CAIR Spokesman Invokes Terrorism to Silence Speech

So a pastor down in Florida wanted to have a bonfire of Korans and this is protected speech under the first amendment.  But Ibrahim Hooper spokesman for the Counsel of American-Islamic Relations apparently doesn’t believe that, by this passage in a New York Times national feed story:

An Islamic group in England has also incorporated his efforts into a YouTube video that encourages Muslims to “rise up and act,” widening a concern that Mr. Jones — though clearly a fringe figure with only 50 members in his church — could spark riots or terrorism.

“Can you imagine what this will do to our image around the world?” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “And the additional danger it will add whenever there is an American presence in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

So apparently the man is choosing to use the efforts of terrorists to serve his own goals.  The mask has slipped, huh, you fat fuck?

WTF?! Middle School Designates That Certain Class Officer Positions are Only Available to Members of... One Race [Update: The School Responds!]

There is so much wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin.  So at Nettleton Middle School, in Nettleton, Mississippi, they say that if you want to be Class President you have to be white and if you want to be Vice President, you have to be black.  And on down the line.  They also segregate in other areas.

Yes, really.

Oh, and if you are Asian, or a Native American, you are shit out of luck, I guess.  I would go on pointing out the many contradictions, but sheesh, I think most of ya’ll get it.

By the way, that sound you are hearing right now is the rest of the entire state of Mississippi simultaneously smacking itself in the face to do a facepalm.

You know these things boggle the mind.  How did things get so completely wrong there?  I mean you think racism is dead, or on its death bed, but then one day you are fishing and you draw in a Coelacanth of segregation.  And you look at it in astonishment and say, “how do you even exist in 2010?”

But let me take a moment and express a deeper thought than just, “what the fuck?”  I mean every now and then these “living fossils” turn up.  A few years back I remember where a principal segregated the prom.  When a biracial girl asked him, presumably sarcastically, what prom she was supposed to go to, he told her that her parents made a mistake in creating her.  And I remember watching news footage of one black woman crying at the thought that her children would have to go to that same school the next year—she had no other options.  She was too poor to have other options.

In the linked article, the woman, Brandy Springer, decided to move to take herself out of the system.  That is great.  Seriously that is wonderful.  She has withdrawn both her children and her tax dollars from that Jim Crowe district and I applaud her for it.

But most people can’t do that.  Most people are stuck with what they got.

I have alluded to the fact that I am learning disabled.  I don’t remember if I have shared with you that when I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, that I made the “mistake” of seeking the most reasonable accommodations.  They not only refused to do so, but they engaged in active forms of discrimination until I gave up and dropped out.

Now the story ends alright.  I later got my GED, went to a mid-level University and then on to a one of the best law schools in America.  And in business and in life I do pretty well for myself.  But in that time when my dreams were broken, when I believed I had no future, the most bitter thought was that these bastards took away my right to an education, but my parents still had to pay for it.

Our current “free” education system is wrong.  It is wrong to create a set of economics that make it easy for the richest students to escape the public schools, that makes it hard for the middle class to afford that, and positively traps the poorest in them.  I know about the founding of the current free school system and I know it was motivated by the best egalitarian ideal: that every person deserved a square chance at success in life.  But like most government programs, it is losing sight of its original purpose.

And when the only game in town is the government, as it is for most people seeking to educate their children, then when that government entity is taken over by bigots, it can be devastating.  Most people can’t move.  Most people can’t afford to send their children to private school.  So their children will face discrimination in their education, even denial of their right to an education, and have nowhere else to go.

What we need is a radical privatization of our school system.  What I propose is this.  it balances the need to give everyone a square chance at life, while also introducing some market competition.

First, every parent would receive a voucher.  Now it is often argued that vouchers never pay for much.  I agree.  So let’s make it pay for a lot.  For instance, I once heard it said that in America we spend an average of $6,600 per student per year.  So let’s get them a voucher for that amount.

Second, every public school would be converted to a tuition basis for funding.

And of course measures would be adopted to make sure that the states still offered a viable alternative, just in case every private school refuses to admit black students, or more reasonably they all become religious schools leaving no secular alternative.

It is often objected that many private schools are religions and this would raise establishment clause concerns.  First, it is illogical to assume that if private schools are now overwhelmingly religious that they will remain so if most children go to private schools.  Second, even if most of the money goes to religious schools, it is at the direction of the parents, not the government.  In that sense it is no different than a state employee receiving a paycheck and giving the majority of it to his church.  It is his money and his right.  Same with the parents; it becomes effectively their money.

And that is not just my opinion.  That is the opinion of the supreme court.  There have been cases where states would offer to, say, deaf children free sign interpreters to help them go to school wherever they chose to go to school.  Believe it or not, someone had a problem with that, claiming that if a deaf child used a state-sponsored interpreter, that this amounted to aiding religion and the court reasoned exactly as I did: that is it no different than a state employee putting his own earned salary into the coffers of a church.

Right now, our schools are socialist institutions.  That is the reality of it all.  And they are inflicted with the classic failings of socialism: prices go up, salaries go down, and quality goes down the tubes.  What I am proposing is a radical injection of capitalism into that system.  It won’t eliminate bigotry like we saw in this story or what I personally faced.  But it will limit its effects.  And most importantly it will fundamentally change the relationship between schools and parents.  Rather than being people seeking their benefits from the state, they will be customers.  They can say, you will educate my child, or by God, I will take that money somewhere else.

