COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, April 14, 2007

America At A Crossroads - A left turn to Dhimmitude?


PBS Shelves film on Moderate Muslims, The Washington Times.
A 52-minute documentary film exploring the struggles of moderate American Muslims at the hands of their radical brethren has also become a showcase for the struggles between right and left in the news media.

The producers of "Islam vs. Islamists" say their taxpayer-funded film has been shelved by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in "an ideological vendetta," and because the production team includes conservative columnist Frank Gaffney Jr., founder of the Center for Security Policy.
Producer: PBS dropped "Islam vs. Islamists" on political grounds, AzCentral.com.

Key portions of the documentary focus on Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix and his American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a non-profit organization of Muslim Americans who advocate patriotism, constitutional democracy and a separation of church and state.

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank.

Silencing Muslim Moderates, Arizona Republic.

Doug MacEachern
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

If Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix were a Christian - and he emphatically is not - we might deem him a saint.

But Jasser is a Muslim. He believes in his religion as fervently as any Catholic bishop believes in his. Or any Muslim imam, for that matter. He is faithful to the Quran, which Jasser believes conveys a message of peace.

Because of his faith, and because of what he has done to act on his faith, Jasser has evolved into an extraordinary symbol of what true heroism means in the post-Sept. 11 world. He is a Muslim and an American. And he is a man of peace - a rare, bold iconoclast who is willing to speak out against people who, he believes, have stolen his faith for evil ends.

So, is Zuhdi Jasser what you might call a "moderate" Muslim? If you do, then the Public Broadcasting Service has a problem with you.

On April 15, PBS, along with its Washington, D.C., affiliate, WETA, will begin airing an 11-part series of documentaries titled America at a Crossroads. It is described by PBS as "a major public television event . . . that explores the challenges confronting the post-9/11 world," and much of what it explores is the clash of Western values and those of fundamentalist Muslims.

Until earlier this year, a part of that exploration was to include a segment on Muslims living in the West - in places like Copenhagen, Paris, Toronto and Phoenix - and their clashes with Muslim fundamentalists who often explicitly align themselves with violence and, sometimes, with terrorists.

The segment was titled, Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center. By and large, the clashes it depicted involved people like Jasser condemning violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, and fundamentalist imams condemning the Jassers of the world as false Muslims.

In some cases, the documentary showed fundamentalists talking candidly about shutting up the moderates in their midst. And, in one case involving a moderate Muslim politician in Denmark, it caught them talking about shutting him up permanently.

In many respects it is an inspiring story, the sort of story that public television often likes to tell. But it isn't going to tell the story depicted in Islam vs. Islamists. At least not as a part of the heavily promoted Crossroads series, and quite possibly not at all.

The problems that the PBS-WETA producers had with Islam vs. Islamists are complex. On The Arizona Republic's news pages today, reporter Dennis Wagner details many of those issues.

But much of their hostility seems to boil down to this: They could not bring themselves to declare people like Jasser "moderate" because that would mean criticizing the fundamentalists whom the Jassers of the world oppose.

As the PBS producers affirmed time and again in their letters and e-mails, who is an Islamic "extremist" and who is a "moderate" depends entirely on which side of the street you're standing. In large part, it is about "context."

"We felt the program was flawed by incomplete storytelling and problems with fairness," said Jeff Bieber, executive producer of the Crossroads series. "We felt the writing was alarmist and without adequate context.

"We just felt there was incomplete context, (that) could lead viewers to the wrong conclusions."

"These are the 'root-cause' people," responded Jasser, who said the PBS-WETA producers could not bring themselves to identify the issue facing the United States since Sept. 11, 2001: "It is a radical Islam problem."

On Feb. 12, Bieber wrote to the Islam vs. Islamists production team, informing them they were scrapping the project.

Bieber's bottom line: "The latest cut of Islam vs. Islamists falls significantly short of meeting the standards necessary for inclusion in America at a Crossroads and for PBS national distribution." Effectively, over 12 months of production work and an estimated $700,000-plus of public television's dollars went down the drain.

