According to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post (Is Turkey's Government Starting a Muslim Reformation? Daniel Pipes, May 22, 2008), a government ministry in Turkey, the so-called Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Religious Charitable Foundation, has undertaken a three year project to study and condense thousands of pages of material associated with Islam. The problem, they claim, is that fourteen hundred years of Hadiths, reports about the sayings and deeds of Muhammad, have distorted the meaning of Islam as revealed in Islams central text, the Koran. The goal of the project is to weed-out all that is inconsistent with the Koran.
According to one of the eighty Islamic theologians involved, The Koran is our basic guide. Anything that conflicts with that we are trying to eliminate. According to Mehmet Görmez, a senior lecturer at Ankara University, We want to bring out the positive side of Islam that promotes personal honor, human rights, justice, morality, womens rights, respect for the other. To promote the spread of Islam in the 21st century, the Turkish theologians want to redefine how Muslims must practice Islam.
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Those savages are breeding like flies in Western Civilization. And the more they are, the more they demand. The more they demand, Western values are at risk.
The ghost of Jimmy Carter is haunting the 2008 campaign. Well, let me restate that: the ghost of his presidency haunts the 2008 campaign. As for Carter, he certainly has not passed on; he is an active officious intermeddler freelance diplomat and campaign consultant. In recent days he has told Hillary Clinton to "give it up" in June and estimated the size of Israel's nuclear stockpile. (Other previous Presidents have kept tactfully silent about its very existence.) Earlier, both John McCain and Barack Obama had felt compelled to denounce Carter's meeting with representatives of Hamas. Carter's almost predictable intrusions into the news have done little to sway events, but they have conjured memories of a past that the current President and his two would-be successors are trying not to repeat. . . .
Of the two likely nominees this year, Obama is closest to Carter in background and policy leanings. The parallels between his campaign so far and the one Carter ran in 1976 are striking. Like Carter, Obama had little national experience when he started to run. Neither was given much chance of winning the nomination. Instead of running on a detailed platform, Carter told crowds that what Washington needed was "a government as good as its people"just as Obama promises "change we can believe in." Carter's message sold well after Richard Nixon's disgrace, and press accounts from the time suggest that people found the born-again Carter to be charismatic. That parallel is a promising one for Obama.
But his Carterish echoes come with two potential dangers. The first is that running as the embodiment of hope can lend itself to a certain self-righteousnesswhat critics have already started to call elitism. The second danger is that the public will come to see Obama as naive about America's enemies abroad, as it eventually concluded Carter was. Ever since Obama said he was willing to negotiate with those enemies directly and "without precondition," Republicans have been trying to tag him as the son of the Georgia governor. . . .
Go read the rest of it.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/30/2008 08:29 ||
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#1
I can imagine Jimmy Carter as the American equivalent of Jacob Marley, condemned to walk the Earth while rattling his chains of failure.
Longstanding Bush critics like McClellans use of the P word because they think it proves they were right all along: that Bush lied and people died, as that shopworn refrain goes.
The problem is thats not quite what McClellan seems to be saying. I still like and admire George W. Bush, McClellan writes in his memoirs. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people. But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war.
McClellans only legitimate beef seems to be his unjust treatment during the Valerie Plame investigation. But that complaint doesnt sell books or get the sluices of journalistic saliva raging. Use of the word propaganda and charges of dishonesty about the war do, which is why he uses them. But McClellan concedes in interviews that even when he was an important cog in the propaganda machine, he never witnessed anything that seemed at the time to be deceitful or untrue.
Rather, he says that his views have evolved. This is one debate over evolution where intelligent design seems to have the upper hand. The prime mover of McClellans evolving views was almost surely his need to move books.
This all bespeaks a level of sophistication few ever credited McClellan with when he stood at the podium looking like a McDonalds cashier flummoxed by an order. Hes hawking books by making people think hes charging the Bush administration with wholesale dishonesty when hes not even making that case at the retail level. Hes claiming the role of insider with behind-the-scenes insights, but he admits it never occurred to him that there was any dishonesty at work until he left the White House and began ruminating on what he could put in his book.
If only hed been this good at working the press when it was for someones benefit other than his own.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/30/2008 12:33 ||
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1. The press inflating comments to bash Bush? $0.03
An author hyping his book? $0.01
The press helping with 2 because it assists with 1? Not-anywhere-near priceless.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/30/2008 13:06 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
05/30/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
TOPIX > NEW REPUBLIC artic claims that the Hizb Hezb Huzb Husb Huss Hiss victory in Lebanon and anticipated domination of Lebanese Govt. affairs-policies MAY ACTUALLY INDUCE THE END OF SAME(S)???
Compare agz STARS-N-STRIPES > AL-SADR TRYING TO PROVE HE IS AN EFFECTIVE/COMPETENT LEADER.
What can the West offer the Islamic Republic of Iran in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions and kenneling its puppies of war? The problem calls to mind the question regarding what to give a man who has everything: cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, diabetes, kidney failure, and so forth. Iran's economy is so damaged that it is impossible to tell how bad things are. Except perhaps for the oilfields of southern Iraq, and perhaps also northern Saudi Arabia, there is nothing the West can give Iran to forestall an internal breakdown.
Iranian dissidents put overall unemployment at 30% and youth unemployment at 50%. Government subsidies sustain a very large portion of the population; 42% of the non-agricultural population is employed by the Iranian state, compared with 17% in Pakistan.
