Atlas Shrugged, quoting and adding a bit to Claudia Rossett's Forbes report.

Perhaps it's coincidence that instead of haggling over financing in New York, Rauf--Imam Feisal, to his followers--will spend the rest of the summer touring some of the petro-dollar capitals of the planet, including such fonts of potential funding as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Rauf's wife and partner in nonprofits, Daisy Kahn, told me in a phone interview this week that he will not be fundraising during these travels. Nor, said Kahn, will she be fund-raising when she makes a similar State-sponsored outreach trip later this month to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

What does that actually mean? Fundraising, especially in the bargaining halls of the Middle East, does not always consist of a brusque pitch and immediate handshake. A lot of business begins with drinking tea, rubbing shoulders and moseying toward the eventual deal. In May the English-language website of Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Rauf, in a London interview, had said his Islamic center will be financed by donations both from Muslims in the U.S. and from Arab and Islamic countries. Asked recently how this might work in detail, Kahn said she doesn't know; all plans are still in flux while a new entity to handle the Islamic center project "is being formed."

To some of the defenders of this project, such specifics don't matter. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week said he doesn't care where the $100 million comes from; he sees it as none of the government's business. If the only criterion here is that Rauf and his partners comply with the minimum due diligence and disclosure required by law, Bloomberg has a point.

But to a great many Americans, it quite likely does matter where the money comes from. For one thing, there is always the potential for the preferences of big donors to sway the behavior of nonprofit ventures. Countries such as Saudi Arabia are not known for full-throated support of American values and freedoms.

[I]f Rauf's aim is truly, as he says, to build bridges, reach out and promote harmony in America, then punctuating his Ground Zero project with a summer swing past fonts of Islamic oil money seems an odd way to go about it. With emotions rubbed raw among some families of Sept. 11 victims, with arguments boiling over the "bridge-building" project Rauf himself set in motion, it would seem far more fitting for him to spend his time in America, answering, not least, the many questions he has repeatedly deflected about the money.

Building bridges? How about flying planes into bridges?

The argument of Ms Palin and others is instead that it is insensitive to build a mega-mosque next to the spot where 2,700 people were killed in Islam’s name. This distinction – between what is constitutional and what is appropriate – is an important one.

It is lost on Mr Bloomberg. In May, he said: “If somebody was going to try, on that piece of property, to build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming.” That is right. But history matters, too. The attacks of 2001 were not a political-science abstraction. They were an expression of Islam.

And Bill Kristol on Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "Shut up, he explained."

Last Tuesday, standing in front of the Statue of Liberty, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke on the subject of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero. His remarks will be read with curiosity by future generations of Americans, who will look back in astonishment at the self-deluding pieties and self-destructive dogmas that are held onto, at once smugly and desperately, by todayÂ’s liberal elites. Our liberation from those dogmas, and from those elites, is underway across the nation. But itÂ’s worth taking a look at BloombergÂ’s speech, if only to remind us of what we need to ascend from so our descendants can look back with curiosity at the ethos to which we did not succumb.

As is the way of contemporary liberals, Bloomberg spoke at a very high level of abstraction. He appealed to the principle of religious toleration, while never mentioning the actual imam who is responsible for and would control the planned Ground Zero mosque. To name Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf might invite a consideration of his background, funding, and intentions. Do Rauf and his backers believe in the principles underlying the “inspiring symbol of liberty” that greets immigrants to the United States and before which Bloomberg stood? Bloomberg didn’t say. It apparently doesn’t matter. Toleration means asking nothing, criticizing nothing, saying nothing, about whom or what one is tolerating. This is the Sergeant Schultz standard of toleration: I know nothing.

Are Muslims required to be tolerant of our sensitivities about Islamist mass murder? Or do we not count?

A question I'd like posed to Imam Rauf and Daisy Khan. They say (dishonestly, I think) that they are building the mosque to send a "message," allegedly about peace and harmony.

How many Muslims do they imagine will get a different message -- that Muslims have knocked down one of our churches (one of capitalist decadence, in their eyes) and erected a Muslim Mosque on the site, as they have hundreds of times before? And that this message is actually "Terrorism works, and Islamism shall triumph"?

Do they deny a significant fraction of Muslims will take that message from their Victory Mosque?

And which Muslims do we have to worry about more -- the ones who would be receptive to a supposed message of peace, or the ones who would seize upon a message of triumph through terrorism?

Ask them, conservative media. Demand that they answer with no evasions.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (181)
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I got nothin', so until one of the other fine cob-loggers regains consciousness, here's a topic-free post. It tastes great, and it's less filling!

Posted by: Monty at 10:15 AM | Comments (106)
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Every few years or so, I go through my books and sort them into piles: books to keep, books to give to the library, books to give to friends, books to send to the literary knacker's yard. I am often bemused at some of the books I find lurking in my collection. Romances, joke-books, glossy table-top books I can't remember buying, "topical" books whose topicality has long since passed, and obscure books by obscure writers that I was once enamored of.

