Baked Fresh Ham with roasted Pineapple and Almond Salad.
Preparation time: 1Hour
Cooking Time: 4 Hours
Makes: 12 Servings
Ingredients:
1. 2 Cups blanched whole almonds
2. 1 Shank-end fresh ham (About 12 pounds) trimmed and tied
3. Salt and freshly ground pepper
4. 2 ripe pineapples, pealed, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
5. 1 medium Vidalia onion sliced one-quarter inch thick.
6. One-quarter cup coriander seeds
7. 1 Cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Roast the almonds on a large baking sheet until browned, about 12 minutes
2. Season the ham with salt and pepper; place on a roasting pan large enough to hold while leaving room for the pineapple and onion. Roast the ham until it reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees (About 2 hours and 45 minutes). Pour off fat from the pan, leaving any browned bits.
3. Add pineapples and onion, increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees, roast until ham reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees and the pineapple and onions begin to brown, about 50 60 minutes longer. When done transfer to a warm platter and cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let stand 15 minutes.
4. Carve ham and shingle slices against the salad.
Salad
1. In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the coriander seeds, until they smell like oranges, about 2 minutes.
2. Cool completely and crush or grind until coarse.
3. Transfer the pineapples and onion to a large bowl. Stir in the almonds and coriander, season lightly with salt and pepper.
4. Add cilantro, and toss gently until combined.
Posted by: Jack Bross ||
10/20/2006 12:10 Comments ||
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#2
When do we start the
"Rantburg Ramadan Jim-Jam ramy al-jamarât Grand Slam" Tombola, on how many muttwits get squished in the ROP's annual peacefest at the end of Hajj?
1 Quart Chicken Broth
2 Cups Dried Green Peas
2 Cups Fresh or Frozen Peas
1-2 Cups Diced Ham
1-2 Ribs Celery
1 Smoked Ham Hock
1 Yellow Onion
1-2 Bay Leaves (cracked)
1 TBS Chopped Celery Heart
¼-½ TSP Ground White Pepper
Optional:
Pearl Onions
Leaves from the Celery Heart
Diced Smoked Bacon or Pancetta
Dash of Louisiana Crystal Hot Sauce
Dash of Worcestershire Sauce
Bunch of Baby Carrots
Cream or ½ & ½
Preparation:
Heat the chicken broth, bay leaves and ham hock in a large stewpot over medium-high heat. Rinse dried peas in a colander under running cold water and pick over to remove any foreign matter. Add rinsed dried peas to the hot broth and cover pot tightly. Allow the pot to boil or simmer for 20-30 minutes. If including pearl onions, peel and add them to the pot at this time.
In a separate warmed skillet, begin sautéing the cubed ham and diced bacon. Pulp the onion with a grater or food processor and add to the skillet once the ham and bacon has browned slightly.
Peel or scrub the baby carrots to remove their skins. Chop into small coins and add to the cook pot. Wait until the dried peas are tender and begin adding the other spices. Using a food processor or hand blender, puree the fresh or frozen peas until they match the soups consistency. Blend together and taste for salt and pepper.
Serve immediately with garlic bread or herbed croutons.
#5
RD, please thank heroes like Jack Bross and all the others who have contributed so much. I appreciate your gratitude but there's so many others who deserve it too.
"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to a Chinese delegation," the Associated Press reports:
"If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks," Kim was quoted as telling a Chinese envoy, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported, citing a diplomatic source in China.
Kim told the Chinese delegation that "he is sorry about the nuclear test," the newspaper reported.
Blogger "China Hand" theorizes that "North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear antics are an effort to demand attention, respect, and assistance from the PRC," the People's Republic of China:
North Korea's weapons programs are meant to discommode China with the threat of a Asian arms race and the specter of Japan becoming a pro-active regional security force with US backing, and remind Beijing of the necessity of advancing North Korea's interests on the world stage--in this particular case, getting China to support lifting some onerous U.S. financial sanctions.
Well, I believe China's looked at its options and opportunities and decided that the best riposte to North Korea's nuclear program is to strip Pyongyang of its independence in national defense and foreign affairs--in other words, assert virtually the same suzerainty that China imposed on the peninsula before the Japanese occupation in 1895.
Interesting theory.