In Nettleton, Mississippi, Brandy Springer as so offended by the racism in her school she moved her whole family to withhold her child and the money associated with her child, from that school.  Every parent, rich or poor should be able to do that.

Update: The school tries to explain itself in a press release:

After being notified of a grievance regarding upcoming student elections at Nettleton Middle School, research was conducted that evidenced that the current practices and procedures for student elections have existed for over 30 years. It is the belief of the current administration that these procedures were implemented to help ensure minority representation and involvement in the student body. It is felt the intent of these election procedures was to ensure African-American representation in each student office category through an annual rotation basis.

So in short, this started as affirmative action.  Which goes to show something else: how often affirmative action can end up looking like just plain racism.

Further they explain:

Therefore, beginning immediately, student elections at Nettleton School District will no longer have a classification of ethnicity. It is our intent that each student has equal opportunity to seek election for any student office.

Oh well, that is good.  Apparently they have learned their lesson, right?  Right?

Future student elections will be monitored to help ensure that this change in process and procedure does not adversely affect minority representation in student elections.

Ah, crap.

Slipping a Little Politics into Miss Universe’s Presentation

You know, I haven’t watched a beauty pageant in years but with all this stuff going on in them, I might have to change my mind.  IBD explains that

On her final catwalk, the ranking Miss Universe, Stefania Fernandez, suddenly whipped out a Venezuelan flag in a patriotic but protocol-breaking gesture.

Fernandez waved her flag for the same reason Americans waved theirs after 9/11 — to convey resolution amid distress. Her flag had seven stars, significant because Chavez had arbitrarily added an eighth, making any use of a difficult-to-find seven-star banner an act of defiance.

Now they go on to suggest that this is all about violence in the country.  Well, I am skeptical of that, but certainly it seems like a rebuke of Chavez of some kind.

Now of course starlets, models, singers, etc. are not the best students of political theory.  I mean, gee, Madonna, can you explain to us the merits of capitalism v. socialism as you pretend to finger yourself on stage?  And, um, you are pretending, right?  Right?

And further the recent politicization of these pageants need to stop.  Its all elaborate bullshit, to tell the truth and these things are struggling to stay relevant.  I mean look, this started out as a way for men to oogle women, okay?  But they wanted to at least pretend it wasn’t just that so they started asking the kids how they would feed the world and similar crap.  So then for some reason people misinterpreted it as these women having a point of view that mattered.  No, sorry ladies, you don’t.  There I said it.

Which is not to say they are all stupid or something like that.  But they are not selected for their intelligence, now are they?  Its like a Paul Westerberg song went, “You’ve got brains...  all the way down.”  So if the winner is smart, its coincidental.  Yeah, I said it.

Which is why they find themselves today in such a predicament.  As porn, well, its probably got the same problem all porn has these days: endless free porn on the net.  And if you take away the porn factor, well, what is left?

And then if you inject politics into it, well, then it gets really tedious.  The fact is I don’t care what Miss California thinks about gay marriage.  I also don’t get why Perez Hilton is judging a female beauty pageant.  Its like a Priest claiming to be a marriage counselor.  There are some jobs a person is just not qualified for.

But that begs the question, why did I post this at all?

Honestly I have a soft spot for anyone standing up to a dictator.  Crazy that.

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Oh, and then why did I make a big deal about Miss USA opposing the mosque?  Because regardless of who she is, she rebuts the claim that all opponents of the GZM are bigots just because of who she is.  And how can I say this.  AQ would force her to wear a burqa, and putting that picture up reminds you of the stakes, of what kind of society we are fighting for in this war on terror.

Like Thinking you are Squeezing Lemons: A Different Take on the Attack on Ahmed Sharif.

Ahmed H. Sharif was the New York City cab driver who was attacked by Michael Enright and Mr. Sharif gives us a much longer account to the New York Times, and you won’t hear me say this very often, but its worth reading.  Yes I know, the New York Times.  I am as surprised to write that as you are to read it.

Anyway, as you read this I want you to keep a few facts in mind.  Bear in mind that Enright was embedded with a unit in Afghanistan, to shoot a documentary.  He was in film school.

It was the first fare of the cabdriver’s shift. A young man hailed him at the corner of Second Avenue and East 24th Street, wanting to go to 42nd and Second. It was 6 p.m. on Tuesday; the traffic was dense.

Once the fare, Michael Enright, a 21-year-old film student who had been recently trailing Marines in Afghanistan, settled in the back, he started asking friendly enough questions: Where was the driver from? Was he Muslim?

The driver, Ahmed H. Sharif, 44, said he was from Bangladesh, and yes he was Muslim.

Mr. Enright said, “Salaam aleikum,” the Arabic greeting “Peace be upon you.”

“How’s your Ramadan going?” Mr. Enright asked, Mr. Sharif said.

He told him it was going fine. Then, he said, Mr. Enright began making fun of the rituals of Ramadan, and Mr. Sharif sensed this cab ride might not be like any other.

“So I stopped talking to him,” Mr. Sharif said. “He stopped talking, too.”

As the cab inched up Third Avenue and reached 39th Street, Mr. Sharif said in a phone interview, Mr. Enright suddenly began cursing at him and shouting “This is the checkpoint” and “I have to bring you down.” He said he told him he had to bring the king of Saudi Arabia to the checkpoint.

