Thinking Meat

Couldn't have put it better myself:

I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of Geography killing so many people. Someone needs to step in right now and stop Geography from continuing his murderous sprees against the jews.

And don't even get me started on Geometry.

Cynthia Ozick makes an extremely distressing point in today's Opinion Journal:

No one can refute the truth that the Palestinians have fashioned a culture peculiarly their own--but one so steeped in the negative as to have been turned into a kind of anti-history. In order to deprive Jews of their patrimony, Palestinians have fabricated a sectarian narrative alien to commonplace knowledge. Although the Arab invasion of Palestine did not occur until the 17th century, Palestinian Arabs are declared to be, according to activist Salah Jabr, "the descendants of civilizations that have lived in this land since the Stone Age." With equal absurdity, other such deniers of Jewish patrimony claim a Canaanite bloodline. By replacing history with fantasy, the Palestinians have invented a society unlike any other, where hatred trumps bread...

The salient attribute of any culture is originality and its legacies. Genius, no matter how rare, is a human universal. It sends into the world new perception and new experience, inspiring duplication: Out of Israel came monotheism, out of Greece philosophy, out of Arab civilization science and poetry, out of England the Magna Carta, out of France the Enlightenment. What has been the genius of Palestinian originality, what has been the contribution of the evolving culture of Palestinian sectarianism? On the international scene: airplane hijackings and the murder of American diplomats in the 1970s, Olympic slaughterings and shipboard murders in the 1980s. And toward the Jews of the Holy Land, beginning in the 1920s and continuing until this morning, terror, terror, terror, terror.

Even if the roadmap succeeds, just what kind of society can the Palestinians build on this basis? Not much comes to mind that is encouraging. The best that can be hoped for is that they will use the best traditions of Araby, but other Arab countries make even that hope rather dim.

Nations -- even disputable ones, such as "Palestinians" -- should never be written off lightly: human beings are infinitely adaptable, and can often find their way out of the thickest mullah-run fog and the most profound National-Socialist darkness. Nonetheless, disturbing as it may be, I keep wondering whether the Arab world has sacrificed not only individual Palestinians, but the entire Palestinian nation -- their history, worldview, civil society, culture, and ultimately, population -- to the pointless assault against Israel. Most ironically, while thus destroying the would-be nation of Palestine, the Arabs have unwittingly forged a much stronger and more cohesive Israel, than could otherwise have been possible.

I'll have to write more on this later.

Re-cycle of violence

Hey, where have we heard this before?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A gunman shot a U.S. soldier in the neck as he browsed a Baghdad market on Friday and American forces accidentally killed an 11-year-old boy, part of a vicious cycle of Iraqi attacks and ever-tougher U.S. crackdowns on resistance.

I have to ask...

Sheep smugglers?!

(As to the border guards, I don't suppose the U.S. could offer their return in exchange for the Israeli soldiers abducted into Lebanon...)

By way of Best of the Web.

AP has a story on the wires that the CIA may have spotted bin Laden from Predator drones in late 2000 and early 2001, but no order was given to kill the man.

Before the usual suspects jump on the "Bush blew it!" bandwagon, let's get a few things straight from the beginning:

• Bush did not take office until March January 2001.
  
• By 2001, the WTC massacre was already planned and financed.
  
• Killing bin Laden would require firing into a sovereign nation without a declaration of war. That would be a violation of that precious International Law™, which must never, ever be violated, heaven forfend.
  
• There was disagreement over whether the man seen was actually bin Laden. It's not as if Afghanistan had a shortage of turbaned guys with beards, or Japanese trucks.
  
• Bin Laden was never convicted in any American court, much less an international court. No UN resolution was in place, authorizing his killing. This would have made his removal an unsanctioned unilateral American act of violence and an extrajudicial killing, both of which, of course, are very very bad because they delay the coming of the messiah the advent of World Peace™.
  
• Innocent people (innocent brown Muslim people!) would likely have died along with bin Laden -- also unacceptable under any circumstances.
  
• Al-Qaeda was more than just one millionaire. Bin Laden's death would certainly be damaging, but not a crippling blow to the network.
  

Which brings me to this:

• If Bush had given the order, and the missiles were fired, and bin Laden was turned into small chunks; and if, in all likelihood, the WTC and Pentagon massacres were still carried out, how many of his current detractors would be out there yelling how we deserved it, how it was all our fault for killing al-Qaeda's "spiritual leader," how this was just an arrogant attempt at bullying by the Boy President who put us all in danger with his arrogant disregard for the feelings of humiliated Muslims and the complexities of international norms?
  

Call me a cynic, but somehow I doubt that, had Bush made an effort to kill bin Laden prior to 9/11, he'd be given credit for any foresight. I doubt even Clinton could talk his way out of that one.

Update: Geoff Grasshoppa Meltzner fact-checked my [statements], and pointed out an obvious howler: Bush was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2001, as is customary. I meant to say that Bush's team wasn't fully in place until March 2001, but Bush himself was in the White House well before then. Apologies for the error; the rest of my point stands, though.

A most interesting photo slide show by the AFP in regards to the Supreme Court affirmative action decision.

There are 32 photos in this show as of the time of this entry. Five of them show the plaintiffs (three show Jennifer Gratz.)

There are at least nine distinct photos of proponents of affirmative action, mostly done as groups, but also a few "human-interest" pieces show people who are smiling, vivacious, celebrating, and diverse. One slide includes a cute doggie with a "VICTORY" sign on his side.

Another six or so photos of Mary Sue Coleman, U of M president.

Number of photos of affirmative action opponents: three (13, 25, and 26), and they are all of the same three men, who are (of course) white and not especially photogenic.

Must have been a real tempest in a teapot, eh, with only three guys opposed, and so many supporters? What was all the fuss about, anyway?

Fans of Rachel "Squish" Corrie will no doubt be outraged by this. Protect the rights of the Pyrostinians, brave souls! Fight the illegal occupation authority of FEMA! The illegal settlers of the Southwest are the real burners, with their Yankee imperialism and cowboy mentality!