If true, Kim must be feeling awfully ronery, and this would explain Kim's abjection before Beijing. Hand also argues that China has become increasingly friendly with South Korea: "In Beijing's plans for a prosperous, pro-Chinese Korean peninsula, cooperation with the South Korean powerhouse looms large." China is now South Korea's biggest trading partner, and anti-American sentiment has been growing in the south. Not so sure I buy into that part; though it would explain a lot about how the SKors are acting.
"What I believe China wants is a North Korean regime that is profoundly isolated, helpless, and totally reliant on Chinese good offices to survive," Hand adds. "By this reading, the United States could profit from the estrangement between China and North Korea by embarking on a swift rapprochement with Pyongyang. Not sure that is possible. How do you rapproach with a psychotic tyrrany that starves its own citizens, unless you're Henry Kissinger or some other "realist"?
Instead, we are doing everything within our power to force North Korea under China's heel and, in the process, perpetuate the existence of the same failed North Korean system--and regime--that we have sworn to destroy."
Posted by: Mike ||
10/20/2006 15:13 ||
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#1
Kim's apology is all Bush's fault..uh..wait a minute... nevermind
#2
Instead, we are doing everything within our power to force North Korea under China's heel and, in the process, perpetuate the existence of the same failed North Korean system--and regime--that we have sworn to destroy
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/20/2006 16:32 Comments ||
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#3
"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to a Chinese delegation,"
Stalinists are known to lie, but do they also lie to their own?
I'll watch what Li'l Kim does rather than trust anything that he says.
#4
Instead, we are doing everything within our power to force North Korea under China's heel and, in the process, perpetuate the existence of the same failed North Korean system--and regime--that we have sworn to destroy."
Huh? What?
When did we (ie the USA) swear to destroy the NorK system and regime? Did I miss somethin'?
#6
Fellow 'Burgers and normal peoples everywhere. Fear sie not. Just today was I wonder about this problem. I have read the broches and I see a dance, small, but with a fine band. Ja! Disco of the Nations Baby! Tallyrand eat mein dust froggy has been.
Posted by: H Kissingbug ||
10/20/2006 18:33 Comments ||
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Analyst Dominique Dwor-Frocaut of Barclays Capital Research has written a very interesting analysis of North Korea's economic and financial policies. Download the full PDF document here: Download file(Please be patient.. it may take a little time to load.)
Her conclusions include:
- "The North Korean economy does not seem about to collapse" (contrary to what many out there might think).
- As time goes by we are likely to see "the development of an uneasy coexistence with the US".
- There are some signs of improvement in the North Korea's economy thanks to recent reforms. The growth will remain very slow, but the regime has built in "coping mechanisms" that will prevent collapse.
- "A slow income growth could be supportive of political stability because it would make it easier for the regime to control popular expectations."
- What the Chinese would call peaceful evolution is possible: "Political and economic stability would, over the longer term, see the completion of the transition from a planned to a market economy and greater integration of North Korea into the global economy. This in turn, could support a long-term normalisation of North Korea's diplomatic relations with the external world."
#2
Realistically, the Commies won't admit to any problems-failures in state planning even iff it collapsed today. PRAVDA is criticizing Russians whom make over US$10,000 a month - meanwhile, US citizens > average $300,000.
#4
What are the chances the further collapse of the Nork economy would turn the earth into a black hole, transporting it through a worm hole back say 1,500 years?
#5
1/ As long as you have people able to use THEIR time you have an economy.
2/ To create wealth they have to exchange their time based on comparitive advantage (i.e. perform their least worst task).
3/ People's productivity (i.e. their pay in a free market) is based on their ability to supply a demand, which is inversly relative to the number of other people able to supply that task.
Socialism harms all 3.
Socialism Starve's, Free market feed.
#9
Well, she can always hope.
Isn't this the guy who blew up a bomb in Rangoon?
They guy who let over a million people starve needlessly.
The guy who runs real gulags, torture centers, forced abortion clinics, censors media?
You'd think it would be hard for a guy like that to find supporters, even among liberals.
#1
This documents the movement of French troops into Lebanon as strategic blockers. The French are nothing anymore but Muzzie-Arabic pawns. Therefore, they are enemy. Fire at will, IDF.
#2
She's a traitor to the United States of America. Plain and simple.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/20/2006 14:24 Comments ||
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#3
Just read it. My blood is boiling. We are not serious as a society until we start executing these people. The overlap between leftist and islamists seems to be a major trend.