“He was talking like he was a soldier,” Mr. Sharif said.

That is when the attack started, but I want to stop there.  Especially to a lawyer this account has a certain familiarity to it.  It starts to sound like an absolutely classic scenario in pleading insanity.

A lot of people think that the insanity defense will basically say that if you are diagnosed as “nuts” in any way then you get out of jail free.  This is not even remotely true.  Generally (and each state varies) you have to be a very specific kind of nut.  One common variety is where the person is so far gone they literally have no idea what they are actually doing.  And there is a classic example given to make you understand it intuitively.  Imagine you are so given to hallucination that you are thinking that you are squeezing lemons to make lemonade, when in fact you are actually squeezing a person’s neck and killing them.  In that scenario you can truly say that the person literally didn’t understand what they were doing.

And isn’t that maybe what was happening here?  As you read his account you really start to think that he literally thinks he is in Afghanistan, and somehow he is trying to get the King of Saudi Arabia through a checkpoint.  I mean I suspect you might get a brain strain if you try too hard to understand, but it seems like at the beginning of the ride he was alert and oriented, in touch with reality and somewhere along the way, he entered Afghanistan in his mind. 

Of course that is assuming that Mr. Sharif is telling the truth but there is no reason to doubt him.  And it is assuming that Enright was not putting on an act, which is much less certain.  But if you believe Sharif is telling the truth, and Enright was not putting on a nutty act, then this might be equivalent to the lemon squeezing example.

Obviously that means he might have the insanity defense available but I have a deeper point to make.

Everyone is so eager to turn this attack into a larger symbol.  But the truth suggested by this account might very well be simply this.  Enright was so insane he didn’t even know where he was, or what was going on.  And for everyone, including the New York Times, to pretend this says something about our culture is simply wrong.

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Oh, and its hypocritical, too.  Remember when Maj. Hasan shot up Ft. Hood?  What was the New York Times’ favorite explanation?  The trauma of treating patient who served in war, sort of PTSD by proxy.  But here is a man who actually was in a war zone, and mentally might have been back there when he committed the attacks and what do they attribute this to?

The violence that erupted during the cab ride came amid a heated and persisting national debate over whether to situate a Muslim community center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero. Upon learning of the attack on the cabdriver, some Muslim groups called for political and religious leaders to quiet tensions.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement: “As other American minorities have experienced, hate speech often leads to hate crimes. Sadly, we’ve seen how the deliberate public vilification of Islam can lead some individuals to violence against innocent people.”

Oh and not for nothing, but it turns out that Mr. Sharif is one of those knuckle dragging bigots who is opposed to the GZM:

Recently, some passengers asked him about the center planned near ground zero, he recalled, and he replied that he was against it, that there was no need to put it there.

But we will ignore every fact that undermines “Teh Narrative” right?

GZM Supporter Curses Out Holocaust Survivor, Accuses him of Wanting a Holocaust of Muslims

I wonder if Juan Cole will blame his side for this anti-Semitic asshole?

The really ugly crap was at around 2 minutes in.  And I liked the closure of seeing the man singing God Bless America and showing off his pro-Israel shirt.

On Collective Blame and “Root Causes” and Juan Cole

So, Mr. Cole, help me out here.

So on September 11, nineteen Muslims murdered around 3,000 Americans.  You know, like this guy:

But, Mr. Cole tells us, it would be wrong to blame all Muslims for that.  On a different subject he said, “[c]ollective guilt and collective punishment are always wrong[.]”  And he is right.  Collective blame is wrong, and leads to a lot of other wrong things.

And then he takes it further and says that to oppose the GZM is collective guilt, stating that opponents of the mosque “identify Islam with the attackers (even though Usama Bin Laden openly said of the hijackers that ‘those young men had no fiqh [Islamic law]‘– i.e. they were lawless secret operatives rather than proper Muslims.)”

(Yes, that is right.  He is trying to claim that Osama bin Laden said the nineteen hijackers were not proper Muslims.  What crap.  I mean, I can accept a moderate Muslim saying that, but no, not bin Laden.) 

Now I have to part ways with them on that, but my opposition to that is not, contrary to their silly claims, based on collective blame but the belief that this will hand our enemies a propaganda victory and because this particular group appears to be radicals in moderate clothing.

But then along comes a man named Michael Enright who allegedly viciously attacks a cab driver, allegedly because he is a Muslim.  So then Mr. Cole wants to wants to tar all conservatives, or at least the Republican party as being to blame for the actions of one emotionally disturbed man.  Um, isn’t that collective blame?

Oh, and if that isn’t contradiction enough, he is also one of those people on the left who wants us to look into the “root causes” of terrorism,” by which he means that we should realize that terrorism is caused by deep injustice and if only we eliminated that injustice there would be no more terrorism.

“What the citizens of the U.S. fail to understand is that the battle against the 9/11 terrorists is not their battle. It is a Muslim battle.”

That is a quote in a very interesting editorial by Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, Al-Arabiya TV’s director-general.  Translated from the indispensible Memri, he discusses the issues around the GZM and its worth reading the whole thing.  I was tempted to do another “here’s another anti-muslim bigot opposed to the mosque” type of thing, but most people capable of grasping that point have already grasped it and I think the material is best presented more straightforwardly.

