How the neoconservative right adopted the worst errors of the left

How the neoconservative right adopted the worst errors of the left
This rings true somehow.

Dissecting what he calls "the Bush administration's incomprehensible failure to plan adequately for the insurgency that subsequently emerged in Iraq," a failure that has equally baffled war supporters such as Andrew Sullivan, Fukuyama concludes that neoconservative hawks "seemed to think that democracy was a kind of default condition to which societies reverted once the heavy lifting of coercive regime change occurred."

Usually a leftist error to assume that human nature is good oppressed by a negitive system.

This is pretty funny

this is from the Jewish anti semetic carton competition designed to show jews can laugh at themselves (or even others thoughts about jews)

Bloody Mary

that was a great southpark episode - call me ignorant but I didnt even know that AA was a
religious evangelical organization . It also raises a relevant question about whether this "alcoholism is a disease" argument (orany other similar argument) is not counter productive (besides obviously bneing rubbish in a factual sense).

And yet people I hear commenting (who probably havent seen the cartoon - go on about how it is purile and infantile and so forth. OK i was, but it was also very relevant and pretty informative - if I ever got badly drunk I'd now know going to AA would probably just leave be sitting there for an hour getting pissed off. Also I know we probably need someone to invent a better 12 step programme.

No ofense to evangelical christians but just because people should become christians doesnt mean its the best way to fix alcoholics.

Anyway it was a great show
(click to view)

Sigh...

Hmm really? These people jut keep on turning up at these marches eh?

Sigh...

Hmm really? These peopel jut keep on turning up at these marches eh?

support Mohammed

via tim blair
Mohammed al-Asaadi, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, currently in a basement cell awaiting trial:

Newsweek: Do you regret now the decision to run the cartoons, however censored, given the climate? There are plenty of religious fanatics in Yemen, even if they’re a minority.

al-Asaadi: We had a meeting to discuss this before we published them, so it wasn’t an accident. And we felt that these cartoons had already been shown on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya and millions of Muslims had seen them. And I personally believe these cartoons should be published. If we make it unlawful to look at them, we give them an importance they don’t deserve, as if there’s something holy or special about them. We should be able to discuss them openly, which is what we did.

how bringing a Playboy stripper to campus is helping

These people just dont get it!

"I don't see how bringing a Playboy stripper to campus is helping anything," said Travis Kavulla, editor of the Harvard Salient, which joined other conservative newspapers in giving Sex Week the Collegiant Network 2004 Outrage Award.

I want to enter!

Rock paper scissors is now a serious sport! with serious prize money!

Situation comedies that involved Mohammad

Let us all pause for a moment to remember some of the best situation comedies ever produced by the west involving mohammad

UK politics

Obsevationz decodes UK politics

The working class vote Labour, giving Labour dominance north of the Severn/Trent line and in inner cities everywhere.

The suburban and rural middle class votes Tory, enabling the Tories to win most seats in the South-East outside inner cities.

So, how do Tories in Liverpool or Labour supporters in Winchester vote? Lib Dem - hence their resilience. Ironically, exactly the same factors make it awkward for them to come up with coherent policies

classic minor party eh?

Smacking

interesting debate over at Frog Blog about the anti smacking bill
Basically there is position 1

"Sweden was the first country in the world to ban all forms of physical punishment, in 1979. Dr Durrant’s research argues that this has reduced child abuse in Sweden to “virtually zero”. New Zealand, by contrast, where the use of “reasonable force” is still permitted, has the 6th highest rate of child deaths from abuse or “undetermined causes” in the world."
With the assumption "police will never abuse the system"

Then there is the counter position


In working out if something will be a crime if [BRADFORD'S LAW IS PASSED] ask yourself “if I did this to the next person I don’t know who passes me on the street would it be a crime?” If the answer is “yes”, then it will be a crime to do it to your child.

Would it be a crime to pick up the next person whom I hear swear in the street and carry them to a corner and tell them to stand there and think about what they’ve done?

