Redefining NASA
[Guest post by DRJ]
There was a time when the mission of NASA — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — was “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.” Not anymore:
“In the video below, Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the “foremost” task President Obama has given him is “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.” Thus, NASA’s primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of “predominantly Muslim nations.”
Exploring space didn’t even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are “re-inspire children to want to get into science and math” and “expand our international relationships.”
Imagine the possibilities when little things like agency mission statements no longer apply.
— DRJ
Sure, have NASA improve IEDs and homicide bombers in the name of getting along with Islam.
PCD (74533b) — 7/4/2010 @ 7:52 pmSee what we reap from our wonderful PC educational system? Sheesh.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 7/4/2010 @ 7:53 pmTell me it ain’t so, please!
This sounds too absurd for even an Onion post.
Is Charles Bolden such a partisan hack that he likes delivering this kind of message? Or does he have a wife and kids to support and doesn’t want to risk needing to find another job?
Has it now become standard protocol for US officials to be interviewed by Al Jazeera?
I never took much stock in the “Obama is a Muslim under cover” conspiracy stuff, I thought his being friends with domestic terrorists and a hard leftist were enough to believe. But having government agencies giving interviews to Al Jazeera to boost Muslim morale…(Shakes head and mutters- I thought I’d seen enough already, what’s next? wait- I didn’t mean that- I don’t really want to know.)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/4/2010 @ 8:18 pmMay I suggest this was propaganda designed for Muslim ears, since it was on alJazeera?
kishnevi (fb9343) — 7/4/2010 @ 8:37 pmWhy do they even try anymore?
Now that we don’t inspire any more “October Sky’s”, it’s time to shut this turkey down, or sell it to Burt Rutan.
AD - RtR/OS! (ed07ac) — 7/4/2010 @ 8:55 pmIt’s all about ‘restoring science to it’s rightful place,’ which means AGW, a decade at least away from
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/4/2010 @ 9:11 pmmanned space travel of any kind, crazy energy consevation ideas like painting roads white,
I’m about eight minutes into the Al Jazeera video. My mouth is agape in disbelief. In the immortal words of Jack Buck, “I cannot believe what I just saw!”
About three minutes in, this toady is blaming Bush — BY NAME — for changing the focus of the Constellation project from landing on Mars to returning to the moon “but not do anything.” Bolden then talks up Obama for wanting to go into deep space, but then says, yes, we’ll go back to the moon first. But what they really want to do is study asteroids, which could potentially strike the earth, he adds.
(OK, now we’re getting somewhere. If we need to stop an asteroid headed for America, let’s just tell the Muslim astronauts it’s headed for Mecca, and they can fly space shuttles carrying ICBMs into it as if it was the World Trade Center!)
But seriously, this is the most ridiculous, condescending load of crap I’ve seen come out of the Obama Administration since … well, last week’s BHO immigration speech, but that’s beside the point. Bolden pretty much lays out in the first minute of the interview that he has come to the Jazzoff studios to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Obama’s suckup speech in Cairo, and wants to let AJ viewers know NASA is doing its part to help drag the Muslim world into the mid-twentieth century before we get too deep into the twenty-first. The AJ interviewer is just eating it up with a spork, either because he is simpatico with the Obama doctrine, or he doesn’t know enough about American politics to know the difference between chocolate mousse and steer manure.
L.N. Smithee (c6b856) — 7/4/2010 @ 10:37 pmFrom the NASA Advisory Council meeting minutes on Febriary 18-19 of this year:
“At the President’s request, NASA is also reaching out to predominantly Muslim nations. In the coming year, NASA may be able to enter into agreements with countries like Indonesia. This past year the Agency signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel for work involving the Lunar Science Institute (LSI). It is very significant when geographic neighbors who can’t talk to each other understand the critical importance of cooperating in science and scientific exploration.”
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/4/2010 @ 10:43 pm#4:
No.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/4/2010 @ 10:46 pmComment by daleyrocks — 7/4/2010 @ 10:43 pm
Because we all know of the preeminent scientific accomplishments of the Muslim World, in the Ninth Century.
AD - RtR/OS! (ed07ac) — 7/4/2010 @ 11:38 pmAD – They keep the accomplishments hidden so as not to shame us.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/4/2010 @ 11:43 pmEither that or the Joooooos stole them.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/4/2010 @ 11:44 pmThey never steal, they are just better hagglers.
AD - RtR/OS! (ed07ac) — 7/4/2010 @ 11:53 pmWhat do you expect when we elect a “community organizer” as President. Obama’s whole career has been as an agitator and gadfly, making people believe that “They CAN!” or “It’s someone else’s fault!”
He has never built a single thing, other than a political organization. It is all he knows. Problem is, we expect him to run the largest organization on earth, and he is profoundly uninterested. No big surprise when he falls back to make-believe.
Kevin Murphy (5ae73e) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:27 amIsn’t it the job of the Muslim leadership to inspire the Muslim world to do something besides put curtains over womens heads and teach how to emplace IEDs? WTF is the American president doing this for? Next we’ll have an AA program for 100,000 Indonesian kids to study at universities all across the country so they can work at NASA and US kids are stuck in US public schools learning about Obama’s pant creases or something. How fitting….
ted c (599799) — 7/5/2010 @ 3:09 amWhat? WHAT!!!
This absolutely defies description. What exactly does our Chimpanzee-In-Feces think that the “N” in NASA stands for?
Last time I looked it stood for “National”.
Then again, the last time I looked there were quite a few in the Muslim world that already know how to make rockets.
Icy Texan (80d2e7) — 7/5/2010 @ 3:24 amSure you can, kishnevi, and what a super idea! Keep telling the underachievers that we couldn’t have done anything without their help. John Vasconcellos (D) used that strategy with his “Self-Esteem” campaign for California’s yutes and it”s gone swimmingly well.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 5:42 am“Bolden then talks up Obama for wanting to go into deep space”
I think sending El Jefe out to deep space is a fine idea.
Dave Surls (a79ef0) — 7/5/2010 @ 6:35 amSounds to me like there is a NASA IG itching to get himself fired.
Hootie -Blowfish (cc6bde) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:08 amBolden is a retired US Marine Corps general, and thus doesn’t need the job given his military pension. That he hasn’t resigned in protest to this directive is beyond disgraceful.
Horatio (e2e328) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:17 amMy mama wants to go to deep space!
(With apologies to Sgt. Foley.)
Good Lord almighty. Go to deep
space? That sounds just like an
Obama plan: go out to the middle
of no where.
How about going to another planet,
Jack (e383ed) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:39 amyou moron.
Ground control to major Tom
Horatio (e2e328) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:41 amGround control to major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
(Ten) Ground control (Nine) to major Tom (Eight)
(Seven, six) Commencing countdown (Five), engines on (Four)
(Three, two) Check ignition (One) and may gods (Blastoff) love be with you
Iran’s self-esteem is about to hit an all time high with their nuke.
Patricia (160852) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:14 amGeneral M.–
kishnevi (e9a2a0) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:14 am1)What is a “yute”? Sounds like a vegetable to me.
2)You’re obviously unaware of the finer points of sucking up to people. Flattery is a form of propaganda. And if you don’t know how propaganda works, and why we need to use some in the Muslim world–well, then, it’s no wonder you fall for the GOP’s propaganda in the way you demonstrate in the Palin thread.
Jindal/Christie 2012. I want to live in a country governed by people who know how to govern. Not racist asshats elected by stupid ,self-loathing schmucks that f**ked our country for the past 40 years.
pitchforksntorches (888cb1) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:38 amDan Riehl links to this for another perspective on NASA hope-n-change.
Not sure if the IG or Bolden will get thrown under the booster first. My money’s on the IG (getting thrown).
Red County Pete (3abb44) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:39 amI wonder why Bolden’s son’s middle name is Che ? The whole thing is odd.
The Muslim (really Arab) Age of Translation lasted about 200 years. They translated Greek writings in math and science. Since the literature and plays were “infidel” writings and of no use to Muslims, they were lost. The translators were Greek speaking Christians who had “converted” and thus were acceptable.
