Secular Blasphemy

Chavez says Merkel is a political descendant of Hitler

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:53:43 GMT

Venezuela's thug-in-charge, Hugo Chavez, plays the Nazi card against German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"She is from the German right, the same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism, that's the Chancellor of Germany today," he said.

It is not only vicious, it is, like almost everything Chavez says, extremely ignorant.

When the National Socialists came to power in Germany in the early 1930s, they were not in any way, shape or form a conservative party. They were a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic party. Hitler and his followers were also extremely anti-communist, or anti-Bolshevik, considering communism to be a part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

The very name of the party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) should give more than a little hint that this was a movement that didn't fit into simplistic left-right dichotomies. National is normally right, socialist means left, German indicates right, Worker's party is certainly associated with the left.

This enmity between Soviet communism and German national-socialism is a main reason that Nazism is typically located on the political right. You could be just as justified, or as unjustified, placing Nazism on the left and consider its opposition to communism as yet another violent intra-left quarrel.

However, in Germany, the Nazis rose to power because they were radical, violently opposed to the Versailles peace treaty (as were all Germans!) and because the economic and political crisis had thoroughly delegitimized the at least nominally democratic Weimar republic. A German conservative would certainly not vote for the national socialists more than he or she would vote for the communists. The most significant conservative party in Germany at the time was the Catholic Centre Party, and it is worth noting that along with the left-leaning Berliners, the conservative strongholds were those who demonstrated the least support for the Nazis in the elections that brought them to power.

However, in the early 1930s, Germans were almost universally disgusted with the established political parties - including the conservatives in the Centre Party and the social-democratic SPD, leading to the rise in popularity of the extremists: National Socialists and Communists. Many Germans, left or right, thought "it can't get worse; let's give these crazies a chance." The rest, as they say, is sad history.

Angela Merkel's party, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU) was formed after World War II mostly by ex-members of the Centre Party. Among the early leaders of the CDU was Germany's first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, a former Centre Party politician who had risked his life in opposition to Hitler and had been imprisoned several times by the Nazis.

Barack Obama 'an apostate Muslim'

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:03:16 GMT

Edward N. Luttwark, writing in the New York Times, points out a potential problem for those who hope that Barack Obama having a Muslim father can help him bridge differences between the west and the Islamic world. Quite the opposite:

In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings.

It is a source of much worry in the west that even many who are too easily labeled moderate Muslims do not voice any opposition to Islamic death sentences over people like Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasreem, and in fact appears to support such atrocities.

If the US President is declared, or understood, to be an apostate under Islamic law, it could be problematic to give foreign, Muslim security officers some responsibility for his security while visiting a Muslim country.

On the other hand, this could perhaps make conservative Americans, among whom many believe that Obama is a Muslim, somewhat more sympathetic to him.

PS: Barack Obama discusses Zionism and Israel with Jeffrey Goldberg. If Obama is hiding a secret Jimmy Carter persona, he does it darned well, and has done so for a long time.

Medvedev becomes Russia's new president - appoints Putin as prime minister

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:25:24 GMT

The king has abdicated, long live the king:

Dmitry Medvedev has promised to extend Russia's civil and economic freedoms after being sworn in as new president.
"Human rights and freedoms... are deemed of the highest value for our society," he said at a lavish inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin.
Mr Medvedev took over from Vladimir Putin, becoming Russia's third leader since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Within hours, Mr Medvedev, 42, nominated Mr Putin, his mentor, as prime minister.
"Medvedev has put forward Putin's candidacy for prime minister to parliament," a Kremlin spokesman said.

Time will tell if the cynics are right that Medvedev is a mere puppet for eight more years of Putin.

We'll also see if Medvedev is serious about civil rights. The democracy in Russia is in a rather questionable state, including serious accusations that his election was secured through some very unnecessary electoral fraud.

Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 69.7 percent of Russian voters turned out for the March 2 presidential elections, and Mr. Medvedev won overwhelmingly over his three rivals with 70.3 percent of the votes.

But a recent study of the official results by mathematician Sergei Shpilkin, a popular blogger, found statistical anomalies that bolster critics' claims that the elections were unfair. His analysis suggests that up to a third of the votes may have been rigged as part of an attempt to inflate Medvedev's margin of victory.

