Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight

Categorizing American Islamophobes

Islamophobia, a dishonest word that means "an intense fear of Muslims," that is used to tar any and all critics of Muslims and Islam. Here is the so-called "categories."

Category 1: The Seed Planters

Examples: Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis
Usual Profession: Academics
Main Motivation: Zionism

Category 2: The Theological Warriors

Examples: Robert Spencer, Craig Winn, Pat Robertson
Usual Profession: Christian preachers
Main Motivation: Religious bigotry

Category 3: The Media Voices

Examples: Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Ann Coulter
Usual Profession: Radio and TV personalities
Main Motivation: Money

Category 4: The Fringe

Examples: LGF, Joe Kaufman, Jewish Task Force
Main Motivation: Racism

Category 5: The Politicians

Examples: George W Bush, John McCain, miscellaneous Republican politicians
Usual Profession: Politicians
Main Motivation: Need to court the anti-Islam vote

They forgot:

Category 6 - The Grassroots
Usual Profession: Any and all
Main Motivation: Need to warn against the dangers of Islam to Western culture

"Islamophobia" is not an unfounded fear. Check the history books for the effect of Islam on cultures conquered with the sword or by stealth!

One-room schoolroom, an idea whose time is returning?

The consequences of high-fuel prices will effect everyone. Always on a budget and at the mercy of the taxpayers, we could be forced to change from high-cost school buildings to something more rudimentary and cost effective.

Whether it's homeschooling, or a small-scale industrial school, will school be returned to it's root form? And will students learn more? Charlie Martin at Pajamas Media reminds of the fact that students educated in one-room school houses could do:

Once upon a time, an American public school student was expected to be able to name principal parts of speech; define and give examples of verse, stanza, and paragraph; write an intelligible one-page composition; compute interests, discounts, and tax rates; describe major events in U.S. history; have an understanding of the U.S. government; and be sufficiently familiar with geography to be able to talk about climate, its causes and effects, and to identify and locate continents, major rivers, and important world capitals, in order to graduate.

[1] From the eighth grade

If you follow that link, you’ll see that is a somewhat abbreviated list of what was really contained in the test for graduation from the eighth grade in Salinas, Kansas, in 1895. The link I’ve given is to the Snopes.com article with both test questions and commentary, and which correctly notes that a lot of the specific questions might not apply very well today. But I think that misses the general point. You could construct a test of similar difficulty, considering miles per gallon and substituting the Middle East for South America. It would still be an unusual eighth grade public school student who could pass that test.

Not that we don’t spend the money. The average cost per student per school year in the New York Public School system is [2] $14,119. This would correspond to about $612 in 1895 — which is roughly the budget for an entire county school in Kansas at the time.

Racism is no longer a point of view, but a matter of being born white in America

The appalling sight of Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger preaching to fan the flames of black racism against whites is not the end of the matter. Now at the University of Delaware, racism is no longer a point of view or the result of one's actions, but applicable to all people of white skin color as described again at WND.

Last year Bob Unruh reported that the "residence hall series of teachings that 'all whites are racists' had been dropped." It appears that the university was waiting for time to pass to revive the program which monitors behavior and gives out the same violations similar to those of a year ago.

Shuttle Discovery Fueling Up for Today's Launch

Sadly, the manned Space Shuttle Program will end in 2010/11. Thus each launch is precious to all interested parties. Live coverage begins at 12 noon Eastern Time STS-124. Read all about it here.

If nothing goes wrong, launch is at 5:02 p.m. After confirmed ignition and lift off, I'll be in back yard, looking north.

What will be NASA's new role following the retirement of the Shuttle Program? Will it be to continue setting up a Moon base using the Ares Rocket to lift astronauts and equipment? Some believe that that Ares would be better used for the deflection of objects in space that might strike Earth:

Priceless - Heh, heh...

How many whites would agree with activist Catholic pastor Michael Pfleger?

I don' know about you, but I was offended by the display put on at Barak Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, by Chicago Catholic pastor Michael Pfleger, and I believe that most thinking people would be.

Pfleger implied that Hillary Clinton was a white supremacist, and in doing so implied most white Americans are equally racially bigoted, interested in white entitlement and white supremacy. Father Pfleger was fanning the flames of racial hatred against whites.

Should Texas children receive Islamic training during class time? - Update

CAIR is at it again. They are providing Islamic training to Houston area public school children during class time. Imagine the howls of protest from all, including from CAIR, if this kind of "training" during class time were to be done by Christians or Jewish clergy?

At WND:

Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions.

Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable."

"Swinish hirlings" are the useful idiots for Islam Western culture

Hugh Fitzgerald at DhimmiWatch responds (scroll down) to this story about Australian Muslims warning (threat?) that if the government doesn't develop a school their way, extremists could take over.

Moving Toward Rationing of Just About Everything?

Charles Krauthammer at Real Clear Politics didn't go far enough in his excellent piece: "Moving Toward Energy Rationing." Energy isn't the only product that under danger of rationing.

Take for example the world's food shortages. There are legitimate natural reasons why food could be rationed: drought, flooding, pestilence. Among man-made reasons caused by man are the effects on the environment, the manipulation of prices on the commodity markets, war, destruction of farmland, and so on.

Potable water is in danger of being rationed. In the United States, governments at all levels are vying to obtain rights for the consumption of water for citizens. The reasons for water shortages are, once again, natural and man made.

The list goes on and on. Some current shortagess: Guano in Peru now in demand again as fertilizer, used cooking oil, valuable for the making of bio-diesel, "carbon credits," which could be used to ration "petrol, airline tickets or household energy." Corn for animal feed.

Other parts of the world are experiencing serious rationing problems in comparison to the United States.

Nevertheless, sometimes rationing is caused by theory and speculation of what could happen if we don't ration. Here is where social and political actions groups apply their theories toward the regulation of every area of your life. Rationing of goods, services, commodities, and even something as basic as water, gives them power to command your obedience.

Krauthammer.

Is the 'North American Union' quietly moving toward reality?

April 2008 saw a the North American Leaders Summit in New Orleans. Although the word "summit" means a meeting of heads of state, or conference, meetings of importance.

One would assume that a meeting with the word "summit" there would be discussions of importance among leadership. For instance if there were a "Summit of North American Dogcatchers," wouldn't extremely important problems in the dog-catching world be discussed, and wouldn't solutions would be worked out? Reports would be generated, and rules and regulations would be promulgated and distributed to regulate all dog-catching procedures, institutions, personnel, and so on.

Thus, one would assume that only items of supreme importance to the three leaders of North American countries would be discussed at the summit in New Orleans. If not, what would have the purpose of the meeting? Perhaps a photo op at the expense of taxpayers of all three countries?