Benedict, Part II
 

What the fuck are you talking about?

Ty's comment was essentially him noting that the Islamic community seemed to be proving the Pope's point with their violent reaction to him.

Who named you Conscience of America? Where the fuck do you get off piling on with Hank when all I did was point out that it was pretty clear to me that his sentiments and Ty's were in accord?

Hank, in a knee-jerk reaction, assumed that Ty was being flip, or trying to make light of the situation. Now here you come, accusing me of what?

I haven't said anything, period, about either the Pope's comment or the Muslim world's reaction to it. But apparently you don't need to bother trying to find out. God forbid you should maybe ask me what I think instead of deciding on the basis of zero information.

Your "righteous" indignation is nothing but presumptuous bullshit. I still consider us friends, Slave, but things like this seriously test that feeling.

Benedict, Part IV
 

And my point was exactly - "Really? no kidding? Where have you been the last 72 hours, that you just realized this?"

Perhaps when I said the other day that Ty was being as ironic as the Pakistani foreign minister, maybe no one else had a clue what the Pakistani foreign minister actually said. And I guess, therein lies the problem. I follow this stuff. Others do not, and theat seriously concerns me.

No one did. And I never claimed to me. But I'll say this - I'm not walking around in some oblivious PC daze about the shrinking world and the evil around us. I sincerely hope you aren't either.

History is clear that I hardly, if ever, pile on with anyone. Let alone Hank (or Penske) on the politics board. As I recall, I immediately rose to Ty defense when Hank asked him to take a powder.

My point - indirect as it may have been because I quoted you via Hank - was my absolute shock that Ty only just seemed to catch on as to this "irony" of the Islamists, given all of the quotes and news releases over the last few days.

Here, I'm not accusing you of anything. Perhaps wrongly lumping you in with Ty.

My righteous indignation is against these bloodthirsty zealots, the revisionists at the NYT and Reuters in the blame-US first camp, any non-Muslim that defends them, and any Muslim that does not openly reject them.

Unless you tell me - and I dont think this at all - that you fall into any of those 4 categories, then I don't think our friendship is at stake.

Benedict, Part III
 

The ironic thing is that the world would be better off if Benedict (and his ilk) were killed and the Catholic Church estinguished as an institution with any more relevance than the Branch Davidians. It is a toss up whether Catholicism or Islam is the more fucked-up religious incarnation. But now, by taking on Islam, he's insulated himself and his abomination of an institution. It's like Salman Rushie - get a fatwa put on your head and no one remembers that your books sucked.

Benedict, Part IV
 

You posted something, and I agreed with you. So what's the problem? Who said I just realized anything?

Benedict, Part II
 

You're extremely pessimistic that there aren't?

Man, that's fucked up.

Couldn't tell you, Hank. I'm a Gingrich Republican on this one, man. We're in the middle of WWIII and 49% of America doesn't even know it. Onward to Tehran! and Pyongyang! and then back to Baghdad! then Islamabad! and Riyadh!

Benedict, Part II
 

No.

Neither of us are Muslims or scholars on Islam, and I'm not inclined to go on a Google expedition to argue with you about whether Muslim moderates exist but are reluctant to engage in a fratricidal war with their batshit crazy brethren, or whether they exist at all, or whether Islam is just a seething cauldron of hate, evil and other nasty shit.

Look, I agree with you that the fatwas and other shit we've been reading since Benedict made his speech are ironic (Hi, Hank!), stupid, dangerous and wrong. But I'm not yet driven by those statements to the same conclusions that you are.

The "Islam is a Religion of Peace" theme is something that's been driven into the ground on this board by the Hanks and Penskes in our community, and I've stopped trying to discern about whether they even mean any of it, or simply take more joy from stirring the shit. I suspect that you actually do take it seriously, and I'm trying to be sincere when I say that what you're describing sounds like the plot to a bad B-movie.

A billion people don't have monolithic views about anything, and arguing that all of them will rise up because of what clerics and political leaders say makes no sense. And agreeing with Coulter that all Muslims need to be converted or killed is similarly screwy.

Gattigap

Benedict, Part II
 

I meant I am pessimistic, since I think it likely major wars will happen. I hope they don't.

Benedict, Part II
 

My point was it's more scary than ironic- what with Churchs being burned.

Slave's point, at least as I understand it, is if no major Islam figure condemn the death threats and the church burnings, there's nothing to keep the billion people from becoming more and more violent, with higher and higher percentages becoming terrorists. Then he asked you to comfort him with some hope otherwise.

The Islam is a religion of peace "shit" is nothing more than the same "irony" Ty points to only inverted a little.

You realize the fear of making muslims mad has resulted in censorship across europe- both self-imposed by artist, writers, filmmakers etc., out of fear, but also by editors and governments. Crazy people have begun to control the Western media. Does that scare you?

Benedict, Part II
 

Nuke Mecca!

Benedict, Part III
 

I love you like the retarded brother I never had, but are still drunk from the Cal win?