"It's a combination of fraud and administrative resources [official intervention] and it is difficult to distinguish between them," Mr. Shpilkin told a press conference at the Carnegie Center in Moscow last month. "One vote in three cannot be explained" by normal statistical models, he added.

Shpilkin found that an extremely improbable number of Russian polling stations reported turnout and voting results that ended in a round number, either a five or a zero.

"Figures ending in fives and zeros are best for falsification," says Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the independent Panorama think tank in Moscow. "It's a sign that votes have been stolen, then folded into round numbers."

Shpilkin also noted that Medvedev's support as reported by the CEC follows a normal pattern, which can be represented as a bell curve, only until it reaches 60 percent. Instead of sloping downward, as expected, the curve then becomes a series of statistically unlikely spikes.

And there is little doubt that Medvedev would have won anyway, thanks in part to near-total control of the media by the Kremlin. So why cheat?

I guess a lot of people in the west wonder why Russians, who are about as educated and politically savvy as anyone, vote for Putin and his protege in such overwhelming numbers. The answer is, I think, they lived through the Jeltsin chaos. They do remember, or at least know about, the horrors of the Soviet era. Putin has certainly improved their lives. They obviously think better civil rights and an open democracy would be fine, but compared to bread on the table, that is a luxury. Better the devil you know.

As concerned as I am about Putin's hardline policies, I am not sure I can really fault them. Maybe I would have thought the same if it was the quality of my life that was on the line, and the potential rivals included the communists and Zhirinovsky's party.

Study: Conservatives happier than leftists

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:00:47 GMT

Conservatives happier than left-wingers:

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

Or: The universe just isn't fair. Deal with it!

If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.

"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

Note that the study is adjusted for religiosity, at least as measured by church attendance, so supernatural rationalisations are ruled out.

I wonder where this left-right dichotomy leaves me, as socially radical and yet conservative on security issues and the economy. I feel great life satisfaction right now, so I guess that means I lean right.

Shirt that illuminates wifi signal strength

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:10:18 GMT

For the geeks who have everything else: Wifi T-shirt.

Pay attention to the washing instructions, probably unlike most of the stuff you normally wear. Unless you're a geek, or an astronaut.

Link via email.

The Page 3 girls 'sometimes recrossed their stupendous legs'

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:16:04 GMT

Libby Purves vs The Sun Page 3 girls. Today's funniest column.

Hamas blocks fuel to Gaza

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:44:26 GMT

Hamas stops fuel aid coming into Gaza:

Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.

The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said.
"Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed." [...]

PA officials in Ramallah said Hamas's measures were aimed at creating a crisis in the Gaza Strip with the hope that the international community would intervene and force Israel to reopen the border crossings.
"As far as we know, there is enough fuel reaching the Gaza Strip," the officials said. "But Hamas's measures are aimed at creating a crisis. Hamas is either stealing or blocking most of the fuel supplies."
They pointed out that last week Hamas dispatched hundreds of its supporters to Nahal Oz to block the fuel supplies from Israel. Hamas claimed that the protest was organized by farmers and fishermen demanding an end to the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

This is nothing new. It has been going on for a long time.

Hamas, and other extremists, are intentionally martyring their own people, in little and big ways, because they know the chattering classes in the west are going to blame Israel all day, every time, and maybe once in a while write a mildly accusing note about Hamas' tactics in the twelfth paragraph.

Anti-Israelism in the west kills babies in Palestine. How is that for a headline?

The end of the world as we know it

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:38:49 GMT

I have previously written about the false doomsday predictions made in the name if science, for example the global cooling and famine panics of the 1970s, all presented by very well-respected scholars, and all looking outright ridiculous in hindsight.

The Washington Policy Center has a list of such scientific doomsday quotations, some from the same guys I mentioned earlier, and it is worth a look to cool our heads, if not the climate.

Truth is, our culture has a certain fetish with end-of-the-world fantasies.

The reason may very well be the role of apocalyptics in Christianity, or perhaps the cause is even deeper than that. The fact that people, even very intelligent and well-educated people, so easily have been taken in by religious and secular doomsday prophecies, all failed, is certainly good enough reason for a healthy dose of skepticism about today's favorite cause for the end of the world.

Link via Tim Blair.

