Garbanzo Toons

Cutting Through the Insanity

George Will has in interesting column in the current Newsweek on the government's idiotic, ill-conceived rush to embrace and subsidize biofuels.

To avoid drilling for oil in ANWR's moonscape, the planet savers evidently prefer destroying forests, even though they absorb greenhouse gases. Will ethanol prevent more carbon-dioxide emissions than would have been absorbed by the trees cut down to clear land for the production of crops for ethanol? Be that as it may, governments mandating the use of biofuels are one reason for the global rise in food prices, which is driving demand for more arable land. That demand is driving the destruction of forests—and animal habitats. In Indonesia alone, 44 million acres have been razed to make way for production of palm oil.

Back in the days when I distrusted rational thought from the Right in favor of what passes for rational thought on the Left, George Will used to make me angry.

Dr. Sanity in a totally unrelated post offers a lengthy analysis on the sexual maladjustment and complete misogynistic mindset of Islam that forces men to become murderers and to abuse their women and children in order to avoid "humiliation". Laws that demean women and allow for their abuse and dehumanization are codified in Sharia law, as are excuses for the sexual abuse of children.

Glazov goes on to argue that Islamist terror can be thought of in part, at least, as a response to sexual rage, frustration, and the humiliation of being connected to a "degraded mother." Thus the men in the culture must constantly assert their masculinity, defend their masculine "honor", and strike out in rage against any who "shame" them.

This is apparent in the sexual mutilation of terror victims who are perceived as "inferior" by the Islamists, and on a par with women of their own culture. It is also seen in the Freudian symbolism of the barbaric act of beheading; as well as in the ubiquitous rape of non-muslim women around the world.

To some extent, such behavior has been seen in all cultures that debase or oppress women. In misogynistic cultures (and individuals) there is usually both the revulsion of the "whore" combined with a perverse obsession with, attraction to, and idealization of "perfection" in a woman (the "madonna" complex). In order to be idealized, women must be stripped of any hint of sexuality.

and

Needless to say, the family dynamics in viciously misogynic cultures like those dominated by Islamic extremists, create severely impaired girls and boys. It has been noted by many researchers and observers that children of both sexes are routinely physically and sexually abused by male relatives (indeed there are religious rules in Islam that designate under what circumstances babies may be used for sexual gratification by adults) . The boys are publicly circumcised and the girls clitoridectomized. Since a woman's behavior is the source of all shame and dishonor for the men in Islamic society, women must be ruthlessly controlled. The degree of control is proportional to the degree of sexual repression and frustration (and hence rage) that is mandated by the culture/religion.

and

Male children in societies that demonize or debase women must overemphasize their "maleness" in order to separate from the mother. As grown men, far from being able to mitigate the aggressive impulses of a child, such men will encourage these impulses in order to "prove" to the world at large that they (and later, their sons)have not been "feminized". Cultures where women have extremely low status almost always encourage the development of inadequate, "macho" men, who need to prove their manliness and constantly.

Both articles should be read in their entirety.

Labels: Dr. Sanity, environment, ethanol, George Will, islam

posted by Harry @ 7:59 PM 2 comments

Can You Handle the Truth?

According to the Detroit Free Press,

Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.

But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics.

The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.

Some people accept the reality of the situation, not only in Michigan, but in other states that have eased restrictions on carrying concealed weapons.

John Lott, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland who has done extensive research on the role of firearms in American society, said the results in Michigan since the law changed don't surprise him.

Academic studies of concealed weapons laws that generally allow citizens to obtain permits have shown different results, Lott said. About two-thirds of the studies suggest the laws reduce crime; the rest show no net effect, he said.

But no peer-reviewed study has ever shown that crime increases when jurisdictions enact changes like those put in place by the Legislature and then-Gov. John Engler in 2000, Lott said.

And yet, some people, I'm not going to mention their political persuasion, can't face the fact that in spite of their visceral fear and hatred of guns, their predications of daily shoot outs in the streets have proved wrong.