As The Republic's Wagner writes elsewhere in today's pages, the production of Islam vs. Islamists was stormy from the beginning. Series producers Bieber and Leo Eaton and the Islam vs. Islamists producers fought raging battles for months over matters of structure and presentation.

The paper trails of letters and e-mails among the series producers and those of the Islam vs. Islamists segment, as well as interviews with Islam vs. Islamists producer Martyn Burke of California, tell a story that goes well beyond typical editor -journalist haggling.

"I've worked for networks all over the world, and I've never seen anything like this," Burke said.

It is an odd trail. Early last year, conservative foreign-policy expert Frank Gaffney won approval from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent organization of PBS, to pursue his project as part of the Crossroads series.

But by mid-summer of 2006, the Crossroads producers were badgering Burke to fire Gaffney and his partner, Alex Alexiev, according to Burke, who argued it was because of Gaffney's conservative politics.

"Never before have I been asked, 'Don't you check into the politics of the people you're working with?' " wrote Burke in a long letter to Bieber and Eaton in January. "Years ago I did a two-hour documentary on the Hollywood Ten. I felt as if I was living in that same era of blacklisting."

Things got stranger still as production of Islam vs. Islamists continued.

Burke said the fight over "context" and the side issue of his co-producers' politics caused a seven-month delay in funding. Then, the PBS producers hired a five-member team of consultants to review all the segments of the Crossroads series - among them a university professor who teaches a course on Islam in the United States.

That academic, Dr. Aminah Beverly McCloud of DePaul University, screened a cut of Islam vs. Islamists for a group of Nation of Islam leaders - a rather serious breach of journalism protocol, considering that the Nation of Islam was a major part of Burke's Islam vs. Islamists investigation. According to an e-mail from McCloud to Burke, "These representatives (of the Nation of Islam) were outraged at the implications here and assert that if this airs, they will promptly pursue litigation."

The correspondence between Burke and the series producers suggests the two sides simply could not reach common ground on what constitutes a "moderate" Muslim in the West, and what constitutes an extremist.

It seems a bizarrely fine point to fight over.

The moderates, it seems, are the ones struggling to project a peaceful co-existence between the West and Islam. People like Jasser, for example.

And the extremists? Perhaps those who despise Jasser. Or those who threaten with death those who disagree with them.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like viewers of the Crossroads series will have much chance to sort them out for themselves.
Two old NPR lefties, Diane Rehm and Robert McNeill discuss the moderates Muslims and the $20 million NPR series, "America at a Crossroads" which looks at:
Journalist Robert MacNeil talks about the series of documentaries developed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to explore the challenges confronting the post- 9/11 world, including the war on terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the experience of American troops, the struggle for balance within the Islamic world, Muslim life in America, and perspectives on American's role globally.


Of note on the Diane Rehm audio: Ms Rehm read an emailer's concern that Neo-Cons and the Zionist supporting, conservative Christians got us into Iraq. McNeill talks about how 9/11 provided the justification for Bush to use "Fear". This falls in line with Jeff Bieber's (executive producer of the Crossroads series) statement, "We felt the writing was alarmist and without adequate context. "

PBS would not want to do what it accuses George Bush of doing; exploiting fear. But the real issue is that PBS, like moderate Muslims, is afraid. Afraid of the Islamists, afraid of the threatened litigation by the Nation of Islam, afraid of confirming George Bush's policies. If the criticisms are correct, PBS, like the BBC in the Behanna story, has taken a politically correct left turn at the tranzi national "cross roads" and is on the path to dhimmitude.

60 comments:

  1. Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.
    Like the Soviet Union would have folded in the long run even without the (necessary for our national security) intervention of Reagan et al, Liberals would bring down this country in the absence of Muslims if some other force does not intervene.