Yes. Then it would be a crime to do treat your son or daughter in the same way.
Making this potentially a badly thought out law.

Personally I find the second argument quite compelling - not as an argument against an anti smacking law but as an argument against a badly thought out law. the law should be clear what it allows and what it doesn't and disallow only the things it wants to disallow as opposed to relying entirely on judges and police to figure that out.

defending Free Speach

Clarifying my position on a debate on David Farrar's site

One of the anti offensive cartoons crowd suggests : "if you think it's ok to allow something offensive then you should allow all things offensive"

But surely anyone would allow all sorts of offensive free speach (such as cartoon kidy porn) a long time before they would accept the banning of free speach (preventing anything that might be offensive).

Free speach might be restricted in some extreme cases (for example maybe real practical plans to kill people?) but I sure as hell want to know a VERY good, direct reason for it, and also an explination why there is no other reasonable solution.
"it might upset someone" is an example of a pretty terrible reason. And even if you have a reason like "they might get upset and burn an embassy" I want to hear why there is no other opption besides controling thought through censorship.

------

And regarding the debate about whether people can say southpark is a bad show (or mo toons are offensive)

This is the fun of free speach. I can't ban you from saying bad stuff about south park (or youth behaviour or Mo Toons) but if you say bad stuff about it I can say bad stuff about you saying bad stuff about it - and I have just as much right as anyone else. At no point will I burn your embassy!

Actually I would prefer not to lower the tone of the debate at all - but to be a little childish... "I didn't start it!"

Fact Checking Cullen

Dr Cullen is threatening to cancel the tax cuts due in 2008 due to the rejection of the carbon tax.

This is moronic.

What we need to explain to Dr Cullen is the concept of inflation. What inflation does is devalue currency. If in two years your income is worth two years worth of inflation less - then (assuming there was any reason at all to set tax levels at the level they are at) the tax threshold should rise by that same amount. This is what his "tax cut" did. In fact it was not a tax cut at all it was just a method for keeping the tax rate the same.

Imagine if we retained thresholds designed for 100 years ago - as a result of inflation - even people on the poverty line would be in the top tax bracket!

This means his policy was tax neutral there is NO real cost to it. In fact, NOT raising the tax thresholds according to inflation is a TAX INCREACE!

Furthermore the strategic choice to change thresholds by not adjusting them (or by adjusting them by a number other than inflation) is something that has wider implications than just income. In particular it relates to various things like "fairness" and the distribution of wealth and various levels of incentive to various parts of the economy. You can't just equate it to the carbon tax as money in money out.

AND worse yet Cullen is talking as if the government books balance at a time when they are running a big surplus. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to have a surplus, and savings are good - but don’t kid me that labor is in some desperate struggle to balance the books at the moment.

Now this is much better

A better anti (?) danish cartoon from Dilbert blog

Dilbertblog

Malc
in the comments at dilbert blog gives danish cartoonists an offer worth considering

Calling offensive Danish "Mohammed" cartoonists!!
I'd like to offer one of you a chance to make some REAL money.
I will pretend to bump you off and then split the Taliban reward money 50-50.
You will have to lie low for a while, but 200kg of gold should help the time pass quicker.
If you want to increase your share of the reward money, you will have to agree to actually be assassinated.
I will then put your share in a trust fund, and if you do not claim it within a year, it will revert to me.

Malc

Cartoons

the iranian cartoons dont seem to be sticking to the topic or being very offensive - I already have several ideas that are better more relevant and more offensive than any of theirs. frankly I'm dissapointed!

Is there really freedom of speach in Iran?

Oh wait, there isn't....

Two more matching cartoons

apparently the danish people are devils.. yawn... this joke is getting pretty old.

maybe if we saw this cartoon as being mohammad with horns?

of course you could also think of it as mohammad with a cresent halo which would really only signify good things.

