Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

This one might be a little harder for the MSM to ignore…

Posted: February 1, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news
Tags: , , , ,

…since instead of Iranian TV this one was on CNN proper:

The Blaze caught this and, as they explain, the truth-telling starts at about the 1:30 mark, including a woman who says of Hosni Mubarak:

“All the people hate him. He’s supporting Israel! Israel is our enemy. We don’t like him … Israel and America supported him. We hate them all!”

Then, at 2:20, the guy shoves himself in front of the camera and says:

“It is revolution, yes, but who supports Hosni Mubarak? The United States of America, British government, German government, French government . . . The people in Egypt, we got to be free. . . . We got to go free Palestinians. We got to go destroy Israel. The country that controls [unintelligible] is Israel.”

Nope nothing to see here. I suspect we won’t see this repeated on CNN or MSNBC. You can count on Rush to play this today.

Some interesting Egyptian coincidences

Posted: January 31, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news
Tags: , , , , ,

There seem to be a lot of “interesting coincidences” going on with Egypt

Item: Today on WCRN there was an interesting caller linking the revolt in Egypt with the attacks on Coptic Churches in Egypt.

Frankly this hadn’t hit me before but it makes a lot of sense. The government came out strong against the attacks with members of the Mubarak family going so far as to be human shields during Church services.

Less than 4 weeks later they are calling for the fall of the dictator.

Item: Take a look at who is supporting revolt actively in Egypt:

The question is begged: What have Obama’s allies Ayers, Dohrn and Code Pink taught the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Mubarak organizations in Egypt about using protests, riots and the modern social media to coordinate their actions to undermine the Mubarak regime?

Being that they have common enemies–the United States, Israel, and governements allied with them–it is understandable that they would be allies. It must give them encouragement that President Obama has yet to disavow Jodie Evans and Code Pink, but instead continues to do business with them as Evans and Code Pink act as conduits between terrorists and Obama.

I’m sure when you read the whole piece you will dismiss as just coincidence the connections between Hamas, Code pink and Bill Ayers.

Item: It loses something in translation:

There you have it: the velvet glove with the word “Freedom”; the steel fist with the words “Make Ready” with its well-known Quranic reference. Actually, not steel fist – steel swords, crossed. The Muslim Brotherhood.

It is not “freedom” that they intend to bring to Egypt – or to anywhere else.

But just wait for the CIA, the State Department, the Administration, the mainstream media, and so many others to tell you the Muslim Brotherhood is all about little Aisha and freedom, and if you question them, you’re an Islamophobe (Shariah definition of “Islamophobe”: Blasphemer or Insulter of Islam, punishable by death in an Islamic state).

The Language barrier has apparently been a positive thing for the Muslim Brotherhood and they are very keen to preserve it.

And as Yid with Lid reports we all know who is behind this don’t we:

In a column published today on Media Matters political correction site, MJ Rosenberg claimed that the current Egyptian crisis was the fault of AIPAC and the “Israel Lobby.” For those of you who have lived on a different planet till today, “Israel Lobby” is a polite way of saying “Jews.” It is based on the old anti-Semitic canard that it is the Jews who control the United States government.

It doesn’t matter how you slice it the Anti-Semites will always manage to blame the Jews for everything.

Egyptians, like all people deserve the right to have leaders who govern by the consent of the governed. We need to keep our eyes wide open to make sure that this actually becomes the fact, rather than being governed by an Iranian or Islamic state.

Evolution and God, goes together like the horse and carriage

Posted: January 31, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , , , ,

I noticed Jazz Shaw’s post on Evolution linking to Steve Benen “look how dumb those Christians are” post, and Stacy McCain’s answer..

Forgetting the fact that Mr. Benen apparently wants to put a religious test on who can serve in congress and forgetting his seeming ignorance concerning Christianity’s history and science. I suggest he buy a copy of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (my review here no wonder the left hates Western Civilization so much but I digress).

I’ve already made my point in this post about the Bible and science:

In our science we basically have educated guesses in pursuit of truth. As time and our knowledge expands our guesses become better and more informed but in the end a lot of it is still a guess, yet these guesses are a million times better than Moses would ever be able to make. If our science would be beyond Moses, how much more beyond him would be the actual methods of how God works explained on a scientific level?

It is my opinion that God gave Moses the answers that were truthful, but also in a way that he and his people, bronze age humans could understand and grasp. Like at the waters of Massah and Meribah he didn’t give him a thesis on Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms combined to create water, he didn’t give a geological explanation of how steams wear down soil and cause erosion, he provided the water.

It doesn’t matter for example if the entire world was flooded in Noah’s time, or if it was an individual continent, or just a country the size of Iraq or whatever. In the understanding of Noah it was the world, and in the understanding of Moses it was the world. It makes it no less the action of God nor do the lessons drawn from it change. It is no different than trying to explain to a 3 year old how something works, you tell him the truth but in a way that he can grasp it.

