American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
The Atlas of Creation book says, “human beings did not evolve (from another species) but were indeed created.”
The Atlas of Creation says that the theories of Charles Darwin are “the true source of terrorism.”
The Atlas of Creation is being distributed to tens of thousands of schools and universities. In fundamentalist Christian middle America?
No – in France and Germany.
Keep that in mind the next time you hear that Turkey wants to join the EU.
Update Le Monde (link in French) has more.
Yesterday I linked to Cassandra‘s smackdown of William Arkin. Today I’m linking to Lileks‘s (h/t Larwyn).
Lilek’s smackdown of Arkin is great, but my favorite line comes before Lileks gets to it – it’s about the sixties:
the 60s aren’t seen as The Past; the 60s are a Timeless Vault of Cultural Touchstones, the apotheosis of Western Civ.
Indeed, nowadays a day doesn’t go by without one having to hear the present-day rehashing of 1960s “counterculture values”:
- that tired, old, narcissistic war protestors are speaking “truth to power” when they are actually basking in their own reflections
- that we’re fighting a war in a far-away place, and that it’ll never affect us, even when it obviously does
- that running away won’t have any adverse consequences
- that “saving the earth” matters more than saving unborn children because it’s “our bodies, our selves”
- that “world music” and chick lit are better than anything Dead White Men ever produced
- that angry spinsters bestow deranged women “absolute moral authority” to go kiss petty tyrants in Latin America
- that global orgasms will bring about peace because “all you need is love” (and gad, was there ever a more hollow sentiment than “all you need is love”?)
- that we shouldn’t worry so much about Iran and pay attention to what’s really important – global warming
- that Judeo-Christian values should be despised for the sake of “diversity”
- that America is the cause, alpha and omega, of all evil.
I was hearing this crap back when I was a young fool thirty or forty years ago and, much water under the bridge later, it is disheartening that so many are STILL so deluded.
As Barry Casselman says, the West is in a trance
I am increasingly convinced that the West is in denial of what is truly happening in the world. This self-delusion is the most dangerous response possible to the intense and rapid change all over the planet. This self-denial takes many forms, including obsessions with abstract issues of little real consequence, e.g., animal rights, capital punishment, celebrity gossip, political correctness, etc. It is accompanied by the rise of secular mandates and the suppression of spiritual values. It exhibits excesses of greed that threaten both capitalism and representative government.
The malign forces that conspire against the West (in contrast to the benign forces which only wish to compete with it), however, are not paralyzed. They are moving and growing at great speed.
Pat Santy looks at the myths that fuel the Left’s denial. Neo-neocon examines the political anger firing up the upsurge in Romanticism
There’s an interesting socioeconomic trend to Romanticism: it’s a philosophy that seems to attract a surprising number of the more well-to-do and well-educated
All of these elements are part of the present-day trance.
That the denial is taking the form of 1960s superficiality only adds insult to injury. Those malign forces Casselman mentions don’t simply wait.
Now go read Jeremayakovka, and try to wake up, if you may.
Technorati tags politics, current affairs, Iran, capitalism, Global Warming
My article on La Ley Habilitante, the Enabling Law, granting Hugo Chavez unprecedented powers, is now at Pajamas Media.
The article includes links in Spanish to the law itself.
And, by the way, it’s not me calling it “The mother of all laws”
Don’t miss also Do cry for Venezuela: the vulnerability of an easily amended Constitution
Chirac denies saying that Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb would not be “very dangerous”.
This is what he said:
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb. Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran – whose leader has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” – as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
“Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?” Chirac asked. “It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Teheran would be razed.”
So what Jacques is saying is that Iran’s bomb would pose no danger to him because Israel will then rid him of the problem. Even if Israel gets wiped out in the process.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Teheran being razed. “I retract it, of course, when I said, ‘One is going to raze Teheran,”‘ he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
“It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately,” he said. “We have the means – several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.”
Regarding his comments that Israel could be a target of an Iranian weapon and that Israel would retaliate, Chirac said: “I don’t think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I did so but I don’t think so. I have no recollection of that.”
If I thought Chirac was alone in his sentiment I would dismiss his asinine remarks.
But he isn’t.
Of course he isn’t!,
Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly denied claims that Russia is using its energy resources as a lever to put pressure on other countries
Update: Via Maria, Why are Vladimir Putin’s opponents dying?
Via Larwyn, It’s Official: The Press Has Gone To War – with us.
Important Analysis
“U.S.-Iran tensions could trigger war,” cautions an article by the AP, which appears to be just waking up to this possibility.
In a similar vein, this morning’s BBCA newscast managed to blame the centuries-old, thirteen centuries, that is, Sunni-Shia rivalry on – you guessed it – Israel and the Americans:
“It’s America and Israel who want trouble here,” said another participant.
I kid you not.
Don’t miss Pamela’s CAIR censorship round-up
“Sleep must not be trivialised,” Xavier Bertrand, the Health Minister, said.
But they’re not lazy.
Obviously Cassandra’s husband (see above) is not French.
Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but this is a mostly PG-rated blog. However, You Tube has several videos of the fully clothed Bear. I might post one of those one of these days.
I watched the Discovery Channel the other night and they had Stephen Hawkins talking about black holes. I can’t say I understood most of what he said, but I came out pondering the possibility that my long-lost pair of eyeglasses dropped into a mini black hole.
Back to Man vs Wild, then.