    Had we bowed in the face of Soviet Aggression, sooner or later we'd be finished.
    Ditto for Liberals and the threat of Violent ISLAMIC Extremism.

    (Ash will guard our backs from the greater threat of the McVeighs of the World.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great example of the Perverted Liberal Mind's need to invert every situation and pour irrational guilt all over it, promoting class and race warfare, and the pursuit of victimology
    ---
    Terry Moran's Warped Mind

    As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives. There is a very large cushion under them--the one that softens the blows of life for most of those who go to Duke or similar places, and have connections through family, friends and school to all kinds of prospects for success. They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

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  3. Trish,
    Any disagreement with this description of the Wah?
    ---
    Painful Facts

    EARLIER IN THE WEEK, THERE WAS A LESS-NOTICED SPEECH BY A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.
    Mitt Romney, speaking at the Bush Presidential Library offered the following assessment of the larger war:


    "I think many of us still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat posed by radical Islam, by Jihad. Understandably, we focus on Afghanistan and Iraq. Our men and women are dying there. We think in terms of countries, because we faced countries in last century's conflicts. But the Jihad is much broader than any one nation or nations. For radical Islam, there is one conflict and one goal – replacing all modern Islamic states with a caliphate, destroying America, and conquering the world.”

    ReplyDelete
  4. Only a vicious Fascist Thug like Saddam would release 100,000 violent criminals back into society.

    Only a country as sophisticated and correct as ours would catch and release 100,000 violent criminals and terrorists back into society and the war.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Frank Gaffney on PBS' Decision

    Hewitt: Hour 2 - Hugh talks about PBS' decision to quash a movie they sanctioned about how moderate Muslims view radical Muslims with Frank Gaffney of the Center For Security Policy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why wasn't this taken to court? This is a clear case of discrimination.

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  7. Caroline Glick
    The US is not failing to contend with Iran because it went to war in Iraq.

    It is failing because it is implementing policies that prefer imaginary silver bullets to real solutions for real problems.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have read this blog for many months.

    The host is always gracious, even in the face of some aimed hostility from time to time.

    There are more personalities on this blog than others I read and a spirited exchange of ideas.

    Rufus has taught me more about fuels than any of the major media and I'f first off like to thank him. Alternate fuels are obviously very important to this country.

    I'll be at the corner table.

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  9. doug, wu tells us, last thread, that Ms Glick is just your typical leftist liberal, so pay her no mind.

    ReplyDelete
  10. And here's some grain alcohol from Bob.

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  11. Have you made your trip to "Greenville", rufus?

    If so, was it enlightening?

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  12. Relativism has made liberal openness appear weak, empty and repugnant compared with the clarity of dogma

    Julian Baggini
    Saturday April 14, 2007
    The Guardian


    I don't usually consider either the Ministry of Defence or the Vatican to be prescient founts of wisdom. But when two such different oracles issue remarkably similar warnings, you have to take notice. Earlier this week it was revealed in this newspaper how the MoD believes that "the trend towards moral relativism and increasingly pragmatic values" was causing more and more people to seek "more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism". Flash back to 2004 and you find Pope John Paul II encouraging the then Cardinal Ratzinger to challenge a world "marked by both a widespread relativism and the tendency to a facile pragmaticism" by boldly proclaiming the truth of the church. Ratzinger has been preaching about the dangers of relativism ever since.

    Put the two together and you have a worrying prognosis. The clash of civilisations is happening not between Islam and the west, as we are often led to believe, but between pragmatic relativism and dogmatic certainty. On this analysis, it is easy to see liberal democracy not as the crowning achievement of civilisation but a manifestation of a laissez-faire, morally bankrupt modernity. "Relativism appears to be the philosophical foundation of democracy," said Ratzinger in 1996. "Democracy in fact is supposedly built on the basis that no one can presume to know the true way."
    It is no surprise that both the MoD and the Pope believe that the beneficiaries of this polarisation will be those offering certitude, since belief in something is almost always preferable to belief in nothing. As Walter put it in the film The Big Lebowski: "Say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

    Perhaps the most powerful idea to filter through from the universities to the streets was articulated by Foucault, who adapted and popularised the Nietzschean idea that what passes for truth is actually no more than power. There are no facts, only attempts to impose your view on the world by fixing it as "The Truth". This idea is now so mainstream that even a conservative like Donald Rumsfeld could complain about those who lived in the "reality-based community", arguing "that's not the way the world really works anymore ... when we act, we create our own reality."


