20 Responses to “Busy Busy Busy”

1. Andrew Brehm Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 11:53 am

   “So Israelies and palestinians both commit war-crimes. Everyone has blood on their hands there. Fantastic. Tell us something we don’t know!”

   I think that was the first time “Human Rights Watch” has ever reported that Palestinian Arabs could have been involved in a war crime. So that was news.

   OTOH I’m not sure the world really believes in Israeli war crimes. If people really did believe the stories, would Palestinian Arabs and foreign priests and nuns REALLY believe that forming a human shield around a terrorists’ home would actually work?

   I assume that Israelis are either known for killing civilians for fun XOR for trying to avoid that. It cannot be both.

   And it looks to me as if Arab confidence in human shields is a bit too high if they really believed their own stories about Israel’s war crimes.

   Comments? Questions?

2. Dan Irving Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 1:24 pm

   That’s the beauty of modern media Andrew - you don’t actually have to use facts and rationale when reporting a ’story’. Hell - you can even report outright lies (RE: Al Dura, Pallywood, et al) that get thousands of people killed and if you happen to be State Run Media (France 2) you even protection from said state and get to sue anyone with contrary opionions (RE: France2 and Charles Enderlin vs. Philippe Karsenty).

   Linkys since I don’t know if this comment section can use HTML code:

   Al Dura:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Dura
   Pallywood:
   http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/pallywood-a-history/
   vs. Karsenty: http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2006/11/07/karsentys-decision-up-in-english-translation/

3. hebe Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 2:32 pm

   banned schmannted , youll probably find in in diwan at some point
   after all i did buy the satanic verses there

4. Memz Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 3:52 pm

   dude, that is a lot of thinking and reading to do! This is like a massdive brain dump!

5. RocketRay Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 4:49 pm

   It’s official, democracy leads to islamists winning elections.

   Democracy in the Middle East is like toilet paper: it is used once and then thrown away.

6. Drima @ The SudaneseThinker Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 5:07 pm

   “Democracy in the Middle East is like toilet paper: it is used once and then thrown away.”

   LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

   Oh ya and SM thanx for pointing out one of the best blogs everrrr. This JoanC chick is craaazy!

7. tommy Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 5:26 pm

   Leftist economist (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one)

   It’s the new name for a Marxist. I’m no pinko; I’m a leftist economist, you see

   Concerning democracy in the Muslim world: I’ll continue to hold out hope for secular-minded forward-thinking people even with the Islamists currently on the rise. Religion must become more personal and less political if the Muslim world wants to be truly free. There must be a solid separation of “mosque and state” if democracy is going to be anything but a short-term affair among Muslims.

8. Egypeter Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 6:37 pm

   “There must be a solid separation of “mosque and state” if democracy is going to be anything but a short-term affair among Muslims.”

   You are right on tommy. There is very little doubt of that fact. And as we can all see what’s happening in Iraq it basically validates your point.

   But right now, there is no separation b/w ‘mosque and state’ and as a matter of fact it’s THE EXACT OPPOSITE, at least in Egypt. The way it is these days is, ‘Their is no state without mosque’. There are NO political decisions taken without regard to Islam in the Egyptian government, as evident by the reaction of Egypt’s parliament over the harmless remarks of Farouk Hosni, the Minister of Culture, over the hijab.

   I’ve come to the sad and heart-breaking conclusion that Egypt will NEVER have a separations between “mosque and state”…unless something really really drastic happens.

   The argument of: Arabs are incapable of engaging in a ‘true democracy,’ while I didn’t want to believe in it, seems to be more and more true. Apparantly, they will ALWAYS elect Islamists (as evident in Baharain) and these people wouldn’t know what a ‘democracy’ is if it hit them in the face!

9. Dan Irving Says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 6:46 pm

   ‘Religion must become more personal and less political if the Muslim world wants to be truly free”

   In this we agree Tommy. Islam needs a Reformation. Reformation in Christianity occured when certain criteria were met: a) People willing to stand up the the religious powers that be (Martin Luther), b) the rapid spread of ideas (printing press) and the rise of intelligencia (Renaissance).

   These factors exist today in the Islamic world. Of course, the Protestant Reformation took a couple hundred years.

10. Dan Irving Says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 7:00 pm

    Egypeter,

    It’s not that I don’t think “Arabs are incapable of engaging in a ‘true democracy’. I do think there are many roadblocks that will seem insurmountable. Heck, even America isn’t a ‘true democracy’. Our forefathers knew better. Taken as a whole, people exhibit a herd mentality (to put things mildly). This is why they developed a bi-cameral Democratic Republic. It took hundreds of years, and much blood to attain any measure of stability (oldest government in existance outside of Iceland). Even so, our Republic is not 100% efficient. I liken our government to an internal combustion engine. The engine converts only 20% of it’s energy into useful motivational power. That’s a whole lotta waste; yet every deveoped nation uses them.

    A ‘true democracy’ has it’s drawbacks. You only have to watch what is going on in Palestine to see the most glaring. This is why my American forefathers also included the Right to Bear Arms in the Bill of Rights. They believed that it is the duty of the people to topple their own government if it becomes tyranical.

11. Dan Irving Says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 7:01 pm

    EDIT
    “It’s not that I don’t think “Arabs are incapable of engaging in a ‘true democracy’.”

    OK - used too many negatives - I meant to say:

    I don’t think “Arabs are incapable of engaging in a ‘true democracy’.