Harun al Rashid and his son were really the sponsors. The other Muslim rulers were uninterested. When the Ottomans came (The Turks conquered the Arabs), all science stopped.
We refer to “Arabic numbers” and credit the Arabs for our numbers but they stole them from the Hindus. There were a few real accomplishments in mathematics although things like algebra existed before Islam. They did discover alcohol and I thank them for that.
I doubt Obama knows enough history to understand any of this.
Mike K (82f374) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:56 amSorry, kishnevi… my use of the term “yute” was a throwback to my New York upbringing.
So… the primary mission of NASA (Bolden’s foremost task) is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of “predominantly Muslim nations.”
I may be old school, but I’ve never thought that blowing smoke up some asses ever accomplished much good. Contemporary liberalism is all about that… competition, bad… everyone’s a winner, good.
And you’ve just unwittingly highlighted the very thing that contributed to Obama’s election: a masterful smoke job performed on a lot of people whose primary objective was not to elect the person best able to help better these United States of America, but make them feel good about themselves.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 8:56 amMore the Seljuk rather than the Ottomans, most advances collapsed around 1258 the time of the Mongol invasion of Baghdad
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:01 amFlattery is a form of propaganda. And if you don’t know how propaganda works, and why we need to use some in the Muslim world–well, then, it’s no wonder you fall for the GOP’s propaganda in the way you demonstrate in the Palin thread.
You betray your lack of knowledge about the Arab world in general – in the end, they only respect power, and the will to use it (look up the fabled “strong horse” dictims). Apologies, bowing down to dictators and despots, and incessant groveling only earn you scorn, disrespect and will ultimately imperil your very existence. The reason they hate Israel so much has less to do with the fact that they’re Jews as opposed to their respect for their ability and willingness to defend themselves and cause greater harm to their enemies.
This leadership fails to recognize that it’s not about being loved by other countries, but about whether you have their respect. The viewership that AJ serves only care about strength, period. Arabs believe apologizing is an extreme form of weakness and cowardice – the sooner you learn this fact the better you’ll understand the oxymorons that have always existed in much of the Muslim world.
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:14 am…or better yet, read the blogs of Iranian dissidents and the other members of the Green movement. Although Iranians are not Arabs in any way, shape or form, they view Obama’s quisling attitude towards the Mullahs a cardinal sin and catastrophic for their cause. Anyone claiming that this approach is really just a smokescreen in the guise of much harder edges going on behind the scene are deluded and inane. Witness our State department’s weak – kneed responses to the executions of Iranian dissidents, homosexuals and women who dare to go without their veils and that pretty much sums up where we’ve been going over the past two years.
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:19 amKiss the hand you cannot cut off.
nk (db4a41) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:20 amIt’s a bizarre point to take, but if you have a loathing for defense in general, and missiles in particular, it almost makes sense
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:23 amGM–what I meant by propaganda is that Bolden was saying what he said knowing that his primary audience would be Muslim.
And flattering people is one way to get them to agree to do what you want. Been used very successfully. “You are so good…by the way, could you do me a favor?” Probably everyone on this board has done it at least a couple of times in their private lives to get someone to agree with them on something. Even if it’s just telling their wife her new outfit looks fabulous on her and don’t worry about how much it cost 🙂
It differs from contemporary liberalism in that contemporary liberalism doesn’t go beyond the flattery.
If Bolden was not trying propaganda, then he’s an idiot.
kishnevi (e707a2) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:24 am“under your boot or at your throat”…
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:27 amIt differs from contemporary liberalism in that contemporary liberalism doesn’t go beyond the flattery
Wrong, again.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:28 amdmac–you’re demonstrating Pope’s line
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
in both 30 and 31.
It’s far more complicate than you make out.
kishnevi (b40a74) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:30 amThe Sajail will launch some wonderful satellites, wait that’s not what it is for; but to carry a nuclear warhead as far as the Mediterranean
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:32 am“Been used very successfully.”
Right. America has been very successful manipulating the Muslim world with propaganda. Please pull my other finger.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:39 amIt’s far more complicate than you make out.
Then please explain your point more fully.
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:39 amfinger-pulling and smoke blowing… a potent combination and/or strategy?
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:41 amyou be the judge.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:41 amObama has made mockery of his promise to not politicize science. If the RATS go true to form, science (especially NASA and DOD) will be the principal nominees for fiscal cutbacks. I can see bake sales in the future for NIH.
jkstewart2 (c67c5e) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:47 amComment by ian cormac — 7/5/2010 @ 9:32 am
Or, to put an EMP device into low-Earth-orbit, where a detonation over KS/NE would put fini to all electronics/communications in the lower-48.
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:48 amThe most important thing to know about Muslims is that deceit is their weapon of choice when dealing with superior forces. The doctrine of Taqiyya, or holy deception, is used to disguise one’s true intentions, convictions or strategies.
Taqiyya is Islamic approved dissimulation, lying, and deceiving, for the purpose of concealing Islam’s goal of total domination of unbelievers. When Islam is strong they employ the sword, when the enemy is strong Islam employs deception to confuse and divide infidels in order to defeat them, and further advance the cause of Allah, which is their aim, their holy cause, and their only reason for existence.
Don’t take the word of a Muslim for anything other than a deception.
Pay attention to what they do, not what they say. Which is exactly what Charles Krauthammer said about President Barack Obama.
ropelight (4b0868) — 7/5/2010 @ 9:48 amkishnevi — the eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson portrays the historical precedent for words of appeasement and the altogether unsurprising results far better than I can.
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson070510.html
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:04 amIt takes us back to Jung, Dmac (and I’m guessing the quote is older than that): you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.
It’s a lesson for all of us, not just Islamofascists.
But I keep coming back to a lack of reciprocity. Why would Muslims complain about “unfair treatment,” when Christians and Jews are not treated as well in their original countries? If they came to this nation, complained of unfair treatment, and pointed out that they left their own nation and hoped for better treatment here, I would feel differently. I wouldn’t agree with them, but I would see their point.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:09 am“National Aeronautics and Space Administration”
I thought it was the National Ass-kissing and Suck-up Administration.
Dave Surls (a79ef0) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:21 amI hate that word -“Islamofascists” That suggests there is an “Islam” that isn’t “fascistic or that moderate Islam exists. There may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
Horatio (e2e328) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:25 am37:
You are showing the error of projection here.
This is a case of “the more you know, the simpler it becomes.”
And you can feel free to quote me on that.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:26 amI wish this had been posted yesterday, when I was good and drunk. I would have laughed. I think.
sybilll (bf0a09) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:42 amWhy would Muslims complain about “unfair treatment
Because they see how we bend over backwards to appease Mexico when accused (in accusations made of whole cloth) of doing to Mexican migrants what Mexico actually does to Central-American migrants.
They know we can be had through our self-perceived (by the Elites) sense of guilt for treating all the world unfairly.
“IslamoFascists” means the individuals who are engaged in an existential war against the West; “IslamoFascism” would be an indictment against the ideology of Islamism, which is a bit more militant than your garden-variety Islam, though both are ultimately dangerous to a Western Civilization that is based on individual freedom and choice, and the Rule of Law outside the church.
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 10:58 amNext POTUS should fire him for even saying it.
HeavenSent (a9126d) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:04 amThe sooner we realize that our country is not compatible with the manner in which much of Islam is practiced today, the better. I’m reminded of a famous exchange from Sir Charles James Napier (a British General), in response to a local Indian leader who was going to burn a woman that had been recently widowed:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:05 amThey know we can be had through our self-perceived (by the Elites) sense of guilt for treating all the world unfairly.
Oh, my Lord, yes. Obama and his minions travel the globe apologizing for America. It is a sign of weakness in the Arab world and of self-hatred elsewhere.
“Liberalism” – as currently constituted – is arguably a mental disorder. The sooner America is rid of it in its current guise, the better America will be for it.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:07 am…but to boost the self-esteem of…
Good God.
Obie’s single term can’t end soon enough.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (cf2f34) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:09 amWe are muddling our way through an age of high self-esteem and low accomplishment.