#4
The article links to another piece written by Andrw McCarthy, one of Abdel Rahman's prosecutors. He makes one of the most resounding yet persistently ignored points by those who indulge in self-hate and domestic anti-Americanism. To wit:
Don't get me wrong. I do despise what Lynne represents. To hear the media's "civil rights lawyer" tag monotonously attached to her name is Orwellian to the point of inducing dysentery. In America, we have an ingenious constitutional framework that promotes unprecedented economic and social freedom, not to mention nigh-uninhibited human creativity. It is rightfully the envy of the world. It is the fortress that safeguards all civil rights worthy of the name. And ... it is the system that Lynne Stewart, in her hallucinogenic adulation of bloody revolution for the sake of nothing more than revolution (and its attendant idol worship of monsters like Mao and Stalin and Castro and, of course, Abdel Rahman), would supplant. Thus, it's been impossible to read the fawning pro-Stewart coverage in the New York Times for the past two years and not wonder whether either the newspaper or Lynne understands that if the causes they promote ever actually achieved their ends, the very first thing the new regimes would do is shut down useful idiots like the New York Times and Lynne Stewart.
I have had to belabor the threat of sharia law to gay people who refuse to recognize that they would amongst Islam's first victims. I continue to laugh at inbred semi-literate American neo-Nazi skinheads whom the SS would have put on the train ahead of the Jews. It is nothing if not astounding how so many of these "radicals" cannot possibly imagine that the world of their dreams might just include a swift and painful dispatch at the hands of those they profess to adore.
As Lynne Stewart and the judge who sentenced her have so amply proven, the time for tolerating these "useful" idiots is rapidly drawing to a close. That Stewart's service to the poor and downtrodden should be used as an excuse for leniency in her sentencing implicitly connotes that those same poverty stricken individuals should rightly be engaged in the overthrow of our government, just as Stewart was.
Lynne Stewart betrayed every single American citizen, right down to its poorest and most destitute. To even suggest that her treasonous actions were of any service to them is both an insult and tantamount to sedition in and of itself.
And to think that eight to ten years ago I read his stuff and thought he was a pretty cool guy.
I guess his occasional flashes of libertarian brilliance concealed a darker and more evil side.
He cheats on his wife with a girl he finds through porno sites, and it turns out she's Cindy Sheehan, and then he in turn burns her by doing what cheating husbands always do, going back to his wife.
What a damn loser and a jerk. In a way, he's worse than Sheehan.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
10/20/2006 18:31 Comments ||
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#1
Not a bad article. I'd say this is plan B. No need to rush. It's better if we give the Iraqis a chance first. Better for our own conscience, for the history books, and for them.
And IF they succeed and pull of a functioning democracy the repercussions are so positive that we'd be fools to not try.
#2
Right, rj. While there are doubtless thousands of savage krazed killers, there must be at least hundreds of folks that liked voting, and buying and selling stuff, and cell phones, and the internet - not that that's what we're selling.... I mean that appreciate freedom and look forward to a dempocratic Iraq.
Even if they outnumbered the crazies 2:1, that doesn't guarantee success. But let's give it a chance.
Besides, I kinda like having 140,000 troop between Iran and Syria.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/20/2006 16:52 Comments ||
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#3
I also vie for the attractive nature of democracy and capitalism. I can imagine Iraq in a relatively few years being like Kuwait, Dubai, or some of the other prosperous Gulf states. They also have a Sunni/Shiite mix, along with lots of other foreigners. And yet, Iraq is getting far ahead of them by having full democracy.
Once things settle down, even if that means that the Sunni are for the most part expelled from the country, Iraq is going to be the economic center of the region.
The only real wild card is, of course, Iran. But hopefully they will get their jets cooled one way or another.
#4
I'm disappointed. I was looking for a discussion about the pros and cons of a second US civil war - sane Americans against the looney left. That's coming, it's just a matter of time.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/20/2006 23:53 Comments ||
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(2006-10-19) With Republican electoral prospects dimming by the hour, Congressional Democrats today offered to forego the embarrassment of counting the votes from the upcoming national elections, but to let the GOP keep some of its seats in the House and Senate.