Now as I said Science is a question of our best educated guess, but many people try to use it as a club to attack Christianity in general and the Bible in particular as Stacy puts it:

Having spent quite some time studying the arguments over evolution, it has for many years struck me that while the scientific priesthood of neo-Darwinian orthodoxy in astrophysics, paleontology and anthropology often disagree vehemently over their own theories and interpretations, they are united by one major agreement: The Bible is wrong.

On that point, they are quite fanatical, and one need not debate fanatics. Merely demonstrate that they are fanatics — occasionally point out their more obvious errors, provoking their predictably intemperate responses — and you will discredit them in the eyes of reasonable people.

I think people often confuse “natural selection” and survival and the fittest, which is certainly scientifically sound and full blown evolution the creation of one species from another.

The second has several problems the biggest of which for me is the math.

Here is what you need for evolution of that nature to work:

  1. You need some kind of mutation.
  2. Said mutation needs to be a beneficial mutation so it doesn’t increase the likely hood of the creature caught by a predator.
  3. You need a mutation that doesn’t prevent breeding with a similar creature
  4. The result of that breed must carry said mutation so it has to be dominant trait
  5. Continual breeding has to take place so that dominant trait spreads until all members of the species without that dominant trait disappear.
  6. Repeat until an amoeba becomes Snooki from Jersey Shore.

Now think about the mathematical odds of each of those steps and imagine the development of a claw from a fin.  Think of NOTHING else, just that single development.  What would the mathematical odds of each step taking place? How many times would the dice have to fall a particular way for that to happen just for that step to take place? What are the odds of such a thing happening by chance and not just by chance, but over and over again for every species that is out there?

Is that possible, sure. I believe in God, with such a God something like this is very possible, what I find amazing is that those who are so vehement in denying the existence of God are willing to bet their reputations on a process that mathematically is so unlikely that they’d never bet real money on it.

I submit that if you believe in Evolution you almost HAVE to believe in God because the odds of such a process taking place without him are so slight as to be nil.

Or to put it another way. You can have God without evolution, but considering the odds involved I submit you can’t have evolution without God.

Now is it really important? Not really, It’s an interesting scientific discussion and like anything such scientific discussion you go where the evidence takes you. We keep researching, we find clues and make assumptions based on them, test them, and repeat. That’s fine. Religion of course doesn’t need to explain the nuts and bolts of how a universe is created, it’s primary job is to save souls. These goals aren’t mutually exclusive and we need to remember what science and religion’s purposes are:

Man didn’t need God to provide him a science text, man can write those texts himself. Man did need instruction on the salvation of his soul. God provided that and still provides it through Scripture, prayer, the Church and Tradition. We can take advantage of those things provided or not. It’s totally up to us.

I await to see Steve Benen’s piece attacking the scientific ignorance of Islam.

Muslim Brotherhood? What Muslim Brotherhood?

Posted: January 30, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news
Tags: , , , , ,

Turned on CNN this morning just before 7 a.m. and a woman was being interviewed on CNN concerning the revolt in Egypt. I didn’t catch the name since I had literally just walked down the stairs and turned on my PC.) There was a very telling moment, at the end of the interview where the CNN folks asked about the Muslim brotherhood. The response was VERY defensive.

“The Muslim brotherhood is not taking part as a movement” She stressed that the brotherhood was talking part only as “individuals” and called on media not to stress them.

I found that very interesting considering this story:

The leader of Jordan’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood warned Saturday that unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast and Arabs will topple leaders allied with the United States.

Hammam Saeed’s comments were made at a protest outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman, inspired by massive rallies in neighboring Egypt demanding the downfall of the country’s longtime president, Hosni Mubarak.

SISU is going long on this theme.

linking our own tweet (above) a layman’s take on the ongoing Middle East turmoil based upon keeping our virtual ear to the ground in the last period of time:

This is what’s really happening. Muslim Brotherhood poised to co-opt restless populations thoughout Middle East.

“Yes, you are right,” McCotter direct-messaged back. We’re inclined to take the Michigan Congressman’s well-considered assessments seriously.

As I type FOX is on with Lisa Daftari is not ignoring the dangers of an 1979 style revolution when good intentions become co-opted by a more powerful organized group. (forget 1979 think of 1918 in Russia and the blood that followed for nearly a century)

John Bolton continues:

This is a protest that may have been percolated by the Muslim Brotherhood. We all know President Mubarak of Egypt is a dictator, but to compare this protest to the Green Revolution may be foolish.

And lets not forget what polls said in 2007:

In a rigorously conducted face-to-face University of Maryland/ WorldPublicOpinion.org interview survey of 1000 Egyptian Muslims conducted between December 9, 2006 and February 15, 2007, 67% of those interviewed-more than 2/3, hardly a “fringe minority”-desired this outcome (i.e., “To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate”). The internal validity of these data about the present longing for a Caliphate is strongly suggested by a concordant result: 74% of this Muslim sample approved the proposition “To require a strict [emphasis added] application of Shari’a law in every Islamic country.”

That is scary. Almost as scary as the concept that Robert Stacy McCain is linking…Robert Fisk?