If only we can survive it?
My self-esteem soars immensely when I can “print” mostly in-the-black.
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:15 am#55 General Malaise:
“Liberalism” is a co-dependency, with enablers leading the way, and addicts lining up for free stuff.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:16 amWe will have to agree to disagree. There is no “garden variety of Islam”.
Horatio (e2e328) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:18 amWell, I can think of a few varients that are a tad less virulent than what we see in Wahhabism, and the Salafism from the Muslim Brotherhood.
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 11:25 amYMMV!
After converting to Islam is it a requirement to be a pederast? All the muslims and especially the Imamans I have met are predatory homosexuals who attack young boys. Is it Islam that makes them that way. Who in the Koran was the first boy assualted by the Prophet? Mohammed had sex with little boys.I would draw a picture but I think that is offensive to muslims. Not offending muslims is nice.
highpockets (fe389c) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:13 pm“A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual acts such as foreplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed. A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not committed a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life. But this girl will not count as one of the man’s four permanent wives. He also is not permitted to marry the girl’s sister.”
From Ayatollah Khomeini’s book, “Resaleh”
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:22 pmGM…The true voice of enlightenment, not!
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:26 pmYou may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
Comment by Dmac
That’s very clever, don’t remember hearing it before. Thank you.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:29 pmwhat a great way to spend our taxes!
coming soon to a public place near you, “Space Age Suicide Belts”!
be still my heart, but preferably not due to shrapnel.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:39 pmDmac–
There is an astonishing amount of ignorance on display in the comments on this thread, people displaying hatred of something in a way that demonstrates they don’t know much about what they hate. But I will excuse them. I won’t excuse Hanson; he’s a historian. It’s his profession not to be ignorant. Yet he is as much a xenophobe as the ones commenting on this thread.
Not in this particular article, perhaps, but in plenty of others I’ve read over the past few years.
As to what he wrote in the article you linked–by his logic, the UK was correct in not backing down against the American rebels back in the 1770s, and wrong not to go to war with us during our Civil War over the Trent.
The point is, not every apology is a sign of weakness, and not every insistence on one’s strength is a sign of strength. In fact, it’s the opposite–to insist that one is strong is a sure indication that one is weak, and to not seek to conciliate others is a sure way of alienating others. Sometimes one should remain firm, but other times not, and it requires a good deal of wisdom to perceive when. I don’t think Obama has the requisite wisdom; it’s pretty evident that most of the people participating in this thread don’t have it.
kishnevi (e9a2a0) — 7/5/2010 @ 12:50 pmof which you have contributed far more than your fair share…which you have also managed in other threads.
Your total lack of familiarity with the Islamic world, and the strong Arab influence on its cultural development and pathologies is breathtaking when juxtaposed with your self righteous bleatings.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/5/2010 @ 1:15 pmkishnevi, what’s pretty evident here is that you don’t have the first inkling of what you’re talking about.
You attack Hanson but decline to cite has article on a pertinent topic, and instead resort to your bunched opinions of an assortment of unidentified past articles??? That’s just plain nutty crap.
The point is that we’re dealing with Muslims who regularly resort to lies and deceptions to advance their interests. Guys like you ought to have the sense to shut-up and stand aside and let better men handle the assault on Western Civilization, or there won’t be much of it left for your ilk to fritter away.
ropelight (4b0868) — 7/5/2010 @ 1:16 pmHere is an excerpt from an article about what some nice muslim folks had to say about democracy the other day in Australia:
“LEADERS of the global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called on Australian Muslims to spurn secular democracy and Western notions of moderate Islam and join the struggle for a transnational Islamic state.
British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif told participants at a conference in western Sydney yesterday that democracy is “haram” (forbidden) for Muslims, whose political engagement should be be based purely on Islamic law.
“We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone,” Mr Hanif told about 500 participants attending the convention in Lidcombe.
“We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram.”
He said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom”.
His view was echoed by an Australian HT official, Wassim Dourehi, who told the conference Muslims should not support “any kafir (non-believer) political party”, because humans have no right to make laws.
Mr Dourehi also urged Muslims to spurn the concept of moderate Islam promoted by governments in the West, including in “this godforsaken country” of Australia.
“We need to reject this new secular version of Islam,” he said. “It is a perverted concoction of Western governments.”
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/5/2010 @ 2:08 pmWestern civilization will rue the day they allowed what for all intents and purposes is unfettered immigration from the predominantly Islamic countries.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 2:10 pmEW–I used to think you were better than that. You want to reduce the Moslem world to something simple ruled by so-called Arab pathologies.
Neither the Moslem world nor the Arab “pathologies” are as simple, and some of those so-call “Arab” pathologies are found right here in the US among on both sides of the political spectrum. To reduce it to such simplifications is the same error my parents used to make when they claimed the Republican Party was for “Big Business” and the Democratic Party was “little people”.
Ropelight–as far as Hanson goes, anything he’s posted at Pajamas Media regarding Islam, the War on Terror, and associated topics can serve as evidence. He spews the same vitriol you and other do here, and with less excuse for it. He’s a professional historian. He should know how false it is.
The point is that we’re dealing with Muslims who regularly resort to lies and deceptions to advance their interests
I guess it never occurred to you that there are plenty of Moslems who regularly resort to truth and honesty when trying to advance their interests. That mindbending concept I suppose is just too freaky for you to comprehend. You need a nice simple evil to throw serve as your Emmanuel Goldstein. I don’t.
kishnevi (e9a2a0) — 7/5/2010 @ 2:16 pmI really don’t give a shit.
You are welcome to live in your bizarre little world of make believe.
But I will not be joining you there.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/5/2010 @ 2:22 pmSuch a scold… I guess that’ll teach you, EW. You don’t meet the high standards of a stone blowhard.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 2:51 pmFor another look at Islam, I might suggest this essay which draws heavily upon Tocqueville, and his examination of the subject almost 200 years ago:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mcchrystal-tocqueville-and-the-koran-the-postmodern-coinage-of-a-failed-policy/
Lots of links and footnotes for the scholarly inclined.
Bottom Line:
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 3:34 pmTocqueville was not impressed, and said at one point “I see it relative to paganism itself as a decadence rather than an advance.”
I guess I missed all those Nobel prize winning muslims in science and math. Perhaps Obama wants to make muslims feel good about their engineering skills in creating and deploying homicide bombers and idfs? How are muslims going to feel good about their contributions to math and science if their last significant contributions ended seven hundred years ago?
eaglewingz08 (1e4d33) — 7/5/2010 @ 3:37 pmDo the international relationships that Obama wants to foster, include getting it on with red haired russian spies?
Is telling our adversaries that we cannot accomplish low orbit flights without assistance, a diminishing of their respect for us in the fields of science and math? And if it results in the muslim countries having no respect for the US in science and math, how would NASA be able to fulfill its new mission of making muslim countries feel good about their scientific endeavors?
Is NASA going to applaud nuclear bomb research in muslim countries as an area for raising muslim self esteem?
Will proffering false self esteem to muslim countries make them view the US even more as knaves, fools and infidels?
Seems that all of the apologizing and
engagementass-kissing has been for naught…“The Obama administration’s failure to facilitate change in the Middle East shows that it is weak, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday during a visit to Latin America amid rising regional tensions over last month’s Gaza flotilla incident and increasing efforts to defuse the Iranian threat.
Assad was quoted Monday in the Argentine daily Clarín as saying that Washington did not “seem to be able to manage a peace process from beginning to end.” He added that while the US was capable of pulling “all its weight” to support a peace process, the current administration has so far proved to be impractical and unable to gain the backing of Congress.
“Afghanistan is worse than before,” said Assad, stressing that the situation in Iraq had not changed and ties with Syria remained stagnant despite US President Barack Obama’s announcement that he would dispatch a new ambassador to Damascus.
Assad says nuke spotlight should be on Israel as well as Iran
While criticizing the Obama administration, Assad had only words of praise for rising players in global and regional diplomacy – namely Turkey and Brazil, who recently brokered a deal to enrich Iran’s uranium on Turkish soil. The move, said Assad, transfers “essential political weight from a few countries in the North, such as Europe and the US, to others in the world.”
