At Rantings of a Sandmonkey, we discover that swastikas are trendy in Cairo. (Hat tip: Kilgore Trout.)

Two weeks ago, while riding in a car with a friend, I saw something that made my mouth drop in awe. I saw this guy on a motorcycle who was wearing a black Jacket that had a big Ginat Swastika on the back of it. By the time I reached for my camera phone, the dude was gone in Cairo’s traffic. I didn’t want to mention it because 1) I had no evidence and 2) It could be just one guy, and I don’t want to be crying wolf over egyptians wearing swastikas when it’s only one ignorant jew-hating guy. Egyptians may hate jews, but they are not Nazis, and I said to myself it’s probably just this one guy.

And then a week later I saw another one in downtown Cairo.

And now Jimmy has a picture of another dude wearing a Swastika and had this conversation with him.

As expected, the guy didn’t even know what it meant, or understood that Hitler would’ve slaughterd arabs as equally as he did jews. He just knew it was Hitler’s sign, and that he hated the jews, so I guess he wore it in solidarity or something. What did the jews ever do to him? Don’t ask. He just hates them. They do, after all, control the world and the reason for all of his problems. After all, this is what his parents, his teachers and the local imam tell him.
sigh ...

Egypt has a long way to go man. A long way to go.

The United States gives Egypt more than $2 billion a year in foreign aid.

Via:  LGF 

TOKYO - Scientists in energy-poor Japan said Friday they have found a new source of gasoline — cattle dung.

Sakae Shibusawa, an agriculture engineering professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said his team has successfully extracted 1.4 milliliters (0.042 ounces) of gasoline from every 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of cow dung by applying high pressure and heat.

"The new technology will be a boon for livestock breeders" to reduce the burden of disposing of large amounts of waste, Shibusawa said.

About 500,000 metric tons (551,155 U.S. tons) of cattle dung are produced each year in Japan, he said.

Gasoline extracted from cow dung is unheard of, said Tomiaki Tamura, an official of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency. Japan relies almost totally on imports for its oil and gasoline needs.

The team, helped by staff from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology near Tokyo, produced gasoline by adding several unspecified metal catalysts to the dung inside a container and applying a 30-atmosphere pressure and heat of up to 300 degrees Celsius (572 Fahrenheit), Shibusawa said. Details of the catalysts could not be disclosed, he added.

The team hopes to improve the technology so that it can be used commercially within five years, Shibusawa said.

In a separate experiment revealing another unusual business potential for cow dung, another group of researchers has successfully extracted an aromatic ingredient of vanilla from cattle dung, said Miki Tsuruta, a Sekisui Chemical Co. spokeswoman. The extracted ingredient, vanillin, can be used as fragrance in shampoo and candles, she said.

Tsuruta said the vanillin was extracted from a dung solution in a pressurized cooker in a project co-organized by a Japanese medical research institute.

OK, bring on the jokes about Washington DC being a plentiful source for the raw materials...

Y! News

Let’s start off by saying that it’s not easy - for those celebrated members of the fourth estate who waive the valued White House press credentials about for entry into the holy of holies and to impress the barstool queens, waitresses and lushes at their favorite watering holes - peppering the poor lad representing a Republican administration with spite, questions laden with vitriol and dripping with pique and looking cool, calm and collected while they do it.

Nope, journalism, as practiced today in the klieg-lit, white-hot, devil-may-care, come-what-may enclave of a White House press briefing, is all about nailing the poor slob up front with as pointed, slanted, mean and rehearsed a tirade of a question as possible, as quickly and shrilly as one can, with as large a camera-ready sneer as possible, that is, without hindering the clear transmission of the liberal message. To lend an air of camouflaged civility to the proceedings, the selected interrogator will toss off the first name of the victim before the grilling begins so the folks at home don’t really think this is a modern send up to the giddy free-for-alls once found in the basements of the old Lubyanka or #8 Prinz Albrechtstrasse.