    So when Mr Cheney takes a firm position in one decade, then switchs 180 degrees in the next, he is merely employing "pragmatic relativism" rather than "dogmatic certainty".


    Books such as Why Truth Matters, by my colleagues Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, have also tried to stem the tide. But this is not really a highbrow academic debate about whether there is Truth with a capital T - it is about how abstract ideas relate to the business of everyday life.
    ...
    Unless we can make a convincing case that the choice is not between relativism or dogmatism, more and more people will reject the former and embrace the latter. When they do, those who helped create the impression that modern, secular rationality leaves everything up for grabs in the marketplace of belief will have to take their share of the blame.

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  13. From bobs' link, describing the "Nifonging" of a terrorist suspect:

    Jayyousi, a 45-year-old married father of five, is the first Detroiter to go on trial on terrorism charges since two Moroccan immigrants were convicted in Detroit in 2003 of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorism.

    The Bush administration initially hailed the convictions as a victory in its war on terror, but the charges later were dropped because prosecutors withheld evidence that could have undermined the government's case.

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  14. Cool, we'll all expect a "full report".

    You've convinced me, once a skeptic, of the viability of the bio-energy opportunities.

    The US, just $150 Billion USD from real energy independence.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for the explanation, Rufus, I assumed it was about Glenn Reynolds!

    ReplyDelete
  16. For the drink and the knowledge

    ReplyDelete
  17. Think what that 150 could buy in F-22's tho, 'Rat, or further wasted research into the Heli that won't fly w/o a computer AND a human.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Akmed down the street? Oh, yes we know him.

    What's he like?

    Oh he and his wife, they are very nice. Akmed always waves to us on his way to work.

    Where does he work?

    He's the administrator of the local schools. Teaches our kids. We really like him, he and his wife. We think highly of them.

    Did you know he had been arrested?

    Arrested! Don't tell me. What for?

    Money laundering, providing material support to terrorists. aiding and abetting terrorist organisations overseas, other matters.

    My, who would have ever thought that.

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  19. I know it doesn't fit in right now but I think that today people should remember that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on this date.

    There was a man who underwent the greatest challenge we ever faced.
    I am glad he was resolute in his beliefs.

    Please remember him in your prayers.

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  20. > doug, wu tells us, last thread, that Ms Glick is just your typical leftist liberal, so pay her no mind.

    Whatever we label Glick (unimportant), what I pointed out about her column, which is the important thing, holds. She invented her own set of (false) facts. Saying that the US could have held elections off, or they made things worse, is nothing but fantasy.

    > It is failing because it is implementing policies that prefer imaginary silver bullets to real solutions for real problems.

    Glick is the queen of fantasy silver bullets. Her magic bullet is "if only we get tougher". With our army already over-stretched in Iraq, we should attack Iran, she says with imaginary troops which we don't even have. But since it's a fantasy silver bullet, reality doesn't matter.

    What happens if we try what she says and it fails? She won't be embarrased. After all, that's what happened when Israel launched the war in Lebanon she wanted. Her answer: we just weren't tough enough! So there's no admitting she was wrong. No matter how many times we try getting tough and it doesn't work, she can always say "we should get tougher".

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  21. The Road to Serfdom

    But the Muslims were not alone in their anger. Clare College set up a special disciplinary court to consider action against the students. And the Cambridgeshire police opened a criminal investigation against them in late February.

