Bandwith exceeded

"Bandwith exceeded" must be the most bittersweet phrase to a blogeer.

It means that you're getting really good traffic.
It also means your blog is toast for the time being, until the administrator increases the bandwith again.

Time for "the blog is fried" grieving process!

Hollywood glamour

The former Bond, the former despot: Pierce's next movie role?


Today's Christmas store item:
(drum roll, please)
A DVD for the whole family, Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest

The Blond Bond Bombshell

Actor Daniel Craig A Blond Bondshell
'Casino Royale' Hits Jackpot, And The New James Bond Wins Raves Online

Bloggers praise the actor's aiblity to breath life into the character of James Bond after so many previous films. "Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Sean Connery. Connery created the part, but Daniel Craig brings him to life, a heroic task after decades and umpteenth Bond movies, a much more difficult task than Connery's," Fausta blogs. "This Bond is everything he should be: Cold, callous, egotistical, and most of all, dangerous. He has no qualms with killing," Justin at Corpreform adds.

Thank you, Melissa!

For the blond bombshell in black tie, engraveable sterting silver cufflinks at the Christmas Store - perfect for monogramming.

(technorati tags movie reviews Casino Royale Daniel Craig Movies)

Fidel misses his own b-day party , claims he's "not dead yet"

Castro misses birthday ceremony

Frail Cuban leader Fidel Castro has stayed away from the opening ceremony of his 80th birthday celebrations in Havana on doctors' orders.

A message apparently written by Mr Castro was read out saying he was not yet strong enough to attend the event.

Maybe he's in a freezer, after all; maybe not?

The usual toadies were in attendance at the non-event:

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rene Preval of Haiti have confirmed their attendance, along with former Ecuadorean President Rodrigo Borja and Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega.

Also expected are Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona, South African singer Miriam Makeba and Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine human rights campaigner, was also expected.

(Val has the guest list.)

Hugo went missing, though.

Hmm.

Tierra de poderes?

Hugo: . . . but, but I even brought you an arepa [a Venezuelan cornbread], and a painting. . .
Fidel: I saw you with that Putin [pun on Putin's name. Puta = whore, putin = little male whore], and with that Iranian, and you compared me to Ho Chi Min's statue, it's . . .
Hugo: But my chulo [term of endearment that can also mean pimp], all I've done. . .
Fidel: You've done nothing, all you've done is fool me, I gave you my youth, you got me pregnant and now I don't know what I'm going to do, it's over six months; you're going to have to assume responsibility...
Hugo (covering his eyes): My God, you weren't protected? You didn't tell me. That's not mine!
Fidel: You don't love me.
Hugo: Don't say that my little one, because I adore you with my life.
Fidel: I'm suing for child support.
Hugo: Now you're squeezing me. . .
Fidel: Evil man (crying) abuser, whore . . .
Image changes to the Tierra de poderes/Brokeback Mountain poster.
Announcer's voice: Tierra de poderes, the new soap opera.

Campaign pressures?

Castro's good friend and political ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wasn't expected to come; he is up for re-election on Dec. 3. But Chavez has promised to dedicate his anticipated electoral victory to Castro.

Or sour grapes?

Intentionally or subliminally, the Beeb's article has a picture of the dove landing on Castro's shoulder, an event considered as symbolic of his powers by believers in santeria. Do not underestimate the power of that image among his followers.

In a country where internet access is so limited by the government that a man's starving himself in protest, the Beeb asks,

Are you in Cuba? How have people there reacted to Mr Castro's inability to attend his 80th birthday celebrations? Send us your comments.

We live in an age of irony, indeed.

Hat tip: Maria
(technorati tags Fidel Castro Hugo Chavez Cuba)

The Veil Controversy

Via Nidra Poller,
The Veil Controversy: Islamism and liberalism face off

But the country whose government is currently going after the hijab most vigorously is Tunisia. The wearing of the hijab has been spreading rapidly in Tunisian towns, prompting President Ben Ali recently to reactivate a 1981 decree banning the wearing of the hijab in government offices, schools, universities, and public places in general. His government views the hijab as one more sign of the unwelcome but growing influence of Islamists in Tunisian society. This past Ramadan, in a reversal of the standard pattern for Muslim religious police, Tunisian police were seen tearing headscarves off women in the streets.

The authorities consider the hijab unacceptable in a country that enshrined women's rights as long ago as 1956, with the banning of repudiation (male-initiated casual divorce), polygamy, forced marriage, and the granting of women's rights to vote and sue for divorce. Ben Ali sees women "as a solid defense against the regressive forces of fanaticism and extremism."

Interestingly, the Tunisian author and feminist Samia Labidi, president of A.I.M.E., an organization fighting the Islamists, recounts that she personally started wearing the veil before puberty, after Islamists told her the hijab would be a passport to a new life, to emancipation. After a few years, she realized she had been fooled and that the veil made her feel like she was "living in a prison." At first, she could not bring herself to stop wearing it because of the constant psychological pressure. But the 1981 ban on the hijab in public places forced her to remove it, and she did so for good.

Labidi's experience suggests that in both Tunisia and France the recent banning of the hijab has actually helped Muslim women who are subject to Islamist indoctrination.

When indoctrination is not enough, try bribery:

For Islamists, the imperative to veil women justifies almost any means. Sometimes they try to buy off resistance. Some French Muslim families, for instance, are paid 500 euros (around $600) per quarter by extremist Muslim organizations just to have their daughters wear the hijab. This has also happened in the United States. Indeed, the famous and brave Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan recently told the Jerusalem Post that after she moved to the United States in 1991, Saudis offered her $1,500 a month to cover her head and attend a mosque.

And then threats,

But what Islamists use most is intimidation. A survey conducted in France in May 2003 found that 77 percent of girls wearing the hijab said they did so because of physical threats from Islamist groups. A series in the newspaper Libération in 2003 documented how Muslim women and girls in France who refuse to wear the hijab are insulted, rejected, and often physically threatened by Muslim males. One of the teenage girls interviewed said, "Every day, bearded men come to me and advise me strongly on wearing the veil. It is a war. For now, there are no dead, but there are looks and words that do kill."

Why the sudden emergence of the veil? Because it's in-your-face:

Given the Islamists' ferocious determination on this point, it is worth asking: Why exactly is covering the female so important to them? The obvious answer is that it is a means of social control. Not coincidentally, it is one of the only issues on which Sunni and Shia extremists agree. It's not by chance that use of the hijab really took off after Iran's Islamic regime came to power in 1979. Some Shiite militias in Iraq have actually started forcing women--Muslim or not--to wear the veil or face the consequences.

