Thank you Crimsonfisted

Here we go, I am about to open a can of worms but I am really looking forward to hearing and reading some replies....As the holiday season will be upon us shortly(life goes by so fast) Should we really be complaining about the "Christmas Tree," the Star of David, Menorah and such? As far as I believe it is a free country under God. (and there are complaints about that, too.) With life being so short wouldn't it be easier to help one another learn to be more tolerant of others beliefs, and not force our beliefs on those that differ from ours? What would Sunday dinner conversation be like if we all agreed on everything and knew every thing? Crimsonfisted thank you so much for the welcome....

A big welcome to a new contributor!

Let me welcome aboard a new contributor to WhatAMaroon - Whiteknuckles!

Hoo Rah!

WhiteKnuckles is my oldest (meaning in length of time known, not age!) and our families go waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy back together.

Whiteknuckles will provide a nice balance to my (admittedly) ultra conservative opinions and writes with a wonderful prose style.

I hope you enjoy this addition to WhatAMaroon as much as I do.

Welcome!

why I have whiteknuckles

Ok So I am new to this, that is one reason I have white knuckles...I am enjoying life and along for the ride....But the real reason I have white knuckles is from sitting back and watching a majority of our young Americans...No belief in God, No responsibility and God knows No Respect. Where on God's green earth are we headed without God responsibility and respect? Gimme Gimme Gimme and right now might I add. Hand it over do what has to be done in a minute or less. When will people realize the world doesn't revolve around them and it isn't McDonalds????

OK, What is wrong with NY transit?

From Drudge:

Girls' room his, too

Men who live as women can now legally use women's rest rooms in New York's transit system under an unprecedented deal revealed yesterday.
....
"I would not like that," said Gloria David, a retiree from Connecticut. "I have nothing against gay men or drag queens, but they can use the men's room. I just don't want to go to the bathroom next to a man."

One rider feared predators might dress as women and lurk in the women's room. [emphasis mine]

I have no doubt of this. Dateline on (ugh MSNBC ugh guh) has a segment Catch a Predator. Why should I think that the transit bathrooms would be any safer than a predatory man coming into MY home thinking there is a 12 year old child (boy OR girl) there alone?
Safety, NY

A bit more about the veil.........

From This is London online:

Female students at a new Islamic school will be made to wear head scarves regardless of their religion, it was revealed yesterday.

From Dr Sanity's article "A Religion Of Narcissistic Entitlement And Borderline Behavior", she quotes Ann Applebaum in the Washington Post

..at a much simpler level, surely it is also true that the full-faced veil -- the niqab, burqa or chador -- causes such deep reactions in the West not so much because of its political or religious symbolism but because it is extremely impolite. Just as it is considered rude to enter a Balinese temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in a Western country, to hide one's face. We wear masks when we want to frighten, when we are in mourning or when we want to conceal our identities. To a Western child -- or even an adult -- a woman clad from head to toe in black looks like a ghost. Thieves and actors hide their faces in the West; honest people look you straight in the eye.

Truer words were never spoken. Dr Sanity continues with her own analysis:

Let's face it. These Islamic narcissists don't want to be tolerated by the society they live in and free to practice their religion even in the most multiculturally sensitive nations; they want the society or nation they live in to completely submit to their values and religious practices and to acknowledge their obvious superiority--or else.

My take? Dr Sanity verbalizes what I could not. The veil and these other "accoutrements" are indeed symbols of superiority and, in my opinino, do not lead to piety. Yvonne Ridley says as much. Although I do not see the link for the report on Hannity and Colmes from the woman who was suspended from British Airways for wearing a one inch cross over her cravat on her uniform because it is against the uniform policy, whereas Muslims can wear their masks headgear, and so can the Hindus. Only Christians and Jews are targeted in this manner, to remove their religious symbols. (When I find the link to H& C, I will provide it.)

I do not like the sound of Amerabia, nor of dhimmitude, nor of jizya, nor of burkas.

America Alone indeed.

Islam, politics, War

October 23 1983

Anniversary of Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing

Little Green Footballs reminds us.

