Sources today (4/1/08) are telling the AP that behind the scenes former president Jimmy Carter is offering himself to the Democratic Party as the presidential candidate for 2008. Carter operatives, reportedly are trying to convice Howard Dean and other party leaders that Obama and Clinton have polarized Democrats so badly that neither can unify the party in November. Carter is reported to have said that if he could bring Arabs and Israelis together at Camp David for an agreement, he can bring warring Democrats together.
Full story here.
Full story here.
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Brits at Their Best links to an article in The Independent on the current archealogical excavations at Stonehenge plus current theories. It may have served as a healing center.
01/04: Unconventional Wisdom
Michael Barone, perhaps the nation's foremost political pundit, has made a most unusual prediction: Hillary wins the popular vote, but Obama wins the delegate count.
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: an okie gardener
I never really appreciated the Checkers Speech given by Richard Nixon in 1952 until I read this.
Everyman Nixon.
Everyman Nixon.
The day before all Hell broke lose regarding The Speech, Ron Fournier filed a story for the AP in which he claimed, Obama "bordered on arrogance."
Fournier:
"If arrogance is a display of self-importance and superiority, Obama earns the pejorative every time he calls his pre-invasion opposition to the war in Iraq an act of courage.
"While he deserves credit for forecasting the complications of war in 2002, Obama's opposition carried scant political risk because he was a little-known state lawmaker courting liberal voters in Illinois. In 2004, when denouncing the war and war-enabling Democrats would have jeopardized his prized speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, Obama ducked the issue.
"It may be that he has just the right mix of confidence and humility to lead the nation (Obama likes to say, 'I'm reminded every day that I'm not a perfect man'). But if the young senator wins the nomination, even the smallest trace of arrogance will be an issue with voters who still consider him a blank slate."
The Speech swept this trenchant observation piece away on a tidal wave of immediate analysis specific to the unfolding crisis--but Fournier, as always, was spot-on when it comes to character study.
An Aside: Fournier is an equal-opportunity iconoclast, unrelentingly fair and impartial as he is blistering in his critiques. You may remember these earlier pieces critical to the Clintons, which were devastatingly perceptive: here and here.
Now we learn somewhat inadvertently from John Heilemann, writing a "will she or won't she for the good of the party" piece for New York Magazine, that Obama clumsily squandered a logical John Edwards endorsement back in February.
How did he boot the fairly routine play?
According to Heilemann, "Obama came across as glib and aloof" with the vanquished but still very proud couple:
"His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate."
One more piece of anecdotal evidence. Several of my female colleagues (not all of them Hillary supporters) have been telling me for months now that Obama is too arrogant and patronizing.
In terms of arrogance, ironically, Obama is reminiscent of George Bush in 2000 in that both men emerged inexperienced and relatively unknown--but likable and supremely confident. Like Senator Obama, Governor Bush marshaled his light resume as an asset: he would set a "new tone" in Washington and be a "uniter not a divider." Of course, a suspicious press corps raised the specter of "gravitas" in 2000, and Mr. Bush faced nagging questions back then regarding his "smirk" and his "swagger." Thus far, for the most part, Candidate Obama has fairly skirted similar pejorative personality assessments.
But perhaps the honeymoon is coming to an end. Perhaps "arrogance" is the next nettlesome hurdle for the junior senator from Illinois.
Fournier:
"If arrogance is a display of self-importance and superiority, Obama earns the pejorative every time he calls his pre-invasion opposition to the war in Iraq an act of courage.
"While he deserves credit for forecasting the complications of war in 2002, Obama's opposition carried scant political risk because he was a little-known state lawmaker courting liberal voters in Illinois. In 2004, when denouncing the war and war-enabling Democrats would have jeopardized his prized speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, Obama ducked the issue.
"It may be that he has just the right mix of confidence and humility to lead the nation (Obama likes to say, 'I'm reminded every day that I'm not a perfect man'). But if the young senator wins the nomination, even the smallest trace of arrogance will be an issue with voters who still consider him a blank slate."