Not only in Iraq are women forced to veil themselves - in France, women are gang-raped at the banlieus if they're not wearing veils, whether or not the women are Muslim.

It has nothing to do with women choosing to become Marie Claire's Mecca Stars

Update: Hijab, Violence against Women, and Profiling

One solution to this debate may be profiling of women who wear hijab for investigation of domestic or other abuse. If [Olivier Guitta, writing at] Weekly Standard [see above] is right, then wearing hijab is a sign that a female has been intimidated and possibly beaten. If so, then not investigating the possibility of such abuse where it occurs, i.e., failing to implement hijab-based profiling, discriminates against women. Those who would oppose such investigation would be arguing that they favor physical abuse of women.

(technorati tags Marie Claire Dubai Islam)

The Pope, the Kennedys, and others in the news

Pope Benedict is visiting Turkey. Today's CNN banner reads "When Faiths Collide", which caused Larwyn to comment,

Obviously, CNN foresees quite a positive outcome.
Did they just hire some one from the World Wrestling Federation???

Bearing that in mind, I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about his speech from last August. Here's my post on the speech; the text of the Pope's speech; and his actual words:
NOT TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH REASON IS CONTRARY TO GOD'S NATURE
Do keep those words in mind while we hear all the propaganda, the insults, and the Pope Rage in Istanbul. As I write the anchorwoman at CNN keeps talking about the Pope making an apology.

Update American Digest looks at the sleep of reason On Advent: "We Are All Lying in the Mud, but Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars"
--------------------------------------
Complete with toll-free number: Dial Joe-4-Chavez : Massachusetts Democrats love Venezuela's strongman

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is an ally of the Iranian mullahs, a supporter of North Korea, a close friend of Fidel Castro and a good customer for Vladimir Putin's weapon factories. Now he's also a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy II.

The former Democratic Congressman describes the deal he's cooked up with Mr. Chavez as charity for low-income consumers of heating oil. But it's worth asking what the price of this largesse is to Venezuelans and to U.S. security interests.

The arrangement is this: Mr. Chavez's Citgo--a Houston-based oil company owned by the Venezuelan government--is supplying home heating oil to Mr. Kennedy's Citizens Energy Corporation at a 40% discount. Citizens, a nonprofit outfit, says it passes the savings onto the poor, aiming to help 400,000 homes in 16 states that would otherwise have trouble heating their homes. In the process, Mr. Kennedy happens to get a high-profile publicity plug. If you think you qualify, says the television ad that drew our attention to this partnership, just dial 1-877-Joe-4-Oil.

I was slightly ahead of the news curve last week on this.

Jeff Blanco asks,

Are we so far separated from the rest of the world that we don't have a reason to see what's going on around the rest of the world? Is it arrogance? Maybe our nation is too large, we have enough newsworthy events happening here in the United States, to keep our attention off of the rest of the world.

--------------------------------------
The grounded imams
Read Jay's post on The Grounded Imams; Stranger Behavior Than Prayers
Update The Flying Imams: acting deliberately and precisely like Muslim terrorists
--------------------------------------
The crock that is "shareholder democracy"
--------------------------------------
The Old World Marches Again

Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism, Islamofascism... all simply vehicles for the ancient passions and values of the Old World to re-channel themselves more effectively, so as to destroy the New. The people who developed these ideologies have studied and exploited the weaknesses of the New World, to the point that all of them have seriously threatened it.

The "Eurabia" myth from Ralph Peters has sparked several rebuttals:
Powerline: They Report, You Decide (with update from Mark Steyn)
Steven Warshawsky Europe's Ineradicable Viciousness?
David Pryce-Jones, author of Islam Unveiled, has a new book, Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews. Click on box to purchase

--------------------------------------
Today's cat story,
Ziggy the cat's 17-day journey from Israel to UK

'Tis the season
Don't forget to check my Christmas shop - I'm adding new items every day. Today's new item: orchids.



My thanks to Maria and Larwyn!

Chester looks at ME magical realism, SC&A looks at the press

The Adventures of Chester has an excellent post,Magical Realism Visits the Middle East

Students of Latin American literature will be familiar with "magical realism," a technique of writing frequently associated with Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, the Nobel-prize winning Columbian novelist. Wikipedia notes some elements of magical realism, several of which are excerpted here:

* Contains fantastical elements
* The fantastic elements may be intrinsically plausible but are never explained
* Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element . . .
* Distorts time so that it is cyclical or so that it appears absent. Another technique is to collapse time in order to create a setting in which the present repeats or resembles the past
* Inverts cause and effect, for instance a character may suffer before a tragedy occurs
* Incorporates legend or folklore
* Mirrors past against present; astral against physical planes; or characters one against another . . .
* Open-ended conclusion leaves the reader to determine whether the magical and/or the mundane rendering of the plot is more truthful or in accord with the world as it is.
. . .
It is all too easy to see the similarities between the fictions penned by Garcia-Marquez, the surreal nature of negotiating with terrorists such as Pablo Escobar, and the presumptions of American political elites who believe that by engaging Iran and Syria -- thereby admitting their involvement in Iraq's chaos -- that such chaos might be ended on terms favorable to either the US or Iraq. Such dreams are the stuff of our own variety of magical realism, but rather than resulting in pleasant narrative escapes, they will result in the irrelevance of the United States, whether one means its military power, its national interests, or its once-admired revolutionary Democratic ideals.

Read every word.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred likewise is exploring Media Lies, UN Lies, And A Presidential Library

What are the implications of media deceit? A lot more than the endorsement of tired and failed political agendas and ideologies.In fact, media deceit has lead to an environment where the deaths and killings of innocents, so that some agendas are presented in a more favorable light than others.

It was the media that ignored the genocide that resulted in the death of over a million Africans in Rwanda, even as the UN military commander pleaded with UN higher ups for orders to defend the helpless victims that never came.

The deliberate lack of press coverage could not hide other truths. While Rwanda is correctly portrayed as yet another failure of the UN, they weren't alone in their culpability. Even as the UN maintained it’s customary inertia , the American administration under Bill Clinton was asked to help. They refused. After the humiliating defeat in Somalia, Washington was delighted to wash its hands of Africa and Africans.

