"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Thanks to Betsy Newmark for the link to this article about a new feature exhibit at the National Archives. Wow. All that seems to be missing from this “Archives’ Magical History Tour” is sKerry’s magic hat. (But then, it’s a little hard to include a fantasy object in a history exhibit… or ought to be.)
BTW, if you haven’t bookmarked Betsy’s Page just do it. Right now.
Whizbang has a thread going on who the USA ought to send to Arafat’s funeral. Some good suggestions. Personally, I’d combine a few of them and send Michael Moore-on, the Clintoons and Djimmi Carter. It might be too much to hope that Moore-on would like to show “solidarity” with the PLO and go dressed as a suicide bomber… (“Hey! Is that Osama in the Moore-on fat suit?”) Still, sending Moore-on, Carter and the Clintoons to a send-off for a sorry sack of… feces is kinda like sending coals to Newcastle, isn’t it?
I have an idea. Let’s all show our “respect” for Arafat by setting aside a moment to take a dump during his funeral.
Nah. Too respectful. I’d hate to have that negative association formed with good, clean feces.
Update: Lileks has this to say (among other things) about Arafat’s death:
“I am content to know he is not in Hell. Nope. Arafat did not go to Hell. He boards the ferry, yes; he makes it halfway across the River Styx, yes. Then the ferry blows up. Ten times a day for eternity. For a start.”
Well, maybe. A little too mild, IMO, but maybe a start. Perhaps a fitting torment would be bathing with Hitler. Not that the Hitler part would be a problem for Arafat, but think of the torment of forcing a piece of filth like that to bathe at all… In fact, it’s almost a certainty that they each would be filthier as a result…
Well, well. President Bush’s re-election certainly is the gift that keeps on giving…
Vincent D’Onofrio has held a special place in my regard ever since I first saw him act. (D’Onofrio is the annoying twitch on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and the chief reason why I have been unable to watch even one entire episode of that show.) He gives me a rash and makes me feel like hurling. I constantly expect to see him hauled off in a straight jacket in the next scene. When he isn’t, I change the channel in disgust.
Well, thank you President Bush. See this, from today’s NYPost
November 11, 2004 — VINCENT D’Onofrio, the star of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” passed out while shooting the hit TV series yesterday morning — prompting insiders to gossip that the actor is “losing it.”
“Ever since John Kerry lost the election, [D’Onofrio] has lost his [bleep,]” said our on-set insider.
“He has been getting into fistfights with people, and when he passed out today, we all thought he was faking it. But then he insisted they call 911.”
[Let me get my head around this: he passed out and asked them to call 911? Yeh, well… Conversational English isn’t necessarily meant to convey meaningful information anymore, now is it?]
Some are speculating that he may not be long for the show… Good ridance to bad acting, I say. (Unless, as I have long suspected about him from past roles, the twitchy freak he plays on the show isn’t acting at all… )
Maybe the show’s producers can replace him with a role/actor who can actually add something to the show without turning my stomach.
An alternative might be to doublecheck his medications. (Thorazine, anyone? Whatever. His dosage definitely needs to be doubled.)
Neither I nor any current living member of my family was alive at the time, but “11/11/11” still evokes powerful “ghost” memories… memories I’ll never have except as ghosts of memories shared with me over the years by people who were living when WWI ended.
“Armistice Day” it was known as for years; in more recent years, Veterans Day.
Stop a moment today to remember those who have paid the price for the freedom afforded by our society. And stop also, if you would, and pray for those paying the price, today, for your safety and for the predervation of that freedom.
The question “Why study history?” finds a ready answer on an almost daily basis on Jerry Pournelle’s site. An example, built from one of the most fascinating periods of European history, the Thirty Years War:
“… the world is in much the same condition now as it was during the Thirty Years War. Calvinists in that time used the notion of Sovereignty to imprison or execute people like Grotius who believed in free expression. Sovereignty allowed repressive regimes, and gave them a legal status, which both Catholics and Protestants were quick to make use of. The year 1648 is one of those dates to remember: not only did the Treaty of Westphalia change Europe forever (one of Hitler’s avowed goals was to reverse that treaty) but the English killed their king and brought in Puritan rule to abolish Christmas and make Merrie England somber and pure. (Charles I was executed in January of what we now consider the year 1649, but in those times the year did not end on 31 December).