The Speech swept this trenchant observation piece away on a tidal wave of immediate analysis specific to the unfolding crisis--but Fournier, as always, was spot-on when it comes to character study.
An Aside: Fournier is an equal-opportunity iconoclast, unrelentingly fair and impartial as he is blistering in his critiques. You may remember these earlier pieces critical to the Clintons, which were devastatingly perceptive: here and here.
Now we learn somewhat inadvertently from John Heilemann, writing a "will she or won't she for the good of the party" piece for New York Magazine, that Obama clumsily squandered a logical John Edwards endorsement back in February.
How did he boot the fairly routine play?
According to Heilemann, "Obama came across as glib and aloof" with the vanquished but still very proud couple:
"His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate."
One more piece of anecdotal evidence. Several of my female colleagues (not all of them Hillary supporters) have been telling me for months now that Obama is too arrogant and patronizing.
In terms of arrogance, ironically, Obama is reminiscent of George Bush in 2000 in that both men emerged inexperienced and relatively unknown--but likable and supremely confident. Like Senator Obama, Governor Bush marshaled his light resume as an asset: he would set a "new tone" in Washington and be a "uniter not a divider." Of course, a suspicious press corps raised the specter of "gravitas" in 2000, and Mr. Bush faced nagging questions back then regarding his "smirk" and his "swagger." Thus far, for the most part, Candidate Obama has fairly skirted similar pejorative personality assessments.
But perhaps the honeymoon is coming to an end. Perhaps "arrogance" is the next nettlesome hurdle for the junior senator from Illinois.
30/03: The War Against Culture
Edmund Burke famously described society as a contract between the living, the dead, and the unborn. But modern society increasingly seems preoccupied with only the living. Most people are so immersed in the demands of the present that they give little or no thought to the past or the future.
Thankfully, Patrick Deneen is not like most people. An Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, Deneen is the Founding Director of the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy. Last week, he gave a powerful speech at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Here are just a few snippets:
"[E]verywhere we see around us the ruins of once vibrant culture. Most of us know little or nothing of how to produce food. More and more of us cannot build, cannot fix, cannot track, cannot tell time by looking in the sky, cannot locate the constellations, cannot hunt, cannot skin or butcher, cannot cook, cannot can, cannot make wine, cannot play instruments, and if we can, often do not know the songs of our culture by which to entertain a variety of generations, cannot dance, cannot remember long passages of poetry, don’t know the Bible, cannot spin or knit, cannot sew or darn, cannot chop wood or forage for mushrooms, cannot make a rock wall, cannot tell the kinds of trees by leaves or the kinds of birds by shape of wing – and I could continue this list for a good while longer. My grandmother could do most of the things on this list and a whole bunch more. And by many measures, our time would regard her as uneducated. They would regard her as “simple” in spite of the complexity of things she knew how to do. But, if the lights went out tomorrow, she would have been the smartest person we know; she would have seen us through, and not our college professors. She’s gone now, and much that knowledge has been laid to rest with her because, by the time of my generation, we didn’t need to know those things anymore."
"Most people would respond to this list with perhaps a modicum of regret, wishing at least that we could track – how cool is that! – but also recognizing that we don’t HAVE to. After all, we have GPS systems for getting around, and industrial agriculture for food production, cheap clothing from China so that we don’t have to make or repair clothes, cheap labor from Mexico so that we don’t have to build or fix, and the internet for everything else…."
"But this is precisely the point: within roughly two generations we have lost a vast storehouse of cultural memory that was the accumulation of countless generations who saw it as their duty to posterity, and based in gratitude toward ancestors, to ensure safe passage of this knowledge to future generations. Culture has been viewed as disposable based upon the illusion of independence from nature that our modern technologies have bequeathed us. Why spend time diligently learning at the side of your father how to repair a bucket or navigate by the stars or milk a cow when every young person knows that a machine will do this work or cheap products are readily available? Every adult and child knows that if you have a problem with a computer, you go to the youngest person in the family for advice about how to repair it: ancestral knowledge has been replaced by the constantly up to date. So, too, we professors are told that we need to adapt our teaching to the modern technologies utilized by our students, as if these won’t in fact influence the teachings themselves."