A month after the documented mass murders, David Rawson, Mr Clinton's US ambassador to Rwanda, stated that the killings were a 'disaster' and then categorized the orchestrated genocide as 'tribal killings' and no more. This kind of cavalier attitude was reinforced by the state department. One US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State was told by her higher ups that '. . .these people do this from time to time.' [emp-SC&A]

Two posts, great reading.
(h/t Larwyn)

Update MSM magical realism:
The MSM has been using bogus officials to supply chaos to their stories and based on those same stories has decided Iraq is now a official civil war.

Venezuela: Pre-election avalanche and a Memo

The must-read bloggers: VCrisis, Venezuela News and Views, and The Devil's Excrement:
Venezuela News and Views
Don't miss his videos

V Crisis, and Alek's photo album

The Devil's Excrement

The round-up
AVALANCHA OF AVALANCHAS

While Chavez blocked the highways into Caracas, 1.4 million turned up.

Chavez Vows To Beat "Devil"

Anti-castro, Anti-Chavez Avalancha In Caracas

Gustavo Coronel has A memo for Hugo Chavezs followers and for the Left who supports Chavez:

A memo for Hugo Chavezs followers.
(Please read before voting).
Gustavo Coronel.

Dear Chavez follower:

1. If you are not worried about Hugo Chavez being a "brother" of Fidel Castro, Ahmadinejad, Kim IL Sung, Assad, Hussein, Hezbollah and FARC, vote for him;
2. If it does not bother you that the main bridge between Caracas and the airport has collapsed and that the garbage piles up high in the streets of Venezuelan cities, vote for Chavez;
3. If you do not feel indignant at the ideological indoctrination being forced upon our children in public schools, vote for Chavez;
4. If you are indifferent at the arming of our youth by the Chavez government and their conversion into a paramilitary force, go ahead and vote for him;
5. If you think is logical that Chavez dedicates $20 billion to the buying of weapons, to the giving away of oil to Cuba, to building houses in Bolivia, roads in Jamaica, refineries in Brazil and to the exchange of oil for bananas with Grenada, vote for him;
6. If you sleep well in spite of knowing that Venezuelans die for lack of essential help in the hospitals run by the Chavez's government, vote for him;
7. If you think there is no lack of ethics or dignity in the magistrates of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice when they sing in choir: "Uh, Ah, Chavez is not going", go ahead, vote for him;
8. If you agree with the speech of the president of Petroleos de Venezuela, telling employees that if they do not vote for Chavez they will be dismissed, vote for Chavez;
9. If you believe that there are no abandoned children left in the streets of Venezuela and that women do no longer beg for food and a few coins in the streets of our cities, go ahead and vote for Chavez;
10. If you care more for the handouts you are getting on a daily basis than for freedom, democracy and human dignity, vote for Chavez;
11. If it does not bother you that Chavez travels around the world preaching hate in a $70 million Airbus, in a $3000 suit ad and wearing a $5000 watch, surrounded by Cuban bodyguards while the Venezuelan poor increase year after year, vote for him;
12. If you agree with the armed forces being at the exclusive service of the Chavez revolution, vote for him;
13. If you do not consider grotesque that the Vice-president of the republic is also an anonymous newspaper commentator, writing insulting op-eds against the opposition in the vilest language, please vote for Chavez;
14. If you do not feel curious about how the $200 billion of estimated oil income have been spent by Chavez during the last eight years, vote for him;
15. If you believe is normal for a country to have three parallel budgets, all handled by Chavez without accountability or transparency, vote for him;
16. If you approve of Venezuela having more undernourished people (FAO, United Nations), being one of the most corrupt countries on Earth (Transparency International), possessing one of the lowest levels of economic freedom (Fraser Institute) and showing a decreasing Index of Human Development (United Nations), go ahead and vote for Chavez;
17. If you are amused to see the president of your country singing off key in public events or disguised as a Mexican Charro, a Bolivian Indian or an Islamic fundamentalist, vote for Chavez;
18. If you think is positive to have a high level of racial and social tension in the country, vote for Chavez;
19. If you agree that political dissidents should be imprisoned, that Venezuelans who vote against Chavez should be retaliated against and that they get insulted systematically by the president, vote for Chavez;
20. If you like to watch the president of the country making an ass of himself in the United Nations, vote for Chavez;
21. If it is all the same to you that the government bureaucracy enrich themselves with our national wealth and give you the crumbs of the banquet, go ahead and vote for Chavez;
22. In summary, if you wish to see Venezuela joining the club of the failed states and Venezuelan society becoming more miserable than is already the case, vote for Chavez.

But, keep the following in mind:
You can choose to vote with your stomach or with your heart but be prepared to live with the results of your decision. If you vote to return to the Paleolithic you, your children and the children of your children will suffer the consequences. When you vote for Chavez you will be influencing the life and well-being of all those who do not wish to see their country falling in a swamp of misery, oppression and corruption. You should know that we would dispute Chavez and his followers day after day, millimeter after millimeter, the space and the future of our country. We, who wish to live in a dignified, free and spiritually and physically clean country, will never stay idle while the illiterates of the revolution, dressed in blood red garments, pretend to take over the country. This battle for freedom and democracy in Venezuela is going to be long and cruel but we will prevail.

We will wake from this nightmare no matter the price we will have to pay.

Let's hope it's through democracy and growth.

(technorati tags Politics Latin America Venezuela)

Marie Claire's Mecca Stars

I stopped buying women's fashion magazines years ago when I got fed up of looking at photo after photo of anorexic fifteen year olds wearing $700 flip-flops, along with repetitive articles exulting women's superiority, victimhood, dieting and plastic surgery. To say that there was nothing I could possibly find interesting would be to greatly understate it.

By doing so, I missed the latest trends in women's fashion publishing. One, the sex-manual mags (like Cosmo, which now has text and illustrations) I wrote about last August. The December issue of Marie Claire has a naked woman on the cover but at least didn't go into that trend.

Now here's the latest trend: Marie Claire's Mecca Stars, a.k.a. the glamorization of Islam's submission of women.

Debbie Schlussel has all the photos from the spread, and comments,

By the way, the photos were shot in Dubai, home of the new anti-Jew apartheid. No Israeli passports or passport stamps allowed (unless you're a Muslim, then it's okay). Not a peep from the libs that run Marie Claire.

