Obsidian Wings

A hopeful sign. Really.

As if we didn't know that our enemies are, indeed, our enemies:

"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Zarqawi. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it."

It's always nice when your opponent claims the Darth-Vader Helmet of cartoonish villiany -- no nuance here.  And this is a hopeful sign, I think.  By putting the choice in such stark terms, Zarqawi may persuade those on the fence to turn out against him.   Zarqawi offers nothing but death and stagnation.  Democracy at a minimum offers the chance for peace and growth.

By the way, the tin-foil-hat part of me (c'mon, you have one too) considered that this message may come from a CIA plant rather than Zarqawi.  It just seems so perfectly, well, out-of-toonishly evil and to play so well into our hands.  I think that it's very unlikely that such is the case.  But, for the record, if this message is a bit 'o CIA disinformation, I've got no problem with it.  We're in both a propoganda war and a hot war in Iraq -- and we've got to win both. 

A Real Prince Passes (Johnny Carson RIP)

I heard a short entertainment brief just the other day about how David Letterman was being sent the occassional joke by late-night legend Johnny Carson. It was one of those odd non-news vignettes that reminds you how long the subject has been out of the public eye, and it struck me that his folks most likely sent out this press release to soften the coming blow. And so it is. Johnny Carson has died at the age of 79.

Anyone too young to remember the elegantly simple charm of Jay Leno's predecessor missed a true master of the art.

The boyish-looking Nebraska native with the disarming grin, who survived every attempt to topple him from his late-night talk show throne, was a star who managed never to distance himself from his audience.

His wealth, the adoration of his guests — particularly the many young comics whose careers he launched — the wry tales of multiple divorces: Carson's air of modesty made it all serve to enhance his bedtime intimacy with viewers.

"Heeeeere's Johnny!" was the booming announcement from sidekick Ed McMahon that ushered Carson out to the stage. Then the formula: the topical monologue, the guests, the broadly played skits such as "Carnac the Magnificent."

But America never tired of him; Carson went out on top when he retired in May 1992.

Blizzard Poetry Open Thread

The Sunday morning pundit programs are all being pre-empted by really boring blizzard coverage (how many different frozen reporters standing before an empty street  with snow blowing around in the background do we need to see to understand it's cold outside?). So consider this a versifying open thread. Share your favorite, share your own, or send photos of the view outside your window.

Here's a piece I read a while ago and couldn't get out of my head:

A Poem That I Wrote in a High Fever

You who are lengthening your lives
with the best doctors and the best medicines
remember those who are shortening their lives
with the wars
that you in your long lives are not
preventing.

You who are again screwing
the younger generations
and winking at each other
the winking of you eyelids
is like the chill of the swinging shutters
in an empty house.

--Yehuda Amichai
(Translated, from the Hebrew, by Leon Wieseltier.)

You Have the Right to Remain Repugnant

Well, it looks like Iraq's gonna try again to arrest joint US-Iran favorite, Ahmad Chalabi (well, perhaps former US favorite, although, he's got the snapshots [via Kos] to prove he was once very, very, very, welcome by some of the GOP's biggest names).

Last time around, a U.S.-appointed Iraqi judge issued a warrant for Chalabi’s arrest on charges of counterfeiting money, but the charges were dropped in September 2004.

This time, the charge seems less serious, but there's a lot of money involved, so if Chalabi doesn't have a few more aces up his sleeve he may be going down:

[Iraq’s interim defense minister Hazim al-Shaalan] told London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published on Friday he would [after the holy holiday Eid al-Adha] order the arrest after Chalabi accused the defense minister in an interview of stealing $500 million from the ministry and posted documents on a Web site accusing Shaalan of links to Saddam Hussein’s government.

The charge is "maligning" the Defense Minister. What's that get ya? A slap on the wrist and a severe tickling?