Cairo now changes from joy to sullen anger within minutes. Yesterday morning, I walked across the Nile river bridge to watch the ruins of Mubarak’s 15-storey party headquarters burn. In front stood a vast poster advertising the benefits of the party – pictures of successful graduates, doctors and full employment, the promises which Mubarak’s party had failed to deliver in 30 years – outlined by the golden fires curling from the blackened windows of the party headquarters. Thousands of Egyptians stood on the river bridge and on the motorway flyovers to take pictures of the fiercely burning building – and of the middle-aged looters still stealing chairs and desks from inside.

Yet the moment a Danish television team arrived to film exactly the same scenes, they were berated by scores of people who said that they had no right to film the fires, insisting that Egyptians were proud people who would never steal or commit arson. This was to become a theme during the day: that reporters had no right to report anything about this “liberation” that might reflect badly upon it. Yet they were still remarkably friendly and – despite Obama’s pusillanimous statements on Friday night – there was not the slightest manifestation of hostility against the United States. “All we want – all – is Mubarak’s departure and new elections and our freedom and honour,” a 30-year-old psychiatrist told me. Behind her, crowds of young men were clearing up broken crash barriers and road intersection fences from the street – an ironic reflection on the well-known Cairo adage that Egyptians will never, ever clean their roads.

I don’t and never have trusted Robert Fisk but he is actually there first hand (talk about a windfall for an international reporter!) so one has to respect that and give his reports the respect that first hand reporting calls for. Yet lets take a peek at once other paragraph from this story:

Their crews, in battledress and smiling and in some cases clapping their hands, made no attempt to wipe off the graffiti that the crowds had spray-painted on their tanks. “Mubarak Out – Get Out”, and “Your regime is over, Mubarak” have now been plastered on almost every Egyptian tank on the streets of Cairo. On one of the tanks circling Freedom Square was a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Beltagi. Earlier, I had walked beside a convoy of tanks near the suburb of Garden City as crowds scrambled on to the machines to hand oranges to the crews, applauding them as Egyptian patriots. However crazed Mubarak’s choice of vice-president and his gradual appointment of a powerless new government of cronies, the streets of Cairo proved what the United States and EU leaders have simply failed to grasp. It is over.

It’s classic Fisk to hit the US on this. But before people get delirious about the future need to read this Michael Totten post from 2005 while he was there with Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh:

“My biggest fear,” he continued, “is that if the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt we will get Islamism-lite, that they won’t be quite bad enough that people will revolt against them. Take bars, for example. Most Egyptians don’t drink, so they won’t mind if alcohol is illegal. The same goes for banning books. Most Egyptians don’t read. So why should they care if books are banned? Most women wear a veil or a headscarf already, so if it becomes the law hardly anyone will resist.”

“How many people here think like you do?” I asked him.

“Few,” he said. “Very few. Less than ten percent probably.”

What was the future he saw:

I asked Big Pharaoh what he thought would happen if Egypt held a legitimate free and fair election instead of this bullshit staged by Mubarak.

“The Muslim Brotherhood would win,” he said. “They would beat Mubarak and the liberals.”

I was afraid he was going to say that.

“I’ve had this theory for a while now,” I said. “It looks like some, if not most, Middle East countries are going to have to live under an Islamic state for a while and get it out of their system.”

Big Pharaoh laughed grimly.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s just how it looks.”

He buried his head on his arms.

“Take Iranians,” I said. “They used to think Islamism was a fantastic idea. Now they hate it. Same goes in Afghanistan. Algerians don’t think too much of Islamism either after 150,000 people were killed in the civil war. I hate to say this, but it looks like Egypt will have to learn this the hard way.”

“You are right,” he said. “You are right. I went to an Egyptian chat room on the Internet and asked 15 people if they fasted during Ramadan. All of them said they fasted during at least most of it. I went to an Iranian chat room and asked the same question. 14 out of 15 said they did not fast for even one single day.”

How many will end up dying and what kind of war will ensue while the under 30’s learn this lesson?

Meanwhile Joe Scarborough notes something on Twitter.

The Luxor attack and its aftermath explains why the Muslim Brotherhood has gone to great lengths to take no credit for this uprising.

I think its more than that, I think that given the experience of the Iranian revolution and what it produced, and the reality of Islamic terror it is impossible to not understand what an Islamic state would mean.

What is the best move? I’m very torn. I’ve always maintained that people have the right to be wrong. If the people actually WANT this kind of thing what can you do? I think in the end you have to let the people learn this the hard way and deal with things as they come. The best hope is that Egyptians learn from the Iranian mistake. The Egyptian people have the right to make their own choices, and they will also reap what they sow. Part of being free is living with the consequences of your decisions.

  • There are consequences for supporting Islamic terror.
  • There are consequences for going to war with Israel.
  • There are consequences for choosing to be an enemy of the US.
  • There are consequences for supporting Iran
  • There are consequences for closing the Suez Canal

And that doesn’t even touch the consequences internally, but those internal consequences are on them.

Do we have a strong or wise enough administration in the White House to make that case without trouble?

Update: missed Michael’s link, silly me, put in now.

Older Entries
Newer Entries