A lot of the analysis is strange.  First, he makes the mistake of thinking Obama endorsed creating it, but hell, he wouldn’t be the first.  And also contra the people who claim that this controversy is spreading hate, he says that building the GZM “is unnecessary and unimportant, even for the Muslims. This mosque is not an issue for Muslims, and they do not care about its construction.”

But, to be blunt, by the end of the article, I got the feeling he was talking about how he felt, and mistakenly assuming the rest of the Muslim world feels the way he does.  But that is just opinion, and given that it is his job to understand the Muslim community, maybe I would be wrong to second guess him.  He then says something else that, if true, would drain the air out of liberals’ tires on another issue:

Sen. Max Baucus: I Wrote the Health Care Law, But I Didn’t Actually Read it

Today’s beat-your-head-on-the-nearest-wall moment comes from Max Baucus (Democrat-Mont.-Derelict-in-his-Duty).  Apparently he wants us to believe he somehow wrote it without reading it.  And I know I have been saying this a lot, but, yes, really:

Judy Matott asked Baucus if he would work to improve Libby’s image, and then asked him and Sebelius, “if either of you read the health care bill before it was passed and if not, that is the most despicable, irresponsible thing.”

Baucus replied that if Libby residents assembled an economic development plan, he would do what he could to help, and he took credit for “essentially” writing the health care bill that passed the Senate.

“I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It’s statutory language,” Baucus said. “We hire experts.”

So I guess he is like a monkey at a typewriter, then, bashing the keyboard and hoping something good happens.

And I will note that most versions of that metaphor state that it will take at least a million monkeys at a million typewriters, typing for a million years to produce anything of value.

So you wrote it, but the actual reading, etc. was done by experts?  Well, gee, Mr. Baucus, WHY DON’T WE HIRE THEM TO BE OUR SENATORS?  I mean if you guys don’t read, understand and vote on bills based on that understanding, why don’t we pick senators who will?  You know, cut out the middle man.

Seriously, if you don’t actually read the bills, what are you doing there, you waste of space?

And don’t worry kiddies its not like those experts could ever slip anything past those congressional idiots, right?  So you don’t have to worry about those experts taking advantage of their inattention to slip something vile into the law..

And, if you are one of those experts, do America a favor and embarrass these people.  Trick these people into passing something with a line like, “And Congresspersons shall hereby wear clown-noses when debating bills involving appropriations.”  You will show the people in charge are not paying any attention, and Democracy will thank you, and who knows?  Really funny crap could happen.  They might have to wear clown noses when they debate, which is ironically appropriate.

Objecton, Relevance: Stupidity Regarding Fox News and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal

You know, given how often liberals denounce corporations, you think they would understand some basic truths about corporate law and governance.  Or maybe their hatred is born out of ignorance, come to think of it.  But here are some basic facts missing from this discussion.

First, Al-Waleed didn’t “fund Fox News” as you often hear claimed—not unless he was part of the IPO, which has not been claimed.  Let me explain.  News Corp is a publicly traded company.  So this is what happened.  At some point in the history of the company they had an initial public offering.  At that time various people bought the stock.  Those people put money into News Corp’s treasury.

Then they sold the stock to someone else.  And how much did New Corp get out of that transaction?  Nothing.  And then the stock probably changed hands several more times, and finally 7% ended up in the hands of Al-Waleed.

Think of it like selling a car, because in a real sense it is no different.  When you sell your car to someone, that person is “funding you” in the sense that he is giving you money.  But if that person sells the car to another person, and that person sells to another person, those transactions literally have no effect on your finances.  Its precisely the same way with stocks.

And yeah, you read that right.  He owns a paltry 7% of the company.  Which leads me to my next point:

Another Intolerant Anti-Muslim Bigot Writes About the GZM

Let me quote him at length:

Let us remember that the project organizers themselves created this controversy by announcing that the groundbreaking would take place on the ten-year anniversary of the attack, and that the exact site was selected because of its proximity to Ground Zero. Given that fact, the current media meme that this is not a “Ground Zero mosque” is dishonest spin....

More importantly, the mosque will come to symbolize in the radical Muslim world the triumph of Bin Laden’s attack, and provide a kind of heavenly validation for his approach to spreading radical ideology. For what other reason could the tenth anniversary have been chosen for the groundbreaking?

It is not hard to see that this will only inspire more attacks. The logic will be: “If Allah gave us one miracle, maybe He’ll give us more.”

If some Americans are suspicious and fearful of Muslims, it’s not without good reason, and nothing their self-appointed leadership has done or said in the nine years following 9/11 has allayed those fears. Non-Muslim Americans have yet to see any clean line of demarcation between radical and moderate Muslims. Everywhere around the globe Muslims are the cause of so much bloodshed and turmoil, making life on this planet a living hell.

What are people to think when they see a group of World Cup fans blown up in Uganda by Somali Muslim psychopaths? Closer to home, a U.S. Army Major shoots his fellow soldiers! What are they to make of a Pakistani national given U.S. citizenship just last year attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square? And the self-taught “American” sheikh, Anwar al-Awlaki, who from his cave somewhere in Yemen calls on Muslims to murder Americans, and they listen?

The underlying problem in this bitter controversy is that Muslims in America suffer a deserved trust deficit, wherein they are seen as a foreign and dangerous element. Perhaps if the $100 million being spent on this mosque were used to build, say, a hospital, this perception would begin to change.

Ah, who is this evil, bigoted jerk.  I bet his name is John-boy, or Bubba.  Well, look below the fold:

About that Moderate Ground Zero Imam...

