Entre Nous / Musings of a former Belgian

A modest proposal

Glenn Reynolds seems to be channeling Jonathan Swift in his "A Modest Proposal" days:

ARNOLD KLING ARGUES that efforts to regulate biotechnology as Leon Kass desires would necessarily lead to a worldwide totalitarian dictatorship that would be far more dystopian than the future created by not engaging in such regulation.

So far, bad philosophy has killed a lot more people than biotechnology. Perhaps we should regulate it. . . .

Fear of flying on the reactionary "left"

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first powered flight. (The first working glider plane was invented some years before by a German Jew named Otto Lilienthal.) Best of the Web has this absolute howler from George Moonbat Monbiot:

We've often observed that today's political left has largely abandoned its faith in social progress and become almost entirely a reactionary movement. George Monbiot, a columnist for the London Guardian, provides a nice example in a piece on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, which is today.

The anniversary "should be a day of international mourning," moans Monbiot. "December 17 2003 is the centenary of the world's most effective killing machine." Monbiot calls flying machines a weapon of mass destruction; after all, have been used to drop bombs, including nuclear ones (though as the late Bob Bartley pointed out, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a lot of Japanese lives). More recently, al Qaeda used planes in their attacks on Sept. 11. Monbiot's conclusion: "Just as Alexander the Great worshipped his horse, George Bush, the new conqueror of Persia [sic], will [today] worship the aeroplane. Our societies are built upon these technologies of war: the current world order fell from the hatches of the aeroplane. At 10.35am, North Carolina time, George Bush and the other enthusiasts for domination will bow down before it. The rest of us should observe 12 seconds of silence, in commemoration of the deeds wrought by those magnificent men in their killing machines."

But wait. Monbiot glosses too quickly over Alexander and his horse, though he does note earlier in the piece that "in the past we raised our eyes to the men on horseback. Today we raise our eyes to the heavens." Plainly the trouble began with the invention of horses. Horses go "neigh," it's time to say "nay" right back to them.

Yearning for a pristine pre-industrial past, of course, can no more be "progressive" than fire can be cold. Except, of course, that "cold fire" is the Dutch term for gangrene, the intellectual variety of which has been affecting the "left"-ist chattering class for some time...

Palestinian terrorist turned Belgian bankrobber

Somebody Emailed me this article (no permalink) from today's De Standaard (Dutch-language Belgian daily, my quickie translation).:

PALESTINIAN EXPELLEE STAYED AT BANK ROBBER'S PLACE

From our correspondent

BRUSSELS --- A member of the Fatach-movement of Yasser Arafat who had
been given a residence permit in [Belgium] after he was exiled from
Israel, is now in jail. Khalil Al N., [aged] 25, is suspected of involvement
in an armed robbery. The Interior Ministry is embarrassed by the matter and
admits that [the Department of] Alien Affairs already knew since last June
that Al N. has "the wrong friends".

A seemingly ordinary matter of gangsterism got a particularly embarrassing
twist for Belgian authorities.

Last Tuesday the Brussels police arrested eight men who are suspected of
involvement in a series of armed robberies, by means of explosives, on banks
and post offices. Law enforcement thinks the gang is, among others,
responsible for the assault on the Nederbrakel post office of December 20,
last year. One
of the eight arrested is the Palestinian Khalil Al N. ([see] De Standaard of
December 17). He had meanwhile been arraigned, together with five accomplices,
by Judge of Inquiry [kind-of-like a District Attorney in Belgium] Freddy
De Smet of Oudenaarde.

Khalil Al N., [aged] 25, was exiled from Israel in May 2002, together with 12
other Palestinians, after the siege of the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem.
Al N. was a member of the Tanzim Fatach, the military arm of the
Fatach-movement
of Yasser Arafat. Together with hundreds of other Palestinian fighters [sic]
he had "fortified himself" [verschanste zichzelf/hitbatzer] in de Church of
the Nativity after heavy fighting with the Israeli army.

Israel suspected Al N. and twelve others of terrorist activities and
therefore wanted them out of the country after the siege. According to
the Israelis, Al N. was, among others, involved with the assassination
of an Israeli citizen. The European Union decided to absorb the thirteen
exiles and split them up among the Union countries. Belgium was "given"
[scare quotes in original] Khalil Al N., generally considered the most
well-behaved of the thirteen.


Al N. ended up in the Walloon [town of] Bertrix, with a host family.
The Interior Ministry described the behavior of Al N. in his first few
months in Belgium as "exemplary". At first he was under heavy guard; later
he had to report to the Bertrix police once a month. After a while he reneged
on this "reporting duty". According to a press release by the cabinet of
Interior Minister Patrick Dewael, it turned out that Khalil Al N. since last
June maintained ties with a number of "old customers" of Brussels' law
enforcement. According to [the same release], the Alien Affairs Department
urged him to leave these circles and go live in Bertrix again, with his
host family. Again according to Interior Affairs, Khalil indeed returned
to Bertrix in November, but apparently kept up his ties with the Anderlecht
underworld.