More cartoons to compare

So cute!
this reminds me of this one

the similarity (in my opinion) here is that both involve someone who thinks they are on a righteous crusade and both discover that their religion thinks what they are doing is wrong.

the Iranian cartoon comments are
An undemocratic step
cultural terrorism is with its apologies
with this step aiming disparaging Islam and at presenting it as religion
which calls with violence. It is in total contradiction with the democracy
and, in certain European countries, with the secularity which is based
on the respect of the scariness of all the religions.

yup no violence going on in that cartoon.... hmm except that caused by the god/religion itself...

Two more matching cartoons

not sure which two to match up here but I choose these because htey both seem to have a sort of "nastyness" to them - much more so the iranian carton ofcourse.If there had been an bomb or similar (as opposed to jsut equating denmark to satan) I would have used the bomb head carton. they do have a pencil though and we all know that could take your eye out...

Iran releases Cartoons!

Oh no - I’m so scared - I can’t bring myself to publish Latuff's cartoon about the mo toons...

Oh wait I can - and I will.


My comment on this one is that it is just stupid. I didn’t find the Mohammad cartoons funny - I just thought they were an interesting commentary on the restriction of free speech and an example of free speech. Also why is hte US and brazil on this guys head - why not er europe?

Here is the corresponding cartoon from the "mo toons"



Now really is that that offensive? Or funny? But it is fairly true.

Somehow I doubt either of these cartoons will get me thrown in jail.

The parody of CNN's coverage of the Mo Toons

Looks like you cant even draw cartons mocking hte mohammad cartoons

So I guess it's not just that we aren't supposed to draw pictures of Mohammed as terrorist, or of Mohammed at all; we aren't even supposed to draw pictures that are obviously not of Mohammed, and that are meant to mock the inability to draw pictures of Mohammed.

Who are you?

You scored as Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda). The universe around you in complete anarchy, but you know just how to handle it. You have a clear head no matter how dire the situation around you may be and people have a tendency to come to you for help. Now if only the Magog would quit trying to lay eggs in your stomach. Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 100% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Moya (Farscape) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 63% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Serenity (Firefly) 50% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 38% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

Offensive cartoons

Iranian cartoon 1

come on guys you can be more offensive that that!

Cartoons

From the iranian carton story...

International cartoon contest-Holocaust
Where is The Border for western
"Liberty of Expression"?
aTheme: 1-Why should
the "Palestinian people" pay for
the "holocaust" story?
Number of Cartoons: 5 cartoons

Address :
Iranian House of Cartoon
No. 60, Golnabi(ketabi) St.,Shariati Ave.
Tehran, I.R.Iran
Tel/Fax:(+98 21)2868600

Let us fight the evil jewish conspiricy to kill this story!
Come on aspiring cartoonists join the competition!
The topic actualy isn't too offensive anyway.

Lurching to the Left

acording to NoRightTurn the NZ blog scene has lost almost all its left wingers

so just to keep the market happy I'll swing left

Cheney is an Idiot

Go Kiwibank make lots of money for us tax payers! Shame on national for telling us we should have killed the golden goose in order to have a chicken sandwich and thumbs up to Jim Anderton.

It looks like Iraq is considering sanctions on the australian wheat board stupid capitalist wheat board deserves what it gets.

National seemingly unsure of what it stands for .

Microsoft is fightuing the EU Microsoft bad, EU good - but seriously - microsoft has been milking a monopoly for years just like telecom milks their monopoly in telecomunications so if the EU loosened their strangle hold a bit it would probably be for the better.

israeli soldiers shoot dead a man with a toy gun

Israel should only employ men with really good eyesight and have training to alow them to identify toy guns. they should also restrict the numbr of toy guns that come into the west ban so if they kill someone at least it is for a decent reason.

Ok ok Im running out of leftist stories here...

Batman to take on AlQuaeda

Batman to take on AlQuaeda

I have always wondered why batman and other peopel liek that always ended up with such culture neutral and often effeminate looking enemies (playing on various steriotypes I guess). Let us have some real enemies for a change.

