A-R-A-B: The Rap

Another video from Remy and Habib, the guys who did the Warcraft vid.

Warcraft: The Rap

My nerdy alter-ego is a huge World of Warcraft fan, and this is one of the best WoW vids out there right now. Even if you don't play, you might still enjoy this.

U.S. to Blame...Again

It turns out Rosie O'Donnell is not the only voice in the liberal wilderness blaming the U.S. for the British hostage crisis. She is joined by the British daily, The Independent, which claims in an article today that a botched U.S. raid ten weeks prior to the hostage incident is ultimately to blame for Iran's actions.

I'm sure Iran is really miffed that we took a swipe at the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on his visit to Arbil in Northern Iraq. After all, I'm sure he was on a goodwill mission, delivering cookies and milk to Kurdistani diplomats there. But it stands to reason that they would send a clear message to us instead of the hopelessly mixed signals coming from Tehran at the moment. Also, nevermind the fact that evidence has been found showing Iranian involvement in resistance efforts against the U.S.; Rick Brennan covered this in a NYTimes piece two weeks ago. Nevermind Iran's repeated flouting of U.N. demands to come clean over their nuclear program. Simply forget Mad Mahmoud's eagerness to perpetrate another Jewish holocaust. It is, as always, those cowboys from the West who are to blame.

If only we wouldn't be so gung-ho. If only we would listen to the worldwide community (who, interestingly, spends most of their time listening to Iran's demands). If only we would reward bad behavior by the promise of incentives upon compliance. Then this hostage situation could have been averted. This whole Middle Eastern imbroglio might have been averted if we would have curried the favor of world opinion.

This article is, sadly, another example of a growing dhimmitude in Europe--a hope to achieve success through submission. That the UK would take so long to attempt to resolve this situation doesn't speak to patient virtue, but to indecisive weakness. There is a reason, after all, that British soldiers were kidnapped and not Americans, and The Independent never quite gets around to it. Iran's leaders know that kidnapping American soldiers would be the death knell for Ahmadinejad and his cronies. They understand the language of the strong man--that a strong man only submits to the stronger man. Unfortunately, as Tony Blair warns the Iranian government that he will move to a new diplomatic phase if pushed, British hostages are paraded, humiliated, and made a mockery of to a worldwide audience. Teddy Roosevelt said to "speak softly and carry a big stick." Thus far, the British only have the first part of that right.

Update: Allahpundit at Hot Air offers an extended debunking of The Independent's article here.

More on Britain's "quiet diplomacy" from Time.

At a Camp David press conference on the weekend, Bush reiterated his support for his friend across the Atlantic and deplored Iran's "inexcusable behavior" in "the British hostages issue." The use of the word hostages was "utterly careless," says John Williams, who in June 2004 as Director of News for the British Foreign Ministry, was involved in moves to free eight British service personnel, also detained by Iran on a stretch of the Shatt al Arab waterway. He argues that the British government must be seen to regard the current crop of detainees "as victims of a misunderstanding that could be resolved." That's a prerequisite for the kind of quiet diplomacy that prevailed back in the summer of 2004 when the eight were freed after three days.

Yes, but it is also a prerequisite for more aggressive behavior on Iran's part, as manifested in this latest hostage incident.

Newt Gingrich - How to bring the British hostages home

Newt shoots straight regarding Iran.

Those who do not learn from the past...

In a rather predictable move, some teachers and schools in the UK are refusing to teach certain inconvenient historical truths--namely the Holocaust and the Crusades--in an effort to appease the Muslim community, who are taught in their mosques ideas contrary to popular historical interpretation.

Well blow me down. If this type of behavior wasn't becoming commonplace in Europe, I'd be more aghast. The essence of politically correct behavior has always been to sacrifice truth at the twin altars of tolerance and multiculturalism, which is why it is ultimately doomed to fail. The question is will it fail because good people wake up and recognize it for the idiocy that it is or will it take the future Imam of England to decree it so?

Rosie O'Donnell--Less Cutie, More Patootie

Rosie O'Donnell has been intellectually overboard for quite some time now. In fact, I don't know that there was ever a time when she was not. Her recent comments regarding the supposed joint British/American naval prisoner conspiracy is only more evidence that this is the case. She claims that the truth behind the facade is that the U.S. wanted to bully Iran into escalation, so we pressed our old fallguys, the British, into doing the dirty work for us. Now, I don't admit that this is beyond the realm of possibility anymore than, say, Hugo Chavez being hired to drive Al Gore around in an all-electric Toyota Prius. It could happen if the planets align just right.

Unfortunately, Rosie has turned The View into her bully pulpit, or Big Rosie's Playpen. She is one of those people who just has to speak their mind without consideration of others. I watched a show not too long ago where the gals interviewed Dennis Miller. Now, I'm no huge fan of Miller's, but I think he is an intelligent and reasonable guy. He appeared especially so when paired with Rosie O'Donnell, who felt it necessary whenever possible to try to steal some of Miller's building gusto. Her futile effort caused her to come off as bitter and childish. Her closing remarks didn't help matters as she threw in some comment to the effect that while Miller is an okay guy, his political views are drastically different from hers. This raised an interesting question of what's worse--her views or that many people in America actually care about them.

That Rosie has so much cultural capital when one would be hard-pressed to think of any redeemable thing she has done to deserve it kinda bums me out. It reminds me of a similar situation involving another rather big, umm, creature of Hollywood's imagination--the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. In Ghostbusters , Ray is told by the villain that the first thing that comes to his mind will be the thing that destroys the world. Ray imagines Stay Puft because he thinks there's nothing more harmless than a big marshmallow. Boy, was he wrong.

At the risk of exploding my analogy, our cult of celebrity magnifies Rosie's puffery to a status it doesn't deserve and, worse, seemingly justifies more of the same.