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=180476
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 4:11 pmY’know, if they’re going to throw in the sponge on space exploration, as Obama and Bolden appear to have done, and refocus the agency on sucking up to Mohammedans (1), improve our international relationships (2), and meddle in students’ free choice to pursue entertainment at the expense of learning (3), they might want to note that there are already massive Federal agencies epically failing at these three causes already: the Department of State on 1 and 2, and the Department of Education on 3.
If these are truly Bolden’s priorities, then every dime spent on his agency is wasted. Why not zero out the budget line, since he’s not accomplishing anything anyway, and apply the savings to deficit reduction.
Kevin R.C. O'Brien (d45777) — 7/5/2010 @ 5:08 pmWhat? And lose the Rocket-Scientist vote?
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 5:10 pmA suggestion… since he’s in perpetual suck-up mode, perhaps Obama can offer to send one of ’em into deep space in search of that illusive 73rd virgin.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/5/2010 @ 5:46 pmOr the 12th Mahdi!
AD - RtR/OS! (6e3949) — 7/5/2010 @ 5:53 pmHe said what?
You jest. Gods, I hope you jest, or he did.
htom (412a17) — 7/5/2010 @ 6:55 pmWell, Mohammed may have been the first man in space if he got that horse he rode high enough.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:17 pm___________________________________
Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the “foremost” task President Obama has given him is “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”
OMG. This is so damn stupid.
Prior to November 2008, if someone had told me that Obama and his people would be connected to a report like this, I’d have concluded it was too over-the-top to be taken seriously, too absurd to be anything but a parody.
While Obama’s “goddamn America” background always made me suspect he was quite radical and screwed up, even I originally would have said that it would be too cynical to prognosticate that NASA’s top guy in 2010, under a White House run by Obama, would be proclaiming that making nice-nice with the Islamic world was a top priority.
Mark (411533) — 7/5/2010 @ 7:56 pmDoes kishnevi not get that we’re talking about the bad Muslims?
Icy Texan (4fa53c) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:06 amIn one major way this thread is not about Muslims at all, it’s about turning a defined agency like NASA into a PR and social change/foreign policy tool.
But, as I was reminded this am listening to Bill Bennett, there is a historical connection between NASA and Islam, well, with that part of the world anyway. I Dream of Jeannie (?) was about a US astronaut and a native of Baghdad. (Though I don’t know what the Muslim view on the dress of female Genies is. If anything like female humnas, they probably did not like the show.)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:28 amWe had a similar discussion with the requisite troll on this site:
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2010/07/to-the-moon-barry.html
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:47 amMuslim women are allowed to dress or undress anyway they please (or as their husbands please) inside their homes. Or under their burkhas. There is a Fredericks of Hollywood in Riyadh.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:52 amyou would think that nasa’s chief priority as it relates to the islamic world is to put Bin Laden in a rocket and shoot him into the sun. Now, that would be a good use of taxpayer money.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:16 amVictor Davis Hanson writes on this particular comment by Bolden and as hard as I look, I can’t find any xenophobic commentary in it – despite kishnevi’s bizarre claims about Hanson.
Rather, it is a pretty evenhanded comment that says what I wish I had said … but of course better.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:28 amComment by nk
So Jeannie was fine as long as she stayed at home. What about televising? I mean, she’s home, but she’s being seen outside the home?
My, all of the things we didn’t have to worry about in the 60’s
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/6/2010 @ 10:09 amNational Aeronautics and Space Administration
That does not resolve with their newly stated objectives.
Racists.
JD (fbeb58) — 7/6/2010 @ 10:41 am“Muslim women are allowed to dress or undress anyway they please (or as their husbands please) inside their homes. ”
What an ignorant comment, nk.
They are ‘allowed’ to dress how they are told. If their owners want them naked, or in a tarp, fine. It they want them in a closet, fine.
It’s up to the woman insofar as her owner doesn’t care. Much as my dog can drink water whenever she wants. As you say, I have ‘allowed’ my dog to drink whenever she wants.
There may be honest muslims, but we are dealing with Muslims who regularly resort to lies and deceptions. In fact, it’s very popular and many Muslims we deal with think lying is completely compatible with their religion.
Your rebuttal doesn’t make any sense.
And Hanson is no bigot. You can criticize some of the grotesque and horrible behavior of a Muslim without falling over yourself to also always talk about how Islam is a religion of peace.
YOU do that, if that’s who you want to talk about.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 10:55 amActually, maybe I just missed nk’s sarcasm here.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 10:56 ammmm, this is krauthammer on the nasa silliness.
“This is a new of fatuousness. NASA was established to get America into space and to keep us there. This idea of ‘feel good about your past’ scientific achievements is the worst kind of group therapy, psycho-babble, imperial condescension and adolescent diplomacy. If I didn’t know that Obama had told him this, I’d demand the firing of Charles Bolden.”
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 7/6/2010 @ 11:04 amThe point is that we’re dealing with Muslims who regularly resort to lies and deceptions to advance their interests…
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 11:06 ambecause this activity is approved by the Koran, which is the Word of Allah!
J.D.
> That does not resolve with their newly stated objectives.
Yeah, i truly find it amazing that we have a NASA that isn’t supposed too, you know, do something.
Why do we have it at all, then?
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 7/6/2010 @ 11:06 amHeres the weirdest and in my view saddest part of this whole bizarre series of statements: On paper, General Bolden was/is a superstar, to wit:
Annapolis grad
Vietnam combat aviator with over 100 missions and earned a DFC
Deputy Commander of Annapolis
2-star USMC General
4 shuttle missions, 2 as commander including the historic mission to deploy the Hubble telescope.
In other words, not exactly the prototype
high-ranking Obama official of the sort with no other experience besides manning the phones at an ACORN office in South Chicago.
This is a man who has accomplished many of the things that make a genuine American hero.
So, how in hell does a guy like that come out and say something likes this…unless he has been told to do so?
Mike D (cfd823) — 7/6/2010 @ 11:52 amSo, how in hell does a guy like that come out and say something likes this…unless he has been told to do so…and didn’t have the balls to resign?
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 12:01 pmIn return for sharing our rocket technology with the muslim world we could probably get some really useful rock and cave and mud technology in return. If we grovel really abjectly they might even throw in a few goat recipes as a freebie.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:26 pmTwo words:
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:30 pmeric
i like your thinking. Although i would prefer a solar one instead. 🙂 our main goal would be to have AQ explore the surface of the sun… without any sunscreen.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:37 pmMy sister in law is a Muslim. And she is certainly not my brother’s property. She’s better than any of you or any of your women.
Where did you pigs come from? This used to be a good site.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:47 pm“And she is certainly not my brother’s property. She’s better than any of you or any of your women.”
Get over yourself.
You were talking specifically about how woman undress in Riyadh, where there is a sexy outfit shop.
You’re wrong. Women are property in much of that part of the world. This isn’t about your sister in law and you shouldn’t bring her into this discussion.
I have a lot of Muslim family. More than you I would bet. And women in many Islamic nations are simply not free people.
If you want to call me a pig because I respect human rights more than you, and use yet another personal story in place of an argument, be my guest, but you said that women in Riyadh are ‘allowed’ to wear whatever they want at home. that’s not true, but even if it was, that’s not acceptable anyway.
Women in that country make up the lowest percentage of the workforce in the entire freaking world, nk. There are homes in that city you’re championing where the home is segregated by sex. Women aren’t even allowed to use a man’s door in her own home.
I hate no idea what your standards really are, since you’re so manic, but this isn’t about your sister in law and I don’t deserve another round of insano nk.
Just put the normal people on ignore, nk. That’s how you like it, airhead.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:55 pm“And she is certainly not my brother’s property.”
Then who does own her?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 1:58 pmTo my way of thinking, she owns herself.
Perhaps he thought if he said it very publicly it might have the desired effect (which might be precisely what the words stated.) In other words, he wanted this fuss over what he’d been told.
htom (412a17) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:03 pmRrrrowwwl! Easy there, pardner!
