Friday, September 04, 2009

J.D. Johannes on Kabul

J.D. Johannes has an essay and links to his pictures of Kabul. I never saw the New City when I was there in the 1970s, but it resembles Beirut at the time. Supermarkets? Not in Kabul then.
With the threat of a planned attack reduced the only remaining threat is randomness—being in the wrong place at wrong time when a bomb goes off—or random opportunity.

The only mitigation to that is SA or situational awareness and an exfil plan.

One of the last things you want to do on the streets is hook and jab with an attacker. The better option is to shove and run or trach punch and run. The best option is to see what is coming, change directions and flee into the most crowded place you can, squirt out of the crowd, dive into a taxi cab, throw some money at the driver, change shirts, put distance between you and the threat.
While keeping an eye on one's back, check out the stores:
To the Taliban and others of like mind, the ills that have befallen Islamic countries can all be blamed on their falling away from the true nature of Islam....The cure is living like Mohammed and his followers did in the 6th Century AD.

The Taliban pick and choose what they will accept from the west. Technology is fine because it is a tool. The medium is allowed as long as the message is Islam. But it is impossible to control every message through every medium. The pervasive western message seeps in.

As H-JD and I entered the auto-parts section of Kabul I found the ultimate symbol of how far the western imagery and message have seeped.

We stood in front of shop selling tire rims. Not just normal, sturdy, bland rims that could survive the rutted and pot-holed streets Kabul but shiny chrome rims. They ranged in size from the 24-inch style glorified by American hip-hop artists and rappers, to 14-inches. There were spinners, spokes, gloss black, machined black and every other manner of blinging dubs.

The Taliban’s fight is not just against NATO and the Afghan military and security services. Their battle is also against the weight of the all pervasive western pop culture.

In Kabul, pimp my ride is winning.
Unfortunately, as Johannes says, kabul is only a small part of Afghanistan.

The whole essay is worth a read. Here.

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US Rep. Baron Hill (D-Indiana)...

...on why he doesn't allow people to video "his" town hall meeting: It's HIS town hall meeting.

Funny: I thought he was their public servant, and that the employers make the rules. Silly me.



Thanks to Jim Geraghty at NRO's campaign spot for the lead.

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Weird, just Weird. Marxist-Leninist econ advisor to the White House

When I first saw this story on the web I was a bit sceptical, but now ABC news is carrying it. Apparently Van Jones, President Obama's "Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality" is an actual Marxist-Leninist.
"By August, I was a communist."
Jones and other young activists in 1994 formed a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, rooted in Marxism and Leninsm.
Can anyone imagine the hullabaloo if a Republican had a neo-Nazi in a comparable position? Any position?

"Well, Herr Umlaut is simply the best man in the country for the job. His political views will have no impact on his job as Special Advisor on Middle Eastern policy."

Just what is it that makes Nazis unacceptable but leaves revolutionary Marxist-Leninists socially acceptable? The Nazis murdered what? 6-8 million. The Marxist-Leninists in USSR & China murdered something over 50 million. I guess they were misguided, but their hearts were in the right place. As were their victims, of course: in mass graves, thumbs wired behind their backs.

A revolutionary Marxist-Leninist economics advisor to the White House? Is that just a little bit of a weird decision? Especially for a group which is already condemned by many critics as being full of commies? It just plays into the hands of the critics.

OTOH, maybe they could show they value diversity by hiring Herr Umlaut.

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Wednesday, September 02, 2009

More on that NEA conference call

The NEA isn't being turned into a propaganda ministry. No, really. REALLY. It isn't. Trust us.

But read this. It must be a mistake.

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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

The Lion of the Senate & the KGB

Forbes reminds us of some old news about Ted Kennedy which has never, never, ever been seen as fit to print by the New York Times.

I wonder what his buddy John McCain would say.

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Goal: Eliminate the Private Health Insurance Industry

Who knew?

Apparently Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) all knew.

Explicit goal: Eliminate an entire industry. That's straight from the horses'...mouths.

Public ownership of the means of production.

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Monday, August 31, 2009

Racism in Hawaii?

Say it isn't so! If you do, tho, the Southern Poverty Law Center will disagree with you.

In a fairly long review, Larry Keller of the SPLC gives a once over lightly. Well known race blind activist and Hawaiian Studies professor at the University of Hawaii Haunani Kay Trask is quoted.
In a poem titled, "Racist White Woman," Trask wrote: "I could kick/Your face, puncture/Both eyes./You deserve this kind/Of violence./No more vicious/Tongues, obscene/Lies./Just a knife/Slitting your tight/Little heart."
Keller also mentions Kill Haole Day at the public schools.

Klanners might understand. They just wouldn't be tenured professors.

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Jay Nordlinger on Che- & Castro-lovers

First, a snippet from L.A. Congressthug Diane Watson's paean to them:
And you know the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy — Che Guevara did that. And after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found . . . an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro.
Nordlinger responds:
But, some years ago, I...had to swallow that these people — certainly some dismaying percentage of them — actually like it: actually like the dictatorship and all the murderous oppression that goes with it. You can’t remain entirely ignorant or naïve after 50 years of this dictatorship. And that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.

One more point: Many of the leaders of the Cuban democracy movement are black — “Afro-Cuban.” President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to one of them (the political prisoner Oscar Biscet). Many of Castro’s most ardent supporters in the United States are black: Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Randall Robinson, and so on. What must the black Cuban democrats think of these Castro champions?
Good question. How about this one: What do you think of the Cuban democracy advocates who are in prison for speaking truth to power? It ought to be asked, directly and in front of cameras, because people like Charlie "What income?" Rangel are the heart of the Democrat Party. Michael "Gets seated next to Jimmy Carter" Moore ought to be asked that one as well.

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