Its kind of like an out-of-court settlement, said presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. Well let our friends across the aisle avoid the humiliation of a public thrashing by our strong, attractive Democrat candidates, but well demonstrate mercy by conceding a few seats, so that Republicans have at least a token voice in national affairs.
An unnamed spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC) called the Democrat offer gracious, and said the two parties were negotiating over when and where Interim House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL, will give the concession speech.
Republicans have staggered in recent weeks under a barrage of painful publicity ranging from plunging fuel prices, to record stock market closes, to the Bush administrations failure to produce inflation despite growing employment, reduced tax rates and soaring tax revenues.
Meanwhile, Democrats ride a wave of public adoration due to the partys clear, positive vision for protecting the civil rights of foreign terrorists, retreating from Iraq so that rival Muslim sects can work out their differences without American interference, and restoring the Clinton era spirit of cooperation with North Korea.
While some critics have suggested that both parties wait until the American people speak at the ballot box before declaring winners and losers, Rep. Pelosi called that kind of thinking a quaint relic of ancient history, made obsolete by political pollsters and media pundits.
After all, she said, just because were the Democrat party doesnt mean we have to be slavishly democratic. Some things are better decided by a few smart people behind closed doors.
#1
I really think this would be best. The NYT told us this how crowded and chaotic the polls will be, and Tim Russert told us how the Dem tsunami is a stone cold lock. Why go through all the hassle just to be humiliated?
#3
I cant say why but I dont believe the polls. They ONLY way the Donks can win is if they suppress the vote. Vote early, vote often, and vote Republican. Also how can the Donks plan for victory when we have Diebold in our pockets. My prediction is they (Donks) are not going to take control of anything except the next conspiracy theory. I am guessing the next Voting Irregularities will be in either Arizona or Pennsylvania. Both of these states have close races and you all know that Democrats win all close races.
#2
Atended a meeting last night where our incumbent, Rick Larson (D) and Doug Roulstone (R) were entertaining questions from the audience and border security came up. The answers from both were surprising: Larson said that he voted against the fence bill because it covered only 700 miles of a 2000 mile border. He compared it to building a 30 mile long bridge from LA to Hawaii. Roulstone agreed that the legislation was inadequate and it needed to cover THE ENTIRE BORDER! They did differ on how much high tech vs. boots on the ground was needed, but it was refeshing to hear them both state the legislation was for public consumtion and had no real teeth.
From an article by Kenneth Anderson, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Law at American University, published in the new issue of Policy Review.
.... The administration remains caught in the grip of a lawyerly clique that places an abstract ideology of executive discretion above the war on terror and is willing to lose intragovernmental battles about how to conduct the latter over and over again for the sake of the former. The administration therefore brings only minimal legislation to Congress, preferring to bet on arguments of executive power that are rebuffed in the courts. The Supreme Court gives some indication that it is willing to lessen its role in what amounts to foreign policy and war, provided the two political branches come together to give the democratic imprimatur of legislation to counterterrorism policy and to the inevitable trade-offs between national security and civil liberties. Congress, however, has little desire to exert itself legislatively in these matters because, despite the noise it makes in the public sphere, it currently has the best of all worlds the ability to snipe, second-guess, complain, whine, and Monday-morning-quarterback against the administration, without any obligation to legislate what it thinks the solution should actually be. ....
... for their part, the Bush administrations supporters correctly question whether these critics and opponents are in fact as serious or in good faith about the alternative containment strategy as they claim. After all, many of them have also opposed so many of the measures that might be deemed essential to any meaningful nonwar strategy the Patriot Act, nsa surveillance, financial monitoring and seizure of terrorist assets, effective border and immigration control, profiling, etc. If your strategy is to conduct a defensive war located within your own borders, warn the Bush administrations supporters, then you had at least better be prepared to conduct it there, even if it discomfits civil liberties. ....
Irrespective of where one comes down in the debate over counterterrorism policy, Congress today should act maximally through the only legitimate mechanism for the long haul in a democracy, legislation. No matter who is in control of the House or Senate come January 2007, it is critical that the legislature step up to its democratic responsibility. The administration responded swiftly to an unprecedented national emergency. But the United States cannot operate permanently as a national security state. The Cold War demonstrated that a democracy can develop mechanisms to accommodate so long as the democratic apparatus remains flexible and willing to recognize the need for genuine tradeoffs national security, democratic process, and civil liberties. The Bush administration has operated national security questions and the war on terror, in Jonathan Rauchs words, out of its hip pocket, on a discretionary basis. But that cannot be the long-term operation of a democracy. ....