Kenneth Levin, a West Bloomfield physician, was one of those critics. In a letter to the Free Press in July 2001, he referred to the "inevitable first victim of road or workplace rage as a result of this law."

Last month, Levin said he suspected "it probably hasn't turned out as bad as I thought. I don't think I was wrong, but my worst fears weren't realized."

and,

Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe, president of the Michigan chapter of the anti-gun group Million Moms March, said she believes overall gun violence (including suicide and accidental shootings) is up in Michigan since 2001. Many incidents involving CCW permit holders have not been widely reported, she said.

The most publicized recent case came early in 2007, when a 40-year-old Macomb County woman fired from her vehicle toward the driver of a truck she claimed had cut her off on I-94. Bernadette Headd was convicted of assault and sentenced to two years in prison.

Hamilton said that even if gun violence has ebbed, it remains pervasive, tragic and unnecessary. At the least, a more liberal concealed weapons law means there are more guns in homes and cars and on the street, she said, and more potential for disaster.

So facts don't matter. What matters to these people is what they believe. They sound like extremists to me. Dr. Sanity has more on the type of people who refuse to face reality. And she does name political affiliations.

Labels: Detroit Free Press, Dr. Sanity, guns

posted by Harry @ 6:42 PM 2 comments

Fascinating Links

I found some others who are going to speak for me. I didn't mean for this to happen, they just happened to say some things that don't need to be rewritten, they only need to be read.

First up is Dr. Sanity presenting valid reasons why there is so little that qualifies as Islamic science. Read the links in her post too.

In October, Malaysia's first astronaut will join a Russian crew and blast off into space. The news of a Muslim astronaut was cause for celebration in the Islamic world, but then certain questions started popping up. How will he face Mecca during his five daily prayers while his space ship is whizzing around the Earth? How can he hold the prayer position in zero gravity? Such concerns may sound absurd to us, but the Malaysian space chief is taking them quite seriously. A team of Muslim scholars and scientists has spent more than a year drawing up an Islamic code of conduct for space travel.

This story illustrates the obstacles that face scientists in Muslim countries. While it's always risky to draw generalizations about Islam, even conservative Muslims admit that the Islamic world lags far behind the West in science and technology. This is a big problem for Muslims who envy the economic and military power of the United States.

What's so striking about the Muslim predicament is that the Islamic world was once the unrivaled center of science and philosophy.

Next we have two articles, one by Thomas Sowell that I linked to previously, but I'm doing it again because it follows the same line of thought from a Walter Williams post on how environmentalism has killed thousands if not millions of human beings over the past 50 - 60 years. Thomas Sowell says,

The other recent tragedy that has held the nation's painful attention — the mine cave-in in Utah — also has implications that few seem to notice.


We could have far fewer men going down into those mines in the first place if we could use other readily available and economically viable substitutes for coal, such as nuclear power or more of our own oil.


Here too, politics is the problem. The only "alternative energy sources" that are on the political agenda are those few very expensive options that environmentalist zealots approve.


Nuclear power is not on the green zealots' approved list, even though nuclear power is widely used in other countries.


Some say nuclear power is not safe. But nothing is categorically "safe." The only serious question is how its safety compares to that of alternative ways of generating energy.


Ask the families of the trapped miners if they think mining is safe. Ask them if they would rather face the grim reality of a death in their family or the hypothetical possibility of inconveniencing some caribou in Alaska.

Walter Williams says,

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in 1965, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building flood gates on Lake Pontchartrain, like those in the Netherlands that protect cities from North Sea storms. In 1977, the gates were about to be built, but the Environmental Defense Fund and Save Our Wetlands sought a court injunction to block the project.


According to John Berlau's recent book, "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health," U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse told the court that not building the gates could kill thousands of New Orleanians. Judge Charles Schwartz issued the injunction despite the evidence refuting claims of environmental damage.