Memorial Site


Islam, politics, memorial

Follow-up questions for Byron Calame and the Times' Bush-bashing allies

From Michelle Malkin:

She is really all over this:

"Now, I have a follow-up question, which I have e-mailed to Mr. Calame. His e-mail address is public@nytimes.com. As I noted yesterday, Calame's lame rationalization for his blindness is that the Bush administration engaged in "vicious" attacks on the Times:

I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column.

What, exactly, is Calame referring to when he criticizes "vicious criticism?" Yesterday, I hyperlinked a June 27, 2006 Washington Post story on the Bush administration's response after the Times blabbed about the banking surveillance program. Let's take a closer look:"

Read it all. She examines how the left and right reacted to this betrayal by the NY Times and all the visciousness comes from, you guessed it, the left. Big surprise.

The press may be free, but it is not above the law.

NY Times, politics

What She Needs is a Good Stoning

From Gates of Vienna
I was reading Gates of Vienna and came across this piece. The following are selections from that article:

'A schoolgirl at the Jean Mermoz college [secondary school] in the eighth district of Lyon was pelted with a hail of stones on Wednesday morning in a playground where she was eating a snack. The theory that the act was related to the non-observance of Ramadan has been confirmed by the prosecutor in Lyon on the strength of the earliest results of the investigation.

The forum said the girl was Christian, but the newspaper story seems to imply that she was Muslim and had raised the ire of her persecutors by appearing to be breaking the dietary laws re Ramadan. Perhaps she could wear some sign which would allow others to know that she is menstruating so they wouldn't stone her. No shame in that for an adolescent girl, right?

However, here is what this sane Muslim (safely out of Saudi Arabia) thinks about the fundamentalists in his native country who have spread their poisonous message world wide:

[It is] the full spectrum of institutionalized insanity that the House of Saud and their friends with long beards have created.


That “full spectrum” includes stoning a kid for eating. Jesus would’ve suggested that before they pick up a rock they examine their own souls to see if they were without sin…an admonition that probably doesn’t make sense in a tribal, warrior culture burdened with shame.

Gates of Vienna is the only place to get this kind of information I have found. This is not the first of this kind of horror I have seen documented here. The case of the pregnant girl who was chased and the boys tried to kill the baby inside her. She crawled for help. This is just over the top for me. Starving children for "religion"?

Dr Sanity sums up the shame culture in the article: Shame, The Arab Psyche, and Islam

Children who live with constant hostility and criticism learn to defend against the bad feelings and shame within; and to externalize blame onto others. Projection and paranoia, which are both external assignments of blame, are psychological defenses against shame.

Often this excessive shame is dealt with by humiliating someone perceived as weaker or more worthless than the shamed person (e.g., the family pet, women, Gays, or outside groups serve this function for both individuals and cultures).


Guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of one's own or cultural values. Guilt is about actions or behavior; while shame is about the self. There is an important psychological difference in saying to someone that their behavior is bad; as contrasted with saying that they are bad. The former leads to guilt; the latter to shame.

The purpose of guilt is to stop behavior that violates a self, family or societal standard. Guilt keeps score on excesses or deficits of behavior deemed undesirable and is expressed in regret and remorse.

And this all dovetails nicely into the recent piece on the mask veil
How much of a moron can I be?

In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety -- not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.

Well, I think that idiot notion has been debunked pretty well, through the links here and at many other sources. And is "superiority" the goal of any religion? Not mine.

islam, politics

The Islam Conundrum

Suggested Reading at The American Thinker by Amil Imani

The contempt for free inquiry is encapsulated in the statement of Muhammad,

“Al-elmo noghtatan katharoho al-jaheloon”—Knowledge is only one dot, expanded by the ignorant.

...
There is no reason to believe that Muslims have inferior intelligence. Their state of existence is strictly a function of the doctrine of Islam: a doctrine of nihilism, ignorance, and violence that denigrates this life and fixes the starry eye of the faithful on the next life. A case in point is the Islamic madressehs in places like Pakistan. Never mind the girls. Girls are not in the calculus—women are incidental in Islam. Consider boys. Millions of young boys are enrolled in madressehs—religious boarding schools—learning very little beside memorizing and reciting the Quran. This is a case of total submission: Islam at its best, as championed by the oil-money-flushed Saudi patrons of the Wahabi sect.