As a general principle on which comprehensive legislation should be based, counterterrorism laws which then morph into general criminal law are a very bad idea. Either they will indeed erode ordinary civil liberties, or else they are laws make sense limited in application to the extraordinary threat of terrorism but nonetheless will not get passed because of the fear of more general application. The point is to draft legislation to cover contingencies that are indeed considered extraordinary with respect to ordinary criminals and ordinary crimes. For that reason, in some cases as in tribunals for alleged terrorists they justify procedures involving special rules that deliberately depart from the usual rules of criminal law. .....
Congress ought to create a special terrorism court system, outside the ordinary criminal justice system, with special rules of procedure and evidence, for dealing with those accused of a strictly defined list of terrorist crimes; models can partly be found in Western Europe. The court would be civilian in nature, rather than the military tribunals currently contemplated; it would deal with persons accused of terrorism crimes who were either noncitizens or U.S. citizens, whether captured abroad or within the territorial U.S. Military tribunals would be limited to those, whether U.S. citizens or not, captured on the battlefield as traditionally defined Iraq or Afghanistan, for example rather than the world as battlefield concept of the war on terror. The court would have two hearing functions. The first would be to determine innocence, guilt, and punishment for unprivileged belligerency and any related crimes, such as murder, etc. The second would be to determine whether a detainee posed a threat to the United States in proceedings on a regular, ongoing basis and providing for administrative detention in such cases until the threat abated. (Citizenship would continue to differentiate rights in certain cases;and habeas corpus would be available with limitations.) ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/20/2006 00:22 ||
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#1
"the legislature step up to its democratic responsibility"? -- They don't even bother to read the bills they do pass!
#1
Very long, but worth the effort. I'd suggest waiting until Saturday or Sunday to wade through the whole thing. The article strongly reinforces the fact of muslim/islamic intolerance throughout history. The moderate muslim spins as best he can but gets his clock cleaned.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
10/20/2006 11:44 Comments ||
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#2
Wow.
I've read most of Bostum's The Legacy Of Jihad . The first 150 pages were some of the most disturbing reading I've ever encountered.
A review of Andrew Bostom's book The Legacy of Jihad. The review was written by Lee Harris, author of Civilization and Its Enemies. The review was published in the new issue of Policy Review.
This post is the first two paragraphs and the conclusion of the review.
For anyone wishing to understand jihad that peculiar institution of Islam Andrew Bostom has provided an immense service with The Legacy of Jihad. Beginning with a splendid 80-page survey and overview of the history of that subject by Bostom himself, followed by an extensive anthology of writings on the topic of jihad and some of its accompanying features, this book, the product of exhaustive scholarly research, is written with a profound sense of urgency. Bostom, a professor of medicine at Brown who became a passionately committed scholar of Islam after 9/11, wants his readers to grapple themselves with the historical evidence and to come to their own conclusions about the significance of jihad. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that for him there are few challenges facing the liberal West today greater than that posed by radical Islams revival of the classical ideal of jihad. In his acknowledgments, Bostom expresses the touching wish that his own children and their children may thrive in a world where the devastating institution of jihad has been acknowledged, renounced, dismantled, and relegated forever to the dustbin of history by Muslims themselves.
Yet, after reading and pondering this invaluable book, it is difficult not to ask, Why should Muslims renounce and dismantle an institution that, while it may have been devastating to those who have been its victims, has nevertheless been the historical agent by which Islamic culture has come to dominate such a vast expanse of our planet? What would prompt any culture to abandon a tradition that has permitted it not only to expand immensely from its original home, but also to make permanent conquests of so many hearts and minds?
My colleague at The Remedy, Ryan Williams, is not much younger than me he was eight when Reagan left office, and I was thirteen but the age difference is enough, I trust, that I may remember with some greater clarity one of the key features of Reagans anti-Communist rhetoric: it did not buy into the basic premises of the enemy. It did not concede, at least rhetorically, the commanding role of the state, nor the Hegelian/Marxist march of history, nor the forced perfectibility of man, nor the founding nobility of the Communist enterprise. Reagans genius was to recall the American people, and to a lesser extent the West, to the need to proceed from the premises of our Founders: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the inalienable rights of man, and government as existing merely to secure their just exercise. One did not win arguments with Communism when accepting Communist starting-points for those arguments. They led inevitably to the Communist end, and appeals to humanity were steamrolled by appeals to inexorable logic.