And even more importantly,

Environmental extremists see DDT in a different light. Alexander King, co-founder of the Club of Rome, said, "In Guyana, within almost two years, it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time, the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it greatly added to the population problem." Jeff Hoffman, environmental attorney, wrote on grist.org, "Malaria was actually a natural population control, and DDT has caused a massive population explosion in some places where it has eradicated malaria. More fundamentally, why should humans get priority over other forms of life? . . . I don't see any respect for mosquitoes in these posts."

Speaking of placing ideology over human life here is another one by Williams on the stifling of dissenting opinions on the global cooling - I mean global warming - I mean climate change front.

Finally, here is the story, in three parts of a Montana woman who hunts Islamic terrorists on the Internet. She's worked with the FBI to help capture and prosecute some of these clowns. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

It's 3 a.m., early May 2002. By now, she is continuing physical therapy, but she's done with the pain pills and the cane. The jihadists, though, have become central in her life.

Go on, I dare you, she murmurs as she finds her way to a new Web site, The Arab Castle. OK, she says. Watch this.

"Death to America," she types in Arabic, a phrase now as familiar as "Good morning."

It has been eight months since 9/11, and Rossmiller is well on her way toward completing online Arabic courses from the Arab Academy in Cairo and from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She waits for a reply.

An answer comes quickly enough: "I wish someone would blow up the American base in Afghanistan," a person writes in Arabic.

"It would be great," another responds.

No one corrects her, which must mean Rossmiller has said it right, in the right spot. She's elated. They're buying me as one of them.

Having digested a clutch of Arab novels, Rossmiller uses the devices of fiction to invent characters she can be on the Web.

She must be specific and nuanced to be believed, she thinks, but one persona is not enough.

It's a control thing, she decides. If I can have an effect on them, then maybe I can stop the evil they do.

Rossmiller begins to fill notebooks with detailed aspects of her made-up characters - names, photos, occupations. Some are good at bomb-making. Others are facile with small weapons.

I've got some real doozies here, Rossmiller says to herself as she reviews her ensemble of grim operators, her own fictional collection of serial killers.

Soon Rossmiller has created around three dozen "people." She searches Web sites for obituaries with pictures, then alters the images so relatives wouldn't recognize them.

The photos are mostly for herself, to keep a picture in her head of whom she's supposed to be, a sense of her character. Once in a while, someone asks to see whom he's talking to, and Rossmiller can oblige.

She researches mosques in Jordan and Pakistan to learn their street locations and the names of their imams. This way, she can make authentic references during online chats.

After several months, she has developed quite a correspondence with dozens of people who seem to believe she is whoever she says she is.

Labels: Dr. Sanity, environment, Shannon Rossmiller, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams

posted by Harry @ 6:34 PM 6 comments

This Cartoon Says it All

I've always loved political cartoons. This one presents a simple truth in an elegant manner. I found it at Dr. Sanity

Labels: cartoons, Dr. Sanity

posted by Harry @ 7:53 AM 0 comments

Stories my local newspapers didn't report

I linked to this story called, "Are Arab Professors masterminding terror?" by way of Dr. Sanity

It has been called “the most significant terrorism trial” since 9-11: the first time alleged leaders of Islamic Jihad, self-confessed killers of more than 100 Israelis and two Americans, are being tried in an American court; the first time the controversial Patriot Act has lassoed jihadists of this magnitude; and the first time that Arab professors in an American university who have claimed “academic freedom” for their pro-Palestinians views have been indicted for using their university offices to direct and finance terrorist activity.

Yet most New Yorkers are oblivious to this case because The New York Times, let alone most other northern newspapers, has decided not to cover the extraordinary testimony being heard now in a Tampa, Fla., courtroom.

Charged with racketeering, conspiracy, materially aiding terrorists and running the American office of Palestinian Islamic Jihad are Kuwaiti-born Palestinian Sami Al-Arian, former professor at the University of South Florida; Sameeh Hammoudeh, a former instructor at the university; and two Islamic activists, Hatim Fariz and Ghassan Ballut.