    The persecution of these students provides a case study of the two-pronged offensive being carried out today against Western culture. First there are the jihadists, who call for our destruction. Then there are the leftist intellectuals and public figures who defend radical Islamists and work to silence those who criticize them by criminalizing speech and condemning free thinkers as racists.

    The direct consequence of this two-pronged offensive is the repression of free thought.

    FOUR YEARS ago, US President George W. Bush called the invasion of Iraq "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

    The intention was clear. The purpose of the war was not merely to bring down Saddam Hussein's murderous, terror-supporting regime. It was to bring about the defeat of the vile world view that supported the regime and to replace that view with the values of freedom, tolerance and democracy.

    Four years on, US forces continue their heroic fight to bring order and security to that violent land. But the purpose of their efforts is no longer clear.

    The US no longer pushes the Iraqis or the greater Arab world to abandon jihad in favor of freedom.

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  22. You're DUMB, Wu!
    (continuing your level of "argument.")

    ReplyDelete
  23. Getting Tougher Means a return to WWII, to Wu, not a return to reasonable ROE's and reasonable goals.
    DUMB

    ReplyDelete
  24. "Earlier this month, columnist Joel Mowbray gave evidence of the Bush administration's abandonment of the war of ideas in a Wall Street Journal expose on the US taxpayer-financed Arabic-language television network Al-Hurra. The US launched Al- Hurra in February 2004 to compete with jihadist television networks like Al Jazeera. Its stated aim was to present a liberal, pro-democracy and pro-human rights voice to the Arab world. Yet, as Mowbray reported, since former CNN producer Larry Register was appointed to lead the network last November, that aim fell by the wayside.

    In December the network began allowing itself to be used as a platform by arch terrorists like Hizbullah commander Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
    SerfDUMB link above"

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  25. Iraq's parliament defiant after attack

    It sounds like the Iraqi Parliament attack may have been their 9/11, pulling the country together against the terrorists.

    Iraq's parliament met in an extraordinary session of "defiance" yesterday, the Muslim day of prayer, and declared it would not bow to terrorism.
    A bouquet of red roses and a white lily were placed on the seat of Mohammed Awad, the lawmaker killed in the parliament dining hall suicide bombing. Al Qaeda took responsibility for the blast.
    Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani opened the session by asking lawmakers to recite verses from the Koran in honor of Mr. Awad, whom he called a "hero."
    The U.S. military revised the dining hall death toll sharply downward, saying one civilian was killed...

    The unprecedented Friday session of parliament was called to send "a clear message to all the terrorists and all those who dare try to stop this [political] process, that we will sacrifice in order for it to continue," said Mr. al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Muslim.
    "We feel today that we are stronger than yesterday," he said. "The parliament, government and the people are all the same -- they are all in the same ship which, if it sinks, will make everyone sink."
    Lawmakers took the podium one after another to denounce the bombing. One legislator had his arm in a sling and a woman lawmaker wore a neck brace...

    "The more [the terrorists] act, the more solid we become. When they take from us one martyr, we will offer more martyrs," Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said. "The more they target our unity, the stronger our unity becomes."

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  26. The effort "stopped short"

    Massaging a message, what the US does best, and yet no one can be found to tell the tale of freedom.

    The US could barely scrape together $75 million USD to promote its' message in Iran.

    Meanwhile the Austrailians:
    Starting this week, consumers in New Zealand and America will see the new Brand Australia advertising campaigns for the first time on TV. This follows the launch of the new Brand Australia approach in Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Italy, in May this year.

    As part of the new brand marketing approach a total of six ads were produced, at a cost of $3 million dollars. The ads will be used to market Australia worldwide as part of Tourism Australia's four year global brand marketing spend of $360 million.


    $360 million to promote tourism in New Zealand and Austrailia, how much to is spent marketing the benefits of freedom, to those in the Middle East that are not aware?

    How much should we spend to change the cultural perspective in the targeted countries. Surely $1 Billion would not be "to much".