This got me thinking of the 60 questions article. Two questions from the list:

Koran 5:116, represents Christians as worshipping Mary which is a historical error. Given the fact that the pagan Arabs did worship Mary’s idol in the Kaba, and that history records no group of Christians had ever worshiped Mary at this time, my question is would you please name the sect of Christians who worshiped Mary at the time of Muhammad?

Acts 19:23-41 mentions a religion that worshipped the great goddess Artemis and her meteorite which fell down from heaven. Taking note that this religion centered around a meteorite, my question is: is it possible that this is a pagan corruption of the Black Stone and meteorite that fell at the foot of Adam and that at the time of Christ the Black Stone was actually in Ephesus Asia minor?

NY Times Co. 3Q Profit Plunges 39%, Belo Also Down

hmmmm, and what was I saying, just the other day?

Thanks to the always dependable Right Wing Howler for that bit of news to wake up to this am.

The New York Times Co. reported Thursday that its third-quarter 2006 profit from continuing operations plunged 39.2% on costs related to its job cuts and a loss on its sale of its 50% stake in the Discovery Times Channel.

...Newsprint expense decreased 2.2% in the third quarter, with 11.1% of the decrease attributable to lower consumption, partially offset by an 8.9% price increase.


...Circulation revenues were down 1.3%, which the company attributed mainly to weakness at the New England Media Group.

NY Times, politics

Welcome the new blog! - the weekly newsletter

Let's welcome a new blogger to the list! (I have been asking for this for a long time - FINALLY)

Welcome aboard!

March 2001: Iraqi IIS Wants To Attack American Assets

From The Anchoress who links to the following article on the Captain's Quarters

Many of us who live in New York have not forgotten that on 9/12/01 the only consulate not flying their flag at half-staff was Iraq’s.

And then from the Captain's Quarters:

Obviously, the terror missions could not be conducted under the color of Iraqi military or get traced back to them, otherwise the American forces -- especially under George Bush -- would almost certainly attack Iraq with everything we could muster. Saddam would also not be able to rely on his clandestine partners on the Security Council to wield their vetoes, as even France and Russia would have to acknowledge the right of the US to defend itself once Saddam initiated this kind of attack. So how would he hide the nationality and identity of these volunteers? He would have to "launder" them through another organization, one that would not necessarily immediately point back to Iraq -- like al-Qaeda.

That doesn't prove in a legal sense that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. It does show that they wanted to inspire others to attack American interests, and again that they actively recruited for these missions in their own military. That amounts to a policy to conduct a proxy war against the US, both at home and abroad, certainly a good cause for the US to pre-empt it.

Well, well, well. Go read it all.
Iraq, politics, Bush

Iranian Shells Land in Kurdish Villages in Northern Iraq, Killing 2

From the NY Times on Aug 20:

Artillery shells fired from Iran have landed in remote northern villages of Iraqi Kurdistan in the past four days and have killed at least two civilians and wounded four others, a senior Kurdish official said Saturday. Dozens of families have fled the region.

This is from the NY Times Select (gotta pay online now, and sign up, because readership is, oh , I don't know, DOWN) but I heard the original comments from Glenn Beck on his show, that Iran was shelling Iraq, and that the news was buried on page 8 of the NY Times. Gee, wonder why we haven't heard more about this? Can't imagine why!

Islam, politics, Iran

Hugo and George

"They told me that I should be careful after I called him the devil — and I think he is the devil — because he might kill me" Chavez told a crowd packed into the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem.

I think the people who are angriest are your fellow Dems and leftists. You have just proven that they are in bed with our enemies (namely you). They are the ones hoping you will shut up but you won't will you. You have the international stage and think you can beat your chest and get respect.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


Frankly, keep talking pal. The next President will be another cowboy, of this I no longer doubt.




hugo, politics, bush

Can the West defeat the Islamist threat? Here are ten reasons why not.

I disagree.

1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot.

Conservatives are not divided on this issue. We get it. The Dems are in bed with the enemy. No division there.

2) The second reason why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated is that the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated, and the nature of Islam misunderstood.

We do not misunderstand or underestimate the threat. We get it.

3) Indeed, the third reason why Islam will not be defeated, as things stand, is the low level of Western leadership, in particular in the United States.

Really? This is über-BDS. No leadership. Our military, I think, would disagree that the Commander-in-Chief or Secretary of Defense are lacking leadership ability. I know I disagree.

