got one, even if he is a better reporter.

But Dowd was talking about two different passes without telling her readers (a process now known in journalism schools as “Dowdification”). Gannon didn’t have a permanent pass; he had only a daily pass. Almost anyone can get a daily pass — even famed Times fantasist Maureen Dowd could have gotten one of those. A daily pass and a permanent pass are altogether different animals. The entire linchpin of Dowd’s column was a lie. (And I’m sure the Times’ public editor will get right on Dowd’s deception.)

Read the whole thing, its great.

Juan Cole does his best to give us the negative spin on democracy in the Middle East in an article entitled, get this, “The Downside of Democracy“. What’s next, “Oxygen: The Dark Side Conservatives Don’t Want You to Know About”? The doom and gloom left never ceases to amaze me.

I’ll give you the Coles Notes version of Cole’s article – democracy can be bad because the leaders the people choose may end up being radical and/or anti US. He does his best to draw comparisons to other elections with “mixed results” such as Pakistan and Lebanon. However you don’t need to be a professor in Middle Eastern Studies to know that we are sort of rewriting the book on Iraq here. That’s why most of the “experts” who have been making dire predictions of civil war, a humanitarian catastrophe, an inferno of burning oil fields and failed elections with low turnout, have been wrong. You also don’t have to be a professor in Political Studies or Journalism to know that we wouldn’t be hearing the incessant drone of bad news and dire predictions from the media and academic left that turn out to continually be wrong, if this wasn’t Bush’s baby.

I think the smart money is on Bush, not the academic left.

What does selective advocacy of particular rights and freedoms say about the group purporting to advocate them? What affect does such selective advocacy have on the rights themselves?

Powerline links to a great article by Debra Saunders which looks at the differentiation in treatment of two professors, Summers and Churchill. You’ll recall that Summers made statements regarding the lack of women in high-end science professions. Churchill on the other hand, basically theorized that the victims of 9/11 had it coming. The Left wants Summers’ head, but is rallying around Churchill to protect his “academic freedom”. Read it all.

This hypocrisy is nothing new. I think the worst example of selective rights advocacy was the complete silence from the feminist left regarding the Afghanistan elections. Afghan women were among the world’s most oppressed people. Stoned or even killed for any form of “moral transgression”. Women could not attend school or occupy any formal positions whatsoever. One would expect that feminists would stand up and celebrate their emancipation. Yet there was silence. No rallies, no flurries of articles or publications. Nothing. This was Bush’s emancipation and they wanted no part of it.

It seems clear is that these “rights defenders” are not really that at all. They are rights users. Only when it is politically convenient does the left cry out in agony, fighting the unjust suffering at the hands of the evil conservatives. When it is not politically convenient, well, the suffering doesn’t really matter that much. The rights’ advocates are cheapened. But more importantly, so are the rights themselves.
UPDATE: Compare the silence of the feminists described above to the raving madness linked to by Lorie at Polipundit.