Or from the rest of the press. This particular issue of MC got a lot of publicity for publishing a photoshop of Elizabeth Vargas's face on a woman breast-feeding a baby for an article titled "The Mother Of All Tough Choices". Because not mentioning Dubai's anti-Jew laws is not a tough choice; it comes naturally to Marie Claire's editors.

The print on the photo reads

MECCA STARS
Where else can you get your sheik on with the hot new accessories but in the desert wonderland of Dubai?

The "desert wonderland of Dubai" they talk about is "Dubai and its shopping", which is fully itemized on page 139. Apparently there are only 45 malls in Dubai, so I'll stay in New Jersey, thank you. And keep the sheik off me, please.

The model in the above photo wears a "Silver mask, price upon request, from Victor and Rolf"

Considering how Islam tells men to beat their wives into submission, it's hardly surprising that the first page of the spread highlights an S&M item.

The rest of the photos feature several extremely thin young women (a polygamist's wives?) wearing a lot of make-up, huge sunglasses and expensive accessories, not unlike the first woman I saw wearing the veil at Harrods almost thirty years ago. Unlike the woman I saw at Harrods, their black clothes are from-fitting. On one page they even wear Chanel jackets on top of them, which had me wondering what the Saudi religious police would do, considering that they would have school girls burn to death rather than allow them to leave a burning building unveiled.

The photo spread shows the glamour of eating a burger under your veil at McDonald's. Irony? Humor? Of just good ole cluelessness on Marie Claire's part?

According to this site, the purpose of the veil is protection. While some decadent Westeners think of condoms when someone mentions protection,

This is the whole point, modesty is prescribed to protect women from molestation or simply, modesty is protection. Thus, the only purpose of the veil in Islam is protection.

Some of us decadent Western women, however, prefer to protect ourselves with firearms. Never mind that the mark of a civilized society is men's self-control.

On page 143, one of the "stars" is shown behind the wheel: To the Arabs, Women Driving Cars Is a Sinful Thing. The babe in the photo must be daydreaming, much like a little kid who sneaks behind the wheel of his dad's car wishing he could actually drive it.

But not to worry, she's wearing $67,645 worth of jewelry. Like the woman I saw at Harrods, who bought herself a complete set of Vuitton luggage, in all her luxury the model is

simply a cipher, to be held as a nonentity, hidden under a mass of black cloth, unseen, never to be trusted, allowed to talk to no one other than a man that will speak for them

Marie Claire has shown its true colors. What's even more shameful is that the MSM carried on about the Vargas photoshop and ignored the Mecca Stars.

Update Is Jack Straw right about banning hijab?

Follow-up post: The Veil Controversy.

(technorati tags Marie Claire Dubai Islam)

Enemy propaganda at the LA Times, and today's other items

Is the L.A. Times Repeating Enemy Propaganda? Or Is There Another Reason The Paper Is Getting Basic Facts Wrong and Failing to Report the Military’s Side?
Getting The News From The Enemy

Via LGF, What the Islamists Have Learned: How to defeat the USA in future wars

Maxim # 1: To defeat America, impose upon the imagination of its media your own storyline.
Maxim # 2: Take heart, then, my terrorist brothers! Bin Laden is even more correct than we knew before the last two years. The West does not have the will to resist. Those elites among them who do have the stomach to fight back, inexorably, day after day, are being undermined by their own media.

Dough Ross goes at it: Richard Feynman: "...To Protect Civilization..."
2006 Turkey-of-the-Year Awards
The Shining Wit and Wisdom of Bill Maher

Geesh, Michael Moore!... Less Fury, More Facts Please!

Worried All The Time

AP frets that more people haven’t noticed war protester’s self-immolation; Update: Protester fantasized about killing Rumsfeld
2 Acid Bombs Detonated at Wal-Mart

Doing John Kerry impersonations, Rangel: Men Join The Army Only If They Can't Have A "Decent Career". And here I thought that's why men became politicians.
Live by the stupidity ...

Congressman Conyers and Islam

Back when college was fun...

Special thanks to Larwyn!

The fat studies of the land

For cynics like myself,
Institutionalized victimhood + narcisissim + grant money =
academic curriculumAnd here you have it: Big People on Campus(*)

Even as science, medicine and government have defined obesity as a threat to the nation's health and treasury, fat studies is emerging as a new interdisciplinary area of study on campuses across the country and is gaining interest in Australia and Britain. Nestled within the humanities and social sciences fields, fat studies explores the social and political consequences of being fat

I would have thought that with all the media coverage of the obesity "epidemic", the social and political consequences of being fat would have been explored down to the skin and bones by now.

Of course not.

Help! I'm being repressed!

For most scholars of fat, though,

not to be confused with run-of-the-mill fat scholars,

it is not an objective pursuit. Proponents of fat studies see it as the sister subject — and it is most often women promoting the study, many of whom are lesbian activists — to women's studies, queer studies, disability studies and ethnic studies. In many of its permutations, then, it is the study of a people its supporters believe are victims of prejudice, stereotypes and oppression by mainstream society.

Obviously they never heard of the term "fat cat" because it's been replaced with the term "da man".

While many of the proponents of fat studies hope "that one day fat studies will be as ubiquitous on campus as Shakespeare" (after probably having found evidence that Shax was more than just pleasantly plump - with a subsequent "Shakespeare's lost menus" doctoral dissertation or two), at least someone's not buying it,

Others argue, though, that a movement does not make a scholarly pursuit and that this is simply a way to institutionalize victimhood.

"In one field after another, passion and venting have come to define the nature of what academics do," said Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, a group of university professors and academics who have a more traditional view of higher education. "Ethnic studies, women's studies, queer studies — they're all about vindicating the grievances of some particular group. That's not what the academy should be about.

"Obviously in the classroom you can look at issues of right and wrong and justice and injustice," he added, "But if the purpose is to vindicate fatness, to make fatness seem better in the eyes of society, then that purpose begs a fundamental intellectual question."

Let's give a blogger the last word:

Or as Big Arm Woman, a blogger, wrote: "I don't care if people are fat or thin. I do, however, care that universities are spending money on scholarship about the 'politics of fatness' when half of the freshman class can't read or write at the college level."

(*) Yes, the NYT's still arriving. Will they discontinue delivery? Fat chance!

For further insanities,


Well, surprise, surprise:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

h/t Happy Catholic

(technorati tags fat studies Carnival of the Insanities universities Education)

Christmas store now open!

