Wise comment of the weekend

In a thread about Iraq and Syria at Crooked Timber, a commenter observes: "An assassin started WW I."

The relevance vel non (as the lawyers say) of this remark to the debate about Syria is something I leave as an exercise for the reader.

The mentality of...what?

A group called Republican Women of Clifton (Va.) has rented a room in a public school (after school hours) to hear a speaker who will address:

the treatment of women in Islamic society and how the Hijab is a catalyst for Islamism because it leads to the mentality of passive terrorism and silent support for Sharia Law in Western societies.

This is incoherent nonsense. The "mentality of passive terrorism" is  a meaningless phrase because terrorism, by definition, is not passive. If they mean something like "tacit support for terrorism," it's rubbish to suggest that wearing a headscarf has anything to do with that. This is part of the right-wing scare campaign which claims that there is a Secret Plot to impose sharia law in the U.S. It's idiocy and prejudice, period.  

Rep. Allen who?

I'd not heard of Rep. Allen West but he is clearly off his rocker.

Frightening

I find Rick Santorum genuinely frightening. This Dana Milbank column properly takes Santorum to task for comparing his political opponents to Nazis. I parted company with Milbank only at the very end:

In his unsuccessful 2006 [Senate re-election] campaign, he [i.e. Santorum] often invoked Churchill’s “gathering storm” phrase and compared Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. He also called for more active use of the term “Islamic fascism.” Last year, Santorum warned that if the Muslim Brotherhood prevails in Egyptian elections, it would be like the Nazis winning in 1933: “That was the last democratic election.”

When used on Ahmadinejad or the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nazi talk is provocative, but defensible. When used on an American president and a rival political party, it shows an alarming lack of perspective.

Milbank is too generous to Santorum here: his "Nazi talk" is not defensible, period. Comparing the Egyptian party that won the most votes in the recent parliamentary elections to the Nazis is ridiculous.

Hitchens is wrong -- so what else is new?

Writing in Slate, in a Jan. 31 column which, amazingly enough, actually says one or two sensible things, Hitchens spoils it at the end by suggesting that "the regime-change school in America can claim a degree of vindication." Translation: the revolts sweeping the Arab world are due to the neocons and the Project for a New American Century. So that's why the crowds in Tahrir Square were carrying pictures of Bill Kristol. Thanks for clearing up the mystery, Hitch.

Truth-stranger-than-fiction dept.

Via B. DeLong, here.

Deranged

Via E.J. Dionne: Apparently not even The Weekly Standard likes Dinesh d'Souza's deranged new book The Roots of Obama's Rage.

Lunacy on stilts

All Things Considered ran a piece this evening about a new shopping mall in East Harlem whose tenants -- mostly big retailers -- have agreed to hire a proportion of their work forces from among local residents. One of the retailers (Best Buy, I believe, though don't quote me on that) was reported to be proud that it had hired one of every two local applicants.

Why were the others turned down? Well, some of them, when asked in the interview why they wanted to work for the company, had replied that they needed a job -- and this was disqualifying!!

Here we have a program designed to encourage and facilitate the hiring of poor, inner-city residents, and an applicant fails if s/he tells the prospective employer that he or she wants to work for it because he or she needs a job. What is the applicant supposed to say? "I like meeting new people"? "I've always wanted to work for Best Buy/Costco/whoever"? "My goal is to be the manager of a retail establishment and this job will be a first step toward that goal"? Your guess is as good as mine. The point is that honesty is penalized and b.s. is rewarded. To someone immersed in the through-the-looking-glass culture of corporate America, this may make sense. To a sane person with some distance from that culture, it is crazy -- totally, thoroughly nuts.

Annals of lunacy

Via Yglesias: A right-wing blogger saw a book by Nathan Glazer on Michelle Obama's bookshelf and concluded that she must be a secret Commie because the book is called The Social Basis of American Communism. Any comment would be superfluous.

Exactly the wrong kind of new year's gift: a "modernization" of the U.S. nuclear arsenal

Republican senators are advocating construction of a new generation of U.S. nukes, saying it's a condition of their support for a new START treaty with Russia. This is lunacy: unnecessary, wasteful, and counterproductive. Sounds like a fair amount of what Senate Republicans have been doing lately.

Why is Cuba still on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism?

As Greg Weeks implies, the short answer appears to be that no one knows, not even the State Department people who maintain the list.

Time stands still -- but the rhetoric of capitalism is in constant motion

I picked up a chocolate bar after lunch today. This is part of what it says on the back of the package:

"Evening Dream [TM]. The luxuriously deep and velvety 60% cacao dark chocolate in Ghirardelli Evening Dream is infused with a hint of Madagascan vanilla delivering the perfect chocolate intensity. Experience a moment of timeless pleasure as the intense chocolate lingers and time stands still."

Time stands still? This is a chocolate bar, not a moment of aesthetic transport, metaphysical insight, or carnal ecstasy.

I have three questions for Ghirardelli: Who writes this gibberish for you? Are they well paid? If so, how does one apply?

Mugabe's fantasy world

South Africa has declared that its border with Zimbabwe is a disaster area, while Robert Mugabe for his part has announced that the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe is over. Perhaps tomorrow Mr. Mugabe will announce that the earth is flat -- and I don't mean in the figurative Thomas Friedman sense.

The frothing-at-the-mouth style of "debate"

The Mumbai attacks, including the attack on the Chabad Jewish center and the killing of the rabbi and his wife and others (excepting their two-year-old son who survived), roughly coincided with the passage of several resolutions by the UN General Assembly criticizing Israel (which I've not read). Of course, the passage of such resolutions, which sometimes accuse Israel of racist and/or apartheid policies, is nothing new for the General Assembly, which has been doing this for years. Since General Assembly resolutions have no binding effect in international law, their point is exhortatory or, as those less kindly disposed in this case might put it, propagandistic.

What connection, if any, was there between the UN resolutions and the attack on the Jewish center in Mumbai? In a comment at the blog American Power, I suggested that there was not much connection. In response, the blog's author/proprietor, Prof. Donald Douglas, rounded on me, charging me with having an agenda to "delegitimize any blogging that privileges Western values against the advocacy of nihilist destruction seen in defenders of evil, including the leading dictators who compose the membership [of] the UN General Assembly."

As the lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur. [1]

1. The thing speaks for itself.

Quote of the day, surreal division

"We will not give up our country for a mere 'X' on the ballot."
-- Robert Mugabe, vowing that the opposition will not take power if it wins the upcoming run-off elections in Zimbabwe.