I will not presume to know any of what goes on in your brother’s marriage, but I will say this: He apparently is NOT a Muslim, which means she has not subjected herself to many of the indignities and/or abuses that Muslim wives can be acceptably made to suffer.
If you haven’t already, you may want to check out the short film Submission, the Ayaan Hirsi Ali-scripted work that got co-producer/director Theo Van Gogh slaughtered on the streets of Amsterdam by an offended Moroccan Muslim.
L.N. Smithee (1a1531) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:09 pmIt’s so infuriating. I worry about women in my family and other people who I am not related to. I point out that women in Riyadh are treated like shit.
True, like with dogs, a dog with a great owner can be very happy, but I have a huge problem with human rights in much of the Islamic world with respect to women.
Some infantile argument like nk’s that they are forced to prance around in sexy slut costumed for their owners, and that’s somehow socially liberal enough, is so disgusting it comes across as sarcasm. Reminds me of a bunch of drunk boys slapping eachother on the back about some harem fantasy.
Why is it that when someone brings up a truly horrible aspect of human rights in Islamofascist countries, someone always seems to start crying that they know some completely unrelated moderate Muslim?
Does it make 9/11 less bad, or female genital mutilation more acceptable, or honor killings mitigated, when someone has a sister in law who isn’t owned by their husband? No.
People who make these defenses always have an air of self superiority. nk comes right out and says it: people who disagree with him must be pigs and his sister is ‘better’.
We get it, nk. You’ve got some problem you need to compensate for. I don’t mind you calling my piggy. I kinda do look like a pig, I have to admit, and I eat a lot of bacon. No sweat.
But you lost the argument again.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:10 pmYes, but why would you tell Al Jazeera, if he had any qualms about it, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:11 pmLN has a point. A woman who doesn’t ‘submit’ is no Muslim of the stripe I was speaking of. That’s not to say there isn’t some superior yet corrupted version of Islam which is moderate. I certainly do not live according to every rule in my spiritual book either.
That’s the key to the future. I have great respect for people who are compelled to be Muslim and yet violate the immoral aspects of the Koran. That’s bold.
Good for nk’s sister, I say, if she is one of these people.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:18 pmDustin
The Koran, does not make women property. The Muslims are changing rapidly as fathers do love their daughters and dote on them and do not accept a life for them that the more ignorant crap head crazie fundamentalists spout that is proper, in fact the religious police in Saudi have in essence been fired. There are many differences between the worlds but the strength of the christian world lies not in how we treat our women but how we treat everyone
Ericpwjohnson (7ff4d9) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:28 pmDustin 109,
The Koran in 4:34 does indeed make women subservient to men.
“Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other”
The Koran has instructions on beating and punishing the uppity wife as well.
RSweeney (8c99b8) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:38 pmEPWJ, Perhaps the Islamic world should listen to you and start treating everyone better, but it ought to start with women.
As far as the Koran goes, you’re wrong.
But I’m opening myself up to an obvious attack: someone can quote other religious texts and ask why I don’t discuss them.
I’m not concerned with where modern Islam in many places around the world gets its attitude towards women. It doesn’t matter if it’s sanctioned by their holy books.
I care about results, and the results are horrible for women, who indeed are property of husbands in many places. This has nothing to do with who God is or the afterlife. If they were Methodists or Buddhists doing this stuff I would be saying the same thing.
In fact, I attended my sister’s wedding and had deep misgivings about the message from the Christian pastor which was closely resembling the Quranic quote above.
The results are different, though. She’s free to do whatever she wishes. In Iran, where she is technically a citizen, she would not be free to do much without a man’s consent, though. Of course, the only thing she’d want to do in Iran is leave Iran.
My line is so much easier to defend. I simply have a problem with anything less than all people being legal equals. That doesn’t neatly cut across any other lines, be they nationality, race, religion, etc. So?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:42 pm“…the only thing she’d want to do in Iran is leave Iran…”
Good for her!
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:51 pmnk, did you see the post at #93?
This calls for a guest commentator:
Painted Jaguar: It is very important, you must remember, to be very careful and precise when having a discussion. If not, one may become confused, get prickers in your paddy paw, and go home hungry and feeling foolish, even though your mummy is very patient and kind and almost as good as my mummy. (I think my mummy is better than nk’s sister-in-law, but all good sons think that way.)
To further explain, we will need to take a round-about journey (because that is the only kind I make by the waters of the Dark, Turbid Amazon).
As I was saying, it is important to be precise in conversations, otherwise you don’t know whether to scoop the tortoise with the hedghog or drop yourself into the water (or something like that…). For example, if a father tells a young son, “Son, go get the animal to carry this pack for us to the market”, the son, no matter how obedient and responsible and a joy to his mother (and to his mother’s sister-in-law), will have difficulty knowing what is meant if the family has more than one animal. Now, a loving father, if he had a choice, would not send the boy to get a mule, for they are stubborn and a challenge to a young boy. He also would not send him for a donkey, for it is the symbol of the Democratic party. He may be forced to ask the boy to get a llama, for although llamas spit, the young boys do learn quickness trying to make the llamas miss. (But llamas become mule-headed if the boy is too quick, and that is not a good thing, and I am sure you agree). No, for when a good father has a choice, will he not tell his son to get the alpaca? (Of course he will, and you know this is right.)
Of course, it is quite easy for the son to follow his father’s instruction when he says, “Son, get the alpaca”, for there is only one animal called “alpaca”. Some may have different colors, but all of them are gentle, attentive, and never spit. The problem comes (and soon you will see how this journey gets us to where we want to go) when one word for an animal can mean two different things. Such a thing is true far from the Dark, Turbid Amazon near the land of the duck-billed platypus. (Why do they call it a “duck-billed platypus”? Are there platypi without duck-bills? “Hawk-beaked platypuses? I’m sorry, forgive me, that’s too round about.) Nearby is another island with forests as thick as those near my beloved Amazon (if you can believe it) and they have a problem with words for animals. In a story it is said that if a son asks his good father for something to eat, say a fish, will the father give him a snake? Believe me it is true my friends when I tell you much confusion can be caused by such a small story! For the intent of the story-teller was to have the listener answer, “No! Of course not!” But when the people of the other jungle heard this story, they murmured among themselves and asnwered, “Why yes, of course.” The story teller was confused and had to think about this (for you know it is always right to think before speaking, though politicians seem to forget this quite often). After much discussion, scratching of pictures in the dirt, scratching of the story teller’s head, and scratching of the local people’s beards, the answer became clear. When the story teller said “fish”, the listeners did not know he meant a big fish that was good for eating, for they knew only of little fish where they lived that no one ate. And when the story teller said “snake”, they thought of the big fat snake that they kill and roast over a fire for special occasions (like fund raisers). So the story teller needed to change the words in his story so the the people understood that “fish” meant “the big fish like the people by the coast catch from the ocean” and “snake” meant “the little snake that bites you and makes you swell up and die”, and then the story makes sense.
By now my point should be perfectly clear (if you’ve been paying attention- and it is always wise to pay attention when a jaguar is talking to you). The entire matter depends on what kind of “Muslim” one is talking about. Is the Muslim of the type that reads the Koran, gives to charity, and respects other people of “The Book”, or is the Muslim of the type that listens to certain mullahs who say “Kill the infidel, the unbeliever”? And in this situation nk raises, is the husband a Muslim, and if so, of which type. For if he is not a Muslim, the wife does not expect to be treated as if he was. You can call an alpaca a llama, but it won’t spit, and you can call the husband a man married to a Muslim, but it doesn’t make him a Muslim.
And that should make matters perfectly clear, don’t you see.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/6/2010 @ 2:57 pmStyle, and Grace.
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:04 pmShe’s the kind of Muslim who’s the principal of a K-8 Chicago public school.
Jeezus.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:18 pmWhat in the world is the matter with you, nk?
JD (fbeb58) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:20 pmWell, JD, in the first place, I’m not supposed to talk to you.
But, if you will permit me …
If these guys want to make a distinction between Arab and Saudi and Muslim ….