4) Next is the contribution to the disarray of Western policy-making being made by the egotistical competitiveness, and in some cases hysterics, of “experts” and commentators on Islam.

My experts on Islam are Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Charles Johnson. Hysterical? Not at all. As far as policy-making, that is up to the current Administration. President Bush is doing just fine. I was enthused that he said "islamo-fascist" even though he is backing away from that now. He said it, he gets it.

5) The fifth disablement is to be found in the confusion of “progressives” about the Islamic advance.

Progressives are not confused. They know EXACTLY what the Islamic advance is. What the don't take into consideration is the law of unexpected consequences, now do they? Funny this should be fifth, as in "fifth column".

6) The sixth reason for Islam’s growing strength is the vicarious satisfaction felt by many non-Muslims at America’s reverses.

Gee, the glee some people feel, oh, I don't know, as for example when the towers fell? Do I care that others delight when good people are suffering or in pain? No. This country does more to help the rest of the world, than any other country in the world. Who was the first responder to the tsunami last year? Who was spit on because of it? Who will respond again in the face of global disasters? Delight in our pain, who cares?

7) The seventh reason lies in the moral poverty of the West’s, and especially America’s, own value system.

Excuse me? I am not morally poor. Most Americans are not. Moral poverty exists only with the Dems and with muslim fanatics.

Update: Right after I posted, I saw this: Sen. John Kerry: 'Take Up God's Work as Our Own'. The Dems are trying to court the "religious" vote. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! It won't work. We see them for the shams they are. Their values are not mine.

8) The next indication that Islam’s advance will continue lies in the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the “electronic jihad” and the bamboozling of Western opinion by Muslim spokesmen.

We are not bamboozled. Again, littlegreenfootballs and hotair also use the internet to debunk the Muslim spokesmen, like cair.

9) The ninth factor guaranteeing Islam’s onward march is the West’s dependency on the material resources of Arab and Muslim countries.

We just discovered oil in our backyard. Bite me OPEC.

10) Finally, the West is convinced that its notions of technology-driven modernity and market-driven prog- ress are innately superior to the ideals of “backward” Islam.

And your point is?

Tool.

An Islamic apologist, or perhaps a convert. All 10 points say the same, tired, thing. Islam will beat. Well, I have a different book that says my God can beat up your moon-god any day of the week and twice on sunday.

Islam's advance? Dr Ali Sina says that more people are LEAVING Islam than joining.

Islam, politics

LGF 3,000,000

Senate Brings Victory For Mt. Soledad War Memorial

The Senate’s unanimous vote sent the cross-transfer plan to President Bush for his expected signature.

Wow. Unanimous? Wow. This was a nice wake-me-up this am on Expose The Left! More on Stop the ACLU.

ACLU, cross

One Step Closer To Victory For Mt. Soledad Cross

Excellent news.

The House voted by an overwhelming majority for a bill that seeks to acquire the land where Mt. Soledad Cross stands and keep the war memorial in place. The final vote was 349 to 74. All 74 nay votes were from democrats.

LAT op-ed: Isn’t it about time we started breeding with animals?

From HotAir I found a link to this article.

When Man Mated Monkey
Icky as it sounds, we mingled across species in the past, which could help us win evolution wars in the future.
By David P. Barash, DAVID P. BARASH is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. [emphasis mine]
July 17, 2006

GENETICISTS studying human and chimpanzee DNA have concluded that a few million years ago, pre-humans and pre-chimps produced hybrids between the two species. And in the American evolutionary wars, this is good news.

Why is this good news?

There is, however, an even greater source of discomfort at work here; not simple squeamishness about sex but a deeper repugnance that goes to the heart of why so many Americans continue to be so resistant to the theory of evolution. And this is why I not only welcome the news that humans and chimpanzees commingled genes in the past, I also look forward to the possibility that, thanks to advances in reproductive technology, there will be hybrids, or some other mixed human-animal genetic composite, in our future.

This may seem perverse, because even the most liberal ethicists shy away from advocating the breeding or genetic engineering of half-person/half-animal. Why, then, am I rooting for their creation?