The world is now larger than Europe, and the United Nations isn’t united as the Papacy had been. There is no universal agreement on anything including the status of women. The United States has explicitly repudiated the notion of sovereignty as regards nations that sponsor terrorism and harbor terrorist enemies of the West. The United Nations doesn’t recognize that right.”
Besides evoking Gustavus Adolphus, one of the most fascinating and frustrating, truly pivotal persons of European history—and a good argument for the “great man” view of history, too—the model Pournelle extracts and applies to current events is provocative at the very least.
Well, Carol, you’re a better person than I am:
“Yasser Arafat is dead. May God have mercy on his soul. And now, perhaps in time, there will be a chance peace for long-suffering Palestinians and Israelis.”–Carol Platt Liebau
Yes, of course. And the sentiment is echoed throughout the blogoshere, but more common reactions from my bookmarked sites are found here, and here and here. I am particularly drawn to Jay Tea’s comment,
“Good riddance to bad rubbish
Yassir Arafat: requiescat in feces.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Ad aeternam.”
Yeh, maybe it’s a tad small of me, but why no street parties in the US of A last night, such as the Palestinians held celebrating 9/11?
Maybe the real “street partiy” is being held here. By real men.
Well, now at least, more and more terrorist scum is finding out what it means to “dance with the devil” thanks to coalition forces in Iraq.
“U.S. Marines said American forces had taken control Wednesday of 70 percent of Fallujah in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold. Major Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah. Army and Marine units had pushed south to the highway overnight, Piccoli said.”–Bakersfield Californian
(h.t. Belmont Club—where you should go to get your news on Iraq/the Fallujah push. A good clearinghouse of maps/photos of the action.)
Hmmm… some have proposed that the pull out from Fallujah last Spring was an engraved invitation for terrorists to consider Fallujah a safe haven, so as to gather as many as possible to a central “roach motel” where many (and the toll is mounting hugely) will NOT be checking out.
It’d be nice if the Israelis could consider Arafat’s entombment seremony to be a similar ingathering…
Oh. Well. At least he’s dancing with the devil, now.
“Yassir Arafat: requiescat in feces.”
Just a short note…
John Ashcroft’s resignation brings to mind some of the LLMB anti-christian bigotry of the LLMB, such as Anthony Lewis of the NYT and his comment, “…certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft.”
Hmmm, I have wondered what Lewis and his ilk would say if faced with comments built around “people like John Kerry and Bennedict Arnold”? Or “Anthony Lewis and Hermann Goebels”? (Of course, the problem with addressing the LLMB with valid similes is that they can’t see the difference between their fallacious ad hominem attacks and valid comparisons…
🙂
This comment in response to “Clowns to the Left of Me…” is typical of the experiences many have with the LLMB:
“…I have been treated like an idiot because I do not fold to the LLMB ideals. When I tried to point out that it is interesting that those on the extreme left cast those on the other side as ignorant as a part of a comment about how politics tends to polarize people- I did not receive a positive response… Guess it goes to show me that I cannot expect to have a rational conversation with LLMBs… “
The LLMB and the MMPA are generally composed of people with the intelligence to know better than to think that a closed mind is a smart thing. That they choose to close their minds to facts and reasoned argument is proof that intelligence and stupidity can coexist quite happily in the same person. In fact, their stupidity might easily be defined as willfully choosing to underperform intellectually.
Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?
(h.t. Instapundit) 
The Daily Telegraph (a Britrag) chimes in with this rhino in the livingroom comment about Nov 2:
Not since Moby Dick has a great white whale been so bloodily harpooned. It took a shocked Michael Moore, director of Fahrenheit 9/11, until yesterday to comment on the US election result. When he did, he made a lame joke, offering “reasons not to slit your own throat”. But if John Kerry’s strategists feel like slitting anyone’s throat right now, it is Mr Moore’s.
All i have to say to any LLMB and MMPA who happen upon a beached Moby Dork is, you catch ’em, you clean ’em. (But a fair warning: the blubber’s bound to be toxic. And a real mess to dispose of. I can hear the cries of “NIMBY” already… )