In dealing with Islamism in the present day, we make the very error that Reagan eschewed with the Communists. We proceed from Islamist premises namely, that Islam is inherently peaceful; that it is inherently sane; that it is inherently just; and that it is a welcome and benign participant in our post-modern public square. One may not accuse George W. Bush in particular of failing to render a full obeisance on these points. Attendant to this are all manner of details that somehow fall outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in Muslim eyes, and hence in the eyes of any who fear violence. Most recently, we see the shutting-down, by murder and by fire, of any critique or perceived disrespect of the Muslim founder. Reasonable people of any faith may find Muhammed an admirable figure. Or they may examine the historical record and conclude that Muhammed was a violent visionary who slaughtered the defenseless and violated a nine-year old; but state these things in public, and deathly ire stalks the speaker or, if he is not available, his co-religionists. What victory may we aspire to so long as the most basic freedoms are thus quelled?
There is not an exact parallel here with the state of discourse in the Communist era, but there is parallel enough. Certainly few outside the Communist nations were hunted and killed for merely denigrating Marx or Lenin. But there was a long-running campaign of dissuasion, especially in western Europe and amongst the American elites, directed against those with the bad form to be too anti-Communist. The excuses given for being soft on the horrors of Communism varied from era to era: there was a need to support the Popular Front; there was a need to stay united against the facists; the Soviets sacrificed so much in the war; we have to focus upon our own (American) sins; and the top two the original intent was noble, and we must not alienate the moderates. In these last, we see an exact parallel with the apologists for Islam and Islamism today. We perform kowtow to the founding mythos of our opponents, and we indulge in the fantasy that some adherents of jihad and Islamism are more palatable than others.
Mr Williams engages in this error when he refers to the need to reach out to the moderate Muslim world which should, in a just world, and if it even exists, be reaching out to us with all manner of apology and regret and in his faith that our Founding message that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God will be well-received by these moderates. Suffice it to say that they already agree with this sentiment, and further do not believe that we have the slightest thing to do with the God that must be obeyed. We are, rather, the tyrants to be resisted. Like Miltons Satan who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, the average Muslim whom we face abroad much prefers some manner of sharia (to which Williams refers as a dissuading factor) to the humiliation of life on the terms of the irreligious, secular West. We cannot hold this against them: they have the integrity of their faith, and it is their choice. But it does not follow from this that we must credit them with moral equality to ourselves assuming we have a moral standing worthy of the name and it does not follow from this that because they have integrity, that they are good. The answer for us infidels is not respect beyond that due the individual with his inalienable rights but frankness even at the cost of disrespect, and exclusion of the foes ideas and ideologues from our public square till a general sanity among them prevails.
The ill-kept secret of Communism to which the elites adhered was that it was in its origins a squalid, murderous creed. Its founder was a moral leper, and its heroes were savages are surely as any pre-modern tribesman. It took a brave survivor of the Soviet Unions concentration camp system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, to state this truth plainly and irrefutably and it took Ronald Reagan to make it policy, and enact it as the will of the American people. That is the lesson of Reagans war for ours. In a contest of ideas, truth and victory are inseparable companions. We only delay the latter in eschewing the former. We may call it politeness, or respect, or strategy: but it looks like defeat.
#1
The real Reagan had a less than stellar record in confronting islamism (just recall his cut and run reaction to the bombings of the Marines barracks in Beyrouth). Now he had lived in a world where Communism was the main threat and could have failed to perceive the need to confront Islam. It is unfair to say as Robert crawford's homonyms seems to think he would have cut and run in a post 9/11 world when it became clear that we have a new deathly foe facing us.
However whatever what the real Reagan would have done we need to inject some Reaganim into the WOT:
- Proudly reassert our values and fight the self-haters who undermine our will to fight and add fuel to Islamist propaganda
- Take the offensive in the ideological field. Stiop this BS that Islam is areligion of peace. It isn't. We could tell that there are good peole between Muslims but that is because they are bad Muslims. The intrinsic ideology in Islam is evil (1). That is what we should be saying
-Tell that Jihad was never more that organuized staeling and Hadj the way for those riches not staying into second class Muslm hands but going to
Arabian (ie from Arabia) hands. Challenge that dirt poor Bangladesh finances that Saudi fat cats: where in Coran it is said that Hadj has to be the lucrative business it is presntly for Meccans?