Somewhere in the advanced journalism electives at the major colleges and universities peddling this highly nuanced major there must be an elective, where the arts and science of verbal inquisition are offered. There are classroom settings where modern liberal scriveners continually pound a sweaty victim, who must stand under the bright lights, reacting to questions of an acute and unsavory nature for a protracted period. Grades are given for the severity of the questioning, the intensity of the drama, the pointed gesticulations, the length and breadth of the accompanying diatribe and the level of visible damage done to the victim. While everyone must take a go at questioning in order to pass, only those identified with conservative values, three button suits, tasseled loafers, and the reading of the Washington Times will be ordered to stand up and endure the cross-examination.

As Solzhenitsyn found out in his research on the Gulag Archipelago, the guards had it tough, too. It was freezing cold and they were far from home. It was no fun wrestling a bunch of starving, dying and non-compliant zheks back and forth from a distant work site, where the orders of the day specified the digging of holes in the frozen taiga, and the guards, bundled up in shearling coats, sable hats, and seal skin boots, had to stand outside with their freezing charges. And now we find that the White House press corps, that vaunted, no-nonsense band of hardhearted hacks, whose sole purpose has been the continual hectoring and humiliating of the small man up front blinking in the lights, have their problems in life, too.

The first cracks in the granite edifice appeared when David Gregory had his breakdown. Or at least what was described as a loss of temper and control at Scott McClellan, the current target of the corps of vilifiers.

Poor Scott had the temerity to ask a question about the need for the super heated grilling, the over zealous behavior, and what seemed to him to push the formerly acceptable boundaries exhibited by that rapacious mob of ink slingers, during their raucous over-reaction to the Whittington hunting and Cheney quail stamp difficulties, over the edge. He received a bitter denunciation from poor David, who called him, "a jerk," and urged him to, "just answer the question." It suddenly appeared as if the guards were having trouble with the benighted prisoner.

Later, David, realizing his misfortune, its precedence and the magnitude of his emotional display - without the use of a pitch cap, thumb screws, the lash, hot bamboo spikes, hot irons, the iron maiden, the cage, the dropping of rats onto his bare face, boiling oil, submersion in a tank of foul smelling water, the dunking stool, extended solitary confinement, the iron mask, trial by fire, gouging out of his eyes, the application of ice, scourging, dragging by horses through a cactus patch, being whipped by nettles, flaying or near drowning — recanted. But the first cracks were visible in the smooth granite edifice. The highly strung and vigilant White House Press corps had suffered its first casualty in their ongoing war against truth and reason, their battle against President Bush and their open advocacy of the liberal mien.

...

But further evidence came sloshing in as Thursday’s Imus "show" apparently featured a frothy debate over Indian phrases, inebriation, Imus and the seemingly haunted David Gregory calling in while on the road. Wild allegations of intemperance were made on the air concerning Mr Gregory’s irrational and incongruous mewling from a pay phone in either Calicut, Hyderabad or Cookandeatacat — the connection was somewhat poor. Whether Mr Gregory’s reputation can withstand any further opprobrium is outside our purview, but this behavior, following the problems coming to light concerning his earlier outbursts, and with the other difficulties plaguing his fellow members, seems to indicate a further weakening of the edifice, the supporting structure, if not the foundation.

In the space of a few short weeks, the highly touted White House press corps has been reduced to a shambles, their finely hewn granite edifice wrecked, their progressive membership in tatters — with the news of their members needing psychological help the grist of every conservative mill in town, on talk radio, on the web, and pasted up on every blogger’s site - and now their spokesman is involved in another damaging and eyebrow raising flap, involving what purports to be inebriation on a nationally syndicated television show, or what appears to be at least a side-show.

The mighty are falling, the press corps is calling retreat and the White House is no longer viewed as being circled by a pack of hungry wolves but as being more or less surrounded by a band of troubled hecklers.

Heh!™   Go read the rest.