"If all technologies ultimately replace themselves with something else, we are living in a time when our technologies are replacing the original and essential human technology of culture. However, if culture is one of the preconditions for technology of all sorts that make us human, then we are employing technology in ways that increasingly dehumanizes ourselves, that prevents us from becoming human beings. By destroying nature and culture, we ultimately destroy ourselves."
What do you think? Is our love affair with technology and progress eradicating something fundamental about our human nature? Should we be concerned?
Read the whole thing here.
Thankfully, Patrick Deneen is not like most people. An Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, Deneen is the Founding Director of the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy. Last week, he gave a powerful speech at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Here are just a few snippets:
"[E]verywhere we see around us the ruins of once vibrant culture. Most of us know little or nothing of how to produce food. More and more of us cannot build, cannot fix, cannot track, cannot tell time by looking in the sky, cannot locate the constellations, cannot hunt, cannot skin or butcher, cannot cook, cannot can, cannot make wine, cannot play instruments, and if we can, often do not know the songs of our culture by which to entertain a variety of generations, cannot dance, cannot remember long passages of poetry, don’t know the Bible, cannot spin or knit, cannot sew or darn, cannot chop wood or forage for mushrooms, cannot make a rock wall, cannot tell the kinds of trees by leaves or the kinds of birds by shape of wing – and I could continue this list for a good while longer. My grandmother could do most of the things on this list and a whole bunch more. And by many measures, our time would regard her as uneducated. They would regard her as “simple” in spite of the complexity of things she knew how to do. But, if the lights went out tomorrow, she would have been the smartest person we know; she would have seen us through, and not our college professors. She’s gone now, and much that knowledge has been laid to rest with her because, by the time of my generation, we didn’t need to know those things anymore."
"Most people would respond to this list with perhaps a modicum of regret, wishing at least that we could track – how cool is that! – but also recognizing that we don’t HAVE to. After all, we have GPS systems for getting around, and industrial agriculture for food production, cheap clothing from China so that we don’t have to make or repair clothes, cheap labor from Mexico so that we don’t have to build or fix, and the internet for everything else…."
"But this is precisely the point: within roughly two generations we have lost a vast storehouse of cultural memory that was the accumulation of countless generations who saw it as their duty to posterity, and based in gratitude toward ancestors, to ensure safe passage of this knowledge to future generations. Culture has been viewed as disposable based upon the illusion of independence from nature that our modern technologies have bequeathed us. Why spend time diligently learning at the side of your father how to repair a bucket or navigate by the stars or milk a cow when every young person knows that a machine will do this work or cheap products are readily available? Every adult and child knows that if you have a problem with a computer, you go to the youngest person in the family for advice about how to repair it: ancestral knowledge has been replaced by the constantly up to date. So, too, we professors are told that we need to adapt our teaching to the modern technologies utilized by our students, as if these won’t in fact influence the teachings themselves."
"If all technologies ultimately replace themselves with something else, we are living in a time when our technologies are replacing the original and essential human technology of culture. However, if culture is one of the preconditions for technology of all sorts that make us human, then we are employing technology in ways that increasingly dehumanizes ourselves, that prevents us from becoming human beings. By destroying nature and culture, we ultimately destroy ourselves."
What do you think? Is our love affair with technology and progress eradicating something fundamental about our human nature? Should we be concerned?
Read the whole thing here.
The talk of an impending implosion for the Blue Team continues to rage.
In a nutshell: the conventional wisdom of the moment confidently asserts that a rancorous primary equals a big loss in November.
This storyline is mostly driven by partisans for the candidate slightly ahead right now, who see advantage in prematurely calling the contest on account of damp underpants, and a press corps that lacks a sense of history or the ability to take the long view--but loves to push the panic button and breathlessly report on an onrushing cataclysm.
An aside: none of us are very good at predicting the future--but no cohort in America is any less prescient than the jittery chattering class of mainstream media impalas, nervously sniffing the wind, kibitzing with one another as they pass the time between dashing off to the next stampede.