    Half stepping, or muddling through, choose your own adjective.

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  27. America at the cross roads? The good news is that America is going to provide full funding and support for her troops in the Iraq War, since the Democrats are collapsing like a house of cards.

    GOP Eyes Success On War Funding

    Article quotes below:

    Senate Republicans yesterday said Democrats are weakening in the war-funding standoff with the White House, citing party infighting and the capitulation of its leaders to meet next week with President Bush.

    "They are very divided on the issue," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Republican Conference. "The Democrats are all over the board on this."

    He said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looked "embarrassed" when they snubbed a White House invitation but then turned around and agreed to the talks on the war-funding bill Mr. Bush vows to veto.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Democrats are having "a debate among themselves" and he sees cracks in support for a troop pullout from Iraq.

    "The first dam that is going to break is going to be on the other side after they see a presidential veto," the Kentucky Republican said...

    Democrats throughout the Senate ranks say they will refuse to withholding troop funding -- a tactic advocated by Mr. Reid.

    Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat up for re-election next year, said she would not block war funds and opposes withdrawal timetables, although she joined the 51-47 vote to pass the carefully worded "goal" of a complete pullout by March 31...

    ... Mrs. Landrieu said, stressing she supports full funding for the troops. "I will continue to support our military personnel as they make strategic decisions in the field that they deem most appropriate to achieving our objectives," she said.

    Opposition to blocking war funds also has been voiced by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, vice chairman of the caucus.

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  28. Sat Apr 14, 06:10:00 PM EDT

    "The direct consequence of this two-pronged offensive is the repression of free thought."

    Doug, what r are you talking about?

    As DR writes -
    Where's the provocation?

    If anything is amiss, The FBI and justice system will take care of things.

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  29. Elijah,
    Did you read the article?
    Rather self-explanatory, I think.

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  30. "If anything is amiss, The FBI and justice system will take care of things. "
    ---
    :-)
    And Mr. Rogers will rise from the dead.

    ReplyDelete
  31. just giving DR a hard time -

    for clarification, DR's views are appreciated and i have learned a great deal from him and other EBers

    i read the article and it is self- explanatory

    Who is the EBer fond of UFOs - is it Bobal?

    - Check out vortex rings Hambling

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  32. It is Bobal, but he is busy.
    Stomping down crop circles.

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  33. Thanks, elijah.

    The Federals should be able to handle most anything, they are certainly paid well enough to.

    The Bureau of Economic Analysis released data this month showing that the average compensation for the 1.8 million federal civilian workers in 2005 was $106,579 -- exactly twice the average compensation paid in the U.S. private sector: $53,289. If you consider wages without benefits, the average federal civilian worker earned $71,114, 62 percent more than the average private-sector worker, who made $43,917.

    The high level of federal pay is problematic in and of itself, but so is its rapid growth. Since 1990 average compensation for federal workers has increased by 129 percent, the BEA data show, compared with 74 percent for private-sector workers.

    Why is federal compensation growing so quickly? For one thing, federal pay schedules increase every year regardless of how well the economy is doing. Thus in recession years, private pay stagnates while government pay continues to rise. Another factor is the steadily increasing "locality" payments given to federal workers in higher-cost cities.

    Rapid growth in federal pay also results from regular promotions that move workers into higher salary brackets regardless of performance and from redefining jobs upward into higher pay ranges. The federal workforce has become increasingly top-heavy.

    The structure of that workforce has also changed over time. There are fewer low-pay typists and more high-pay computer experts in the government today than there were a generation ago. But that doesn't explain why, as the BEA data show, federal wages have risen 38 percent in just the past five years, compared with 14 percent in the private sector.

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  34. Here is just one of the many whoppers in Glick's column:

    Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and John Bolton - and arguably Scooter Libby - were all forced from their positions in the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House after coming under unrelenting attack by the Left which all but accused these men of treason for their vigilant support of the war against Islamic totalitarianism. A central component of the onslaught against them was the repeated claim that their support for Israel is what brought these men to delude America into believing that the global jihad is a threat to US national security...