Can I be prescient or what?  Yesterday I wrote:

But bluntly you have to wonder.  There is a long tradition of Imams who say “peace” in English and “jihad” in Arabic, when they don’t think we are listening.  I wonder what he says when he doesn’t think we are listening?

Well, well, via Memri we learn that he has a slightly different title for his book when it is sold in Indonesia:

It Would be Cheap and Unfair...

…if I took this one anti-Semitic thing said by this one speaker in favor of the GZM and tarred all supporters with it.  I mean seriously, it would be.

But when has the other side shown such leniency?

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but hey, at least now you have ammunition, when they cite one random person in a crowd.

But who are we kidding.  The media will never stop its double standards.  All we can do is counter it by exposing it.

Stupidest Line in a Story Today

From a story informing us that Tiger Woods is getting a divorce:

The split comes as little surprise to those closest to the 34-year-old Woods.

Yeah, it’s not a surprise to anyone in the fucking Western Hemisphere.  Which actually I am pretty sure is about how many women he fucked—a whole fucking hemisphere’s worth.

Sheesh.

Fisking the GZM Imam

You know, I will tell you the truth.  The shocking clips…  maybe I have been around too many liberals, but they are not very shocking.  His anti-americanism is actually kind of tired and stale.  It just strikes me as moronic conversion of the left and the islamofascist right, that speaks in quiet tones, but nonetheless is singing My Sharia More.  But I thought I would do something different and fisk his stupid talk, as kindly provided by Pamela Geller.  So here goes.

Now first there is a bunch of introductory crap.  I half expected him to make a crappy opening joke.  Okay.  And early on he gives this bit:

The Jewish prophets, Jesus Christ and John the Baptist and Mary are in fact religious personalities and prophets of the Islamic faith as well.  What divides us is less theology, to my mind, than history.

Yeah, what a bunch of smiley faced bullshit.  You deny that Christ is the son of God, and that is okay, but don’t then pretend you and I have much in common in our faith.  I don’t condescend to Jews that we share much of our faith, and neither should you.

And mind you, most of the world are “not Christians” and we get along just fine.  Seriously, knock yourself out.  But don’t bullshit me.

And isn’t that itself pretty exclusionary?  What about Buddhists, where do they fit in that?  The Taoists?  The Atheists?  The pagans of the DaVinci Code variety?

I Can't Endorse This Yet

But if genuine, this is explosive stuff, and sounds like the stuff hinted at last week.  Basically the Ground Zero Imam is a tad more radical than advertised.  So go look, read and listen with an appropriately critical eye, but no matter what, its worth a gander.

Going Full Metal Idiot on the GZM

The lamest thing to see recently is for Democrats/liberals making fact-immune defense of the Ground Zero Mosque (GZM).  Two recent examples of this is a blog post from Robert Ebert and Cracked.com.

So let’s take Ebert on first.  He creates a post called Ten Things I know About the Mosque.  The irony is that he doesn’t seem to have done basic research or even talked to someone who criticizes it, or even read too many blogs on the subject.

So his first truth:

1. America missed a golden opportunity to showcase its Constitutional freedoms. The instinctive response of Americans should have been the same as President Obama's: Muslims have every right to build there.

Now I have said that I think we have a right to stop it.  I have advocated using the Historical Sites Act to take over much of the area and make sure appropriate messages are sent.  I have said that if it is built with absolutely the best intentions, that it will be interpreted rightly or wrongly by our enemies as a Victory Mosque and as such, as a matter of the powers of war, we have the right to stop it at least until the war is over.  And there is good reason to think they do not have the best of intentions.

But here’s the thing.  I am distinctly in the minority on that point.  Most Americans agree they have the right to build it wherever the hell they want.  They just don’t want them to do it.  A perfectly reasonable position: you can do it, please don’t.

Now, the funny thing is that ordinarily Ebert gets that, which is demonstrated in his second “truth” that the first amendment doesn’t mean: that “[t]he First Amendment gives me the right to repeat the N-word 11 times on the radio to an inoffensive black woman, and when you attack me for saying it, you are in violation of my First Amendment rights.”  We agree, Roger, but see, the thing is, that is all most of Americans are saying on this.  Sure, you are legally entitled to say the n-word, or to build a Mosque at Ground Zero.  But please don’t.

Laugh or Cry: DOJ Hiring People to Help Translate from... Ebonics

Apparently when people are speaking "Ebonics" they just can’t understand.

Yes, really.  (I feel like I am saying that a lot recently.)

I especially love The Smoking Gun’s explanation of this, quoting an idiot professor:

“Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”

If you are in law enforcement and you hear a man say “check out mah rad” and you don’t know what he is saying, that is just pathetic.

It all reminds me of when the whole thing first caught national attention when Oakland, if memory serves, tried to claim it was a language.  I remember reading in the Dallas Morning News where they explained that gee, unlike white people, black people will leave out the g in ing sounds, use double negatives and the word “ain’t.”  Let me emphasize this.  They had the nerve to write this in the Dallas Morning News!  That is Dallas, Texas, not Dallas, Michigan.

I remember saying to an office friend, emphasizing in my southern drawl: “Yeah, I ain’t never heard of no white people doin’ that.”  Sigh.