There was a Jewish woman in Jerusalem who was beaten by Orthodox men for not seating on the back of the bus on the way to the Wailing Wall.
And there is an old-calendar Greek Orthodox church in Chicago where the men sit on the right-hand row of pews and their wives and daughters on the left.
Aw, forget it.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:33 pm“She’s the kind of Muslim who’s the principal of a K-8 Chicago public school.”
Prolly better off not bringing that up given the track record of Chicago public schools. Just sayin’.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:34 pmNone of that supports your assertion that she is better than all of the women here, and all of the women that are associated with all of the men here. If you are not supposed to talk to me, that is of your own choosing, since I am a lowly non-lawyer. I sure hope law school didn’t teach you to make remarkable and ridiculous assertions of fact.
JD (fbeb58) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:40 pmLane Tech graduate. And Whitney Young is probably the best high school in the country, right now.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:40 pmYup, Whitney Young is good.
nk – Don’t you agree we need more of the other trappings of Islam in this country, the forced marriages, genital mutilation, stonings and more honor killings than we already have?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:45 pmDid you read what I wrote, JD?
Where do these guys get the contempt the’re exhibit for Muslim women?
As for not talking to you, that’s something you’re pushing when I’ve stopped.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:45 pmthe forced marriages, genital mutilation, stonings and more honor killings
Those are national things — not Islam things.
Honor killings are a Mediterranian thing although they go after the boyfriend before they go after the girl. Try Corsica, Sicily, or Crete.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:49 pmIt’s not the women part that draws the contempt, it’s the Muslim part.
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:49 pmOr, as Tocqueville described it, the descent into paganism.
I don’t see the contempt for Muslim women that you see. I see a fundamental disagreement with some of the base precepts of Islam, in word and in practice.
JD (fbeb58) — 7/6/2010 @ 3:52 pm“Where do these guys get the contempt the’re exhibit for Muslim women?”
nk – Where do you see any contempt for muslim women? Bite me!
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:01 pm“Those are national things — not Islam things.”
Got it. They just happen in a lot of nations and are practiced by muslims in those different nations.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:03 pmYou guys … you have these stupid ideas in your heads. Forced marriages you are going to find most in India, between eight year olds. Between Hindus, not Muslims. If you don’t follow the dating protocol in Corsica, Sicily, or Crete, you will be knifed, or shot with a short-barreled shotgun. And those are not Muslim islands.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:17 pmWait wait wait, it’s JD’s fault for taking offense to the silly ‘you’re not as smart as a lawyer’ claims nk has backed off of?
That’s silly. nk, it doesn’t have to be this way when you disagree with people, but you’re the architect of this persona that is incredibly stupid, pretends to be superior in every way, and always has some story about a personality that proves your points.
For example, when I say Riyahd has the lowest female employement on the entire planet, you make up some crap about how Jews are bad.
When euthanasia is discussed, you have supreme moral authority because of your suddenly lost mother. When someone speaks in memory of a cop, you start linking to some cop you single handedly thwarted from evil. When the law is discussed, and your legal interpretation is torn apart, you start insisting even the lawyers aren’t real lawyers… they are liars and you’re the real authority.
And every time, I believe you’re trying to be honest, but still don’t respect your point. Because you’re just claiming everyone is inferior to you in every possible way. It’s totally irrelevant to whatever is being discussed and you’re pretty insufferable when you get this way.
And remember, YOU insulted MY family by calling us inferior to your sister. I never brought yours up, because I’m not a scumbag.
Your sister in law would be ashamed of you. I’m going to ask her if she is.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:22 pmDoes kishnevi not get that we’re talking about the bad Muslims?
In fact, Kishnevi was under the impression that most of you don’t believe that there is such a thing as a good Muslim.
Especially when he sees this sort of rancidness, committed in this case by Dustin.
There may be honest muslims, but we are dealing with Muslims who regularly resort to lies and deceptions. In fact, it’s very popular and many Muslims we deal with think lying is completely compatible with their religion.
Which isn’t true. You need to get out in the world, my boy, and meet some real Muslims, not just read about them in Pajamasmedia and that sort of ilk.
And speaking of Hanson, this bit from the article linked to above:
to the assertion that Muslims helped to jumpstart the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (when, in fact, flight from or reaction against Islam in the eastern Mediterranean had far more to do with both European intellectual awakenings)
is complete and utter bosh, and can only be explained by a complete and utter misunderstanding of how the Renaissance developed out of the Christian Middle Ages, catalyzed in part by Arab translations. There is one slight piece of fact which Hanson seriously distorts: that a handful of Greek scholars arrived in Europe when Constantinople fell to the Turks, roughly two centuries after what we call the Renaissance (which actually started in the 13th and 14th centuries CE) began. Another writer might be forgiven, but Hanson is a professional historian; for him to write this means either he’s a lousy historian or he doesn’t mind misstating the facts when it suits his purpose.
And before you get on your high horse about Muslim treatment of women, go look at the legal condition of women in the mid18th century here in the US and in the UK. Wasn’t any better than what you are complaining about.
And if you happen to born a woman in an UltraOrthodox Jewish family, it’s just as bad today, whether here in the US or in Israel.
kishnevi (cbb316) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:43 pmForced marriages you are going to find most in India, between eight year olds. Between Hindus, not Muslims. If you don’t follow the dating protocol in Corsica, Sicily, or Crete, you will be knifed, or shot with a short-barreled shotgun.
And also in New York City, among ultraOrthodox Jews. For whom the dating protocol boils down to:
No one dates until after they are married.
My father’s parents were an “arranged” marriage. They stayed married–no divorce back then–but hated each other’s guts almost from the first, and only after my grandmother’s family forced my grandfather to send my grandmother the money to pay for her passage from Moldava to Boston three or four years after he got to the US. He was hoping never to have to send for her. That was back about 1925. Not all that long ago.
kishnevi (d785be) — 7/6/2010 @ 4:55 pm“And then, approximately from the end of the Middle Ages, there was a dramatic change. In Europe, the scientific movement advanced enormously in the era of the Renaissance, the Discoveries, the technological revolution, and the vast changes, both intellectual and material, that preceded, accompanied, and followed them. In the Muslim world, independent inquiry virtually came to an end, and science was for the most part reduced to the veneration of a corpus of arpproved knowledge. There were some practical innovations — thus, for example, incubators were invented in Egypt, vaccination against smallpox in Turkey. These were, however, not seen as belonging to the realm of science, but as practical devices, and we know of them primarily from Western travelers…
… Another example of the widening gap may be seen in the fate of the great observatory built in Galata, in Istanbul, in 1577. This was due to the initiative of Taqi al-Din (ca. 1526-1585), a major figure in Muslim scientific history and the author of several books on astronomy, optics, and mechanical clocks. Born in Syria or Egypt (the sources differ), he studied in Cairo, and after a career as jurist and theologian he went to Istanbul, where in 1571 he was appointed munejjim-bash, astronomer (and astrologer) in chief to the Sultan Selim II. A few years later her persuaded the Sultan Murad III to allow him to build an observatory, comparable in its technical equipment and its specialist personnel with that of his celebrated contemporary, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. But there the comparison ends. Tycho Brahe’s observatory and the work accomplished in it opened the way to a vast new development of astronomical science. Taqi al-Din’s observatory was razed to the ground by a squad of Janissaries, by order of the sultan, on the recommendation of Chief Mufti. This observatory had many predecessors in the lands of Islam; it had no successors until the age of modernization.
The relationship between Christendom and Islam in the sciences was now reversed. Those who had been disciples now became teachers; those who had been masters became pupils, often reluctant and resentful pupils. They were willing enough to accept the products of infidel science in warfare and medicine, where they could make the difference between victory and defeat, between life and death. But the underlying philosophy and the sociopolitical context of these scientific achievements proved more difficult to accept or even recognize.”
– Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmE4MWVmMWVjNjlkNDFjZGQzYjVmZWFkNzRhYmMwNDM=
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:07 pmMy father’s parents were an “arranged” marriage. They stayed married–no divorce back then–but hated each other’s guts almost from the first, and only after my grandmother’s family forced my grandfather to send my grandmother the money to pay for her passage from Moldava to Boston three or four years after he got to the US. He was hoping never to have to send for her. That was back about 1925. Not all that long ago.