Canada Free Press 

This week's Associated Press reporting on the leaked Katrina briefing tapes contains a seemingly minor but actually quite significant factual error and subsequent hit job on President Bush. The reporting buried among sturdier assertions the claim that Mr. Bush was warned about possible breaches of the levees on Aug. 28-29, right before and during Hurricane Katrina's onslaught on the Gulf Coast. In reality, he was warned about many potential problems on these tapes -- but levee breaches weren't among them. The AP reported this as though it were fact, and then uncritically quoted Democratic partisans who were only too happy to parrot it.

As the tapes show, the president was warned extensively about storm surges, water topping over the levees, flooding in addition to storm surges and the possibility of significant losses of life across the Gulf Coast. Clearly, warning signs were in place for a major disaster. "I'm sure it will be in the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done after the post-analysis," said the half-prescient National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield.

But breaches? There was only one mention of breaches -- which Mr. Mayfield raised briefly in a confused-sounding sentence only to dismiss the possibility. "Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levees around the City of New Orleans will not have been [incomprehensible] any breaches to," he said on Aug. 29. This was the very day the levees were breached.

The previous day, Mr. Mayfield had actually dismissed the possibility of major flooding in New Orleans. "[T]he forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself," he said. Storm surges were the overwhelming preoccupation. "The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levees?"

In other words, if the president heard any predictions that the levees would be breached, or even reports of breaches as they occured, the evidence is nowhere on these leaked tapes.

This is significant. The levee breaches were the cause of most of the destruction in New Orleans. If it were true that Mr. Bush heard predictions of levee breaches before the storm hit, then that makes a despicable and costly lie of his statement four days after the hurricane that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breaches of the levees." While that statement was plainly wrong -- federal investigators had worried for years that the levees would fail in a major hurricane -- it wasn't a lie. The truth, instead, is that no adviser warned the president of the possibility that the levees could fail.

Of course, it makes a juicier story to suggest that the president was warned. "This administration was told what Louisiana already knew: that our federally constructed levees could certainly fail," the AP uncritically quoted Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, as saying.

None of this excuses the president's handling of the crisis. It does not excuse the plainly incapable officials who advised him. And it means little to the many victims of Hurricane Katrina who died, lost loved ones or their homes and livelihoods to the floodwater. But it does show that people calling the president a liar still have no evidence for their assertions. This was a case of mismanagement, not deception. The mainstream media is helping partisans obscure that fact.

The Washington Times
   

It appears that every other day there's a new poll released on President George Bush's job approval rating. The majority of these polls or surveys are conducted by news organizations or polling companies contracted by news organizations. Many American's believe these poll results are accurate and still trust the news organizations to conduct them fairly.

However, the blogosphere and talk radio uncovered a bit of hanky-panky going on at CBS once again. No, they didn't use forged documents again -- and those responsible for the use of fraudulent memos used to damage the Bush presidency are gone from CBS News, including Mary Mapes and Dandy Dan Rather.

This time we're talking about a CBS poll that showed President Bush's approval rating at an all time low of 34%. For the last few months, American's were fed a steady diet of bad news regarding Bush or members of his administration. From torture to spying to an accidental shooting to the Dubai ports controversy, there's never a shortage of news stories that show the President of the United States in a less than favorable light.

And so most people will accept without question the results of this latest poll even if it does come from the obvious Bush-haters at CBS News.

So, in an effort to turn the findings of bloggers and talk hosts, who caught CBS monkeying with the poll numbers, into a non-story, they decided to "out" themselves on their website, albeit in the guise of explaining how polls are conducted.

CBS News explained to readers what most pollsters do when they conduct their telephone surveys, and then they dropped this little bomb in the midst of their explanation:
Bush's favorability poll was weighted in favor of Democrats.

Bush's 34% approval rating is a result of polling 37% Democrats, 28% Republicans and 35% other or independents. One can only imagine the affiliations of that 35%. Are they Libertarians? Socialists? Communists? Are some extreme right-wing militia-types, who hate Bush as much as the left?