Within fewer than 10 years, Iran will become a net importer, at which point the government no longer will be able to provide subsidies. Iran's economic implosion is a source of imminent strategic risk.
What strategic consequences ensue from Iran's economic misery? Broadly speaking, the choices are two. In the most benign scenario, Iran's clerical establishment will emulate the Soviet Union of 1987 ...The second choice is an imperial adventure. In fact, Iran is engaged in such an adventure, funding and arming Shi'ite allies from Basra to Beirut, and creating clients selectively among such Sunnis as Hamas in Palestine.
Choice snark: Josef Stalin's terror saw to it that the only communist true believers left alive were lecturing at Western universities.
#1
Blah, blah, blah. Why do you think Iran is any different than North Korea in destroying its own economy and still no revolution? For that matter Zimbabwe? Those in power don't give a rat's ass about any of it and the population lacks a cultural anchor to 'Live Free or Die'. As long as you have first generation 'revolutionaries' in power and the dogs to kill on command, nothing is going to alter the political structure.
#2
Blah, blah, blah. Why do you think Iran is any different than North Korea in destroying its own economy and still no revolution?
If you had bothered to read the article (or even the title of the article), Spengler pretty much dismisses the idea of a revolution rather than a drive toward a shiite imperialism.
#3
The last sentence of this year old article says, "Ahmadinejad and his generation of Revolutionary Guards will fight, and cautious old men like Rafsanjani will not be able to stop them. " which seems in line with what P2K was saying.
It doesn't seem like Dinnerjacket has taken the full Zim-Bob-way yet.
#4
Procopius2k, I would say there is a huge difference between Iran and North Korea. For one North Korea is a homogenous ethinc group and Iran is a cobbled together mini-empire dominated by the Persians. Yeah we may never be able to exploit that but it's a fundamental difference that shouldn't be forgotten.
#7
If you had bothered to read the article (or even the title of the article), Spengler pretty much dismisses the idea of a revolution rather than a drive toward a shiite imperialism.
Which is exactly why we should bomb the hell out of them now before they get their hands on a nuke.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/30/2008 12:11 Comments ||
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The rules of economics vary depending on ethnicity?
THey depend on many things like degree of development, forecasts of the agents (very influenced by mindsets).
But here what we are discussing is revolt: really hungry people don't revolt: they are far too weans and far too busy looking for food. Like Koreans. It is people who manage to eat but not enough to be happy who are dangerous. Like Iranians.
Click the link to visit the article. It is a video-bite collage of opinions of what it means to be black in America by black students. I only listened to a couple of them, but they were both encouraging to hear! :-)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/30/2008 21:17 Comments ||
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#4
"I would actually like to see a resurgence of the activism that we saw during his period,".... as long as I could still go go school for free, major in Black History, get preferences for hiring through affirmative action, and never have to worry about being fired.
In which the WSJ points out that not everybody can afford a Cadillac, and opines that not everyone should be forced to buy one...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/30/2008 00:00 ||
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The "Cover Florida" plan hopes to improve those numbers by offering access to more affordable policies. As even Barack Obama says, the main reason people are uninsured isn't because they don't want to be; it's because coverage is too expensive.
All ignoring that the bulk of the uninsured is made up of healthy young people who because of their good health see no reason to kick in more of their earnings to subsidize the older people who are already eating their income through social security and medicare payroll deductions.
#2
Critics are already saying that Health-care providers not consumers are always asking for tighter regulation
Wrong! If not for the State mandated regulations Health Care Providers could, would, and want to offer more lower-cost options for health care. Its that pesky concept of Free Market Competitiveness that seems to get in the way. You see, having more affordable plans available would make the State brokered health plans less attractive. You know like the ones negotiated for the AFSCME. *Cough Unions*
#3
The crux of the matter continues to be healthy people with surplus wealth paying for the medical care of sick people with a deficiency of wealth. There is no easy way through this muddle.
#4
You can choose coverage, limits, and deductibles for auto insurance (after certain minimum liability coverage) - why should health insurance be different?
Insurance is supposed to cover catastrophe, not aspirin.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/30/2008 13:02 Comments ||
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#5
When I was laid off freelancing, I just about went nuts finding affordable health insurance. In my state, I wasn't allowed to buy just hospitalization; I had to pay for a primary care provider, etc., as well. Since I have good health, why should I pay for what is really insurance for minor car repairs, not a major overhaul after an accident?
The reason even my mother could afford health insurance when I was a child is that she just bought major medical, and paid the doctor herself if/when we needed to go. (Mostly if. We didn't go running to the doctor or the ER every time we got a hangnail, the way people do now. Grrrrrr.) And she was a diabetic who obviously had to pay for her own drugs and supplies, since nobody pretended back then that somehow magically "insurance" would pay for them. And guess what - we managed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/30/2008 21:27 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Of the two likely nominees this year, Obama is closest to Carter in background and policy leanings. The parallels between his campaign so far and the one Carter ran in 1976 are striking. Like Carter, Obama had little national experience when he started to run. Neither was given much chance of winning the nomination. Instead of running on a detailed platform, Carter told crowds that what Washington needed was "a government as good as its people"just as Obama promises "change we can believe in." Carter's message sold well after Richard Nixon's disgrace, and press accounts from the time suggest that people found the born-again Carter to be charismatic. That parallel is a promising one for Obama.