In solidarity with Dr. Sanity's material spirituality, I opened a Christmas store, where I include several items I've received as gifts, and other items readers will like.

Among the books I listed Janson's History of Art, THE artbook of all times. For little kids, the Olivia books and George and Martha are sure to get the grown-ups chuckling even after repeat readings.

I included Risk among the low-tech toys so your thundering hordes can invade Kamchatka. Princeton toy stores do not carry Risk. Instead, the carry the premier jeu des échecs du bébé ("baby's first chess game", oui! in French! So your offspring can get a head start on snobbery!) - I kid you not.
Update: Larwyn emailed,

Don't think I ever seen a FRENCH chess set. Or I just didn't recognize it as the hands of both sides were not raised in surrender.

I also included two items I'd love to get:
1. the DVD of The Illusionist, which will be coming out soon (catch it at the movies now if you can)
and 2. Paloma Picasso Mon Rouge Lipstick in the right red. The lipstick is no longer manufactured and I've had to settle for Revlon's Cherries in the Snow, but it's still available at Amazon. I ordered two for myself.

The're also the Casino Royale watch, too.

Happy shopping!

Spy convergence: Litvinenko and Le Chiffre

In one of those uncanny coincidences (and something that makes one feel as if one has stepped into a time warp), former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was murdered by radioctive poisoning on the same week that Casino Royale opened.

Litvinenko is now a former spy by virtue of his death, because there is probably not such a thing as a former spy in Vlad's eyes. He suffered a horrible death.

Maria sent several update links to the Litvinenko story (see first link above) while Wretchard's posting on The return of SMERSH

Litvineko died gamer than the fictional Le Chiffre. His last words were: "The bastards got me, they won't get us all".

They were all real. Rosa Klebb. "Red" Grant. Le Chiffre. Not literally but as archetypes of something we prefer to forget existed. Bolshevik priests. The angels of revolution. Men without pity and often - except in Le Chiffre's case - without fear. And in an age where Political Correctness has covered their tracks, our sole authentic glimpse of these monsters survives only in fiction. We are told that these monsters never existed; but the truth is that they never died.

Jim Geraghty has more.
Update: From the ministry of misinformation? Radio station Echo Moskvy reported Friday that Litvinenko converted to Islam. Wha??
Update, Sunday Nov. 26, via Larwyn, How To Kill A Spy

The same man he claims he was ordered to assassinate has a PR firm at the ready when he dies? How convenient.

---------------

In a lighter mode, confronted with the new bare-knuckles Bond, the old Bonds are complaining: Pierce Brosnan Offended By Way New James Bond Holds Gun, and Roger Moore thinks "no actor has brought the pithy elegance befitting 007 since 1979's Moonraker".

If Roger thinks "pithy elegance" is what the world needs, he should have Bond working at the UN. Nothing works as well as a pithy, strongly-worded letter to stop the evil guys. While you're holding your gun just so, of course.

Meanwhile here at the ranch, the NYT is still arriving even when I've been asking them to cancel for 5 consecutive weeks. None of my pithy elegant emails, letters and calls have had any effect.

They're persistent, alright. Too bad Le Chiffre's not available.

(technorati tags Alexander Litvinenko spy Vladimir Putin Casino Royale James Bond)

What to do with the leftover turkey

Stuck with leftover turkey? Had your fill of turkey sandwiches? Try this instead

read more | digg story

Nicaragua: Ortega's old pals

Via Nicaragua Blog,

Ortega, Again? History repeats itself. Why do the ugliest chapters always recur?

For some in Washington, the Nicaraguan election must look like small potatoes compared to the current crises in the Middle East and North Korea. But, in fact, it is part of the same battle and taking place on our doorstep. Ortega's terrorist allies in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea will be watching closely on election night. We should be, too, for the fate of Nicaragua is inextricably linked to that of rogue nations with a manifest strategic interest in controlling a key piece of continental real estate nor far from the United States.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has emerged as the Sandinista's new best friend. It is he who sponsors their well-funded electoral machine that may propel them back into office. Chavez has been using Venezuela’s oil money most insidiously, supporting Leftist candidates for election all over Latin America, and incorporating them into worldwide anti-American front.

International revolutionary cooperation is not a new idea. During a state visit by Ortega to Pyongyang in the 1980's, Kim Il-Sung of North Korea suggested to his guest that their nations work together to render America "powerless." Now Ortega might be in position to reap what was sowed those many years ago, partnering with Kim Il-Sung’s heir, Kim Jong-Il, the newest member of the nuclear club.

North Korea is already at work building closer relations with the radical Left in Latin America. In September of 2005, the vice president of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly (and sometimes arms dealer) visited both Cuba and Venezuela. In Caracas, he called for Venezuela and North Korea to respond jointly to "American pressure and threats." Shortly thereafter, a North Korean economic delegation arrived in Venezuela. North Korea, faced with a severe energy shortage, happens to be a leading exporter of missiles. Chavez, flush with oil, is on an arms-buying spree.

The terror connection does not end there, for the Sandinistas are also longtime friends of Iran, another of Chavez's anti-American cohort. In 1980, even as Jimmy Carter was sending hundreds of millions in aid to the Sandinistas, the Nicaraguans were feting the Iranian foreign minister–this while Americans were still being held hostage in Iran.
In September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he and Chavez are like "brothers." Chavez staunchly defended the Iranian nuclear program at the U.N. General Assembly and vowed in a meeting in Havana that "[u]nder any scenario we are with you ... [Venezuela] will stand together with Iran at all times and under any conditions." That these terrorist alliances may soon have a branch office in the heart of Central America - essentially within walking distance of our undefended border - is a ghastly and terrifying proposition.

The anti-Ortega vote reaches a new high of 62% -- and he gets to be president anyway!

(technorati tags Nicaragua Americas Venezuela North Korea Iran)

Digging it:

I'll be experimenting with Digg for the next couple of days.

Thank you for your patience.

A Philippe Noiret movie festival

French actor Philippe Noiret dies aged 76

While most people outside of Europe won't recognize the name, Philippe Noiret was a wonderful actor, and even if they don't remember his name they might remember his performance as Alfredo the movie projectionist in Cinema Paradiso.

I cry at movies. My second-favorite movie is a real tearjerker and I've watched it repeatedly, which causes other family members to ask why do I torment myself - it's not a pretty sight (no one looks good crying, unless they're in a movie). Cinema Paradiso is not my most favorite movie but it is an excellent film.