But just the divide between Democrats and Republicans is noticeably suspect. Nine percent fewer people who identified themselves as Republicans were polled. That is far from insignificant when one realizes "the other or independent" respondents are 7% higher than the Republican respondents, as well.

Also, the poll fails to differentiate between registered voters, likely voters or people who don't even know they can vote. Does CBS or their pollsters screen these respondents in the Independent category? How many are registered with the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Socialist Party, Reform Party, Liberal Party or Conservative Party, and how many are truly independents?

Granted, there are no perfect polls, but a poll released by CBS News is always deserving of further scrutiny.

At least Bush's ratings are higher than SeeBS'...  *Snort*

New Media Alliance 

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.

The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

Just fucking pathetic, people...

Link 

For a long time now, the political Left has been a source of widespread puzzlement. Many people instinctively suspect its insidiousness, but are uncertain of its precise nature. The confusion is further compounded by the apparent incongruence between the Left’s flowery rhetoric and the detrimental effects of its actions. Unable to grasp its nature, many have followed with uneasy apprehension its growth into a powerful force whose seemingly inescapable influence has been increasingly felt in virtually every sector of our society.

Duplicitous by disposition, the Left indeed does not lend itself to easy analysis. Although its corrosiveness has been intuited by many, the reasons for the misgivi! ngs are usually not so easily articulable. Yet the Left cannot be effectively contended with until we are able to grasp its essence. Effective action requires knowledge.

The Left’s devotees like to say that knowledge is power, and on this much at least we can agree. Let us begin, then, our quest for knowledge by rising above the political and cultural melees of the day to obtain a more rounded view of the battlefield forces.

Hatred of Western Civilization

Once we do so, we cannot but notice that the Left’s army is clothed in distinctly anti-Western colors. Marching to the beat of deep-seated hostility, the Left makes no secret of its contempt for western values, traditions and achievements.

It intensely detests Christianity, the West’s predominant religion.

Deeply averse to the West’s moral code, the Left contemptuously refers to it as bourgeois morality. It denigrates the West’s cultural triumphs, contending they are no more unique than those of other societies. It disparages the West’s past by painting it as nothing more than an amalgamation of oppression, exploitation and all-around ignominy.

Scoffing at the notion of the limited State, the Left rejects the climax of western political tradition. And the Left, of course, despises free market capitalism – the West’s economic foundation – which it claims to be inherently exploitative, unfair or worse.

The Left’s successes

The Left, however, does not confine itself to mere criticism, but aggressively seeks to transform its anti-Western attitude into reality. Even a cursory glance at some of its successes should give us an idea of just how effective its efforts have been.

Virtually demolishing the West’s traditional morality, the Left has managed to legitimize promiscuity, illegitimacy, abortion and homosexuality. This transformation has reached a point where in many quarters these behaviors are not only considered acceptable but outright commendable.

Through its aggressive atheism, the Left has succeeded in virtually eliminating Christianity from our public arena, and to a large degree from the private sphere as well. This trend has been especially pronounced in Europe where only some seven percent of the population engage in some form of regular religious observance.

The Left’s seemingly insatiable hunger for governmental expansion has bucked the West’s long-term trend toward the limited State. Dominated by large, all-intrusive welfare states, the condition of many European countries could be justifiably described as soft socialism. The excessive taxation and regulation which are the inevitable byproducts of th! is have virtually strangled their free economic enterprise and induced long-term economic malaise. Diametrically opposed to the ideals of classical liberalism, this state of affairs represents a complete subversion of western political and economic tradition.

By teaching that the masterpieces of the West’s greatest creative minds are no more intrinsically valuable than artifacts of far less advanced societies, the Left has deprived westerners’ of their justified pride in their own culture. And by lying about the West’s past, it has managed to suppress our consciousness of historical greatness.

The Left’s successes have been largely due to its takeover of the two main channels for the dissemination of knowledge and information – the media and academia. Careful to avoid positive portrayal of the West in almost any context, they abound in aspersions and criticism. In the process, the Left has devised an ingenious and effective mode of censorship to further its ends. It is called political correctness.