Also mentioned in the indictment is Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who was an adjunct professor of Middle Eastern studies at USF before returning to Syria when he was appointed leader of Islamic Jihad in 1995. Shallah came to the United States on a visa sponsored by Al-Arian.

Government prosecutor Walter Furr declared to the jury that Al-Arian at one point from his Tampa office was the most powerful man in all of Islamic Jihad.

There have been other remarkable trials this month. The Times ran Michael Jackson’s acquittal in a multi-column banner across the front page, and provided daily coverage to the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, the former Klansman convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights workers in Mississippi 41 years ago.

Clearly the Mississippi trial warranted that coverage, but one can make the case that Islamic Jihad is to the 21st century what the Klan was to the 20th and that the trial of Al-Arian is every bit analogous to Killen’s.

The Times, however, after three stories covering the opening of the Al-Arian trial has decided to take it off the daily beat.

Eric Lichtblau, the Times reporter on the case, wrote in an e-mail to The Jewish Week, “It’s uncertain when I’ll be back in Tampa, but we’ll be monitoring the trial and probably doing occasional stories along the way on key witnesses, the start of the defense, closings and the verdict. That’s the norm for a case of interest like this one. There are very few trials that we or other national media cover on a day-to-day or even weekly basis, and the slow start for the prosecution in Al-Arian didn’t suggest there would be enough to warrant frequent coverage. But if you hear of something interesting on it, let me know.”

It's a fascinating article both because of the subject and because of what it demonstrates about our Mainstream Media. Neither this article nor the next one are mentioned in my own Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. I looked. They aren't there.

The second story, "History's largest WMD Trial Begins", I linked to by way of Little Green Footballs. It's posted here at Gateway Pundit.

The largest terrorist WMD trial in history is opening in Jordan. 13 Al-Qaida and Al-Zarqawi loyalists are being tried for an attempted and nearly succcessful catastrophic chemical weapons attack on Jordan.

Developments:
* Defendents throw shoes in court!
* Defendents chant "Allahu akbar" for over a half an hour to disrupt the court
* Defendent, Al-Jayouzi threatens tribunal with "Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi will chop off your heads and stuff it up your mouths!"
* The terrorists communicated with "secret ink"!

"Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi will chop off your heads and stuff it up your mouths, you God’s enemies!" Al-Jayouzi threatened during initital proceedings in May.

Ten of the captured Al-Qaida terrorists on trial in Jordan for attempting to explode roughly 20 tons of chemical weapons with explosives. Authorities captured the weapons coming into Jordan through Syria.

The most dangerous terrorist plot ever foiled and brought to trial is being prosecuted right now in Jorddan. Al-Jayouzi, a follower of Al-Zarqawi, is on trial for planning and attempting to execute a Chemical Weapons attack in Jordan that could have killed as many as 80,000 civilians:

Al-Jayousi, identified as the head of a Jordanian terror cell, said he first met al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan, where al-Jayousi said he studied explosives, "before Afghanistan fell."

He said he later met al-Zarqawi in neighboring Iraq to plan the attacks, but was not specific about when.

"I have pledged loyalty to Abu-Musab to fully be obedient and listen to him without discussion," al-Jayousi said in the 20-minute videotape.

The commentator on the tape, who wasn't further identified, said the plotters targeted Jordan's secret service, its prime minister's office and the U.S. Embassy.

"At least 80,000 people would have been killed," the commentator said. Al-Zarqawi "is the terrorist" who plotted this operation."

This article is pasted together from many sources, but it gives quite a picture of the destruction and slaughter these psychos are willing to commit. It also shows quite clearly that they have no morals, that they are evil, and that they deserve no sympathy. Those who excuse their crimes and attemted crimes are as twisted as the perpetrators.

Labels: Dr. Sanity, Little Green Footballs, terror trials, terrorism

posted by Harry @ 6:23 PM 0 comments