I saw Cinema Paradiso with my friend G. when it first came out in 1988 .

G. really got crying early on in the film. I remained cool, with the sad story about Salvatore the poor little kid and the kindly Alfredo rolling right along, until the part where Alfredo projects the movie on the walls by the town square. That really caught my attention. The scene where Salvatore puts together all the censored love scenes that Alfredo had saved got me into a torrent of tears - to this day my eyes water if I hear the love theme music that played during that scene.

Of course this was cause for much hilarity from my friend's then-teenage son, who had come with us to what his father referred to as "those weird foreign movies G. and Fausta are so fond of" because his game got rained out.

Noiret was also known in the USA for his part as Pablo Neruda in The Postman (a.k.a. Il Postino, NOT to be confused with the Kevin Costner yawner).

Noiret was just fabulous in that he never acted, he did.
Here are a few of his fims, which are also available from Netflix.




A Beautiful Actor

(technorati tags Philippe Noiret movies film)
digg story

Licensed to kill

digg story

Licensed to kill

Via Maria,

Spy's death-bed Putin accusation

Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of involvement in his death, in a statement dictated before he died.
. . .
Mr Litvinenko had recently been investigating the murder of his friend, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government.

According to The Australian,

ALEXANDER Litvinenko and the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya met in London soon after she had survived an attempt to poison her.
Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in Moscow last month, spoke to Mr Litvinenko during a visit to Britain last year, her son Ilya said yesterday.

BBC news

Russian dissident Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB colonel and friend of Mr Litvinenko, maintained that the poisoning had been the work of the Russians.

Putin, of course, denies any part in this, but,

On the day he first felt ill, Litvinenko said he had two meetings, the first with an unnamed Russian and Andrei Lugovoy, an-KGB colleague and bodyguard to former Russian Prime Minster Yegor Gaidar.

Later, he dined with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella to discuss the October murder of Politkovskaya.

Scaramella said he showed Litvinenko an e-mail he received from a source identifying Politkovskaya's killers, and naming other targets, including Litvinenko and himself.

Here's the BBC's timeline of the case.

The BBC also mentioned this morning that Russia passed a law this summer making it legal to kill enemies of the state.

Don't expect much uproar: As Edward Lucas points out,

Not that western censure presents any problem for Putin. The U.S. has humiliatingly abandoned any attempt to put Russia under pressure, in exchange for Kremlin help in influencing North Korea and Iran. France, Italy and Germany are worried only about gas, not freedom.

And then there's this:

There are tantalising clues to the reach of the Kremlin's tentacles across the globe from mysterious, expertly-produced disinformation websites that subtly push the Kremlin line and cases such as that of the Venezuelan drug smugglers who were found to have Russian technicians building a submarine for them.

The sovs are back, Ortega's back in Nicaragua, Iran's making rude noises, miniskirts and platform shoes are in the stores, and James Bond and Rocky are hitting the movie screens.

Everything old is new again.

Update Litvinenko Killed By Plutonium 210
Russia delivers air defense missile system to Iran (h/t LGF)

Update, Saturday Nov. 25 Via Maria,
The ex-spy's final defiant message
THe UK's Daily Mail is asking, How many more were poisoned? As I understand it, in order to get polonium 210 you basically have to have a nuclear reactor. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but whoever carried and administered a dose so high that it contaminated the places where Litvinenco visited that day must have gone on a suicide mission. Litvenenko died an agonizing death all the same.
Putin, however, says,

'As far as I understand from the medical statement, it does not say this was the result of violence, this was not a violent death.'

I guess Vlad's idea of a violent death excludes poisoning?

Spy death: Russian Lawmakers blame tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

(technorati tags Russia Politics Alexander Litvinenko)

For this I give thanks:

Freedom from want:


Freedom of worship:


Freedon of speech:


Freedom from fear:


That's why I live in this country,
and for that I thank God very day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(PS Pajamas Media has more on the Four Freedoms)

Pre-Thanksgiving turkey prepping:

I was just listening to two podcasts,
This week's Blography with Brian Stelter,
and
The Sanity Squad: Thanksgiving Edition - the Sanity Squad is addictive.

I spent part of the morning looking for a small turkey. A small turkey is like a small aircraft carrier: it doesn't exist.

Later in the afternoon I went to a different store and found a 5lb turkey breast, and prepped it for tomorrow while listening to the Sanity Squad:

Remove turkey from the plastic bag and rinse the turkey. WRITE DOWN THE TURKEY'S WEIGHT so you know for how long you have to cook it tomorrow.
In a glass, mixed 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbs chopped garlic (the kind you buy in a jar), and 1 teas. salt. Lift the turkey's skin and pour this mixture into it (between the skin and the flesh), and insert sprigs of rosemary (one large sprig on each side) under the skin. Rub the outside of the turkey with the remaining garlic oil, cover, and let it sit in the refrigerator until tomorrow.
If you like a lot of rosemary, you can add more while it marinades but remove them before roasting the turkey since the flavor can be overwhelming. Leave one in each side - it looks very nice when the turkey's roasted.

The Anchoress has recipes for sausage stuffing and sweet potato pie. I can't have the pie because of sugar intolerance, but tomorrow I'll try to make pumpkin pie sweetened with pineapple (instead of sugar) and raisins soaked in bourbon.

I made sure there's bourbon left in case the recipe doesn't work out.

Update, Thursday 23 November Mmmmm, pupmkin pie . . .
(technorati tags turkey recipe Thanksgiving Food)

Decency

WARNING: Extremely upsetting content
Via Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, a very decent man:

Eteraz realized, I believe that some Western antipahy towards Islam is due to decency.

Indeed:

(h/t Pajamas Media)

SC&A says,

If freedom is indeed a gift from God, then it is a gift for all mankind, regradless of color, creed or culture.

But can Islam understand that?

Judith, Janet Reno, the new bishop, and other items in the news

Judith was Talking back to Rachel Corrie's parents. The results were what one would expect.

Janet Reno Files Challenge To Terror Law Dan says,

I've heard the papers suggest a more humane alternative - that terrorists be incarcerated in old Texas farm houses until they can be surrounded by the FBI with the terrorists being burned alive on national television. But that last bit is unconfirmed, for now.