12. Don Cox Says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 8:58 pm

    Saddam’s first trial, for which he received the death sentence, was for massacring a whole village because of an assassination attempt. A massacre isn’t genocide.

    The current trial is for systematically killing Kurds just for being Kurds, which if proved is genocide.

13. scooter Says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 11:29 pm

    #10..Dan Irving..”oldest government in existence outside Iceland”. You would be talking about the English ( Westminster style ) government which developed after the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 eh ? As for the 2nd ammendment and “This is why my American forefathers also included The Right to Bear Arms in the Bill of Rights. They believed that it is the duty of the people to topple their own government if it becomes tyrannical “. WTF ?? The right of a ‘well regulated militia’ to bear arms was IMHO, for defence of the U.S. from foreign invasion not for regime change. There is also the point that an individual is not a militia, hence all the court action re individual rights to gun ownership. I don’t see why your forefathers would have thought that armed insurrection was the way to go, things appear to have changed though. In December 1791, when the Bill of Rights was adopted, Congress could see that they would soon be fighting for the survival of the U.S. Between the Barbary Pirates and the British, the U.S. realised that there would be a need for a volunteer fighting force to augment the 10,000 or so regulars…NOT for arresting and deposing errant Presidents.

14. charlie 316 Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 12:37 am

    #10 Dan Irving - I think you have been reading too much Harry Turtledove - “How few remain”, perhaps if you think the right to bear arms is about regime change. Not being an American myself so I might be confused, but I thought one of the points of the constitution was to deal with errant presidents (impeachment perhaps) and that if a duly elected majority tried to impose tyrannical laws on minorities, then the Supreme Court had a role in striking down legistlation that violated the constitution. Greatly simplified I know, but I doubt the founding fathers expected or wanted internal political disputes to be settled by a well aimed bullet from someone who had the “right” to bear arms.

15. Dan Irving Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 3:14 am

    Scooter,

    It has been debated, by far superior minds than mine, about what exactly the Founding Fathers were thinking when they crafted the US Constituation and the Bill of Rights. The prominent interpretation of the Second Amendment (Right to Arm Bears) is just the idea you reject : that the common man can use force of arms to overturn a corrupt or tyranical government. Yes Charlie, there are many checks an balances in place to protect us from such a downward spiral. We’ve also been lucky that for the last 230 years we’ve never had to violently revolt. A good man set president (feel the pun, feel it!) by only serving two terms as our nations leader which was uncontested until FDR.

    It isn’t about the right to bear arms equating with regime change - it’s about that threat keeping our leaders in line. No, the founding fathers didn’t want disputes settled with a gun, but knew they could not take that option off the table. Think about it, they had just fought a war where most of the fighting men were commoners who used personal arms to gain their freedom. It was this ‘right’ that allowed for the formation of the USA.

    Oh and Scooter, I wasn’t talking about the establishment of systems. The US is a federal republic founded upon the republic system pioneered by the Greeks and later refined by the Romans. The westminister style of government, by it’s very nature changes ‘government’ whenever a new party gains a majority. The government, under this system, can be dissolved if a vote of no confidence passes. When the government reconstitutes (after elections or whatnot) it isn’t the same government as was dissovled thus ’starts over’ as I understand it. The US system, on the other hand, has never dissolved, even during our civil war. It has been in existence for 230 years.

16. scooter Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 4:37 am

    #15…Dan. The problem with your argument is that it would then mean that Timothy McVeigh was at least partially justified in that he believed the Federal Government had become corrupt and tyranical and wanted to overthrow it. Having just fought a war against what they believed was a C & T government (The King) there is a possibility you are correct about the founding fathers but I wasn’t there and I’d say that historians are divided. The 2nd ammendment will be fought over for years and will ebb and flow according to who has the best lawyers and who’s hand picked judges are on the bench…which is why I disagree with your selection of judicial appointments as a matter of correct jurisprudence. Your leaders should be kept in line with the ballot box, not buck-shot or do you think that they are so basically flawed that it may be necessary to have a few extra-judicial removals from office ? As for change of government…politicians come and go, civil servants stay under our system but the basic system of …’of the people, by the people, for the people’ remains as the core system. The core values always remain as does the system which is what I was referring to. The fact that it was never dissolved is immaterial, you have fixed terms and our Government ‘can go to the people’ if they think it’s necessary (more like politically expedient but I don’t much care for politicians). We have two houses and our states are moving to 4 year fixed terms..the main difference is your collegiate system..bout all really. I must remain in my disagreement with your assessment of the 2nd…so there !

17. Andrew Brehm Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 9:31 am

    “A ‘true democracy’ has it’s drawbacks. You only have to watch what is going on in Palestine to see the most glaring. This is why my American forefathers also included the Right to Bear Arms in the Bill of Rights.”

    That must be the most unintentionally sarcastic statement I have heard this year.

    “They believed that it is the duty of the people to topple their own government if it becomes tyranical.”

    Perhaps. But how do we know that the people are better than their own tyrannical government?

18. ella Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 9:37 am

    Oh my god.
    Do I see “pandora’s legions” taking over Bahrain?
    BTW Charlie316, too much of Turtledove alternative history is bad, it might mess your brain

19. BrooklynJon Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 5:47 pm

    Three quotes from Thomas Jefferson:

    Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

    Every generation needs a new revolution.

    For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

    (By “militia”, TJ means an army comprised of civilians otherwise employed in other fields, as opposed to a standing army.)

20. Manchester Moves Says:
    March 30th, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    Agree Dan. They can print what they like or rather what the corporations want. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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