This year's giveaway pile was somewhat larger than in years past, mainly because I finally decided to get rid of a bunch of books I've had since college. I found a couple of books that underlined how much I've changed since then, how both my literary and philosophical viewpoints have shifted. In particular, my taste for many of the 1960's counterculture writers has waned considerably.

(More after the jump.) more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:30 AM | Comments (267)
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The drooling idiot thinks that the thing to do to counter rising unemployment rates is to make it more costly to get to work. No, really, he's just that stupid.

In a letter to members of President Obama's debt commission, Voinovich laid out his argument for the increase.

"Fuel taxes today fund the vast majority of the federal government's investment in infrastructure projects," Voinovich wrote in the letter. "Due to dwindling fuel tax receipts, Congress has had to transfer billions of dollars from the General Fund to the Highway Trust Fund to maintain our current level of federal involvement."

Voinovich said the tax hike is needed to help keep the Highway Trust Fund afloat.

Voinovich, the ranking member on the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, has been pushing the idea of a hike for a while.

“I believe Americans are willing to pay a higher gas tax to create jobs, improve our infrastructure and better our climate," Voinovich said at a business conference in Ohio last month. "And many of my conservative colleagues do not consider that gas tax as a tax, but as a user fee.

Artificially raising the cost of labor -- and the cost of every other good or service that is transported by road -- in order to let the government fund a new Senator Byrd Memorial Bridge in every state is not a cure for Obama's unemployment rate.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:11 PM | Comments (211)
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What Advice Would You Give To Your 18 Year Old Self?

When I was 18 an old family friend told me that her best advice to anyone was always for them to be as true to themselves as they could. Looking back, I find it odd that she admonished me to be true to something I really couldnÂ’t put my finger on. I didnÂ’t know who I was.

We all discover things about ourselves as we age and grow. But at 18? I didnÂ’t have a clue. If I could give my 18 year-old self some advice, IÂ’d tell myself to chase after whims so long as I knew for sure that I wasnÂ’t running away from hard work or a valuable lesson by doing so. IÂ’d tell myself to be friendly and try new things.

Well at the risk of sounding like the standard commencement speech I think I would I have advised the younger me to take more flyers and not be too afraid of failing or making an fool of myself. And to trust my instincts - things that seem stupid even though all the smart people tell you they're clever generally turn out to be stupid in the long run.

Sometimes I wonder what I would have done if an older version of me had traveled back in time and tried to steer me away from my more idiotic decisions. Rationally you should trust and believe anything the older you says since after all they are you and assumedly have your best interests at heart.

But I wonder if I would have had the courage in that instance to actually dump the pretty girlfriend who seemed all that at the time. I'd like to think that I would know just the right things to say to my younger self to convince them to do what I say. But the young folk are sometimes stubborn and foolish no matter how good or sincere the advice they're given. Or what time it's from.

Kinda off-topic but another game I sometimes play when I'm stuck some place and bored is to imagine that I was sent back in time to say 1960 with just the objects in my possession. I wonder what the FBI would make of my memory stick/laser and iphone. I would have more storage and processing power in my pocket than existed in the entire world. And I figure the dates on any coins I had would be a relief for my interrogators since it would imply that the US still existed and hadn't been destroyed in the upcoming nuclear exchange. I wonder how they'd react when I gave them a list of people to be liquidated. For the good of the world of course. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:26 PM | Comments (1085)
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Among the many things that irritate the hell out of me, a "Hubert Humphrey award"? What the hell is that?

Anyway, twelve cent FZ has decided to give his up, on account of their insane acknowledgement of the symbology any fool except the mayor and unaware NYC-ers can plainly see.

I'll save you the angst if you want. He's stunned. He holds the ADL in high esteem. He's girl bitchy.

There. Let's watch a baseball game or somethin.

via Dr. Spank.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:42 PM | Comments (144)
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Just got back from The Other Guys.

The end credits are Michael Moore-ish in amassing statistics that make capitalism look bad, but mostly they're about... TARP and its beneficiaries, especially Goldman Sachs. Which I notice are none too popular with conservatives either.

So I'm going to call this attempted liberal messaging, which mostly kinda failed, because a lot of populist minded conservatives will find the overall thrust of it agreeable. Even if it is, ultimately, intended as an indictment of capitalism, conservatism, and Bush.

So, putting aside that warning about bias:

One of the funniest movies in a long, long time. Like, the funniest movie since MacGruber six months ago. No, but really, it's funny. (So was MacGruber, in fact.)

It's a Will Ferrell movie, so as always if you don't like him (as many don't), this isn't for you. If you do, though-- hysterical.

And Mark Wahlberg's funny too, as a perpetually-angry thick-witted thug. Quite a stretch for him.

Posted by: Ace at 02:54 PM | Comments (227)
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The boys of summer are in the home stretch now, and I'm fully prepared to see the Texas Rangers crush my hopes again in the post-season.

It's what they do. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

I'll live. But you won't live unless you sign up for the AceofSpadesHQ NFL Pick Em Pool Hootenanny. There will be fabulous prizes and bragging rights galore.

The heavy lifting being performed again by Ben, and a new recruit, long-time commenter CDR M (delegation is the key to survival). Thanks to you both.

Six leagues, hosted at Yahoo. Go here, create your bullshit, password is "hobo". Here are the leauge IDs:

3049
3050
3053
4257
4259
4261

That'll cover 300 of you idiots. Ben and CDR M will provide merged results for the top dogs.

There can be only one.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:21 AM | Comments (402)
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Note he previously said, just this past month, he'd lied about her to get attention.

Now he's peddling more lies.

He will of course find an eager publisher.

And of course he should be published. Of course he should be a published author.

After all, he's accomplished so much -- he had unprotected sex with a younger girl, got her knocked up, and then abandoned her. And then, fearing that he soon might have to get a real job, he tricked her into accepting a false marriage proposal so he could sell the story to Us weekly for $100,000 (and also shop a reality show about the sham marriage).

Who wouldn't want to be in the Levi Johnston business?

Imagine if a man-boy had treated Chelsea Clinton in such a vile manner.

Now -- see if you can imagine publishing houses lining up to pay that man-boy a big advance.

Hard to imagine, eh?

So much of the media's behavior is dictated by its partisan sympathies and regard for social standing amongst their own. The Clintons are beloved by most in these institutions, so no editor with any concern for his future career or future standing among his peers would ever take this assignment; no house would sign a check.

But for a woman they hate -- a woman they've dehumanized as The Other -- then a provable scumbag gets signed up to talk his ignorant lies to an also-paid-for ghostwriter.

Remember how quickly the Reverend Wright story faded? ABCNews finally broke the story (after it was available for years, and after Obama had taken care of Hillary Clinton), and was attacked relentlessly by the left. JournoList, for example, schemed about how to punish ABCNews for reporting genuine news. (Belatedly, as hell.)

Those schemes on JournoList were not some aberration -- that was the shared sentiment of the entirety of the corrupt leftist media.

And those at ABC News who'd finally done their jobs felt the heat, felt the not-so-subtle social pressure, got the message from their peers that they were doing a Great Evil by doing their jobs.

And so, when Obama gave his ridiculously self-serving and question-dodging and lie-peddling "Great National Discussion on Race" -- a speech where race was a decidedly secondary topic to the much more important topic of Obama's continuing political viability -- the media fell over itself to declare the controversy "settled" (and settled by a speech worthy of Lincoln, too).

And ABCNews of course dropped the story, as all the media did; a CNN anchor even proudly declared his show a "Wright free zone."

They had never wanted to cover the story, and the moment they saw the opportunity to lie and say all questions had now been forthrightly answered, they declared the controversy settled.

Would the questions raised have been so easily settled by a self-serving speech given by a Republican caught in a similar situation? Of course not. But the herd mentality of the media -- all those dirty looks from peers and frantic calls from friends and colleagues -- worked.

They claim they don't make decisions about the newsworthiness of a story based on politics.

They lie.

50% of your standing in any public business is based on the opinion of your peers and colleagues. The other half is the actual clientele-- but as the media shows on a daily basis, they are less and less concerned about the audience.

Showing off, impressing your colleagues -- that's where the action is.

And whether you are deemed "brave" and "important" by your colleagues, or "pandering" and "frivolous," depends on which stories you cover and, crucially, which stories you don't.

And the media is in lockstep regarding which stories are "important" and which are "distractions."

Jeremiah Wright? Distraction.

But Levi Johnston....? Important.

They lie. That is almost all they do anymore. They lie in their reportage and then they rub salt into those wounds by lying about the reasons for their reporting decisions.

They all lie, and all from the same script of the same lies.

They lie to your goddamn face and then warble about their "integrity" and "professionalism," and how all their "experience" and "schooling" has dictated that only they know which stories are important. (Curiously, a frightening high percentage of "important" stories directly advance the interests of the progressive movement.)

They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and then they demand your respect and appreciation for their lies.

Posted by: Ace at 07:02 AM | Comments (509)
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Damnit, I thought I was.

Also invited: the 12" import remix of this, played twice an hour.

Question: Will they be inviting Andrew Sullivan too? I know a lot of gay conservatives hate his guts almost as much as I do. (More, even.)

Answer: Yes, he'll be invited. 1, some gay conservatives are conservatives like Andrew Sullivan is (that is, not really) and 2, there's no point not inviting him, because he's going to show up anyway. This is like his Woodstock.

There's no getting rid of him. Like bedbugs.

Posted by: Ace at 06:19 AM | Comments (85)
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