That explains so much, thanks.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:20 pmAnd before you get on your high horse about Muslim treatment of women, go look at the legal condition of women in the mid18th century here in the US and in the UK. Wasn’t any better than what you are complaining about.
Why stop at an arbitrary date like 1750AD? The use of moral equivalence and extreme lack of context does not go unnoticed.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:23 pmDustin always types too many letters and says too little.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:37 pmAnd before you get on your high horse about Muslim treatment of women, go look at the legal condition of women in the mid18th century here in the US and in the UK. Wasn’t any better than what you are complaining about.
And your excuse for this distortion is what? That you are not a professional historian?
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:39 pmDo you guys really think that Saudi Arabia and Taliban (imperted from Saudi Arabia Wahabism) Afghanistan are representative of Islam? Have you heard of Albania, Bosnia, Turkey, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Turkestan, Indonesia?
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:42 pmYep, nk, everyone knows that Albania is the spiritual inspiration of every muslim worldwide. Why Albania must spend billions of dollars creating madrassa’s to teach the Albanian form of Islam … and send out thousands of trained muslim religious leaders …
Oh, what? Its the Wahabbi that do that?
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/6/2010 @ 5:55 pmThat was my point, you indiscriminate cretins. Not every Muslim is a Saudi Wahabi.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:00 pmYes, and in 1865, we put fini to slavery in the United States, which cannot be said in certain Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle-East, where it exists to this date.
And, 1925, was both figuratively and literally, a life-time ago, in how people reacted to, and treated, each other.
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:01 pmThere was a point, nk? I think you undermined your own point rather effectively even without my aid. And that’s without me pointing out that Chechnya is hardly an example of some sort of home of mellow peace-loving Islam, ever heard of Beslan?
Meanwhile, kishnevi – claiming that Hanson was xenophobic – can do little other than dispute the degree of contribution to the Renaissance … obviously a key symptom of xenophobia …
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:06 pmCan’t talk people out of something you have not talked them into.
As for forced marriages, I have no reason to doubt there are some like Kishnevi said, but I think they’re few.
The way it works where I’m from is, “Do you want him?/Do you want her?” Parents love their children, boys and girls the same, and want them to be happy.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:15 pmshut up silly Greek
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:17 pmI fart in your general
direction nk
more like “do you want
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:21 pmher? she is good, no? I give
you more of her, yes?”
No, but they do control the lion’s share of the mosques from “Afghanistan to Zanzibar” as one wag put it
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/6/2010 @ 6:26 pmshut up silly Greek
I fart in your general
direction nk
Comment by ColonelHaiku — 7/6/2010 @ 6:17 pm
Mostly you fart when Jeff Goldstein sticks his shmuck up your heinie, right?
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:13 pmnk’s cilia are overly sensitive today.
AD - RtR/OS! (1087df) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:30 pmthe facade and the
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:31 pmgreta garbo “ignore” act
falls by the wayside
colonel think nk
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:33 pmhigh on eleven diffrent
herbs and spices, no?
Nah, just trying to figure out what f***t is stalking me.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:35 pmkishnevi,
To be clear, my very point is that there are moderate Muslims, but we are dealing with horrible ones.
It really doesn’t matter how great the moderates are. They are not the ones we are forced to deal with. I have no idea what’s rancid about this. The Muslims we are dealing with, in terror, in basic human rights, are simply awful people. You seem to think I’m generalizing, but I think you’re just misreading what I said, and while sometimes I am unclear and wordy, I was pretty damn clear on this point so I think you’re out of line.
nk,
I apologize for letting you get under my skin. You’re a nutcase and I already knew that, and I shouldn’t let that ruin my attitude. Best wishes to your family and I’m sorry you are what you are.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:37 pmI did not know the Albanian Imams were responsible for this mess. You learn something new on the intertubes everyday.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:39 pmnk, Colonol Haiku’s normal moniker also uses an Army rank. You have him on ignore (lol) so you didn’t see that he’s not making it much of a secret in other threads.
No one is stalking you. You are not important or intimidating or even interesting. You’re just a colossal jerk who has some of the thinnest skin I’ve ever seen on the internet.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:40 pmDustin,
Get yourself out of the closet and go down to the gay bar and get yourself a boyfriend for three minutes. It will do you a world of good.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:44 pmThanks, nk. I will take that under advisement.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 7:49 pmDustin – Tell them nk sent you and the bartender will let you drink for free.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 8:36 pmMeanwhile, kishnevi – claiming that Hanson was xenophobic – can do little other than dispute the degree of contribution to the Renaissance … obviously a key symptom of xenophobia …
I was pointing out one precise instance in which he mistated the facts, for the purpose of inciting more contempt of Muslims. It’s typical of him when he writes on subjects touching Islam and Muslims. The Bernard Lewis quote is actually quite irrelevant to what Hanson was talking about.
Dustin–I read your remark as a generalized comment applying to Muslims in general, since the Muslims we are interacting with are more than the jihadis. They also include the Muslims who are not jihadis, jut normal people doing normal things. You say I misread it, so I apologize–to you. But there seem to others here who would make that generalization. The only person I remember on this thread clearly acknowledging that not all Muslims are “bad” was MD in Philly.
kishnevi (d785be) — 7/6/2010 @ 8:59 pmKind of missing the point, why skip Lowell and Goddard to use two examples to suggest Al Battani
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:04 pmand Al Mazdi, for just two examples which are more
than 500 years in the past, also Galileo, Copernicus, Newton
Dustin – Tell them nk sent you and the bartender will let you drink for free.
mention nk and
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:06 pmreceive free coffee drink with
four inches of cream
The Bernard Lewis quote is actually quite irrelevant to what Hanson was talking about.
Actually, it’s not all about you or your thoughts, kishnevi. If YOU want to learn about the Arab world, read Bernard Lewis, recognized as the foremost authority.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:10 pm“l, since the Muslims we are interacting with are more than the jihadis”
OK, this is probably reasonable since I said ‘deal with’. By deal with, I meant something more pressing than mere interaction, but I was being unclear.
I suspect you didn’t read the rest of my comment, and I don’t insist people do that. No worries. You’re right. One of my fondest memories of my grandmother was her praying to Mecca while I harassed her… and one of my worst memories was being called ‘camel jockey’ and ‘sand N-word’ in an East Texas school, and seeing a sister harassed by bigots on similar grounds.
I still have an unyielding problem with those who would put women behind men to the degree many do. Had you finished my comment, you’d see I include some Christians as the problem while noting many Muslims are not this problem.
Remember, I was specifically reacting to a comment about how lingerie is sold in the most oppressive to woman country on this planet. I don’t want to see intelligent people defend Saudi Arabia against the charge of legal sexism.
I’ll repeat my main idea: I simply have a problem with anything less than all people being legal equals. That doesn’t neatly cut across any other lines, be they nationality, race, religion, etc. So?
The moderate Muslims are not blowing up our building or hurting women and we aren’t forced to deal with them… many of them are in uniform, forced to deal with the monsters.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:13 pmLook BUNNIES!!!!
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:13 pmI really hate making these personal appeals, though.
The, “as a middle eastern man” or “as someone whose mother did this”.
I try to stick to the generic argument. That’s part of what makes nk so effective at getting under my skin… this reliance on ‘I’m X, so you can’t ‘win’ the argument!!!!’ Pet peeve, I guess.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:17 pmdon’t worry Dustin:
sooner of later, there will be a thread topic where he can’t claim a relative, or personal experience, or whatever else it is he usually produces out of thin air for the occasion….
the question will be, who can remember all the different stories to throw the BS flag when its time?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:21 pmMost Muslums are moderate. Most treat their women good. Some don’t.
Chris Hooten (d63ded) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:29 pmBut let’s paint all of the muslums with the brush based on the unpleasant minority.