Because in these dark days of know-nothing anti-evolutionism, with religious fundamentalists occupying the White House, controlling Congress and attempting to distort the teaching of science in our schools, a powerful dose of biological reality would be healthy indeed. And this is precisely the message that chimeras, hybrids or mixed-species clones would drive home. [emphasis mine]

I get it. This is to hurt the neo-cons, and to promote his agenda, and has nothing to do with actual science. And when, exactly, did evolution BECOME definitive science? It is the THEORY of evolution. Where is the proof, reproducible, definitive, proof? At best, "Common usage of the word "evolution" is the idea that living things in our world have come into being through unguided naturalistic processes starting from a primeval mass of subatomic particles and radiation, over approximately 20 billion years."

Science, according to Dictionary.com is "a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Function: noun: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method and concerned with the physical world and its phenomena." So, science is concerned with methodology and provable theories. Evolution, currently, does not apply.

Should geneticists and developmental biologists succeed once again in joining human and nonhuman animals in a viable organism — as our ancient human and chimp ancestors appear to have done long ago — it would be difficult and perhaps impossible for the special pleaders to maintain the fallacy that Homo sapiens is uniquely disconnected from the rest of life.

How are we "disconnected" from the rest of life?

...I am thinking of the powerful payoff that would come from puncturing the most hurtful myth of all time, that of discontinuity between human beings and other life forms. This myth is at the root of our environmental destruction — and our possible self-destruction.

Paging Al Gore! Paging Al Gore! How would making monkeys out of men somehow stop "environmental destruction"? And how, exactly, would this puncture the "hurtful myth"? And how, exactly, would creating centaurs advance this man's premise? I am thinking of the law of unintended consequences.

Four decades ago, historian Lynn White wrote a now-classic article in the journal Science making the point that much of the damaging disconnect derives from the Judeo-Christian proclamation of radical discontinuity between people and the rest of "creation." White argued that the Western world took its marching orders from a literal reading of Genesis: not only to go forth and multiply but also to dominate and, whenever inclined, to destroy the animate world....[emphasis mine]

So let's hear it for our barrier-busting, hybridizing past as well as our future — anything that promises to wake up Homo sapiens to its connection to the rest of life.

Again, how are we disconnected from the rest of life? David P. Barash never really says. Somehow though, genetic mutations would bring us closer to a connection with the rest of life. I guess this guy has never seen a woman give birth, or raised a child.

The only source in this article he does quote is, by his own admission, forty years old!

But the Bible does say:

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Gen 1:28. [emphasis mine]

Dominion does NOT mean destroy.
science, evolution

Hil's keys to the Oval Office

From Drudge:

For all those Republicans and a few Democrats who think Hillary Clinton can't possibly be elected President, I have two words for you: Ronald Reagan.

I remember it well. He was too old. He was too conservative. He was too scary. And he was elected in two landslides. The exact same kinds of assumptions about electability 25 years ago are alive and well in 2006, and they are just as wrong for Hillary Clinton today as they were for Reagan in 1979.

She's too divisive. Too calculating. Too marred by the Clinton years. Oh, - and she's a woman.

Never mind the chatter. Hillary Clinton sits atop many polls for President with good reason and, if she plays her cards right, she could remain there right through November 2008.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

And exactly how does he reach this conclusion? What is his advice?

First, she must be herself...... Clinton must win the primary first - then worry about the general election. If Democrats really cared about religion, they'd be Republicans. [emphasis mine]

Godless, anyone? It is nice to hear that someone can admit that there are NO people of faith in the Democratic party.

Second, Clinton must give us answers....

She has done a bang up job so far. What answers? Health care? The war? Child care? Welfare? If she hasn't been clear up to now, what makes this guy think that the next few months will be any different?

Third, Clinton, who can be charming and funny in private, should be more candid and unpredictable...

Unpredictable? Yup, that is what I want in a world leader. Unpredicatibility.

Fourth, Clinton needs to remember to speak from her heart, not her head. ... Successful Democrats - like Bill Clinton - feel.

Heart? What heart? Feel? FEEL? That is all well and good, but I don't think we need someone as Commander-in-Chief "feeling" his way through a war.

Hillary Clinton has genuine star power. She clearly delivers the brains and the intensity,....

Yes friends, we are in Oz. All Hillary needs to win the White House is a heart, brains, and courage.
Hillary, politics