Look, I am not automatically against hiring experts to teach a little slang to the troops.  It’s just the abject P.C. stupidity surrounding what could have been a minor procurement that rankles me.  I mean Ebonics is bullshit.  And its almost like I am allergic to bullshit, or something...

“An overlooked essential for cooking with kids”

Glenn Reynolds sings the praises of the simple step stool, saying “When the Insta-Daughter was about 2, I brought one home from Target — just a one-piece plastic stool, nothing fancy — but she was so excited she carried it around the house. A whole new world of things within reach!”

Indeed, I noticed the same thing with my wife!

(ducks)

The Latest Anti Muslim Bigot to Come Out Against the GZM is... Rima Fakih, America’s first Muslim Miss U.S.A.?

This is only the latest and easily the sexiest example of Muslims who have come out against the GZM.  I mean, besides the crazy ones who claim the Jews are responsible.

So Pelosi, do you want to investigate her, learn all the intimate details of her life, and all that?

No, actually I am wondering, because if you need volunteers...  well, I am married, but my brother-in-law would probably be more than happy to help!  And if any of you patriotic males, or lesbians, would like to start the investigation, this would seem like a good place to start.

In more serious GZM news, there is a claim that very damaging audio tapes are about to drop, involving radical statements by the imam who wants to build this.

Update: Over at Patterico there is a regular commenter called “ColonelHaiku” who likes to post humorous Haikus.  When I shared this story over there, he wrote:

Colonel declare his

chubwa on Ms. Fakih months

ago it still on!

To which I responded: “I could be wrong but I believe the commercials for Cialis tells you that you should seek medical attention at the four hour mark.”

To which he responded:

Colonel must sign off

not enough blood go to head

getting hard to…typ…

So, um, take those commercials seriously, folks.  (Source.)

How the Federal Government Could Prevent the Building of the Ground Zero Mosque

One of the most curious arguments liberals have made in relation to the Ground Zero Mosque (GZM) recently is the idea that this is somehow just a local decision.  I mean these are the same people who think your daily health is a federal matter, but suddenly they are state’s right supporters?  Now of course you could charge the conservatives with hypocrisy by turning the objection around, but, well, national defense is a national issue.  And 9-11 was a national event.  Conservatives don’t believe that nothing is national, they just believe that a lot less is national than the liberals do.

The left also acts as though there is no national law that bears on the subject.  But in fact there is.  Its called the Historic Sites Act.  And in 16 U.S.C. § 462(d) the statute specifically authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by purchase, or, if necessary, condemnation historic landmarks.

As noted just today at Patterico’s Pontifications, this is a site where debris from collapse of the towers fell.  As such, the Secretary could condemn the land, pay just compensation for it, and make it Federal Property.  Then they can instead build a 13 story monument to those who were murdered on September 11, including the innocent Muslims caught in the blast.  I would even support an appropriate multi-faith approach, where a Jewish memorial, a Christian Memorial and so on, respecting the faith of every person who died there.  Or they could build a museum or, well, whatever the hell they want as long as it is rationally related to the historic nature of the site.

You Know the Democrats Have Lost their Minds on the GZM...

…when Howard Dean emerges as a voice of reason.

Yeah, that Howard Dean.  He is the voice of reason in this.  Not that I 100% agree with everything he writes, but he’s being really much more reasonable and intellectually honest than most of his party.

God that feels like such a weird thing to write.

On Confusion About Obama’s Religion

So for the last 24 hours or so, people have been freaking out because a Time poll found that 24% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim.  Of course a Pew Poll put the numbers closer to 18%, but that’s not a big difference.  So everyone is taking this as proof of prejudice against Obama or something, and certainly it is alarming some people.

But let’s put this into a little perspective a little.  First people are very often outright ignorant about things that other people consider basic knowledge.  Like for instance, 26% of Americans in a recent poll showed they didn’t know we rebelled from Great Britain in our Revolution, 6% of whom didn’t know we had a revolution at all.  And the other thing to keep in mind, is that the chattering class, which yes includes me and pretty much anyone who comments or posts on a political blog, are frankly much more nerdy about politics.  We know more because we care more, and there are large swaths of Americans who just don’t care enough to get that kind of minutiae straight.  Like a few years back a shockingly low number of people knew who Ann Coulter was.  But I bet something like 99% of people who belong in that chattering class I described above know who she is.  So complaining that about a fifth or a quarter of Americans think Obama is a Muslim might be like Star Trek nerds complaining that most Americans don’t know that Captain Kirk’s middle name is Tiberius.

(Sadly I knew that bit of Trek trivia off the top of my head.  I am a master of useless information.)

And let me posit something else in the way of explanation.  Let’s run a few hypotheticals to make a point.  Imagine I required you to guess the religion of a number of people.  So first up, I introduce you to Hillel Silverstein.  Now guess what religion he is?  Most people would recognize that name as typically belonging to Jews and would guess Jewish.

And the GZM Stupidity Keeps Coming...

Via Hot Air, we have a clip of Russell Simmons trying to say we shouldn’t blame Muslims for 9-11.  Agreed.  There is no such thing as group guilt, you are responsible for yourself only.  But then it gets stupid when he asks “Did we blame Christians at the first World Trade attack?”

Really, there are no words.  But let me say, no, this is not the stupidest thing said during his entire controversy.  Kathleen Parker gets the prize for that.

Islamic Research Academy: There Should not be a Mosque at Ground Zero... and, um, the Decision to Create One is a Zionist Conspiracy?