Snowbound Saturday Cat Blogging/Open Thread

My cat Nils is not very smart. (Although he wishes me to add that he is a mighty hunter and slayer of mice. Among the phrases he recognizes is: Nils! viscera!) In the past few days he has developed a new and charming addition to his repertoire of not-very-smartnesses. Namely:

My house has two doors: the front door, which leads onto a porch, and the side door, which leads onto steps. I use the side door most of the time, and so does Nils, which is why it's the side door before which he can often be found, staring intently at the handle, trying to move it by sheer force of will. But when it's snowy or rainy, I let him out the front door, so that he will have some shelter while he comes to the conclusion that it would, after all, be better to stay inside.

Until a few days ago, this was easy: Nils would be by the side door, I would open the front door and say 'Nils!", and he would run out. But for the past few days he has refused to go out the front door. It's not that he doesn't want to go out: he will stay beside the side door, staring at it and meowing. But when I open the front door, he will just look at it in a sort of hostile way and then return to wailing to be let out the side door. And the only sense I can make of this is: he won't go out the front door because if he does, then it will be cold and rainy, whereas if he goes out the side door, it will be sunny and warm.

I love my cats.

When Nils does go outside in the snow, he runs out gleefully and then, on discovering the snow, stops short with an expression of horror and dismay, exactly like one of my favorite Beatrix Potter illustrations:

It's amazing how expressive cats' faces can be, given that they really have only their eyes to work with.

Wrap Your Mind Around This.

From Ha'aretz via LeanLeft comes news of quite possibly the biggest idiots I have ever heard of, which is saying a lot: the The White Israeli Union, creators of the first ever Israeli neo-Nazi web site:

"The site is well organized. It has text and pictures showing the activists of the organization, "The White Israeli Union," some of them in Israel Defense Forces uniforms on the background of army camps and saluting with a raised arm. The expanded text is divided into sub-sections. There is one on "Who we are," where the managers of the site introduce themselves as "Ilya from Haifa and Andrei from Arad," and it is related there that the members of the organization are "people who have pride in themselves and are sick of living among the dirty bastards." There is a section on "Who our enemies are," where all the "enemies" are extensively documented: the Jews, the Arabs, the immigrants from all Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union, the Moroccans, the foreign workers - in short, the "black-asses." In the material about the Arabs there is even a practical suggestion to enlist in the IDF in a combat unit, in order to get weapons and begin to shoot at them in every possible circumstance.

In the guest forum on the site, other opinions can also be found - for example, that the hatred of Jews should lead to an alliance with the Arabs. There is also a "codex" section of rules of behavior for members of the organization, among them respect for parents, but also "not to be miserly, because a miser is a Zhid," a derogatory Russian word for Jew, approximately equivalent to "Kike." And notably there is a rich section of jokes, the greater part of which is devoted to all kinds of funny incidents in concentration camps that end badly for the Jews."

Indeed.

Apparently, many of the members of this organization are immigrants from Russia who qualified as Jews under the Israeli Law of Return, which allows any Jew to immigrate to Israel. The Law of Return has an expansive definition of who counts as a Jew, based on the Nuremberg laws. Apparently some of those who meet that criterion do not regard themselves as Jewish, and I guess the neo-Nazis among them are not troubled by the fact that Hitler would have disagreed. This seems to be sparking some calls for a tightening of the criteria someone must meet to qualify as a Jew under the Law of Return. Trying to pull apart the levels of deeply unpleasant irony in this makes my head hurt.

But really, Israeli neo-Nazis? What's next: the Ugandan chapter of the KKK? The Wiccan Coven of the Malleus Maleficarum? Kulaks for Forced Collectivization? Armenians for Ataturk? Is anything so grotesque that someone, somewhere won't try it?

I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

Sharia Vigilantism in New Jersey?

Last Sunday, the New York Post reported on the murder of the Armanious family, consisting of husband, wife and two daughters.  The Armanious' were Coptic Christians originally hailing from Egyptian.  Hossam Armanious was outspoken in his beliefs and he displayed them for all to see on paltalk.com.  He paid for those beliefs in full, not only with his life but his family's.

This should merit further investigation, but Robert Spencer has the following:

A close friend of Hossam Armanious, the Coptic Christian who was brutally murdered in New Jersey along with his family, is the source of this information, which comes to you exclusively from Jihad Watch:

The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity — or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur'an 3:28: "Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful -- he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah -- except in self-defense."