Cartoonists can grow some balls and tackle moral questions in cartoons again. Whether I agree with them or not - it will make good reading!

Anne Coulter

people who dont read Glen Reynolds blog complain about stuff insulting Anne not being on it.

Anyway - Anne C
“Rag-head talks tough, rag-head faces consequences.”

sigh... what a simple world anne lives in...

Cheney Jokes

Right after the shooting, Dick Cheney was overheard to say “Who’s leaking now Whittington?”

"I understand this was a Quayle shoot, & I swear he looked like Dan"

"Cheney's version of tort reform."

What did the lawyer say when the vice president asked him to go hunting?
"I'm game."

The reason Cheney shot Mr. Whittington was Whittington’s repeated ribbing that Bush is actually the “real president.”

Whittington and Cheney were having a disupute because Cheney wanted to torture the quail before shooting them and Whittington did not.

Q: What is Dick Cheney’s favorite vegetable?
A: Jim Brady.

“Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him,” said Jim Brady. “I had a friend once who accidentally shot pellets into his dog - and I thought he was an idiot.”

"Cheney proves he is against having control of guns"

Dick Cheney doesn't have "hunting buddies", Dick Cheney has "guest targets".

Paramedics had to forcibly remove Karl Rove from trying to bury the body.

I don't think it was intentional for the simple fact that if Dick Cheney wants you dead, you're dead.

And that was a guy that Dick Cheney liked.

from
http://www.star-ecentral.com/tvnradio/tracks/tracks.asp?file=archives/tracks/2006/2/14TVcomicsle&date=2/14/2006

David Letterman: "Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: it's Dick Cheney."

The Late Show host also "noted" that before the hunting trip, Donald Rumsfeld had denied the victim's request for body armour.

Jay Leno on The Tonight Show said that after people found out Cheney had shot a lawyer, his approval rating went up to 92 per cent.

Over at The Daily Show, Jon Stewart noted: "... moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted - it's just not worth it."

This is completely unfair. How was Dick Cheney supposed to know that getting shot would hurt someone?

Saddam trial

Just checked and yes – the Saddam trial still a joke just like the Milosevic trial.
Who were the idiots who demand these ridiculous spectacles?

Denmark rejects peace

ﻙﺭﺎﻤﻨﺍﺩ ﻥﺘﻔﺭﻴﺫﭙﻨ ‘ﻥﺩﺭﻜ ﺩﺭﺵﻤﺍﺭﺍ ‘ﺡﻠﺼ ‘ﻰﺘﺸﺍ ‘ﻰﺘﻤﻻﺴ ‘ﺎﻔﺼﻭ ﺡﻠﺼ

Iranian holocaust carton

the Iranian holocaust carton competition is here
the newspaper is hamshahri
with entries by Michael Leunig
The first of the Melbourne-based Leunig's two cartoons on the website show a poor man with a Star of David on his back walking towards the Auschwitz death camp in 1945 with the words "Work Brings Freedom" over the entrance.

The second shows the same scene but depicting "Israel 2002" with the slogan "War Brings Peace" over the entrance and the same man walking towards it bearing a rifle.

"I have had some difficulty getting this work published in my own country, and I believe it would help highlight the hypocrisy of the West's attitude to free speech if you were to publish it," Leunig was quoted as saying.

Hmm has difficulty? really? Seems some media love it and some dont but that still leaves you with half the media as your playground.
the little jew walking into the concentration camp is quite cute - not like the nasty ones in the arab newspapers at least. Guess he wont win then.

Unexpected Counter-Protest

"Islamic Protestors in Paris Come Face to Face with an Unexpected Counter-Protest "


and in french with moe photos

One, in red and white, is (silently) wearing a sign with the Danish flag saying "Support Denmark, Support free speech". Besides (silently) wearing a sign reading "Free Cartoonist" on it, the other, the founder of the BAF protest warrior-type organisation, is holding a (fake) severed hand, a pen among its fingers.