You know I didn’t think anyone’s paranoia could top Pelosi’s, but silly me I forgot all about the insanity coming on a daily basis out of the Middle East.  Yeah, I said it, there are idiots all over the place over there that make Oliver Stone go “gee, don’t you think you’re being a bit too suspicious?”  Mind you, I ascribe the majority of that crap to just living in dictatorships, but for whatever reason its really endemic over there.  Death Cult Mickey Mouses, lovable furry rabbits that eat Jews, Jews stealing organs, and other nuttiness spew on a daily basis over there.  I mean I have heard people over there claim that Tom and Jerry cartoons were a Jewish conspiracy, because in their minds Jews (or “Joooooos!”) are mice and thus the T&J cartoons were designed to make kids like mice.  Yes, really.

So really I should have known better than to be surprised when I read this in Pajamas Media:

A number of Al Azhar ulema expressed their opposition to building a mosque near [where] the events of September 11 [occurred], convinced that it is “a conspiracy to confirm a clear connection between the strikes of September [11] and Islam.” Dr. ‘Abd al-Mu‘ti Bayumi, a member of the Islamic Research Academy [of Al Azhar] told Al Masry Al Youm that he rejects the building of any mosque in this area [Ground Zero], because the “devious mentality” desires to connect these events [of 9/11] with Islam, though he maintains that Islam is innocent of this accusation. Instead, it is a “Zionist conspiracy,” which many are making use of to harm the religion. Likewise, Dr. Amna Nazir, professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, expressed her rejection that a mosque be built near the World Trade Center, saying: “Building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention — even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds, and insist on good will. I hope it is a sincere step, and not a new conspiracy against Islam and Muslims.”

I mean it is par for the course over there.  Everything is the Jews’ fault.  Apparently even these Muslims are in on it.  The Jooos are that insidious.  And really it fits an old pattern of kleptocratic dictatorships blaming an easy scapegoat, and let’s face it, the jews have been the punching bag of choice for something like 2000 years.

It all reminds me of that case a few years ago in Nigeria involving that woman who got pregnant something like three months after husband died and was tried, convicted and sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery (in the sense that she had sex outside of the context of marriage), all according to their interpretation of Islamic Law.  Now she had claimed that in fact she was raped, but no one cared, and for that reason her case attracted international attention for that reason.  It turned out that she was lying when she said that, but given that they were going to stone her to death for a reason that is stupid even if she is “guilty” makes me very willing to forgive that lie.

So finally the Nigerian Supreme Court stepped in and set her free.  Which sounds great and all until you read the reasoning.  You see, according to Islam, or at least their interpretation of it, a man’s sperm can survive up to 7 months inside a woman.  Mind you, science calls that complete bullshit, but Islam says it is true.  So the court said that since she got pregnant within 7 months of her husband’s death, that there was an irrebuttable presumption that it was actually his child and therefore she did not commit adultery.

So you read that and go, “okay, I like the bottom line—the woman ain’t going to be stoned—but man, that reasoning is FUBAR" (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).  So that is about how I feel reading that quote.

That all being said if Nancy Pelosi wants to investigate these opponents of the GZM, I am with her.

Is Ann Althouse Equating Pelosi’s Conspiracy Theories with Conspiracy Theories About Radical Islam?

Althouse correctly excoriates Pelosi for her silliness writing: “It just can't be that people — and it's the vast majority of Americans! — actually read/hear news reports and commentary and arrive at opinions.”  Good point and it does highlight to me again the creepy disdain the left has been showing recently for the opinions of the American people.

But then she write this: “Meanwhile, the right is headed over to the conspiracy place too.”

Sorry, but is she trying to demonstrate a certain equivalency?

Well, Ann, if you are, there is a slight difference between imagining a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy in relation to opposition to the mosque v. imagining a conspiracy to spread islamofascism.  You know what that difference is?  There is undeniably a conspiracy to spread islamofascism.

Seriously, what do you call it when 19 hijackers got together, with support from al Qaeda to murder about 3,000 Americans?  You call it a conspiracy.  There indeed is not one but many conspiracies to spread islamofascism.  There is no question at all the conspiracies exist, and it is perfectly rational to wonder if there are connections to the Ground Zero Mosque and these undeniably real conspiracies.

In related silliness, Kathleen Parker writes “[t]he Muslims who want to build this mosque didn't fly airplanes into skyscrapers.”  Yes, Kathy, that is right.  Because the ones who did, are dead.

You win the prize for officially saying the stupidest thing possible in this entire debate.

Nancy Pelosi on the Ground Zero Mosque: Hey, We Should take a Really Close Look at the Funding... of the Opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque. (Updated x3)

Yes, she really said that.

Well, I have a special message for her:

In other news, apparently the PR people for the GZM are issuing anti-Semitic tweets.  Nice.

Update: God bless Google, via Cnn, we learn that this means Pelosi would have to investigate 68% of all Americans, including 70% of Independents and 54% of Democrats.  That is right even a majority within her own party is apparently in on it.  That is how insidious we are in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 2.0.

And indeed 53% of New Yorkers oppose the mosque.  So I guess they are in on it, too.

Update (II): Nancy Pelosi doubles down on the stupidity.  From a new press release:

I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that 'We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.'

Well, at least she is finally interested in looking into the funding behind it.  And all it took was for her to say something stupid and paranoid.