-Play the fractures in the Mulim world. Encourage nationalist (not panarabist (2)) movements in the Muslim world: people who loathe the idea that their country's culture is inferior and that they should imitate Arabs, people who are tired of seeing their country's hard earned money going to fatten the Suadis through the hadj, people who see Islam as a factor of backwardness and poverty. Have a hundred Ataturks sprounting everywhere in the Muslim world.
-Challenge the Muslims to "Tear down that wall against apostasy" and suggest that only fear keeps people in Islam.
1) One of Reagan's main collaborators had a meeting with his staff and told them to picture how ould be life in Russia in the hypothesis that Russia's economy wasn't growing at 5% per year like claimied by the Soviet statistics
but was near stagnation. And the picture was remarkably like actual Russia: long lines even for basic products like toilet paper, low quality goods and so on.
Now let's imagine what would have happenned if Muhammad was merely a megalomaniac gangster who created a religion in order to enrich himself and get all the pussy he wanted. We could expect him asking for a percentage of the booty collected by his henchmen (Muhammad collected 20% of the fruits of jihad), we could expect all kinds of atrocities against opponents (cf the number of dissidents he had murdered by his henchmen), we could expect him breaking his word when suitable (cf how he wiped out a Jewish tribe after an oppotune "dream" told him Allah alowed him to break the treaty), we could expect him raping captives, we could expect him tailoring the rules specially for him (he allowed himself ten spouses instead of four and ruled he to repudiate them at his whim. Of course, as usual Allah sent him dreams giving him the authorization). Last but not least we could expect hios companions fight over the spoils at his death: only one of the five "enlightened Caliphs" (ie who had been Muhammad's companions) wasn't assasinated.
(2) Since the only big accomplishment the Arabs have ever done is the Islkamic conquests secular panarabism leads very easily to pride aboutn the islamic conquests and then to islamism. BTW one of Abdul Wahab's main ideas was the supremacy of Arabians over mere Arab-speakers and still more over non-Arab Muslims.
#4
In short, Reagan prevailed over the Sovs because of their innate Western nature.
Whether I agree with Mr. crawford or not this sentence caught my eye.
Though we held differing beliefs in the righhtness of our political systems and differed on many things, in some way the russians and Americans saw the same future. Wanted thhe same type of egalitarian tech-fueled futuristic lifestyle and imagined a future of soaring greatness.
To this end, even during the height of the cold war we collaborated in space.
There is no such cultural, societal intersection with the forces of ISlam. What they want is iinimical to our vision of thhe future,
annd vice-versa.
#7
Oldspook nails it. Unfortunately, even the theory of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) worked with the USSR because they were sane. The islamofascists on the other hand, are not, so it doesn't even pay to "negotiate" with them, only exterminate them.
Posted by: BA ||
10/20/2006 15:40 Comments ||
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#8
Shouldn't single out Reagan for critique on his handling of the muzzies.
Yes, pulling out after the Lebanon bombing was bad, in retrospect, but future historians will undoubtedly conclude that in historical context it was no better or worse than what American policy for two administrations prior to him and two after him. His actions fit into the prevailing wisdom and meme set at that time.
This isn't to let him off the hook from a practical standpoint. Certainly his actions contributed to the current confidence the Islamostalinists have. But the paradigm shift in the policy field would take another twenty years. (Kind of like presidents and Congresses doing nothing about slavery for decades until Reconstruction, even though in retrospect they blew several opportunities to end it prior to that.)
Posted by: no mo uro ||
10/20/2006 18:40 Comments ||
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The left and the right are also divided by another cognitive style: conservatives think in terms of direct causation, where a person's actions have an immediate billiard-ball effect (people get fat because they lack self-control), while progressives think in terms of systemic causation, in which effects fall out of complex social, ecological, and economic systems (people are fat because of an economic system that allows the food industry to lobby against government regulation).
This is richer than fettucine Alfredo. As if government regulation can solve America's obesity crisis. Another sterling example of liberal hIpocrasy that shouts "stay out of my womb" but demands intrusive regulatory control of food production and individual diets. From later comments, food purity is clearly one of the author's pet peeves.