Death Wish: destroying the West

The West’s moral decline, the collapse of its religion, economic sluggishness, and the indifference to its own historical and cultural achievements – all this is the Left’s doing. Ominously, it has succeeded in inculcating large segments of the western population with contempt for their own culture and heritage. This is a dire state indeed, for no society that is despised by its own people can go on for very long.

Regardless of its rhetoric or avowed objective, the driving force behind the Left’s every movement is to strike against some aspect of Western society. Environmentalism, for instance, hits at the West’s economic foundation of free-market capitalism. Multiculturalism seeks to unravel its cultural coherence. The gay rights movement strikes at its moral underpinnings, and so on. The Left, of course, will deny the real reason for its actions. But to evaluate the true value of any act we need to look at its effect not the rhetoric behind it. And the effects of the Left’s actions are invariably – in one way or another – destructive to the West.

The Left’s gains have been greatly facilitated by its ingenious modus operandi, which is to cloak its destructive intent in the language of good causes. Civil rights, gender equality, ecological preservation are among some of its favorite ploys. The ostensible caring is not real, for these are not at all what the Left’s efforts are ultimately about.

The West’s greatest threat is neither Islam nor any other external foe. It is its own political Left. All the great ills and woes under which our civilization so agonizingly belabors – and under the weight of whi! ch it is slowly sinking – have been either brought on or inflamed by it.

By corroding the West’s moral, spiritual, economic and cultural foundation, the Left has wrought incalculable damage on our civilization. The fact that this assault has come from within makes it all the more astounding. The Left is a wholly western child, born and raised within its confines. It is as though the Left somehow embodies the West’s reaction against the West. It is as though under some suicidal impulse the West has turned against itself with a self-destructive intent.

As has been the case with all great civilizations – with the arguable exception of ancient Greece – the West has grown far too powerful to be brought down by an external enemy. It can only fall if it destroys itself. By gradually hollowing itself out, it has nearly succeeded in doing so. The Left’s relentless subversion has indeed brought us to the brink of breakdown.

History unambiguously shows that all great civilizations collapsed as a result of internal weakness. Coming to their end by self-destructing, they in effect committed suicide. Sigmund Freud posited the existence of a death drive in individuals. It is my contention that a death drive also runs through whole civilizations.

Everything we see around us indicates that the Left is the West’s instrument of self-destruction and, in fact, the incarnation in our time of the deleterious force that ultimately brings down great civilizations. The Left is the material manifestation of the West’s death drive.

Even as individuals commit suicide by drowning or shooting or some other such means, so the West is in the process of committing suicide by the Left.

A testable hypothesis

At first glance, this may appear too sweeping a thesis to account for all the complexities of political reality, but there a simple way to test its validity. To prove it incorrect all you need to do is to come up with one counter-example, one single instance from among the Left’s campaigns and advocacies which is not in some way injurious to western civilization. Try as hard as you may, you will not be able to do it.

The Left never errs – it always acts against the West. It never stands or fights for anything that may be good for the western world. It can’t, because it is a reaction against it. Opposition to the West is the very reason for its existence; it is its nature. A wolf can’t act like a hare or a lion like an antelope. The Left can never become the West’s friend, because antipathy towards it actuates its heart and infuses its soul.

The theory proposed here shows why this is so. But it does more than this – it also makes readily comprehensible even the Left’s most seemingly inexplicable rhetoric and behavior.

Explaining the inexplicable

As a quick illustration, let’s just look at the Left’s opposition to drilling in ANWAR. Many people do not know what to make of it, since it is difficult to conceive how drilling there could have any negative environmental impact, which, of course, is the main objection. It is a well-known fact that the latest technology enables us to extract oil with virtually no environmental damage. Many Middle Eastern countries drill literally in the backyards of their communities with no appreciable harm to their people, animals or ecosystems. How drilling in a small patch of vast forlorn tundra could pose any serious danger to anyone or anything is beyond most people’s comprehension. On the face of it, the Left’s opposition indeed makes no sense.