It was these "converts" who knocked on the door of the Armanious home. Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the "converted" men and willingly let them in to their home. That's why there was no sign of forced entry. Then the "converted" Muslims did their grisly work.

A very troubling story if true, and I'm sure there's more than meets the eye.  There may have been insurmountable cultural tension between native Egyptians with fundamental religious differences, not to mention some personal animosity towards Mr. Armanious.  But just like with Theo van Gogh, it doesn't excuse murder or that Armanious had it coming.  I won't go as far as Spencer in calling it "America's Theo van Gogh murder", but I do agree that this act is an "indication that all Muslims in the nation do not, as we are supposed to believe, unanimously accept the parameters of American pluralism. That at least some are willing to enforce Sharia penalties right here, right now."  Like with any sales pitch, the best response to proselytizing is a polite "no, I'm not interested", no matter how obnoxious the salesperson is.

Update:  First off, I added a question mark to the title.  If the murders are proven not to have been religiously motivated, I will retract and apologize.  So far, authorities have not publicly ruled out anything, but there is a reasonable amount of circumstantial information to suggest that the Armanious family was murdered for being evangelistic Coptic Christians.  Why bring up this post in the first place?  Because it's a big deal when Americans are brutally murdered just for holding certain beliefs.  Why was the murder of Theo van Gogh or Matthew Shepard a big deal?  Same reason.  If it is shown that religious intolerance was the driving factor, then it tells us that the ideology we are fighting abroad is being practiced right here.  It needs to be brought to light, fully investigated and thoroughly defeated.

Final update:  As noted here, the killers have been caught and there is no evidence of a religiously motivated crime.

Krieg Macht Frei

I'm concerned about the hawkish subtext of President Bush's inaugural address yesterday. On one hand, as a staunch advocate of human rights, I recognize that capitalist democracies do indeed foster the sort of societies most guaranteed to ensure each person's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On the other hand, I believe the path to such government must be the choice of those involved. The "democracy via the barrel of a gun" method offends my inner individualist, as it results in the indiscriminate deaths of those it's presumably trying to liberate, and that sacrifice should be their choice, not some outside power's.

William Safire raved about the speech in his column today:

Yesterday's strongly thematic address was indeed "the freedom speech." Not only did the words "freedom, free, liberty" appear 49 times, but the president used the world-watched occasion to expound his basic reason for the war and his vision of America's mission in the world.

I rate it among the top 5 of the 20 second-inaugurals in our history.

A bit of hyperbole, perhaps, but it's his column. Then, however, I can't help but imagine Bill's Cialis kicked in, because he gets a bit more than rationally excited about the implications of the speech:

And you thought the comparisons to the Carter Administration were bad.

Paul Gigot writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Not since 1928 has a president continued GOP control of the White House into a new term along with a re-elected Republican House and Senate.

Random Whining

You all know one aspect of me pretty well, but not another.  I play volleyball about 20 hours a week.  I wasn't an athletic child, so I take great pride in the fact that after many years of work at it, I'm actually really good at a sport.  It keeps me fit and lets me get out agression in a nice healthy way.  I only mention it to explain that I am probably going to be in a really foul mood for a bit.  I won't know for sure until I go to the doctor tomorrow, but I think I seriously damaged my Achilles tendon.  I can barely walk, and I know a few volleyball players who have never recovered from similar injuries enough to play again.  In other words I'm completely dismayed.  And if that isn't enough, I'm attracted to someone who wants to be friends, and I just want to be friends with someone who is attracted to me.  2005 sucks and it I'm not even single on Valentine's Day yet.  I'm glad I moved my 401k to bonds 2 weeks ago since the stock market appears to be drifting down.  But, you know, that which does not kill me delays the inevitable. 

In other news I think the quote of the day is definitely: "If Europeans ban the Nazi symbol, how are they going to protest George W. Bush when he visits?"

Like many good jokes, readers on both sides of the aisle can take away something fun.  Conservatives can think "Stupid Europeans" and Leftists can think "How will they protest" while the rest of us can just go, "Heh".