And then, there's raiding their homes in the wee hours of the morning, taking them by force and sending them back to where they came from:

The Impressive Plans of the Democrats

Michael Medved: New Bishop show bankrupcy of 'religious left'

The questions and answers with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori eloquently (if inadvertently) demonstrate the bankruptcy of the Religious Left. If the movement's attitudes toward marriage and child-bearing reflect the trendy ideas of secular environmentalists rather than timeless Biblical truth, then who needs religion? Most Americans understand that the purpose of organized faith is to bring unchanging values to bear in challenging and modifying the fads and temptations of the moment. Religion means nothing if we rather begin with fashionable contemporary ideas and use them to alter the fundamentals of faith. Moreover, what's the point of maintaining any sort of organized Christianity if one of its most prominent leaders will instinctively condemn her own faith tradition while excusing or dismissing the violent excesses of the deadly Muslim enemies of the Christian world?

As with most leaders of the Christian Left, Bishop Jefferts Schori appears be very Left, but not very Christian. Her example shows the way that this new movement of religious liberals amounts to little more than a desperate effort to use the language of faith to repackage the tired ideas of secular, utopian leftism and moral relativism that have failed so spectacularly wherever they've been tried around the world.

Amazing how good economic news are starting to appear in the press: More Post-Election Good News: Wages Rising Faster Than Any Time Since 1997

Al-Jazeera Comes to America

Larwyn's links
Fighting the information war

California Supreme Court: Web Publishers Not Liable for Republishing Defamatory Statements by Third Parties

Surprise, surprise: WashPost Slants Leftward in Covering Lives of Galbraith, Friedman

Most definitely not for the politically correct: Why the Future May Not Belong to Islam
Related: Spengler: the slow motion suicide of fundamentalist Islam

Wars are won by destroying the enemy's will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women. The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian "tourists" entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards in 1999. That helps explain why Ukraine has the world's fastest rate of population decline. On a smaller scale, trafficking in Iranian women explains Iran's predicament…the battered Iranian whore is the alter ego of the swaggering Iranian jihadi. . .

In the case of Iran, deracination and cultural despair impel millions of individual women to eschew motherhood. Prostitution is a form of psychic suicide; writ large, it is a manifestation of the national death-wish, the hideous recognition that the world no longer requires Ukrainians or Moldovans.

ShrinkWrapped's Considering Iran

How Islamics Terrorists Stay in the USA
We said it looked like lawsuit shopping, which it was. Via Irwin, CAIR urges boycott of US Air - I'll remember that the next time I'm flying.

Michael Totten, Chester and Wretchard look at the assasination of Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel.

The Failure of American Public Debate

Today's video, from Maria:


Christmas shopping?

The Kennedys and Hugo: Lie down with dogs . . .

No matter how vile the insults, the Kennedy venality is endless:

Citizens Energy, Citgo Bring Discounted Oil To Bay State
Some Upset With Statement About President

BOSTON -- Despite soaring profits for oil companies during the past year, only one company, Citgo of Venezuela, is willing to sell discounted oil to the poor.

That is, to the American poor that would qualify as middle class if they lived in Venezuela.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported Monday that once again it is Joe Kennedy's Citizens Energy group that is bringing that oil to needy families in Masschusetts.

Like his rum-running grandfather, Joe has no problem associating with criminals:

The oil comes from Citgo Petroleum of Venezuela -- the country whose president, Hugo Chavez, called President George W. Bush the devil.

"No matter the differences we might have, there is always room for cooperation," Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez said.

Not that Joe's alone:

That was also the message Monday from Citgo's CEO and from Rep. Bill Delahunt, who has developed a strong relationship with Chavez.

"We do need each other. The relationship is important, and we all have to try and we have to temp the rhetoric down," Delahunt said.

Then there's the oil going to NYC:

The program will deliver fuel to eligible families throughout the five boroughs. The initiative will also devote 5 percent of the delivery volume free of charge to homeless shelters during the heating season. The initial delivery was made to a 60-unit Bronx apartment building, whose low-income tenants will receive rent rebates as a result of the discount delivery of 200 gallons per unit.
. . .
The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program is also operating in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Greater Philadelphia, Greater Pittsburgh, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. CITGO is also providing discount oil directly to 163 Native American tribes in the states of Alaska, Maine, Minnesota and New York.

I've been posting about this for a year now

Tell Martha Stewart your worst Thanksgiving disaster

Tell Martha Stewart your worst Thanksgiving disaster
Martha wants to know your horror story.

Well, Martha, since you asked, my worst Thanksgiving disaster involved a married couple having a full-blown fight (a la Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, only that they were sober) at my dining table while ten other people - myself included - watched in the most wretched, abject shock.

Which is better than my friend Jessie's Thanksgiving horror story, where another couple not only got into a fight but actually came to blows.

(technorati tags Thanksgiving)

Global Orgasm update

WARNING: Full snark ahead.
Post is also not suitable for work
The Global Orgasm story has all the ingredients for creating blog interest: sex, humor, politics, and product endorsement. Curiously the GO website has a really lame tune for background music - I would have expected something more suggestive, like say, Ravel's Bolero - but maybe that's the right kind of mood music to those who believe that

The combination of high-energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditation and prayers.

Ah, mindful intention . . . that explains it.

Last week I said that it's as good a way as any to spend a Friday, but TigerHawk takes a political stance:

Being a hawk, I'll have to remember not to have an orgasm that day

and adds

Presumably faking orgasm does nothing -- the Earth knows.

Don't miss his comments section.

Newton, however, endorses Casino Royale as an aphrodisiac:

From the film reviews I have already read, including one from Fausta, I can conclude that a lot of ladies are going to leave the theatre without the need for KY jelly. That guy, Daniel Craig, is smoke-piping hot! Forget the others! Nothing will give it to the lady who really wants to fantasize about a hunk than to slobber like a dog at the sight of this guyÂ’s chest on the silver screen while he kicks major butt and names names!

Speaking of aphrodisiacs, Blue Crab Boulevard found out that they're handing out free Viagra in Brazil - as if the Brazilians needed it! - under a Pinto Alegre (Happy Penis) program. I had no idea that the Brazilians called that a Pinto. I googled the word because I thought maybe Ford must have changed the name of the car to market it in Portuguese speaking countries, but obviously not:

Denominado Pinto, nome de um cavalo malhado (apesar de seu outro sentido em nosso idioma),
[my translation:]
Named Pinto, after a horse with spots (in spite of its other meaning in our language)

Portuguese-speaking Ford dealers must have had some interesting conversations at the showroom, for sure.

