Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 15

The Anchoress delivers an inspiring eulogy to Oriana Fallaci, who "embodied all that leftism was", and a blistering attack on Rosie O'Donnell who embodies "all it has become". If any of you are wondering "Why Rosie?" this is in response to her assertion on The View that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam." She was roundly applauded, although the other hosts, to do them credit, refused to buy it. The Anchoress does a good job of tearing apart that assertion, so I'll leave it to her. Although I will add that Rosie jumped from one sentence to the other from "radical Christianity" to the bombing of innocents in Iraq, as if there were a direct, causal relationship.

When you need a break from weighty issues, Bits and Pieces will serve you up humourous, whimsical or just awe-inspiring tidbits from all over the Net. Today's offerings include Fork Art, a trip through the universe, and "One Little Mistake":

A woman, standing nude, looks in the bedroom mirror and says to her husband, "I feel horrible, I look fat and ugly. Pay me a compliment".

The husband replies, "Your eyesight's damn near perfect".

He never heard the shot.

Technorati tags: Rosie O'Donnell, Oriana Fallaci

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 14

William Weston at the Gruntled Center cites a British study that showed a stark difference in the number of parental break-ups after the birth of a child, depending on the marital status.

Married couples divorcing: 6%
Cohabiting couples breaking up: 32%
"Closely involved" fathers disappearing: 74%

It would appear that marriage is more than a piece of paper... Hat tip to Booker Rising.


Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is talking about how Nasrallah's stock has sunk considerably in Lebanon and the Arab world. I can only hope that he's absolutely right.


Aisha who has taken over for Ali at Eteraz shows herself to be more than up to the task. Today, she meditates on atheism as a religion, the Koran as a historical document or the Word of God and religions as social constructs. I can't say that I agree with everything she says, but she has good things to say and she says them well. And they are well worth meditating on.

Technorati tags: Nasrallah

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 13

Aisha at Eteraz has a great post on What the Infidel Did Today. I particularly like the sex strike called by the wives and girlfriends of Colombian gangsters. Now if we could just see a similar movement in the hip hop and rap world...

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye finds the extremism evident in far too many blogs to be unrealistic.

People seem to be advocating mindlessly extreme positions as the minimally acceptable policy. Only a pure market health care system is acceptable. Only a totally socialized health care system is acceptable. Abolish the minimum wage. Double the minimum wage. Nuke all Arabs. There is no terrorist threat. Nothing is Bush’s fault. Everything is Bush’s fault. 9/11 changed everything. 9/11 changed nothing.

He observes that in real life, workable approaches are neither burning hot nor bitterly cold. Hard to get a crowd roaring with that kind of approach, but he's absolutely right.

Michael J. Totten publishes a lengthy interview he conducted with Major Tal Lev-Ram, Spokesman for the IDF Southern Command. It dates from June, but it's still interesting. What I found most striking was the Palestinians' use, not only of human shields, but young teenagers for planting charges, moving weapons.

"It’s a problem," he said. "Sometimes we see resistance. But it’s difficult to judge from our perspective. We see a lot of cases where Katyusha or Qassam rockets are fired from within populated areas. More than that, they came up with a system that was based on the fear that we would find the exact location of the rocket launchers. So they place the launchers with a timer. And ten, eleven, and twelve year old children come and take the launcher away afterwards. Often we’re faced with fourteen or fifteen year old youth who come, armed, and place charges along the fence. When we see them, even when we see that they are armed, if they are only fourteen or fifteen we only shoot to scare them. We don’t actually fire at them. Of course, only if there is no immediate danger to our forces."

...

"About a month and a half ago," he said, "another event that shows you the dilemma here: Two terrorists with an RPG tried to shoot a tank. We shot back. In the same house the mother of them, and a cousin, were in the same house. They fired five meters away from where the mother and cousin were standing. The Palestinian headline said that a mother and child were killed. The child was twenty two years old. And he was a member of Hamas. So, I am not happy about the mother. But, this is my right. You know? In the houses of Hamas militants, and all the other terrorist organizations, there are storages of weaponry. That’s because in the past we would avoid attacking houses with families. Which raises the question: Sometimes we as the IDF care more about the families and the children than he who would put them in danger. In a house, let’s say of three floors, a whole floor may be used as a storage."

Technorati tags: Gaza Strip

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 11

The Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength is talking about how one man seeks to love the world by giving away wheelchairs.

Pat at Stubborn Facts is singing the praises of the Electoral College and asserting that democracy does not mean majority rule all the time. Being contrarian and thought-provoking again, are you Pat?

John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia gives an impressive list of reasons why he's cautiously optimistic about the liberalization occuring in Saudi Arabia since 9/11.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 10

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters analyzes the new agreement between Saudi Arabia and the US to quintuple the number of Saudi students attending American universities. He admits it looks pretty bad at first and second blush, but that it could have great benefits for both Saudi Arabia and the West if the risks are managed carefully. He is cautiously optimistic.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 8

Alan Stewart Carl at Maverick Views is in some despair, as he fears that "9/11 has not changed us enough".

Camassia is arguing that it doesn't really matter if Islam is a good religion or not. The only question that matters is: is it true? She obviously knows on which side of the question of absolute truth she comes down on.

Weekend Fisher continues to impress me with her uncommon moral clarity as she brings her series on ethics and violence to a close with an examination of the concept of "just war". I particularly liked this quote:

Complaints against evil are commonly one-sided. Ironically, they are commonly one-sided against the less dangerous, less evil side, and for very practical reasons, some of them even reasonable ones. At best, we tend to criticize the more peaceable party because they are more likely to be reasonable, to listen, and to value peace. At worst, we are more likely to criticize the more peaceable party because they are less likely to attack or kill us for criticizing them. While no balanced approach to evil would lead us to protest mainly against the party less likely to kill us (i.e. the less dangerous and less evil party), that is still often how it works out. If we have not confronted evil on both sides, despite the risks, then we have not done our part in consistently standing up for what is good and right.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 5

The Anonymous Liberal is questioning recent concerns about Iran, not that he finds them unwarranted, but definitely over-hyped. He cites Fareed Zakaria's recent interesting analysis of the exaggeration of the Iranian threat.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 4

Jack at After the Future is deeply concerned about a militaristic culture that is rotting out the American soul, while defending himself from charges of being a left-wing flake.

The enemy that most threatens America is not Islamic terrorism. Terrorism is small apples in comparison to the internal threat of those who are nudging us toward becoming a militarist authoritarian state. This kind of thing doesn't happen over night. It's not something that in a society as complex as ours could happen with a sudden military coup. It's something we are drifting into. It's something for which the foundation is being laid quietly and unobtrusively justified by a rationale that is partially true--the struggles against communism or terror. It's something allowed by a nation's citizens because they are angry or frightened, and they turn to hardliner authoritarian types who present themselves as the protecting father, the strong man who will keep them safe.

Over at Donklephant, Justin proclaims the evangelicals scare him. I'm afraid I got a little provoked and called him on a few points. The whole thing smacked of bigotry to me. People came down on both sides of the issue in the comment section.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 1

Simon at Stubborn Facts makes a very clear case for some degree of human causality in climate change, although he gets some knowledgeable arguments thrown back at him.

Callimachus at Done With Mirrors has an astonishingly astute - and readable - analysis of the Iranian situation, from a guest poster with direct connections to Iran.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters chilled my blood with this post on the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany.