All I’ll say is that Yasser Arafat was by admission a very devoted disciple of his “uncle” and that those beliefs are what no doubt played the central guiding role throughout most of the decades of his life. Understanding that, it became very difficult for me to judge the man without the harshest subjectivity.

A Google search for the “grand mufti of jerusalem” string should readily provide everything that you need to know, if you want to know what I meant by all that.

(And for any other historians/students of the occult out there: what Dietrich Eckhardt was to Adolf Hitler, so Hajj Amin Al Husseini became to his close relative Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini… better known as the late Yasser Arafat.)...

Hardly anyone in the western world had ever heard of Nanking, or cared about what transpired there during 1937-1938 when the Japanese invaded the city. Then came 1997 and the release of The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Suddenly it seemed like everybody was talking about it. The Rape of Nanking became to those of us in our college’s history department what Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was to the residents of Savannah: if you asked one of us “have you read it?” they would instantly know what “it” was referring to.

In a lot of ways Chang’s book evoked the same time-delayed reaction that started happening about twenty-five or thirty years after the Holocaust in Europe: it wasn’t until people were confronted with the fact that, yes, this REALLY DID HAPPEN that the full brunt of the horror was felt. That’s not to suggest that ...

I just hope this doesn’t put the brakes on any of the friendships I still have with a lot of the good folks at Free Republic.

It ain’t easy being me, I’m tellings ya…

Hey guys, please remember that I’m like Michael Corleone in The Godfather before he pulls the gun out of the toilet and shoots Sollozzo and that scumbucket police captain: I’m “a civilian”. The whole war for power is something I don’t want a piece of action in. And I’m gonna be friendly with anyone no matter their affiliation. Just don’t want either side gunning for me is all 🙂...

Had a friend in college who was a nut for Scottish history and heritage. Every Saturday at noon he and his roomie (who was an Irish nut: what are the odds that Campus Housing could put two guys like that together) would crank up Braveheart on their VCR and spend the next three hours getting all liquored up drinking Scotch while watching William Wallace crack open English skulls. Drew’s dorm-room closet had at least three swords, a couple of daggers, a mace and – no joke – a flail: history professors used to come by his room to ogle his armory. The title of his history thesis – arguing that a well-known index of Scottish tartans is inaccurate – was “The Good, the Plaid, and the Ugly”. And every Saint Patrick’s Day Drew and his roomie, and usually about two or three other guys that he conned into the gag, ...

We now take you live to the news desk of NBC’s Weekend Update at Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York City…

“Our top story tonight is this breaking news: Yasser Arafat is dead! No, we’re now getting further word: Yasser Arafat is alive! Excuse me, this has just been handed to me: Yasser Arafat is dead again! And this is now coming across our desk: Yasser Arafat is still alive! And now we’ve been given a further update: Yasser Arafat is dead again! And in further developments it has just hit the wire services that Yasser Arafat is alive! More information now coming in: Yasser Arafat has died! We’ll of course keep you fully abreast of the situation as it develops. Back to you, Jane!”...

If you want to partake in something real real funny that is.

“And that’s a fact, Jack!” 🙂...

It’s a serious news story but a friend sent along this link and I just had to bring some attention to this pic they made for the story…

Personally, I think everyone’s will see how big a wimp he REALLY is when he refuses to say that Unicron is part of the “axis of evil”....

Okay, NOW it’s personal. Guilford County is where we live and a 22,000 vote difference is a MAJOR fraggin’ thing. From The Charlotte Observer (registration required) a few days ago…

Winner so far: Confusion

Agriculture, education races change as counties fix vote-tally errors

MARK JOHNSON

Raleigh Bureau

RALEIGH – Winner so far: Confusion Agriculture, education races change as counties fix vote-tally errors Mark Johnson

RALEIGH — For a few brief hours on Wednesday, N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Britt Cobb saw his Tuesday election loss turn to a win.

By Thursday, he was losing again.

“These results are changing. They are going up and down,” said Cobb’s spokesman Marc Siegel. “We don’t believe any of it until we get the final, confirmed results.” That won’t be until later this month.

The roller coaster of fate was caused by vote-counting glitches in at least five counties besides Mecklenburg. Foul-ups ranged from stubborn levers

...

The Incredibles is Alan Moore’s Watchmen as conceived by Ben Edlund (creator of The Tick comic and cartoon). Too bad next year’s Cars will be the last project Disney and Pixar Animation collaborate on, ‘cuz the House that Mickey Built has NEVER before released an animated feature with so much mindless death and violence. I hope they do it again.

Leave it to Pixar to shed the light on the dark side of superhero life: a torrent of lawsuits from the very people saved from a trainwreck, government regulation and an obsessed fanboy who just won’t take “no” to being a sidekick for an answer. The only way out is a fate worse than death: consigned behind a desk as an insurance claims adjuster, damned to watch muggings and bank robberies from an office window but forbidden by law to use superpowers to make a difference in the world. The ...

I’ve noticed that quite a few “Christian leaders” are barely containing their glee in the wake of this past Tuesday’s elections. Even the ministers on the local “conservative Christian” AM radio station have sounded more upbea… no, not “upbeat”. “Swaggering” is more like it. If – as the Bible says – all the angels of Heaven rejoice when just one human soul cries to God for forgiveness, there’s a lot more rejoicing from many professing Christians when just one Republican gets elected to office over an evil Democrat.

You’d think that must be anyway, ‘specially after reading the Revrund Jerry Falwell and his article “Christian voters triumph over Hollywood left” that’s up at World Net Daily this morning. “Dear Lord, PLEASE have mercy on America if THIS is the kind of pride and arrogance that we have to look forward to for the next four years.” Because if God will ...