Acting crazy

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway quotes an Autralian newspaper's report that "Israel threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed.", and calls it "stupid beyond belief".

I’m afraid that this (the report) is a canard, but boy, do I wish it were true! It is high time for Israel (and for the US for that matter), to start behaving a bit more irresponsibly, if not outright crazy in this war. World’s sympathy? Screw it! It ended for us soon after it became clear after 9/11 that the US would not roll over and die, but intends to punch back. Oh, the outrage! The condemnations! Israel should borrow a page from the playbook by that nutcase, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and start talking about wiping Palestine off the map, or nuking Tehran. Apparently, he gets results, with the Europeans offering a “package of incentives” so that Iran does not build The Bomb. How about a nice package of incentives from the Arab countries for not hanging a big mushroom cloud over Mecca?
You can’t get the attention of fanatical killers by playing nice. They’ve been chopping people’s heads in front of video cameras, and the world gets upset because American soldiers - the savages! - photographed naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and play-acted electrocution. If the world is going to hate the Jews and the Americans anyway, why not at least give them good reasons?

Gone to live on a farm

A very funny and poignant piece by David Zincavage at Never Yet Melted illustrating how American "intelligentsia today are like children. They have no first hand experience commonly of the harsh and difficult choices adults have to make. And, like children, they are naive, sentimental, and do not understand evil."

By all means, go and read the whole thing.

Let Moussaoui live

I would not give Zacarias Moussaoui the death penalty, because this is what he wants. He thinks of himself as some sort of a "martyr", and that his death at the hands of infidels will bring him the heavenly rewards he expects. It is worth remembering that islamofascism is a death cult - these "people" worship and seek death, and have repeatedly stated their contempt for the "love of life" prevalent in the West, which, in their twisted minds, is a weakness.

Therefore, a death penalty would not be a penalty for Moussaoui. I would throw him in prison, let him grow old in there, watching his side lose and be thrown into the trash bin of history, while the enemy he hates grows in strength and prospers. "Good life is the best revenge", as someone brilliantly said.

There is also the sliver of a chance - really, really tiny, I know - that he may one day be granted a horrifying glimpse into the nature of evil he helped commit, and be tormented by guilt for the rest of his days. Obviously, the chance of that happening is ridiculously tiny, so if it were the only thing, I'd say, kill the bastard. But the possibility that he will be eaten alive by his unfulfilled hatred is real. So let’s not give him the easy way out.

Letter to Senator Bill Frist

I wrote to Senator Bill Frist, stating my opposition to any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants. It was a summary of a post I wrote on this topic. Senator Frist responed. I can't say that I'm satisfied.

Boycott Borders

I'm joining the boycott of Borders and sending back my Borders Rewards card. Read this piece in the Hartfort Currant to find out why. A quote:

Borders, which also owns Waldenbooks, announced last week that it would not carry the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine, which contains the Danish cartoons that offended many in the Muslim world. Though there have been no reports of direct threats against stores carrying the magazine, a Borders spokeswoman says the decision was "based on the potential for a compromise of the safety and security of our employees."

As Andrew Sullivan put it: "[V]iolence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more."

UPDATE: It turns out, you can cancel your Borders Rewards membership online. This is what I did.

South Park and Cartoon Jihad

I do not watch television, and I don't think I miss much, but I've heard good things about the animated cartoon "South Park", with its clever, biting satire, so I do wish I had the chance to watch it streamed on the Web, or buy individual episodes for download. Apparently, the latest episode ridiculed the sheepishness of the West when confronted with (possibility of) a threat of violence from an angry mob of Moslems. The Political Pit Bull posted a clip from the episode - do go see it - and it is, indeed, very funny (and, at the same time, very depressing, because it's so true...) [Hat tip: Michelle Malkin]

In this clip, the townsfolk of South Park are panicking, because a popular show ("Family Guy") is planning to show the famous "Mohammed cartoons" that so outraged Moslems. Fearing that their Muslim neighbors might riot, they ask the mayor of South Park what to do. An invited university professor offers this solution: bring a few truckloads of sand and have the townsfolk bury their heads in it. That way they won't be accused of watching the offending cartoons, and the rioting Moslems may leave them alone.

A lone voice protests, "We should all display these cartoons, to show that we're united in defense of our freedom of speech, and that we will not be intimidated by the threat of violence. Otherwise, we believe in the freedom of speech, but are not willing to defend it." (I'm quoting from memory, so the words used might have been different, but I think I captured the gist.) After a moment of meaning-laden silence, someone from the crowd responds: "I like the sand idea better. Seems easier." The crowd agrees.

It truly is a sorry state of affairs if cartoonists are the ones standing up for the value we seemingly hold so dear, while politicians, the mainstream media, businesses, even academia, are eager to bury their heads in sand and offer platitudes about "sensitivity".

Stuck in a time warp

What is with these bumper stickers, "Gore for President" or "Al Gore 2004" (and variations thereof)? I see quite a few of them around in the liberal Ann Arbor. What is this, a "Groundhog Day"? (Remember that 1993 movie with Bill Murray, in which he had to re-live the same day over and over again?) It's 2006, people! The election is over. (Bush won, by the way. This time by the popular vote as well.)

Ironically, the most famous outfit of the Livid Left is called MoveOn. (Yes, that's the one that held a contest of anti-Bush propaganda, in which at least one of the submitted ads equated Bush with Hitler. How original.) I hope they mean it as a reminder to themselves, because, apparently, that's one of the things the Left is not capable of doing.

There is also this yard sign that appears here and there: "Impeach Bush". That one never fails to bring a smile to my face. Yes, the President of the United States will be removed from office on the request of a few morons who put a yard sign. Why don't they add other, easy-to-fulfill wishes alongside that one? Like: "End Winter. Start Summer.", or "Free plastic surgery for every American!", or "Keep Heaven for Democrats only."