    A CLEAR line connects the Cambridge students, the Americans in Iraq, and the situation in Israel.

    It sounds like Hillary's vast right wing conspiracy (and this anti-Israel, pro-Jihad conspiracy is being run by some students at Cambridge, according to Glick).

    According to her, all those men lost their jobs because of the same reason, a conspiracy, and it was all because they supported Israel.

    Anyone who lived in America at the time, or who followed our news, knows that isn't so. It also ignores the fact that US Congress votes about Israel's security are always bipartisan and usually unanimous in Israel's favor.

    Likewise she admits we are fighting bravely in Iraq, yet claims that "The US no longer pushes the Iraqis or the greater Arab world to abandon jihad in favor of freedom." This is clearly not true, and she is unable to give a single example. (And the sentences before it about Iraq show she is wrong, that we are fighting Jihad.)

    To be (overly) fair to her about this, as a non-US citizen, perhaps Glick really doesn't understand that the Bush Administration has been silent politically about everything including local politics, not just the "Al-Hurra" newspaper she talks about. However, if she cared about the truth, she wouldn't just assume that Bush had some sinister motive like giving up on jihad. Whatever flaws the President has, there is no reason to think he has given up on the war on terror.

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  35. And then habu said:
    I'm currently researching post tramatic stress disorder in veterans of the horrific War in Granada. I think we may have found a link between Grenada and loss of sustainability in an operation that IS a war. Initial research shows that a few Grenadan warriors believe all hostilities should last no longer that their benchmark, otherwise the cold Coors turns to skunk beer when you get back to post.

    Now I'd been out of the Army, for few a months, when Mr Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada. I was off on other Central American adventures, but for him to demean and diminish the loss of 19 US servicemen and the 116 wounded, with talk of skunk beer shows his true patriotism and the respect he has for US combat troops. Those volunteers that gave their full and final measure for the US.

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  36. The real question, elijah, since all the world knows the Nimitz is underway to the Gulf of Oman ...

    Where is the Ike?

    Did it sail away, as the Navy spokesman said she would, or just fade into the fog.

    Ten days, two weeks, maybe a month, then we'll know, fer sure.

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  37. > > doug, wu tells us, last thread, that Ms Glick is just your typical leftist liberal, so pay her no mind.

    There's a very interesting point there, that the left wing and right wing (Glick) critics of the war are tough to tell apart. Both say we are doing badly in the war. Both left and right say the Administration is doing a terrible job. Both talk about how strong the enemy is, and how tough the rest of the war will be.

    The main difference is that the right says those things because they think we aren't fighting hard enough, are fighting incorrectly, while the left thinks we shouldn't be fighting at all. That's why, unless they start talking about the solution, it's nearly impossible to tell the war critics apart.

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  38. doug,

    I will do my best keep an eye out and then nullify any threat I perceive from another McVeigh. Please sleep peacefully!

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  39. Exactly wu.

    Even those that support the Administration should talk about what comes next.

    At the Tank on National Review they say this:
    Al Qaeda's leadership has suffered huge losses. They are having far more trouble recruiting young men into their ranks than the Iraqi army and police (There never seems to be a dearth of those who will stand in line and brave suicide bombers and threats against their families to serve in the Iraqi Security Forces.). Al Qaeda is strapped for cash, and as one U.S. Army General told me in recent weeks, "I don't see how they can hang on for much longer."

    Which would be great, but we've heard the insurgency is on its' "last legs", before.

    Again, that is why I advocate a post Surge program of success. As I've always assumed that the Army could lock down Iraq, as we have in the past.

    Where are the other suggestions, who else has a "Plan" that emboldens the Iraqi Federals and can be played as a successful midpoint to the Campaign, here at home.