There is a crisis looming for the Democrats--but it is a brand of trouble that they all seem completely blind to at the moment. The Democratic Party is not positioning itself very wisely for a general election.
First, the good news for Democrats.
No matter what happens between now and August, this remains a Democratic year.
The eventual Democratic candidate of 2008 will run buoyed by intense George W. Bush fatigue. The electorate is restless with an unpopular five-year war with no end in sight, and the uncertainty concerning the economy always plays in favor of the out-party.
The eventual Democratic candidate of 2008 will run against a presumptive Republican nominee who is seventy-one-years-old, who is admittedly inexpert on the economic questions, and who stubbornly (albeit bravely) advocates extending the five-year war indefinitely.
Bottom Line. Incontrovertible Fact. This is a good year to run as a Democrat.
However, for the first time in a long time, I am starting to believe that John McCain has a slim chance to prevail in November.
But not for all the conventional hand-wringing reasons we keep hearing presently.
Why might McCain actually have a chance?
The unique and thoroughly unpredictable Obama Phenomenon has pushed the Democratic party well to the left of traditional viability.
Obama is the most unapologetically liberal candidate to seriously contend for the Democratic nomination since George McGovern.
Obama is unabashedly against the war in Iraq. He is no less adamant on this point than Dennis Kucinich.
Anti-war candidates do not get elected president of the United States. Never. Not once.
Mrs. Clinton certainly understood this, which is why she began her campaign for the nomination as a centrist Democrat, strong on defense, tough as nails on terrorism, and committed to success in Iraq.
But then came unforeseen calamities between the Tigris and the Euprhates--and then came Obama. When she voted for the war back in 2002, she bet on a more competent Bush administration and a few more of the intangibles breaking our way--but Iraq surprised everyone. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton is the only person in America who had more to lose from a mishandled Iraq than George Bush.
A festering Iraq opened up the door for O--and he did the rest with his charisma, oratory, message of reconciliation, and implicit offer of racial redemption.
But the Obama Juggernaut comes with a price. Not only is Obama anti-war, he is for higher taxes, national health insurance, more social programs, a radically liberal view of America and its place in the world, and a whole host of things to which most Americans are completely unsympathetic.
These are views that Republicans take great pains to project on a Democratic candidate (oftentimes needing to exaggerate for political purposes). There will be no distortion necessary in the case of Obama. He is the genuine article.
If Obama wins the nomination, Democrats will need to hold their breath for three months, hoping that the "spell" does not wear off before the first Tuesday in November. For, stripped of the magic, Obama's views on public policy and political philosophy are not the stuff of successful general election campaigns.
And, even if Mrs. Clinton "steals" the nomination between now and August, she has tarried too long in the left-wing morass: parroting his anti-Iraq rhetoric, bad-mouthing free trade, and promising billions to every American in need. She had no choice: she had to either move left or get crushed--nevertheless, there she is, spinning her wheels in the soft turf of liberal disconnect.
Mrs. Clinton has enough political acumen to start steering back toward the center line ASAP--but is it too late? Will she be able to gain traction? Has she gone too far? Specifically, would she lose all credibility, if she suddenly started speaking sanely on Iraq again for a general election audience?
Of course, let me repeat, this is such a dismal year for the GOP--none of that may matter. But it gives McCain some hope.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers; it is always an honor--but we especially appreciate the company. In tribute to the Senator from CT, here is the BB "Lieberman file" from 2006.
In a nutshell: the conventional wisdom of the moment confidently asserts that a rancorous primary equals a big loss in November.
This storyline is mostly driven by partisans for the candidate slightly ahead right now, who see advantage in prematurely calling the contest on account of damp underpants, and a press corps that lacks a sense of history or the ability to take the long view--but loves to push the panic button and breathlessly report on an onrushing cataclysm.
An aside: none of us are very good at predicting the future--but no cohort in America is any less prescient than the jittery chattering class of mainstream media impalas, nervously sniffing the wind, kibitzing with one another as they pass the time between dashing off to the next stampede.