The Islamic challenge to democracy

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:28:33 GMT

Bruce Bawer:

Press acquiescence to Muslim demands and threats is endemic. When the Mohammed cartoons—published in September 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to defy rising self-censorship after van Gogh’s murder—were answered by worldwide violence, only one major American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined such European dailies as Die Welt and El País in reprinting them as a gesture of free-speech solidarity. Editors who refused to run the images claimed that their motive was multicultural respect for Islam. Critic Christopher Hitchens believed otherwise, writing that he “knew quite a number of the editors concerned and can say for a certainty that the chief motive for ‘restraint’ was simple fear.” Exemplifying the new dhimmitude, whatever its motivation, was Norway’s leading cartoonist, Finn Graff, who had often depicted Israelis as Nazis, but who now vowed not to draw anything that might provoke Muslim wrath. (On a positive note, this February, over a dozen Danish newspapers, joined by a number of other papers around the world, reprinted one of the original cartoons as a free-speech gesture after the arrest of three people accused of plotting to kill the artist.)

Bawer puts the problem of European (and, increasingly, American) defeatism in the face of Jihadist threats better than most.

I cannot help, however, believe that at some level he overstates the problem.

Also, though I know Bawer has addressed it elsewhere, he doesn't in this article point to the opposite, equally dangerous problem, which isn't "islamophobia", a nonsense word, but good old fashioned racism. No, emphatically, Islam isn't a race. And, again, no, your ideology or religion does not and should not be protected from ridicule, criticism and even exclusion to the same degree that your race, gender or country of origin is. If you believe that the earth is flat, you deserve ridicule, and if you believe the earth is flat because the great tinman in the sky says so, that doesn't lessen the stupidity. Moreover, if you argue that gays should be executed, your belief is both stupid and reprehensible, and it is certainly no less so because some old book tells you to believe that.

What I mean is that there are lots of thugs who hate Pakistanis or Somalians not because they object to certain cultural practices we find very backwards and dangerous, but because they are xenophobic. If these dark skinned people were Christians or atheists, they still wouldn't live next to them. Thus outright racists can hide behind skepticism to Islam, and the vacuous multiculturalists in the ivory tower will find it easy to brand any opposition to Islamism as racism.

However, I think there is certainly more to be deeply skeptical about in Islam, even the non-Jihadist variant, than there is to be skeptical about in fundamentalist Christianity, which the leftist elite has no problem attacking at every opportunity. When there exists a valid reason for seeing Islamism, and arguably Islam, as a genuine threat to our modern, western society, the skeptic should have a right to a presumption of innocence on the "racism" charge.

Unfortunately, in Europe, generally, there is a bigger divide between the ruled and the ruler than in the United States. Europeans call US politics populist, and it is, and it has to be, because even the candidacies of the major parties, not only the election, is decided by a direct or very close to direct popular election. In European democracies, Norway for example, the actual candidates are nominated internally in the party and elected through backroom deals that would never pass as free and fair among serious electoral observers. The people are then presented with a list of parties, and send parties with programmes already decided into parliament to elect the head of government.

But it's still a democracy. If the rulers annoy enough people, they will lose the next election. And the reason I'm not as worried about the compromises with Islamists as Bawer is (though it is very uncomfortable), is that the people are far to the right of the elites on this question. Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, I'm afraid the reaction, and the backlash, will be substantial, not to say brutal. Naive multiculturalists are certainly annoying, but those who may gain politically from this cowardice are the real fascists, and then we may have an even bigger problem.

Biofuel drive may create hunger disaster

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:40:20 GMT

Yes, the global warming panic is already a killer.

Those battling global warming by promoting biofuels may unintentionally be adding to skyrocketing world food prices, creating what one expert calls "a silent tsunami" in developing nations.

The rising prices are "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger," Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations' World Food Program, said on the agency's Web site Tuesday.

Sheeran is one of the experts attending a Food summit hosted Tuesday by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, aimed at determining ways to boost food supplies and identify deterrents. Also attending the meeting are scientists and representatives from the European Union and Africa.

It is certainly possible that global warming can cause a food crisis in the future. Fear-mongering among alarmists is actually causing a food crisis now, and it may well develop into a total disaster.

So much for the better-safe-than-sorry approach of the panic-inducers. All actions have consequences, and major policy changes should not be undertaken before we have a better understanding of the risks and the potential outcomes.