Ace is skeptical of the GO concept, and calls it

bustin' a nut for peace.

Jimmie believes

This can't end well. It just can't.

while Argghh! would rather have the military get lucky.

Don notices how

Of course it began in Nancy Pelosi's city by the Bay

but Moonbattery points out that

This is only the first of seven Annual Solstice Synchronized Global Orgasm for Peace events, which will reach their thundering climax on the 2012 December solstice, "when the Mayan Calendar ends with a new beginning."

The mental image of old hippies doing the thundering deed is enough to make Dan say,

Frankly, I think I'd rather go to war.

Not surprisingly, there's a revival of John Lennon/Beatles tunes at Hot Air and Dr. Sanity, whose commenter has been groovin' to the Doors, man!

If one orgasm can make the Earth move, what would hundreds of millions, nay, billions of synchronized orgasms do? Surely these people are advocating nothing less than causing potentially-catastrophic shifts in the Earth's orbit. Compared to this threat, the possibility of anthropogenic global warming pales into insigificance.

Seeing how the idea originated from Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, and what they've been doing to the great outdoors, maybe it's time to get the bath salts ready:


Just Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Whatever Hair You Have Left

(technorati tags Global Orgasmhumor)

The biggest loser

Now that AlGore's a Weather God (*), someone else is taking the post of Biggest Loser in our hemisphere:
AMLO's The Gift That Keeps On Giving: he's inagurated himself, complete with presidential sash.

Mark In Mexico has pictures.

Let's take a short stroll down memory lane with the aid of You Tube and watch AMLO swear up and down during his campaign (even to the political clown, a character I like) that he'd respect the outcome of the elections (in Spanish):

More on Mexico from Edward Gomez.

In case you were wondering where Hugo was going to get all the money to pay for all the billions he spent on his failed bid for UN Security Council seat, here it is:
Chavez to Transfer $7 Billion From Reserves to Fund Spending

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, who seeks re-election on Dec. 3, plans to take about $7 billion in international reserves from the central bank at the start of next year to fund his social spending plans.

"Starting the year of 2007, the Central Bank of Venezuela must transfer to the government coffers the excess over the $29 billion in optimum reserves

And of course the deluded left will applaud the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans^tm for that.

New York Times Publishes yet Another Pro-Chavez Article: Venezuelan blogger Alex Beach fisks the NYT

Simon Romero, who pens the latest article on Venezuela for the New York Times, includes words, sentences and clauses in his writing that need to be analyzed, since the overall effect diminishes the impact of the killing of journalists in Venezuela. Notice the following sentences or clauses in "Killings and Threats Rattle Journalists in Venezuela":

Read it all.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia is no friend of Chavez

Here in the USA the delusional left sees Cuba as a solution to LA's healthcare woes - LA as in Los Angeles. Take a look at this: Cuba's Example and What it Means for South L.A.

Wednesday November 29, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m.
at the
Exposition Park Intergenerational Community Center
Ahmanson Senior Center, 1st floor
3990 S. Menlo Avenue (near King Blvd.)

Cuba is a poor country, yet boasts some of the most impressive health statistics in the world due to its accessible health care system and universal coverage

Friggin' unbelievable.

I sent the link to the conference to several friends, among them Val:

Please note the banner. Can you name them all? I can name a bunch, including Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela. Isn't that Mother Jones next to che? What a pairing!

Juan Paxety emailed back, asking

Why didn't Cuban healthcare take care of this guy? Or maybe it did.

While I believe that the Germans invented magical realism, it sure doesn't take much to understand why so many think all of Latin America is rife with it - it takes the Left to make it flourish.

My thanks to Larwyn.

(*) Update: Look who's worrying about the heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. What's next, Gaia?
(h/t SC&A)

(technorati tags Mexico Politics Latin America Venezuela Cuba)

Bye, bye Harrods

Veteran's day celebrations at the major London retailer:
Harrods bans soldiers on Poppy Day:

Lieutenant Daniel Lenherr had just taken part in a parade honouring Britain's war dead when the London department store turned him away at the door.

The security guard told him other customers might be intimidated by the uniform.
. . .
The store has stood by their dress policy, saying: "There is a long-standing tradition at Harrods that would normally preclude customers who are wearing non-civilian attire from entering the store.

"A lot of people assume that somebody in uniform is either there on official duty, which could cause them alarm, or they assume they're a member of staff and ask them where the lavatories are and so on."

Now, excuse me for a moment, but I'm confused.

We're in the age of terrorism. London itself has been attacked, and people died. Yet Harrods has no problem with allowing fully covered people walk in and peruse the entire store. As I pointed out last month when I wrote about the first time I saw a woman completely concealed by "veils", which by the way, happened to be at Harrods,

Aside from her hands, you couldn't even tell if that person was a man or a woman.

Anyone in such a get-up could be carrying anything under such garment. Weapons, explosives, name it.

To the Politically Uncorrect like myself, the presence and the honoring of servicemen, in uniform or not, would indeed be reassuring.

As for the second part,

they assume they're a member of staff and ask them where the lavatories are and so on.

Harrods need not worry.

(Incidentally, people constantly ask me if I work at stores when I'm shopping. All it takes is to comb your hair, wear casual-Friday-type clothes and a little lipstick. I take it as a compliment.)

Allah asks

This makes at least two places in Britain now where the uniform isn’t welcome, the other being hospitals in Birmingham.

The truth is, the radical Islamification of the UK is not just a nightmare.

It's happening, right in front of our eyes.

(h/t Larwyn)
(PS Please note that the title should read "Bye-bye, Harrods" but for some reason the post didn't take with that punctuation.
(technorati tags Harrods UK London islam)

Michael Fumento Returns to Ramadi

RETURN TO RAMADI
U.S. forces have made progress in one of the toughest cities in Iraq

No fate in Iraq is more terrifying than being captured by the anti-Iraqi forces, who readily invoke the Geneva Convention for their own men taken prisoner but have never heard of it when it comes to those they grab.

This is another extraordinary report from Michael. You must read the article and view the videos. There's no way I can cut and paste anything in his reports and be able to do them justice.

Part of his report is this week's Weekly Standard cover story.

(technorati tags Michael Fumento Iraq Media)