But things will come into focus when we apply our axiom which says that the real reason behind everything the Left does is to inflict harm upon the West (represented by the U.S. in this particular instance). If this should be so, then the motive behind its opposition would not really be to protect the environment but be to deprive the U.S. of some benefit. Judging by the amount of money and effort the Left has invested in this cause, this potential benefit would be immense in its eyes. It is not difficult to see why.

We all know that oil is the fuel of the American economy. Drilling in ANWAR would give us more of it at a lower price, which would inevitably contribute to our economic well-being and growth. Significant as this may be, it is only of secondary importance in this particular controversy. Much more importantly, opening up ANWAR would be a vital step toward reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Foreign oil dependence is the greatest strategic weakness of this country, since it in a way holds America hostage to Middle Eastern regimes, many of which are our enemies. The problem is made worse by the fact that an appreciable portion of the vast amounts we pay for their oil is used to finance anti-American and anti-Western efforts. This produces a situation whereby our own money strengthens our enemies. Troubling as this is to most of us, it is precisely what the Left wants.

It is the Left’s desire to subvert the West that explains why in every conflict it invariably takes the side of our enemies. It sided with the Soviets during the Cold War, with the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It regularly sides with hostile dictators world over, and, predictably enough, it takes the Islamists’ side in the present War on Terror. The only reason why it turned against fascism – a virulent anti-western force – was because Hitler attacked the Left’s great hope and friend the Soviet Union. Prior to the Soviet invasion, the Left viewed fascism as a friend.

The Left cheers for our foes not because it is somehow stupid, as many people erroneously think, but because it wants us defeated.

It is the desire to weaken America while building up her enemies that is the true motive behind the Left’s hysterical and seemingly irrational opposition to drilling in ANWAR. It, however, only appears so only as long as we are unaware of the Left’s real nature and goals. When we realize what the Left is truly about, its behavior will make perfect sense.

If you have ever wondered why the Left’s arguments in this controversy sound so absurd, the explanation is quite simple: These are the best arguments that anyone could come up with under the circumstances. Environmentalism is the only possible platform – however tenuous – from which the ANWAR project could ever be possibly objected to. Being bogus through and through, claims in its support must by necessity ring hollow. But even despite their apparent weakness, these arguments have been effective so far. This is an ominous sign, since the political and intellectual climate that has allowed such weeds to take root must be afflicted indeed.

Hating America

Since we are already at it, we may as well explain the real basis of the Left’s virulent anti-Americanism. As almost everyone is aware, America is a thorn in the eye and the favorite whipping child of both the American and worldwide Left.

America is a country that every leftist worth his salt loves to hate. Many have been startled by this, especially given the fact that America seems to be good to all the groups and things! that the Left claims to care deeply about. Its poor are the richest in the world, and on the whole better off than the middle classes of most nations. America’s environment is among the cleanest on this earth. Its minorities enjoy more opportunities, earn more and achieve higher positions than minorities elsewhere, even in their own countries (which is why so many are eager to immigrate to the U.S.).

American working women are better paid and enjoy more access to power than their counterparts anywhere else. And we could go on. Needless to say – in the light of all this – America should be loved and applauded by the Left. So why this seemingly irrational hatred? Let’s turn to our theory for a clue.

Even though western civilization was not born in America, today she stands as the undisputed bearer of its torch. Being the most capitalistic of all western countries and having the least intrusive government (domestically speaking), it best embodies the ideals of classical liberalism. It is also by far the most Christian among western nations.

In addition, during the last 60 years or so America has invariably spearheaded the West’s efforts against its enemies – it led the fight against German fascism, Soviet communism and now against Islamic fundamentalism. In short, America is the foremost practitioner of the West’s values, the guardian of its legacy, and the guarantor of its survival.

