The "t-word"

Nidal Malik Hasan is a terrorist. There, I said it.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma, he was a terrorist. When the 9/11 highjackers flew the planes into the world trade towers, they were terrorists. However, in our current political climate, we aren’t allowed to call someone out for what they actually are.

Apparently, its is not enough to call someone a terrorist when they: scream "Allahu Akbar!" before murdering 13 and wounding 29 people while our nation is engaged in two wars in the Middle East, give presentations justifying suicide bombers and point out “we [Muslims] love death more than you [Non-Muslims] love life,” have ties to imams who endorse and encourage al Qaeda activities and jihad on Americans and consider you a hero for murdering Americans.

Why? Because Mr. Hasan also happens to be a Palestinian and a Muslim. Had this been someone who looked more like Timothy McVeigh or was a different faith, there would be no hesitation in calling him out as a domestic terrorist.

I understand avoiding unwarranted blow back, crowd control, etcetera, but when our government walks around on eggshells to such an n’th degree and tolerates extreme cultural relativism this is what happens. There’s being polite then there’s being suicidal, and we are choking ourselves with PC rubbish.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with approaching matters with caution and forethought, but there is a point where Political Correctness and accompanying spin becomes ridiculous.

First the word “terror” and all “offensive” Bush policy language is removed from anything to describe our foreign policy, activities that once were called “terrorism” are reclassified as something else, people make claims that the U.S.’s actions are akin to those same terrorist activities it is supposedly trying to suppress, the cowboy swagger is replaced by eloquent culturalism. And now people who are clearly terrorists aren’t to be called “terrorists.”

These are the policy decisions by the Obama administration that were supposed to curtail events like Fort Hood and assuage the Middle East. And now they’re trying to cover their collective backsides on the Fort Hood attack by utilizing the tool that was instrumental in causing the whole mess – extreme political correctness

But, we all know what happened at Fort Hood. We know what Mr. Hasan is. We are not as stupid as our government likes to think we are. We know when they’re giving us double talk.

They call it “post traumatic stress disorder” (though Mr. Hasan never went to war). They say he was a lone nut (though he has ties to imams and was proselytizing on base). They hesitate to say it was religiously motivated (though he screamed "Allahu Akbar!"). They say the real issue is the military needing to do a better job addressing workplace stress like civilians workplaces (though the two are mutually exclusive).

There is one very important reason for all this: the occurrence of a terrorist attack under an Obama administration looks extremely bad given the policy shift it put in place.

Panopticon

The Google sees all.

Where's Jesse?

So a black guy punches a white woman in the face because of an argument over what the black guy called "white privilege" and yet there is nothing calling the black guy out as being a racist in any article I can find on the internet.

I don't know if the guy is in fact a racist, and that's not really the point. The point is had it been a white guy punching a black woman in the face, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been on this quicker than you could say "hate crime." The assailant would have been lambasted as a hate mongering racist and the talking heads would have been all to happy to comment on how redneck racist teabaggers are ruining the country and sabotaging any hope of of becoming a post racial community. But no, here, it's simply "an unfortunate event." Kinda like when that white kid was beaten up on the school bus.

And, why isn't the great One coming to the defense of the black guy and commenting off the cuff about how stupid the white woman must have been for arguing about this, a la the Henry Gates incident?

The Simpsons: Behind the Laughter

Being a Simpsons fan of the highest order, I can't wait to read John Ortved's new book "The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History."

The books has actually been somewhat controversial due to three of the shows original executive producers, Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, refusing to be interviewed, and actively trying to thwart the book's publication. However, from what I read about this book it doesn't seem like it will contain any explosive revelations for fans. Most of us know that Matt Groening is more of a cartoonist than a brilliant sitcom writer, and as such the show's unique humor that developed over the first few scenes was very much a product of a collaboration of writers.

That being said, Matt Groening has managed to create two brilliant shows that have very different styles of humor, The Simpsons and Futurama. That's a lot more than Seth MacFarlane can claim.

A Stop To Sprawl

This is good news. One good aspect of a bad real estate market is that it might put the kibosh on sprawl, and it looks like more young adults are choosing to start families in urban hellholes with mass transit options rather than soulless suburbs where every Applebee's has a parking lot bigger than my block.

However, Atrios is skeptical of the long-term implications of this change. People really do love their authentic Italian lotsa-mozzarella-pizza-balls at the local Carino's.

On Second Thought...

...maybe we shouldn't scale back military spending after all.

Stay Classy, Rev. Phelps

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church (the godhatesfags people) are taking a break from the pride parades and soldiers' funerals to protest outside Sasha and Malia Obama's school.

Would anybody really mind if a bomb accidentally "fell" on the Westboro Baptist Church? I'm thinking along the lines of another Waco but without the long, protracted stand-off.

Twenty Years Later

Usually Ross Douthat just brings the stoopid to the pages of The New York Times, but this week his column is somewhat thought-provoking. His contention seems to be that we don't recognize and celebrate the full significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. This is probably true, but sadly it is understandable because although most of the existential threats to liberal democracy have been vanquished, we act as if our existence is one the line every time a Hugo Chávez or a Kim Jong-Il yawns.

Today would be greeted by more celebration if things had actually changed here after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but even though our Cold War rival collapsed, we are still always on a permanent war footing. We still spend as if we are gearing up for a showdown with another superpower. I'm not advocating that we go back to a pre-World War II setting where we have no armaments industry and scrap every tank, but there is a lot of ground in between no standing military and spending far more than any industrialized nation.

Maybe Douthat is right that we should recognize this day and take stock. It might provide some perspective when looking at the dangers in the world today.

On a Personal Note...

I passed the Texas Bar Exam. Sweetness!

Heyy, I'm Winnin' Here!

I'd like to extend my congrats to the New York Yankees for winning the world series for the 27th time.

On a side note, apparently democratic presidents are good for the Yankees, providing yet another reason for Mark to hate them.