BRUSHFIRES OF FREEDOM

The Sweet Smell of Burning Sulfur

Pat Robertson was right when he said that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated as the cheapest and easiest way to get rid of this pain in the derriere of the world.  All the sanctimonious rose in high dudgeon to condemn old Pat, but Pat was right then, and he is righter now.

Lenin is reputed to have analogized the accrual of physical power to the eating of a salami, one thin slice at a time.  Hugo may well have sliced too much, too soon, and we can only hope he is choking on it and no one around him knows the Heimlich Maneuver.

Batman Begins

It took a recent re-viewing to reaffirm startling conclusions made months ago.  Result?  Indeed, summed up, Batman Begins is a marvelous movie, and it is the perfect "bookend" match to the Daniel Craig Casino Royale.

Batman Begins and Casino Royale reinvented both Batman and James Bond, both of which suffered severely in all of their earlier versions (with the exception of the first Sean Connery Bond).  The Adam West 1960s silly Batman continued unchanged into the new series starting in the 1990s.  All were "camp," "funky," and tongue-in-cheek.  All were horribly alike, regardless who played Batman.  The only decent characterization in any of them was Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

[Continued on Nous American.]

Memorial Day 2007

Memorial Day affords us cushy civilians a time to reflect about who died--where, how, and why--to preserve our way of life in America.

Never has our military been better--because it is an all-volunteer force.  Yes, they are "just doing their jobs," but they are doing their jobs because they want to.  They recognize basic American values and commit themselves to preserving these values.  They know that they risk life and limb, but their greatest values are more important, even that their lives.  These values include their families and friends.

REVIEW: Letter to a Christian Nation

[Letter to a Christian Nation; by Sam Harris; Knopf, NY; 2006; ISBN 0-307-26577-3]

Sam Harris became well-known a couple of years ago following the publication of his first book The End of Faith (TEOF), his politically incorrect critique of all religions.  Letter to a Christian Nation (LATCN) is more like an appendix to TEOF.  Both books have provoked multitudes of the religious, particularly Christians, into expected militant disapproval.  Large numbers of the beatific faithful have expressed desires to do to Harris those physical things so popular in the koran and bible.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment]

Calling This To Your Attention

As if by "magic," the following came in the morning email and supplements today's piece The Trojan President.

FYI:

The Trojan President

Terrorism expert Michael Evans chilled the day yesterday by disclosing what he has recently learned about Iran. 

Mr. Evans disclosed that Iran has plans set to join the Iraq insurgency full force this summer. Iran's object is to finish off what is left of America's Congress so that they will stampede America's exit from Iraq.

But, that is not all, and not the worst.

NEW ON 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD

From the Editor's page, 6th Column Against Jihad:

This issue brings loads of outstanding material from many authors.  As always, Jacob Thomas provides insights about the Middle East of a quality that we just do not find elsewhere; some of his quality comes from having survived Lebanon.  He is able to go into the Arabic language, use his incisive mind, and come out with analyses that are truly outstanding.  Note that we are reproducing one of his articles from Ali Sina's outstanding website, Faith-Freedom.  Eleanor, who used to be known as Portia on this website, is contributing mightily from her new blog, and we are very pleased to add some samples of her work.  We concentrated more on her publications about hate crimes, which she has gone into with some depth, because of the great evil involved in such a concept as a "hate crime."  She covers much more than just hate crimes, and her site is worth a daily trip.  Regarding hate crimes, we wrote this issue's editorial on that subject.  On other subjects, we have found very insightful materials from Ralph Peters, Hugh Fitzgerald, Anti-CAIR. and several authors not commonly known, and these can be found from the Home Page index.  Ralph Peters deserves some special mention because we had written him off because he became as irrational about anyone criticizing Muslims as Dinesh D'Souza.  Ralph came back with one of the best op-eds we have ever read about the Bush abomination in Iraq.  Add to that the first article which really diagnoses and dissects the rotten American generalship of the Iraq War.  As always, we offer materials for reader interest but expect readers to read discerningly and to criticize any materials we publish.  Finally, we are able to open up an entirely new section called Preventing Islamization.  A gentleman from Europe whose handle is No Sharia has fired the opening salvo with his magnum opus regarding Europe.  He invites criticism and policy debate not just for Europe, but for all countries facing the threat of Islamization.

The new material:

Description of this issue's contents on From the Editor and the Editorial:  The Crime of "Hate Crimes"

From George Mason, Anti-Jihadists Writers Go Pogo,  Following Up on "Anti-Jihadists Writers Go Pogo" and To Think or Not to Think: No Question for Bush

From Jacob Thomas, Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood and A Tale of Two States:  India and Pakistan

From No Sharia,  Preventing Islamization of Europe, Page One and Page Two, as part of a new section Preventing Islamization.  No Sharia has provided considerable thought to the Islam problem in Europe and provides a set of policy articles presenting his thoughts.

From Eleanor and her new blog, Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight: U.S. Muslim speaker urges understanding, acceptance; A Bustling Hate-Crime Industry; H.R. 1592 'Hate Grandma' bill coming up for vote; and "Hate-Crime/Thought" Vote Result.

From Hugh Fitzgerald: For the convert, Islam is so many wonderful things and Never Have So Few Done So Much Damage To So Many

From Ralph Peters, Why Iraq's So Hard

From Anti-Cair, CAIR: Partners With the Jihadist "Fort Dix Six"?

From Christian Beenfeldt, The Dissolute Dogmatists

From Lt.Col. Paul Yingling, A Failure in Generalship 

Ralph Peters, Please Make Room for Diana West

Reading rational conservative columns is almost a rarity.  Ralph Peters last week wrote a dandy which we featured here.  Now comes one of our favorite columnists, Diana West.  What she has to say fits in totally with what Ralph Peters had to say and what many independents have been saying one way or another for a very long time.  Oh, yes, for the record, rational liberal columns are equally rare.

Bond Is Back--Reinvented

This weekend I finally saw the new Casino Royale James Bond movie, starring Daniel Craig.  Unless future Bond films with Craig get corrupted (like the previous ones), Bond is back because he has been reinvented, thus reinvigorated.

[Continued on Nous American.]

Recall Clinton to Finish Out Bush's Term

If I had Harry Potter's magic wand, I would banish George W. Bush so far away that he could never be found, like to Andromeda Galaxy--to its black hole.  Bush is so bad that I would prefer to recall Clinton to finish out Bush's term, minus Shillery Rahman Clinton.  To keep Bill out of our lives, I would convert the Oval Office to the "oval office," quite literally and make it the XXX pride of D.C.  America would do better with a licentious Clinton than any more of Bush, who may turn out to be the most harmful to America president yet.

Nothing new has set me off.    However, sometimes good material comes in that makes the point magnificently well.  Here is an instance of marvelous material laying bare the underbelly of Mr. Unmarvelous Bush.