There is a crisis looming for the Democrats--but it is a brand of trouble that they all seem completely blind to at the moment. The Democratic Party is not positioning itself very wisely for a general election.
First, the good news for Democrats.
No matter what happens between now and August, this remains a Democratic year.
The eventual Democratic candidate of 2008 will run buoyed by intense George W. Bush fatigue. The electorate is restless with an unpopular five-year war with no end in sight, and the uncertainty concerning the economy always plays in favor of the out-party.
The eventual Democratic candidate of 2008 will run against a presumptive Republican nominee who is seventy-one-years-old, who is admittedly inexpert on the economic questions, and who stubbornly (albeit bravely) advocates extending the five-year war indefinitely.
Bottom Line. Incontrovertible Fact. This is a good year to run as a Democrat.
However, for the first time in a long time, I am starting to believe that John McCain has a slim chance to prevail in November.
But not for all the conventional hand-wringing reasons we keep hearing presently.
Why might McCain actually have a chance?
The unique and thoroughly unpredictable Obama Phenomenon has pushed the Democratic party well to the left of traditional viability.
Obama is the most unapologetically liberal candidate to seriously contend for the Democratic nomination since George McGovern.
Obama is unabashedly against the war in Iraq. He is no less adamant on this point than Dennis Kucinich.
Anti-war candidates do not get elected president of the United States. Never. Not once.
Mrs. Clinton certainly understood this, which is why she began her campaign for the nomination as a centrist Democrat, strong on defense, tough as nails on terrorism, and committed to success in Iraq.
But then came unforeseen calamities between the Tigris and the Euprhates--and then came Obama. When she voted for the war back in 2002, she bet on a more competent Bush administration and a few more of the intangibles breaking our way--but Iraq surprised everyone. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton is the only person in America who had more to lose from a mishandled Iraq than George Bush.
A festering Iraq opened up the door for O--and he did the rest with his charisma, oratory, message of reconciliation, and implicit offer of racial redemption.
But the Obama Juggernaut comes with a price. Not only is Obama anti-war, he is for higher taxes, national health insurance, more social programs, a radically liberal view of America and its place in the world, and a whole host of things to which most Americans are completely unsympathetic.
These are views that Republicans take great pains to project on a Democratic candidate (oftentimes needing to exaggerate for political purposes). There will be no distortion necessary in the case of Obama. He is the genuine article.
If Obama wins the nomination, Democrats will need to hold their breath for three months, hoping that the "spell" does not wear off before the first Tuesday in November. For, stripped of the magic, Obama's views on public policy and political philosophy are not the stuff of successful general election campaigns.
And, even if Mrs. Clinton "steals" the nomination between now and August, she has tarried too long in the left-wing morass: parroting his anti-Iraq rhetoric, bad-mouthing free trade, and promising billions to every American in need. She had no choice: she had to either move left or get crushed--nevertheless, there she is, spinning her wheels in the soft turf of liberal disconnect.
Mrs. Clinton has enough political acumen to start steering back toward the center line ASAP--but is it too late? Will she be able to gain traction? Has she gone too far? Specifically, would she lose all credibility, if she suddenly started speaking sanely on Iraq again for a general election audience?
Of course, let me repeat, this is such a dismal year for the GOP--none of that may matter. But it gives McCain some hope.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers; it is always an honor--but we especially appreciate the company. In tribute to the Senator from CT, here is the BB "Lieberman file" from 2006.
28/03: Political History 101
History Pop Quiz. True or false.
The 2008 nomination contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is unprecedented in its length and ferocity. We have never had a race go this far into March before.
The above statements are positively erroneous. This is what happens when we turn history over to journalists and partisans.
Not so long ago.
A review of some recent political history:
Remember Bobby Kennedy's final public utterance before tragically falling to an assassin's bullet back in 1968?
"It's on to Chicago and let's win there."
Where was he? What was in Chicago? What was the date?