Updated (III): The Ground Zero Mosque builders won’t rule out getting funding from...  Iran.  Well, isn’t that special?  (Source)

Not Sure Whether to Laugh or Cry

We have heard Congress tell us it is too much trouble to read what a law says before passing it, and that we should pass laws in order to learn what is in them.

Now we learned that Congress apparently can’t be bothered to read the title page.

You see the other day, they passed a law that is entered into the books as “The _________ Act of ____.”

Yes, really.  Yes, literally that.  Seriously, follow the link and you will be amazed.  They passed a law and literally failed to give it a title, failed to even notice they didn’t give it a title, failed to even notice they forgot to enter in the date.

Jesus wept.

Calling Bullshit on Ted Olson

In defending the recent ruling that apparently gay marriage is in the Fourteenth Amendment, and no one apparently discovered that for the first 142 years of its existance, former Solicitor General Ted Olson made the idiot comparison between freedom of speech and gay marriage:

Well, would you like your right to free speech, would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do?  These are fundament constitutional rights.  The Bill of Rights guarantees Fox News and you, Chris Wallace, the right to speak.  It’s in the constitution. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the denial of our citizens of the equal rights to equal access to justice under the law, is a violation of our fundamental rights. Yes, it’s encouraging that many states are moving towards equality on the basis of sexual orientation, and I’m very, very pleased about that. … We can’t wait for the voters to decide that that immeasurable harm, that is unconstitutional, must be eliminated.

First, every time someone says that it’s a throw-something-at-the-screen moment.  I am sick and tired of morons like Olson equating what is not reasonably in the constitution with what is obviously in the constitution.  Olson has made a great argument for amending the constitution, not making crap up in it.  The reason why the first amendment is not up for a simple majority vote is because someone has put it in the constitution. The claim that excluding gay people from marriage is unconstitutional doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Second, its funny you should stay that, Teddy boy, because do you remember a little case called McConnell v. the FEC?  In that case they made a facial challenge to McCain-Feingold on the theory that it suppresses freedom of expression.  A few years later the Supreme Court said the same law was unconstitutional precisely because it had that effect.  And guess who was on the side of the FEC and greater restrictions of expression in McConnel?  Then Solicitor General Theodore Olson.  As in you, dickhead.  You personally argued that congress could vote away our freedom of expression.  Indeed, if your arguments were accepted, Fox News, and indeed every news corporation would have been subject to direct federal regulation if congress only decided to do it.

So basically he tried to justify a ruling not supported by the constitution by citing a principle actually written in the constitution that he personally worked to subvert.

What a complete pile of bullshit.

(Source for quote, with slight correction.)

Why Kennedy Probably Won’t Invalidate Proposition 8—A Response to James Taranto

James Taranto today said that he felt that Kennedy was principled enough that he would invalidate Proposition 8.  I have to disagree.

First, Kennedy is not nearly as principled as Taranto imagines.  Yes, he seems reasonably principled in defense of freedom of speech, but in terms of his interpretive methods, not so much.  He joined Scalia’s opinion in Heller v. District of Columbia, which was an intensely originalist decision, determining how the Second Amendment would have been understood at the time it was ratified.  And this was no mere joinder for convenience; in oral argument, he talked about how the founders would have considered life without guns unthinkable.  He put on at least an act of caring what the founders believed.

Then along came Kennedy v. Louisiana.  In that case they were called on to determine whether the term “cruel and unusual punishment” included executing a person for forcibly raping a child.  And with apologies for being this explicit, but the Defendant in that case, also coincidentally named Kennedy, had raped his eight year old daughter so violently that it ruptured the wall between her vagina and her anus and she will never have children.  Read the case and, to Justice Kennedy’s credit, he does nothing to excuse or diminish the cruelty of the act.  So if Justice Kennedy was a principled follower of original intent this would be a no brainer.  At the time of the founding, we executed horse-thieves.  Killing a defendant like this scumbag is nothing compared to that.

But in fact (Justice) Kennedy declared it would be cruel and unusual to kill (Defendant) Kennedy for his crimes.  That decision came only a day before the decision in Heller, leading some of my more sarcastic friends to argue that Heller made Kennedy v. Louisiana moot.

Snooki Galt? And John Kerry Goes Ayn Rand, too.

Its been a running joke for a while that Obama’s new tax on artificial tanning sessions is racially discriminatory.  Instapundit has talked about that for ages as sort of a tongue in cheek way to attack the way anything that has an incidental effect on race, as racial discrimination under a disparate effect theory.  Which although I recognize the value of this approach in some cases, in some cases it can get ridiculous, such as claiming that criticism of Islam is racist because the people who adhere to it are arguably generally not white.

So now Snooki has chimed in and of course Instapundit couldn’t resist the link (and conspiring darkly in a tongue-in-cheek fashion).  I saw the clip on The Soup, and yeah, it was funny, but I wondered if Renolds was picking it up.

I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning. McCain would never put a 10% tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan," she said. Snooki was referring to a provision in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act that mandates tanning salons impose a 10 percent tax on UV-ray sessions.

She goes on to say that that Obama doesn’t care because he doesn’t need to tan.  Yike.  Yeah, not touching that with a twenty foot pole.

But what is funny about that is that Snooki intuitively gets the most basic problem with much, if not all, liberal regulation and taxation: that the more you burden businesses, the more you drive people out of that business.