In the light of our thesis, can you now see why the Left hates America so? Being intransigently anti-western, its raging hatred of America is an expression of its implacable hostility toward the West.

Many have been likewise shocked and startled by the Left’s virulent hatred of George W. Bush. Seemingly boundless, the Left’s detestation of him is quite obviously out of all proportion to anything this decent and gallant man has done. Even the blind mus! t see that the driving impetus behind his presidency is ultimately the safety and security of our country. Doing all he can to prevent another attack, he is also trying to ensure that Islamic fundamentalists will not emerge victorious from this conflict.

This behavior will never commend him to the Left, and is precisely the reason why they hate him so much. George Bush is the West’s leader and champion in the current clash of civilizations. Bent as it is on the West’s destruction, the Left will never forgive him for it. It is most telling that in its loathing of George W. Bush, the Left is in complete agreement with Islamic fundamentalists. So much so, that bin Laden and others even use leftist arguments in their doom-threatening missives to the West. Is it any surprise, given that they both strive for the same goal and share the same enemy?

Equally bitter was the Left’s hatred for Ronald Reagan who led the West fearlessly against another ideology whose objective was our destruction – communism. To this day the Left has not forgiven him for defeating it. So blinding and virulent is its odium that mere four days after his death, Ted Rall – a nationally syndicated cartoonist and one of the Left’s most outspoken defenders – told us on television that he hoped that Ronald Reagan was being burned in hell to a brown crisp. This he said about the man who has done more for the good of this country – and for the good of the whole world – than any other individual in modern times.

Although on the face of it such sentiments may seem utterly irrational if not outright inane, they cease to be so the moment we look at them in the light of the thesis of a death drive.

Surviving the Left’s worst efforts

If the West wants to survive, it must recognize the Left for what it is – a subversive internal force bent on our destruction.

The incarnation of the death drive that runs like a black lace through the fabric of great civilizations, the Left is the originator of our most grievous ills and the gravest danger that we face. It is at the root of the strife and tribulations that are tearing down the edifice of the Western world.

Perhaps this recognition will give us the moral strength to swerve from the road to perdition along which we have been dragged for so long. There is every indication that its terminal point is not too far away. One can almost hear the echo of the abyss as one after another the great pillars of our civilization come crumbling down. Mixed with the doom-bound calls for appeasement in the face of barbarism, it makes for a bloodcurdling sound. If we want to live we must take heed, for the next bend in this road may well be the last.

Vasko Kohlmayer defected from Communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 19. He lives in London and works in the publishing industry. He can be contacted at vasko_kohlmayer@msn.com.

Sublime. 

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

Presentations:

Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist and an essayist. She's the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison politique en Iran " (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et brouillard" (2005).

Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l'épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.

Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century « ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L'Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.

Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce pays avec sa famille musulmane d'origine indienne à l'âge de quatre ans et vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un énorme succès.

Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.

Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society's Secularist of the Year award.

Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called « Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »

Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany's Author of the Year Award, the European Union's Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.

Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the danish citizens targeted by islamists).

Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.

Antoine Sfeir :
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l'Orient and has published several reference books on islamism such as Les réseaux d'Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).

Add my name to that list.

Link 

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.

Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won't give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.

It's more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic. As in an epidemic, no one knows who will be stricken. Rich or poor, soldier or civilian, Iraqi or foreigner. But life goes on. No one's fleeing the Black Death — or the plague of terror.

And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The transition is working.

Most Iraqis want better government, better lives — and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.

Oh, the attacks will continue. They're even predictable, if not always preventable. Driving through Baghdad's Kerada Peninsula District, my humvee passed long gas lines as people waited to fill their tanks in the wake of the curfew. I commented to the officer giving me a lift that the dense lines of cars and packed gas stations offered great targets to the terrorists. An hour later, one was hit with a car bomb.

The bombing made headlines (and a news photographer just happened to be on the scene). Here in Baghdad, it just made the average Iraqis hate the terrorists even more.

You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail. Just give 'em the Bronx cheer.

Wake up, sheeple...

New York Post