    Turn over Iraqi Security Mission to the Iraqi by the end of '07, it'd play well in all the right places.

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  40. Doug, Don Ho is dead. I wonder about Robin Ward.

    tiny bubbles

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  41. in my beer,
    makes me feel happy,
    full of good cheer.

    Don Ho, you say. Recently?

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  42. Jackie "Robin" Ward
    Currently I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AFTRA/SAG Federal Credit Union. And I am still on the National Board of Directors of AFTRA.

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  43. Good question.

    Interesting if both Nimitz
    class carriers are in the same general location

    Ike Returns to Persian Gulf to Support OIF, MSO

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  44. If the Ike stays on, there'd be three of those big boys out there all at the same time.

    If we do not move then, preemptively, we never will on the Bush watch, I think.

    We'd react, obviously to a substantial provocation but if we do not act now, with the overwhelming force we have in the AO, we won't later with less.

    I'd bet the "Weinburger/Powell Doctrine" has gain a bit more gravitis at the White House, lately.

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  45. So now u may see, our friend Dan
    @ EB may need to do a little more investigation....

    One comment though - "closing the Strait of Hormuz" would be an act of war easily remedied by the navy. I doubt any country would be sanguine about applying their hippy-opportunism politics to such a remedy, either.
    2/26/2007 04:19:00 PM

    and my response
    2/26/2007 05:21:00 PM

    ...easily remedied by the navy.If you say so

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  46. Don Ho--big kahuna of Hawaiian singers--not a rapper:)--died today--age 78 I think it said. Used to sing with a white girl, Robin Ward.

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  47. The girl's name was really Jackie, her daughter was Robin. Using some early tech tricks they made her sound younger than her years, on her "one hit wonder". So used her daughters' name on the recording and for her stage name.

    Amazing thing, google.

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  48. For those of you that may think dueces' condos in Tambor, Costa Rica may be a bit to civilized for your tastes, what with potable water, electricity and a paved road to the beach. There is always the Azuero Peninsula in Panama.
    Check out the photos here of what life in the slow lane can be about.

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  49. CCD

    I used to like the little critters but then turned up allergic. But, we need em'.

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  50. Got his start stirring up business in his mom's ailing restaurant, "Honeys."
    Sang at (ahem)Dukes,
    Got a gig at Vegas,
    and the rest, as they say,
    is History.

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  51. Elijah,
    Dan, our friend at *BC* ?
    Musn't mix up Club w/Bar!

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  52. Rivalries in Iraq extend to separate spy agencies
    ---
    Shiite officials wary of the CIA-funded, Sunni-led official intelligence service have built a parallel, "shadow" organization boasting 1,200 agents

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  53. Isn't it interesting that when the US would not allow the Iraqi Government control of the levers of power, in Iraq, they built their own
    The Shiite drive to create the parallel secret service can be traced to the spring of 2005, when the United States, mindful of Shiite politicians' close ties to Iran, fended off then-Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's effort to take charge of the INIS.

    Just as they built their own Army, the Mahdi, when the US would not give them command and control of the Iraqi Army.

    We spoke the rhetoric of Iraqi sovereignty, but did not allow it to flower. The unintended consequence of that course not leading to reconciliation, but further divisiveness.

    The US being not a uniter, but a divider, in all reality in Iraq. Not trusting to the decisions of the purpled fingered freedom loving voters.

    There in lays the rub, 'tween rhetoric and reality.

    Allowing the mob to rule, the results of which the US founders feared, as much if not more than anything else.

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  54. Tony said...
    These are the kinds of ROE that are detailed in "The 9/11 Commission Report" as reasons why we didn't attack bin Laden in Afghanistan:

    If ISAF coalition forces discover a house with two Taliban high-value targets, and four other Taliban fighters who are not on the list of ISAF approved targets, it cannot attack the house.

    The reason in the 9/11 Report: the Bad Guys might respond and then we'll get blamed for it.

    A variation of "What did we do to make them so mad at us?"

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