Voices start to ring out. "It's provocation!" "You tread on 1.5 million Muslims!" "Connards!" "Rat faces!"

Someone has to be wiling to hold the line...

Crazy muslims?

David farrar looks at the number of extreemists in islamiccountries

A Pew survey in May 2005 of almost 18,000 people found the following levels of support for violence against civilian targets:

Jordan 88%
Lebanon 58%
Pakistan 44%
Indonesia 33%
Turkey 20%
Morocco 18%

and

support for the man who masterminded the plan to fly planes into the Twin Towers, Osama bin Laden, is also very high:

Jordan 60% = 3 million
Pakistan 51% = 80 million
Indonesia 35% = 80 million
Morocco 26% = 8 million
Turkey 7% = 5 million
Lebanon 2% = 70,000

It would be interesting to see what a survey in the west - particularly USA, regarding some similar (changed to be relevant) topic would say.

The problem is that the question is a bit specific to a comunity that has the "in fighting the israeli /US" underdog sort of position. A person in the US might suport "turning the middle east into glass" or somthing of that sort. It is obviously silly to ask them if they suport osama (allthough some would).

Since it is a matter of oppinion what is fair...

Any sugestions on what such a relevant question would be?

More on cartoons

the debate at frog blog

“Blasphemy is a victimless crime”

If only it was true!

and humour aside - from SPC
"If the Greens don’t show some sign of defending free speech I will not vote Green in 2008. There’s more than a physical environment heritage to defend. "

"Koran with a Buddha Shape Carved Into It"

"Koran with a Buddha Shape Carved Into It"



"Fear Factor" (Emily Hall, The Stranger, from the 2003/01/01-08 issue)
"By the day after Christmas, five people had asked me what happened to Kurt Geissel's work at Roq la Rue. The piece - a Koran with a Buddha shape carved into it (a reference to the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban) and bearing the inscription vita brevis, ars lunga, God is Sorry - was removed after the opening of Gods and Monsters, an irreverent look at religion (Morticia as Venus, Frankenstein as Christ, etc.). ...
She decided not to include it in her article, largely because she thought it irresponsible to feature such a work - and she told Roq la Rue owner Kirsten Anderson so. "I was afraid to publicize it, because Kirsten sits there alone in the gallery," Hackett said. "It's a particular kind of flag to a tiny group of people." Anderson, after talking to a lot of people and thinking it over, asked Geissel to remove the work - which he did, albeit unhappily. "I don't blame her," Geissel told me. 'But if you're afraid to show work because of what some nitwits have done, then the nitwits have too much power.'"

via http://watch.windsofchange.net/03_0105_0112.htm

cartoons

From http://michellemalkin.com/

from http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

from cracked.com

Catholic opression

Here is an example of catholic opression of free speach in the USA

http://www.nypress.com/18/9/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

resulting in

http://www.gawker.com/news/media/commentary/jeff-koyens-exit-interview-035157.php

I'm mildly outraged (afterall the european countries didnt burn US flags or fail to protect embasies or anything like that - as far as i know).

but that's why the US is below us in the freedom table!

Denmark now officially the Great Satan

Big Pharaoh Looks at how denmark has stolen the USA's crown as "great satan"
great comments include
if the U.S. just wanted to be hated, why couldn't we have published cartoons, rather than send in troops? It would have been sooo much cheaper! (Solomon2)

Enjoy your time in the spotlight Denmark, I can assure you, we are probably only one step away from pissing off the world again. (t)

I'm really frustrated. I was praying Holland would for once be the Great Satan, but we are as usual being ignored. (Infidel)

I don't know, BP. We're used to being #1. It took the work of many generations to put the "great" in Great Satan. It doesn't seem fair the Danes should just saunter in and take all that away from us with a few measly cartoons.But I suppose this must sound petty. Perhaps the Danes are entitled to enjoy their day in the sun. (JohnL)


"Death to Denmark" rols off the toungue so much better than "death to the USA"....

beat up the other guy instead!