RFK spoke from a ballroom in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, celebrating a crucial victory in the just-concluded California primary, emerging with momentum in the midst of a tight three-way race for his party's nomination. He was alluding to the convention in Chicago (to be held later that year in August).
The Date?
Kennedy addressed his temporarily ecstatic supporters in the wee hours of June 5, 1968.
JUNE 5!!!
When was the last time a nomination campaign raged into June?
1976.
Eventual Democratic nominee and eventual general election winner, Jimmy Carter, faced fierce competition from serious (albeit late-entering) candidates Frank Church and Jerry Brown during May and June.
For the Republicans that year, incumbent president Jerry Ford did not secure his nomination until the GOP National Convention in Kansas City in AUGUST.
Were the above examples merely aberrations? Throughout the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, candidates fought tenaciously to secure their party's nominations, more often than not hammering away at one another during the dog days of August.
This idea that contested races for nomination are without precedent is convincing only as long as your grasp of history does not extend past last week.
A better question: is extended and vicious intra-party squabbling a precursor to disaster in the fall?
Short Answer: oftentimes--but not always. More on that in our next session...
The 2008 nomination contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is unprecedented in its length and ferocity. We have never had a race go this far into March before.
The above statements are positively erroneous. This is what happens when we turn history over to journalists and partisans.
Not so long ago.
A review of some recent political history:
Remember Bobby Kennedy's final public utterance before tragically falling to an assassin's bullet back in 1968?
"It's on to Chicago and let's win there."
Where was he? What was in Chicago? What was the date?
RFK spoke from a ballroom in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, celebrating a crucial victory in the just-concluded California primary, emerging with momentum in the midst of a tight three-way race for his party's nomination. He was alluding to the convention in Chicago (to be held later that year in August).
The Date?
Kennedy addressed his temporarily ecstatic supporters in the wee hours of June 5, 1968.
JUNE 5!!!
When was the last time a nomination campaign raged into June?
1976.
Eventual Democratic nominee and eventual general election winner, Jimmy Carter, faced fierce competition from serious (albeit late-entering) candidates Frank Church and Jerry Brown during May and June.
For the Republicans that year, incumbent president Jerry Ford did not secure his nomination until the GOP National Convention in Kansas City in AUGUST.
Were the above examples merely aberrations? Throughout the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, candidates fought tenaciously to secure their party's nominations, more often than not hammering away at one another during the dog days of August.
This idea that contested races for nomination are without precedent is convincing only as long as your grasp of history does not extend past last week.
A better question: is extended and vicious intra-party squabbling a precursor to disaster in the fall?
Short Answer: oftentimes--but not always. More on that in our next session...
28/03: Must See Video Movie: Fitna
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
Gateway Pundit has links to sites still showing the movie Fitna by Geert Wilder. However, the movie is having trouble maintaining itself on the internet. So much for the power of the internet to promote truth in the face of violence.
The movie should put to rest any simple acceptance of Islam as the Religion of Peace. As I've said before, the group using a term must define the term. "Peace" in Islam means the peace of submission. If one does not submit, then no peace, only pieces.
UPDATE: Muslims are reinforcing the message of the film by their reaction to it. Full story.
AMSTERDAM -- The controversial anti-Muslim film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been removed from the Web by its British Internet provider, which said its employees have been seriously threatened.
"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature and some ill-informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, LiveLeak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove 'Fitna' from our servers," the company said.
The movie should put to rest any simple acceptance of Islam as the Religion of Peace. As I've said before, the group using a term must define the term. "Peace" in Islam means the peace of submission. If one does not submit, then no peace, only pieces.
UPDATE: Muslims are reinforcing the message of the film by their reaction to it. Full story.
AMSTERDAM -- The controversial anti-Muslim film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been removed from the Web by its British Internet provider, which said its employees have been seriously threatened.
"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature and some ill-informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, LiveLeak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove 'Fitna' from our servers," the company said.
28/03: Brother Gorbachev
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
In case you missed it, here is the article in the Telegraph on Mikhail Gorbachev coming out of the closet and admitting he is a Christian. Reagan suspected as much.