Chris Hooten (d63ded) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:31 pmI never lie about my personal experiences, mouthbreathers. I’m fifty-four and have had a very full life. Unlike you little q***rs in your mommas’ basements.
nk (db4a41) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:32 pmActually, it’s not all about you or your thoughts, kishnevi. If YOU want to learn about the Arab world, read Bernard Lewis, recognized as the foremost authority.
Read his books a long time ago, GM.
Him and a few others….
However, in this case, the quote given was about stuff that happened in the late 16th century. Hanson was making claims about events in the 13th-early 16th centuries. And even if he was following the common, although historically incorrect, usage of “Renaissance” as referring to the period extending, roughly, from 1400 to 1520, when the Reformation got into gear, he would still be incorrect. Hanson was denying the impact that Arab learning had on medieval Europe; which, since Arab learning had an enormous impact on medieval Europe and that’s what started the Renaissance, deserves the word “bosh”.
kishnevi (d785be) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:36 pmNK–take a deep breath, put down the keyboard, and go admire the stars. Or something. No one here is worth getting into a rage.
kishnevi (d785be) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:39 pm“Most Muslums are moderate. Most treat their women good. Some don’t.
Comment by Chris Hooten”
Maybe you’re right, but are you sure about this?
There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who haven’t changed some terrible legal systems. Why? Perhaps they treat their women well… lucky for the women because it’s not up to them… they are allowed to undress, not free to undress. There’s a difference.
I see no need to generalize. Anyone who tolerates unequal laws is on the side of evil. If that’s ten Muslims, if that’s a billion, if it’s Christians or Jews… doesn’t really matter. Can a politically unconnected single woman even make a living in Saudi Arabia? The notion is actually abhorrent to them. She is not a full person and should find an owner to provide her with food and direction. Oh, but she can wear a G string in private if her husband tells her to.
Perhaps because I don’t even care about the generalization, I freely condemn the monsters of Islam without the PC requisite sensitive point ‘there are moderates’. I just assume smart people didn’t need me to remind them of the obvious.
NK, do you hate gay people by any chance? And I already said that I think you’re honest about your life… way up there in one of those wordy comments you are too good to read. I guess when you ignore people being nice to you, it’s easier to feel oppressed and exhaust their patience.
Here’s the thing: your life experiences you list are not that special. Any of us could go on and on about the same crap. It’s invalid reasoning, so we don’t.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:41 pmBTW, if you want to an accurate summation of how Byzantine scholarship interacted with the already existing Renaissance from about 1400 on , the last volume of Gibbon is still one of the best places to start. What the Byzantines introduced the Italians to was not science or math, but Greek philosophy and literature–and also of course Roman law, although in that instance, we’re talking about something that actually occurred during the “high” Middle Ages, from about 1000-1300 CE.
kishnevi (d785be) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:46 pmI’m only forty-four. Does this mean that I have yet to lead a full life?
Icy Texan (5b976b) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:54 pmsome people lead a full life, and some people live life while full of it.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 7/6/2010 @ 9:56 pm“May a love-starved fruit-fly molest your sister’s nectarines.”
Icy Texan (5b976b) — 7/6/2010 @ 10:19 pm— Carnac
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007060005
What many fail to realize about this skirmish is that it’s part of a bigger battle. For better — or worse — Bolden is simply following the newly stated trajectory of the 52 year old civilian space agency, under the inclusive, ‘new space’ privatization space policy initiatives, recently released by the WH, and articulated by President Obama on April 15 at the Kennedy Space Center. It was a speech that could have stirred the bones of Ronald Reagan– or Ayn Rand. And it presents quite a dilemma for conservatives. For on one hand, embracing Obama’s ‘new space’ privatization policy essentially ends the historied, though expensive, big government funded and managed manned space program as Americans have known it for half a century; you know, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle/ISS programs that carried Americans into a leadership position space. Most of the ‘old hands’ from NASA– the one’s who actually managed and achieved the moon landings and other successes- opposed the ‘Obamaspace’ plan. But not all. And this new plan does not sit well with many GOP/conservative members of Congress in states where facilities were staffed working on the recently tabled (or killed, depending on your POV) ‘return to the moon to stay and explore’ project, the Constellation Program. Especially in an election year. Particularly those politicians in states along the Gulf Coast, where jobs are needed now more than ever given current events. And a significant number of space-related facilities are based there, including those where shuttle operations are being terminated.
On the other hand, Constellation did have setbacks- both financial and technical. Under funded since the Bush administration first proposed the project, the Ares launch vehicle, a solid rocket design championed by former administrator Griffin, was greeted with mixed reviews after a test flight last October as private rocket companies were ramping up in competition. And there are existing expendable launch vehicles that could be adapted to carry the Orion spacecraft, a crew and/or cargoed vehicle planned as a ‘general purpose’ spacecraft which was supposed to be in the pipeline to replace shuttle. It was under funded as well, and is currently in limbo, to be redesigned as an escape capsule for the ISS or canceled completely. If it is terminated, it will be the first time since the X-15 (technically it flew to the edge of space) was turned over to NASA in the late 1950’s, that there will be no manned space vehicle in work designed/purchased and operated by NASA. All this means good technology-based jobs in a lot of states in a recession/depression. Oh sure, there’s chatter of extending shuttle flights- but that’s expensive. And plans are to keep a trickle of flights up to service and crew the ISS with Americans, via purchased seats (estimates range around $50 million per seat per astronaut) aboard the reliable Russian Soyuz (it’s been flying for over 40 years) and, as contracted and proposed, private contracted servicing using the services of SpaceX hardware –the still untested Dragon spacecraft, launched a top SpaceX’s recently test-flown Falcon 9 rocket.And at KSC, President Obama articulated this more inclusive NASA policy (hence Bolden’s comments), research-driven, long range, albeit somewhat nebulous, plans for visiting asteroids, rocket engine research and orbiting Mars in 2030 or so.
Many seasoned, experienced shuttle and Apollo era managers and crews, including Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, have voiced concern that this ‘new space’ plan is little more than a ‘mission to nowhere’ which allows America’s leadership in space to simply fade away. They advocate a NASA managed and government funded return to and exploring the moon as a logical step to perfecting operations in near Earth space before making an expedition to Mars. Others, including Armstrong’s crew mate, Buzz Aldrin, support Obama’s vision for the future of space. But as the Age of Austerity approaches, it’s possible Obama’s long range plans will end up orbiting for eternity in the infamous circular file. And it is fair to say that some current private space enterprises show promise — but investment has been hard to generate for three decades. Given the largess of capital needed for operating private space ventures, the question for our generation is if it is worth investing in that promise at the cost of abandoning the government funded and managed civilian space agency. For that is really what is at stake.
Americans equate NASA with putting people into space. If the manned space program is gutted from NASA by a Congress in agreement with the WH, there will be little reason to fund the civilian space agency in out years as budgets shrink and the demand for discretionary funding rises. And the public will agree. There isn’t a politician alive who wouldn’t crow over the chance to shutter a federal agency in lean times. It will be easy to dissolve NASA and blend any esoteric research it has on going into other existing agencies (DoD, FAA, NOAA, etc.) It has happened before. The NACA was created in 1917 for aviation and dissolved in 1958- its assets folded into a then new agency- NASA. It’s worth noting, too, that over the 80-plus year history of rocketry, in various political guises around the world, it was chiefly big government rocket development programs that funded and moved the technology forward. Private enterprise was the follow along, cashing in where it could. So the issue really isn’t Bolden, but whether American space efforts will continue to be bold. That may be changing. The question is, for our time, if it truly is change you can believe in.
DCSCA (b640ae) — 7/7/2010 @ 3:46 amThe above ^^^ is all the evidence you will ever need that Disco Stu allows George Soros to do his thinkin’ for him.
Icy Texan (5b976b) — 7/7/2010 @ 4:13 amUnlike you little q***rs in your mommas’ basements.
To a certain extent, I’m this site’s resident queer (there may be others, but I’m not aware of them) … and I haven’t set foot in my momma’s widower’s basement since she died thirteen years ago.
So perhaps this particular insult is misplaced?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 7/7/2010 @ 4:17 pm