Dean has written short, strong article about the recent demonstration in Cologne.
Some observations:
Please note that we're talking about Turks here; Turkey has been at least theoretically peaceful and democratic for several generations. More specifically, Turks living in (generally) pacifist Germany. While the above link quotes the slogan "Hand in Hand for Peace and Against Terror," it is obvious from the article that the primary motivations of the organizers derive from fears that political assassinations such as the recent van Gogh murder will spread to Germany, as well as concerns about the peaceful assimilation of foreign-born Muslims into German society. I certainly didn't see any banners, signs, or quotes about the vicious murders in Iraq.
Also please note that most Muslim religious leaders have either stayed mum, or (the minority) have encouraged terrorist acts. Take Palestine, for example. There's a healthy minority who still think bin Laden is some sort of Jesse James/Robin Hood outlaw, defying the oppressive West.
After that, please note that the image of holy war is still very popular in Islam, whereas most of the Christian churches burned that out of their system back in the 17th century.
So I have to conclude that Dean's position -which insists that Muslims are just misunderstood peace-lovers- does not correspond to the facts.
Or, if I wanted to be snarky, I could say something clever like "I'll see you Cologne, and raise you 9/11, the Indonesia bombings, and all the Arabs who danced in the streets after 9/11. But that wouldn't prove much.
On the other hand, this doesn't mean that "Muslims are all bloodthirsty jihadists" is true. I would have to say that most contemporary Muslims are more susceptible to that kind of bloody imagery than most Christians or Jews; I suspect that Christians are more resistant (or at least, less enthusiastic) because we had our faces rubbed into the filthy results of holy war four centuries ago, while the only historical memories Muslim Arabs have are of Saladin driving out the Crusaders.
Iraqis are getting a faceful of those kind of results right now, especially in Fallujah. I suspect that vicious behavior displayed by the animals in Iraq and Russia repel most normal Muslims, and force them to ask themselves what they really believe in. In fact, I believe that many bloggers -including Dean- have linked to the beginning of several public dialogs on that point; Muslims are starting to ask themselves "Just why are most of the terrorists in today's world Muslim?"
Citing Cologne as an example that Islam is a peace-loving religion is neither statistically nor rhetorically accurate. I could just as easily find enough Christians to hold a demonstration in support of Ann Coulter's suggestion that "we kill them all, or convert them." A more reliable analysis would examine Muslim attitudes around the entire globe. And, as I pointed out above, the majority of Muslim religious leaders are -at best- silent about terrorist actions.
Also, let me repeat that disagreement with Dean doesn't mean that I accept the obverse claim that Islam is a religion of blood and holy war. Oh, it can be, but that's not necessarily a fundamental element of Islam. Let us recall some of the marvelous civilizations which came from a blend of Arab Islam and European Christianity, such as southern Spain before the reconquista. In fact, Arab Islamic interest in learning helped preserve many works from Classical civilization, which were later transferred back to Europe through Italy and the Renaissance.
It's a complex question, and a simple, binary definition of the question -whether Islam is a religion of blood, or peace- doesn't do the topic justice.
Still, I believe that Dean's inclinations point toward what will become true in the future. Modern Islam is looking into a mirror, and I suspect that most Muslims don't like what they see.
This is truly excruciating. I've lost all web access from the house. Arrgh.
Right now I'm blogging from the Fairfield Lane Public Library. It's a lovely place, really. This reminds me I should post some photos of the library, and the adjacent fine arts building they're finishing now.
In any case, I'm limited to 45 minutes/logon, although one librarian hinted that special circumstances might persuade them to extend that. (note to self: look into that)
So blogging may be limited the next few days. Neither I nor Time-Warner is sure how long it will take to get my service back. I might even blog about it. So far the RoadRunner folks have been working hard to take care of me.
With a tip o' the hat to Sgt. Hook (soon to be Sergeant Major Hook):
A cowboy in Montana got pulled over by a State Trooper for speeding. The trooper started to lecture the cowboy about his speeding, and in general began to throw his weight around to try to make the cowboy feel uncomfortable. Finally, the trooper got around to writing out the ticket. As he was doing that, he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head.The cowboy said, “Having some problem with Circle flies there, are ya?”
The trooper stopped writing the ticket and said, “Well yeah, if that’s what they are. I never heard of Circle flies.”
So the cowboy says, “Well, circle flies are common on ranches. See, they’re called circle flies because they’re almost always found circling around the back end of a horse.”
The trooper says, “Oh,” and goes back to writing the ticket. Then after a minute, he stops and says, “Are you trying to call me a horse’s ass?”
The cowboy says, “Oh no, officer. I have too much respect for law enforcement and police officers to even think about calling you a horse’s ass.”
The trooper says, “Well that’s a good thing,” and goes back to writing the ticket.
After a long pause, the cowboy says, “Hard to fool them flies though.”
From a friend:
I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.
Unfortunately, I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.
I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.
Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.
The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.
Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”
A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.
Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install because of insufficient resources.
P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.
Ok, it's time to crash for the evening.
With 97% of the votes counted, Bush is showing at least a 120,000 vote edge.
And yes, I know, there's a lot of absentee ballots that have to be cast. I'll bet you money they're mostly military personel, and we all know how that's going to break.
Seriously, the absentees would have to break at 75/25 for Kerry (maybe more) for him to win. It's over. And someone tell idiot Mary Beth Cahill to shut up, and leave!
I'm callin' it 286-251, in favor of Bush. If you want to see my breakdown, check out the extended post below.
Bush:
ALABAMA - 9
ALASKA - 3
ARIZONA - 10
ARKANSAS - 6
COLORADO - 9
FLORIDA - 27
GEORGIA - 15
IDAHO - 4
INDIANA - 11
IOWA - 7
KANSAS - 6
KENTUCKY - 8
LOUISIANA - 9
MISSISSIPPI - 6
MISSOURI - 11
MONTANA - 3
NEBRASKA - 5
NEVADA - 5
NEW MEXICO - 5
NORTH CAROLINA - 15
NORTH DAKOTA - 3
OHIO - 20
OKLAHOMA - 7
SOUTH CAROLINA - 8
SOUTH DAKOTA - 3
TENNESSEE - 11
TEXAS - 34
UTAH - 5
VIRGINIA - 13
WEST VIRGINIA - 5
WYOMING - 3
Total: Bush 286
Kerry:
CALIFORNIA - 55
CONNECTICUT - 7
DELAWARE - 3
DC - 3
HAWAII - 4
MAINE - 4
MARYLAND - 10
MASSACHUSETTS - 12
MICHIGAN - 17
MINNESOTA - 10
NEW HAMPSHIRE - 4
NEW JERSEY - 15
NEW YORK - 31
OREGON - 7
PENNSYLVANIA - 21
RHODE ISLAND - 4
VERMONT - 3 or 4?
VIRGINIA - 13
WASHINGTON - 11
WISCONSIN - 10
Total Kerry: 251
Read it, and weep, guys.
Dean Esmay has done a magnificent job of interviewing several Swift Boat vets, and now he presents #3, Steve Gardner, gunner's mate on PCF 44. The boat that John Kerry commanded in Vietnam.
This stuff is "must" reading for anyone, Democrat, Republican, or Independant, who is honestly curious about Kerry's history, and the men who saw him in action.
While you're over there, check out his other interviews:
Van Odell
George Elliot
After you're done reading, tell everyone you know...