The implication that frames, by being "physically fixed" in the brain, are especially insidious or hard to change, is gratuitous. Also, cognitive psychology has not shown that people absorb frames through sheer repetition. On the contrary, information is retained when it fits into a person's greater understanding of the subject matter. Nor is the claim that people are locked into a single frame anywhere to be found in cognitive linguistics, which emphasizes that people can nimbly switch among the many framings made available by their language.
For proof of just how flexible the human ability to switch frames is, look no further than the massive cognitive dissonance known to us as Islam; As it shouts, "Jews bombed the WTC towers and Osama is our hero for giving America such a lesson!"
All this belies Lakoff's cognitive relativism, in which mathematics, science, and philosophy are beauty contests between rival frames rather than attempts to characterize the nature of reality.
I swear, this is one of the biggest warning flags, namely, liberals who attempt to construe science to be some sort of religion. Any time you hear this, know that you are talking to a mental defective.
Lakoff tells progressives not to engage conservatives on their own terms, not to present facts or appeal to the truth, and not to pay attention to polls. Instead they should try to pound new frames and metaphors into voters' brains. Don't worry that this is just spin or propaganda, he writes: it is part of the "higher rationality" that cognitive science is substituting for the old-fashioned kind based on universal disembodied reason.
This is the "touchy-feely" crap that should have been thrown out with the bathwater back in the 1960s. Instead, liberals of all stripes continue to cling fast unto this irrational and unsubstantiated mode of decision-making.
In defending his voters-are-idiots theory,
BINGO! The fulminating stench of contempt for fellow humanity. Open wide the charnel house doors, oh liberals.
Lakoff has written that people do not realize that they are really better off with higher taxes, because any savings from a federal tax cut would be offset by increases in local taxes and private services. But if that is a fact, it would have to be demonstrated to a bureaucracy-jaded populace the old-fashioned way, as an argument backed with numbers. And that is the kind of wonkish analysis that Lakoff dismisses.
"Don't confuse me with facts!"
And his freedom not to be harmed by "hurtful language" is merely another name for the unlimited censorship of political speech.
I wonder where he stands on the Cartoonifada? Need we spend much time guessing? This asshole is just another socialist parading around under the false colors of democratic partisanship.
An old joke about linguists (no, not that joke!):
LINGUISTICS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE UNABLE TO CONSTRUCT COMPLETE SENTENCES.
#3
Freedom of Muslim belief, threatens general freedom. Our security is more important than their liberty. Ergo: occupy them, oppress them; take away their face-rags; make them eat pork (and like it); 1 wife per male; stand up prayer only; allow Jewish tourism in Mecca; pornography on Saudi TV; shock jock radio; ban camel jockey racing; rum ration for every Arab; turn mosques into Poker rooms; outlaw Arabic (English only, to make their occupiers feel at home); a no cleaning after being touched by a dog; etc
Those are my rules, Abdullah. If you don't like them, dial 1-800=EAT-PORK
#4
I swear, this is one of the biggest warning flags, namely, liberals who attempt to construe science to be some sort of religion. Any time you hear this, know that you are talking to a mental defective.
Um, to be fair, libs aren't the only ones who speak of science as if it were a religion.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/20/2006 7:40 Comments ||
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#5
Republicans win because their policies MAKE SENSE.
The republicans are losing support because they are NOT enacting their own policies and applying their stated principles to their own party.
One thing to consider: Bush has been willing to spend like a drunken fishwife in the GWOT. I consider that a temporary move. Obviously it needs to be monitored and pushback is called for -- and has begun to occur, just about on schedule.
I don't criticize him too heavily for it, as it was one of the few tools he had that the Dems didn't automatically try to stymie.
#12
Um, to be fair, libs aren't the only ones who speak of science as if it were a religion.
Too true, RC. However, liberals more typically have no other concrete belief structure to point to as an alternative. Quite often, all I hear is; "I just don't feel that's right." or some such other nebulous and unsubstantiated drivel.
LINGUISTICS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE UNABLE TO CONSTRUCT COMPLETE SENTENCESCoherent Thoughts.
Reading some BF Skinner lately, Oldspook?
Or because they have big bones, like I do.
First you're whingeing about neotony and now your bragging about your big bone structure. Which is it, A5089?
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