Yourish compares buy danish with boycott danish and finds buy danish wins - I hada closer look and it seems this correct although it is more realistic if you use quotes - it is around 3:1.

meanwhile Fonterra and Nestle declare they are "not danish".
This is a bit like having a "im not a Jew" sign on your door.

Switzerland's Nestle, Italy's Ferrero and New Zealand's dairy co-operative Fonterra were among the companies putting out newspaper ads showing their products were not made or imported from Denmark, according to Reuters.

And from free republic the buy danish campaign looks into having a litle "sell NZ" in it .
Please guys pick a fight with fonterra if you want but dont blame a whole country for the actions of a single company - that is the stupid thing the protestors are doing - (although I dont mind buying danish to compensate for sanctions - that is a bit different).

Leftist french paper anoys more muslims

The front page of "Charlie Hebdo" carried a new drawing of Muhammad.

He is burying his face in his hands and saying: "It's hard to be loved by fools".

Inside pages carried the Danish cartoons and an editorial explaining the decision to reprint them.

Philippe Val, the magazine's editor, wrote: "When extremists extract concessions from democracies on points of principle, either by blackmail or terror, democracies do not have long left."

Sources at Charlie-Hebdo said its offices and some staff had been placed under police protection. As well as publishing the Danish cartoons, Charlie-Hebdo published other cartoons on its back page which caricatured other religions including Christianity and Judaism.

iranian cartons

I think the iranian paper may have published a holocaust cartoons - I hear a rumor it is about gay's and jews being killed somthing pretty insensitive - but I cant find it online yet - keep your eyes out for it!

I expect at least Charlie Hebdo to show it and probably aljazeera.

Cartons not so bad 2

I think the cartoons are reasonably good.
But often people misinterpret them and thus don’t see what they are saying. The cartons were largely designed to be small images in a montage talking about how cartoonists are censored by Islam. Generally they look at how or why Mohammad is being 'censored' in some regard or some commentary about how the censorship reflects how people want to see him.
All this subtlety is lost on most people of course, but if everyone aimed all their cartons at the lowest common denominator wouldn’t the world be pretty boring?

Mohammed cartons

It is common for people in this climate to search for some sort of middle ground compromise even on the right
For example Kiwipundit (and most commentators) argue

"The cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban should never have been published in the first place. It is not funny and completely misses the point regarding Islam and terrorism. It is the equivalent of a cartoon of Jesus wearing a Klan hood."

The problem is that this forgets the context of the cartoon.
The cartoons were drawn in response to the sort of perceived censorship by fear that this whole incident has made clear. The same artist has also made a similar cartoon previously saying basically the same thing about Judaism. So it would seem the best interpretation of the cartoon is that he was saying "Islam’s reactions are often explosive" i.e. you draw a Mohammad cartoon and then they explode in anger - this is similar to the message that the other cartoons seemed to carry so maybe they saw it as part of the brief. It could also be making a vulgar statement like "all Muslims are terrorists" but I doubt it because that would mean the last cartoon said that all Jews are terrorists.

Mohammad Cartoons

it looks like western media is being censored by threats of economic sanctions and violence.

Cartoons editor sent on leave .... was the piss christ guy put on leave?

Actually quite amusing

This is from a Mohamand cartoons site set up to look at the isue of the cartoons.


This one is ammusing and a bit true rather than offensive I think.
Afterall one really does have to wonder why israel gets so much money. I dont say that because I hate israel (I dont) I say it because it would be much more sensible for them to give that money to me! And if I was an american tax payer I would probably want to keep it for myself. Giving it to israel doesnt make much sense.

Iranian paper runs Holocaust contest

In revenge for the publication of the cartons about mohammad an iranian paper is running a contest on Holocaust denial. I propose if they finish the contest and I get to see the results I'll publish both them and the mohammad ones side by side to compare them (and to met their test the concept freedom of expression.