The arrest of Khalil Al N. last Tuesday was a coincidence. Al N. was sleeping
in Anderlecht, in the apartment of one of the prime suspects, when police
raided [the apartment. There] the police found weapons and explosives,
[stored] so openly and in plain sight that Al N. could hardly deny he was
aware of anything. For now, police assumes it is a matter of common banditry.

The Brussels federal police is [however] investigating whether the "proceeds"
of the robberies were to be used for financing the Palestinian cause.
Police sources furthermore confirm that at least one of the robbers was known
in Islamic fundamentalist circles.

[Datelined] 18/12/2003 [by] Mark Eeckhaut

One little victory

Jeff Jarvis rounds up links relating to the capture of the Ace of Spades. I saw the news on TV after I arrived at where I'm staying now, but only now got internet access. People were looking at me when I suddenly started belting out this song:

A certain measure of innocence
Willing to appear naive
A certain degree of imagination
A measure of make-believe

A certain degree of surrender
To the forces of light and heat
A shot of satisfaction
In a willingness to risk defeat

Celebrate the moment
As it turns into one more
Another chance at victory
Another chance to score

The measure of the moment
Is a difference of degree
Just one little victory
A spirit breaking free

ONE LITTLE VICTORY

Stay tuned

No, I'm not dead or tired or blogging, just snowed under with work, and have a project going that will take up all of my time (and myself out of town) until next week. One day I may actually have time on my hands, if not in this life then in the next :-)

Considering the "trial balloons" let up by Ehud Olmert --- with what looks like the quiet consent of Sharon --- I wouild not be surprised if a major diplomatic initiative on the part of the Israeli government occurred within the next week or so.

Stay tuned :-)

PS: some are trying to muzzle the dog. PPS: seems to be off the hook for now.

Law of Unintended Consequences

Clayton Cramer points out a nice example of the Law of Unintended Consequences:

In Peterson v. Wilmur Communs., Inc., 205 F. Supp. 2d 1014 (E.D. Wis. 2002), a telemarketing firm demoted an employee when it discovered through a newspaper account that he was a "reverend" in the virulently racist World Church of the Creator, which preaches "racial holy war" and instructs its adherents that virtue consists in advancing the interest of the white race. The employee supervised eight workers, including three non-whites, and the employer said it felt that the latter employees would not be confident of having their work evaluated objectively under his supervision. A federal court held that although the man's "church" professes no belief in a god, supreme being, or afterlife, what matters was that it holds itself out as religious and inculcates moral and ethical precepts which its adherents sincerely embrace with an intensity comparable to religious belief. The court concluded that the employer had violated federal law against religious bias.

Soviet brainwashing redux

The Shark tips me off to the tragicomical story of former Russian professor and refusenik Tatiana Menaker. In an effort to bring her written English up to par for a professional career in her new home country, she enrolled in a creative writing course at San Francisco State University (well known to me from the days I used to visit my girlfriend two blocks away). Read her observations for yourselves.

More red-green-brown snakes

Damian Penny, whose blog I should visit more often (see e.g. here), notes an article by Amir Taheri about the terrorist "Carlos" [Ilich Ramirez Sanchez], who has apparently converted to Islam and published a book calling upon all revolutionaries, "even atheists", " to accept the leadership of Islamists such as Osama bin Laden and so help turn Afghanistan and Iraq into the graveyards of American imperialism."

Quiz question: what do Nazism, Stalinism, and radical Islamism have in common, other than violence and diseased Judeophobia? Answer: being founded on covetousness.

I have long wondered why the Tenth Commandment states "Thou shalt not covet" (lo tahmod). After all, "covetousness" ("ziekelijke nijd/begeerte"), on the face of it, is a sin of intent (not of omission or commission) --- a concept fundamentally alien to the religious context in which the Ten Commandments arose. But of course, violating the Tenth will eventually lead to violating the nine others --- to murder, theft, adultery, dishonoring one's parents, ..., committing abominations in the name of G-d (the worst form of blasphemy), and finally idolatry.

"Journalism" at its finest

Just when you think your esteem for French "journalism" has hit rock bottom, you read something like this. Embedded French journalists with terrorist gangs. Selling your soul.... never look back...

Sophistication

Dubya's detractors often go on about his supposed lack of "sophistication". Now (via BotW) get this from Howard Dean:

The key, I believe, to Iran, is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran I believe mostly likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union, and it may require us buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

As Best of the Web noted: "That's four times Dean mentioned the Soviet Union--a country that hasn't existed for almost 12 years. " One could be forgiven for wondering about Freudian gaffes.

And David's Medienkritik describes how the German media are trying to put a negative spin on Bush's Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Iraq by noting an analogy with "Lyndon B. Johnson, who visited troops in Vietnam and lost the elections the year afterwards (1968)". Only one problem: LBJ wasn't even running in 1968, and his fellow Democrat Hubert Humphrey lost by a hairbreadth from Richard Nixon. Oh those sophist-i-cated EUropeons...