I'm not a big fan of many of the Catholic church's stances on personal issues (i.e., I'm on a Highway to Hell), but when Father Tom from my old church starts advocating the stoning of rape victim, maybe I'll agree with you.

Oh, and it appears they got that memo about the fatwa

They shot a 70-year old nun in the back.

Banner Day for the Associate Press
 

Right after having one of their Pulitzer Prize winning photographers exposed as an actual terrorist

We find that they had to switch the headline to one of their own stories lest anyone think it was pro-GOP.

Benedict, Part II
 

Look, maybe I'm coming across a complete lunatic here, but it really, really bothers me that these threats continue to go unchecked. That the actual governments of countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Yemen etc get involved and criticize the Pope, it only encourages the mob. and perhaps its the reluctance of the West to get involved due to our love of the freedom of speech, but IMHO it is criminal to remain silent in this context. It reveals to me that we are afraid to speak up. Adding to my outrage is that come Election Day, numerous politicians (historically, Kerry comes to mind, but there are GOPers as well) will wrap themselves is the flag of the Holy See to court Irish, Italian and Latino voters. Well, where the F are they today?

Gatti, I hear you. But the reality is that this canard is repeated in practically every article you read these days. Here's just one from today.

Why? You mean their words don't inflame the mob? They shot a 70 year old nun in the back today. Churches have been burned. Theo Van Gogh was assassinated after his documentary (here's irony again - about Muslim violence against women) was condemned. According to polls, between 50% - 80% of Muslims worldwide think that 9/11 was committed by the US (and/or Israel) in orcer to make Islam look bad.

eta

• A third priest may now have become a victim of the violence and lawlessness in Baghdad. Father Basil Salem Yaldo was last seen leaving a church building in the Dora area of Baghdad. He is the personal secretary to the Catholic Patriarch for Iraq. At the time of his disappearance, a car bomb had exploded in the vicinity and a round-up of suspects took place by Iraqi and Coalition Security Forces. It is not known if Father Basil was taken into custody, is being held for ransom, or worse.
  The first priest to be abducted was forced to leave the country after being brutalized and then released. The second is still being treated for injuries suffered during weeks of physical and mental abuse. He was released only after a series of ransoms were paid.

• Holy Mass on a Sunday is the very source and summit of the Catholic week, so my family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell" "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way" "Pope Benedict watch your back" and other hateful things.

Presumably, these are British citizens, not exactly the Arab mob we tend to envision in these discussions.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...tminster01.jpg

That was clearly a joke - and you know that.

Benedict, Part II
 

Apparently the Aussies agree with me:

link

Benedict, Part II
 

The lefties are clueless. They don't understand how medieval the "Arab street" is. It probably wants the Pope to surrender for a traditional scourging, one that doesn't stope until there's a puddle of blood under the whip hand.

R v D Walmart
 

:box:

After reading the following article, it occured to me that one area where one can see the basic philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats is with Walmart. Republicans see Walmart as an American success story that brings thousands of Jobs to people, lowers prices improving the standard of living in this country and that it has an overall positive influence.

Democrats see wall Mart as a company that kills small businesses, pushes out high paying jobs and replaces them with low paying jobs, exploits its workers by giving them cheap wages and no health insurance, and is evil because it won't tolerate Unions.

Democrats don't want Walmart to come to their town, and if it does want to limit its size, Republicans welcome Walmart to their town and will put no restrictions on Walmart.

And Ty please note I was disappointed in George Will for using a dubious "Median" stat. I bet you the "average" household income for Walmart employee is below $35,000 and that is why he used the Median stat.


Dems Vs. Wal-Mart

By George Will


EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. — This suburb, contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88 percent white. A large majority of the customers of the Wal-Mart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city, and more than 90 percent of the store's customers are African American.


One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000-square-foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down because, she said, the person doing the hiring "had an attitude." So why is the woman shopping here anyway? She looks at the questioner as though he is dimwitted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her.


Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money. Besides, she should not brood. She had lots of company in not being hired: More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings.


Which vexes liberals such as John Kerry. (He and his helpmeet last shopped at Wal-Mart when?) In 2004 he tested what has become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes: Wal-Mart is, he said, "disgraceful" and symbolic of "what's wrong with America." By now Democrats have succeeded, to their embarrassment (if they are susceptible to that), in making the basic numbers familiar:


The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation.


By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates . Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).



People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart — it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business — save at least 17 percent. But because unions are strong in many grocery stores trying to compete with Wal-Mart, unions are yanking on the Democratic Party's leash, demanding laws to force Wal-Mart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract 77 times as many applicants than there were jobs at this store.


The big-hearted progressives on Chicago's City Council, evidently unconcerned that the city gets zero sales tax revenue from a half-billion dollars that Chicago residents spend in the 42 suburban Wal-Marts, have passed a bill that, by dictating wages and benefits, would keep Wal-Marts from locating in the city. Richard Daley, a bread-and-butter Democrat, used his first veto in 17 years as mayor to swat it away.


Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce — yes, announce — that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals.


Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?


No. The current issue of the American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for "lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses" and for having brought "great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world."


What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).


When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?

:bounce: