From the Washington Post, weather cycles are causing a drop in sea level:

The global sea level this summer is a quarter of an inch lower than last summer, according to NASA scientists, in sharp contrast to the gradual rise the ocean has experienced in recent years.

The change stems from two strong weather cycles over the Pacific Ocean — El Niño and La Niña — which shifted precipitation patterns, according to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The two cycles brought heavy rains to Brazil and Amazon, along with drought to the southern United States.

. . .

“What this show is the impact La Niña and El Niño can have on global rainfall,” he said in an interview, adding scientists need to get a better sense of ice sheet dynamics before they can offer a more precise estimate of future sea level rise. “We really have a lot left to understand before we can do better.”

According to computer climate models, sea levels are [were] expected to rise because water expands as it warms, and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will contribute to global sea levels.

(Emphasis mine.) Wait a minute. I thought sea levels were rising because of my Lawn-Boy and that all those loudly braying island communities were being flooded. And that we needed to pay them money. You mean those conclusions were premature? Or even wrong?

Thanks to Andy for the title.

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Added: Douche Ex Machina brands AGW skeptics racists:

“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me,” Gore said. “My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”

The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.

“Secondly, back to this phrase ‘win the conversation,’” he continued. “There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me.

The idiot's negative implication is that the civil rights movement and climate change politics are similarly situated and that in the case of the civil rights movement the culture was changed simply with a push of political correctness. I disagree. I don't believe the civil rights movement was bullshit.

Video at The Blaze.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 11:23 AM | Comments (149)
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Perhaps the rebuttal piece is too long to read.

Let me quickly restate the facts of this nontroversy, and then explain why Pam Geller and Robert Spencer are pretty much now teenagers in Salem, Mass., throwing out allegations of Witchcraft and Devil-Consorting just because it's fun and dramatic and gets them attention and power.

In 2002, the Aga Khan, apparently a moderate Muslim, met with Perry to discuss setting up a seminar for teachers -- who were already teaching about Islam in World History class -- to learn more about Islam.

The seminars were paid for by the Aga Khan's foundation (and maybe the University of Texas at Austin -- not sure on this last one). The seminar information was provided by Harvard University, with additional input from UT/Austin.

In 2005-2006, 80 teachers got these academic briefings on Islam. The briefings were what you'd expect coming from Harvard and UT/Austin -- standard college crap, meaning a little PC and accentuating the positive as regards Islam's bloody history.

But it was the standard crap being taught at every college and most high schools.

Based on this, Pam Geller, seconded by Robert Spencer, has called Rick Perry "The 5th Columnist Candidate" and accused him of "serial sedition."

Her case consists as follows:

1. What teachers were taught was a dahwah, which is Islamic for "invitation to prayer." That is, she alleges the seminar was actually designed for purposes of religious conversion to Islam.

Here is her evidence for this. From the project's online website, explaining the general purpose of it, she quotes:

[Quoting the abstract:] Prophet Muhammad has become the paradigm, or role model, who is worthy of being emulated. As GodÂ’s chosen prophet and messenger, he best embodied how to live a life in accordance with GodÂ’s will. In this sense, he and the prophets before him, including Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jacob and Jesus, are perceived as exemplary muslims

[Gellar now, commenting:] The real question is, should our children be taught this steaming pile of propaganda? I would not want that dawah taught to my children in public school. I want a candidate who is up to snuff on this. Ahead of the curve would be ideal, but at least cognizant of it.

So, the project endeavored to teach what Muslims believe, and Geller took this not as flatly saying "Here is what Muslims believe," but as a dahwah, an instruction into what teachers should believe (that is, they should believe Mohammad was a prophet, and Abraham and Jesus were lesser prophets). Presumably then these converts would train their schoolchildren to be Muslims too.

Rather than taking this as what it is -- a simple factual statement about Muslim believe -- Geller insists it is an attempt to convert the dhimmis.

This is obviously wrong -- and obviously stupid -- on its face. Every world history course tells you about the religion of participants in a religious conflict -- if you're reading about French history, you will be told the beliefs of the French Huguenots (Protestants) and the nation they rebelled against (Catholic France).

Such an introduction would not be an attempt to convert the reader to either Huguenotism or Catholicism. But Geller insists this is so when someone mentions the main beliefs of Islam.

In case you think what she quoted actually could read as religious instruction, rather than a factual statement about what Muslims believe -- well, that's because she doctored the quote. She cut out the beginning, in which it made it clear it was simply explaining what millions of Muslims believed.

Here is the actual quote, which she did not indicate had been altered to suit her purposes:

For millions of Muslims around the world, the Prophet Muhammad has become the paradigm, or role model, who is worthy of being emulated. As GodÂ’s chosen prophet and messenger, he best embodied how to live a life in accordance with GodÂ’s will. In this sense, he and the prophets before him, including Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jacob and Jesus, are perceived as exemplary muslims,

If this material is so transparently Fifth Columnist, why does Ms. Geller need to doctor quotes to discover "dahwahs"? Shouldn't the dahwahs be present in the material without her helpful modifications?

2. Now, one "troubling" association doesn't make a trend. For that, you need at least two -- rule of hack writers, two incidents make a trend, and thus a column.

She finds her second example in... Grover Norquist.

Grover Norquist is head of the Americans for Tax Reform -- when you hear about candidates signing a pledge to not raise taxes, that is Grover Norquist's ATR pledge they mean.

Norquist is a fixture in DC and a major player that everyone in the GOP meets with. Now, he is pro-Muslim (though not Muslim himself) and wants the GOP to play for Muslim votes; he was also appointed by President Bush as head of his Muslim outreach efforts, after 9/11.

You can say that that makes you uncomfortable or whatever, but you can't claim that he is Perry's "troubling" friend just because they gave a speech at the same place. He is a guy who everyone meets with in DC. Securing Norquist's blessing as Kosher on Taxes is a ritual every presidential candidate on the right goes through. He is constantly holding political events with big-name Republican speakers.

Now, who are the other "dhimmis" who associate with Norquist? Why, it's a Who's Who of the Tea Party and 2012 presidential field.

“I talk with [Mitt] Romney directly,” Norquist said. He mentioned that Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) will be attending his Wednesday meeting this week and that Gingrich recently sent him an unsolicited statement strongly opposing backing down in the debt talks. For Norquist, any other position would be unacceptable.

Dhimmis? Well how about some more dhimmis?

...Earlier this year, Norquist spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference, along with Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Thad McCotter, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, and Newt Gingrich.

That's a lot of dhimmis. Ah well, we still have Sarah Palin. She would never go dhimmi and join the dhimmi-promoter Grover Norquist, surely.

Sarah Palin shakes the hand of
dhimmi recruitment officer Grover Norquist
at a 2010 low-tax rally sponsored by Norquist's ATR

Damn! Her too! The jihadis got them all!

Well, not all of them. Only one brave True Conservative rejected the jihadi enabler Grover Norquist and said, "I shall not associate myself with you and your terrorist-sympathizing ways!"

Only one man bravely shunted these jihadist blandishments aside. Only one man stood true and firm in the face of terrorist aggression.

I know what you're thinking: Ron Paul. But alas, Ron Paul is a dhimmi too; here is a video of Ron Paul being introduced by the dhimmi-commandant Grover Norquist, at Grover Norquist's Quisling Rally.

No, only one candidate has told the Jihadi-in-Brooks-Brothers Grover Norquist to go hang.

That man, my friends-- that shining exemplar of true-blue Conviction Conservatism -- is the Only Man Who Can Save America, former Obama Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman.

Jon Huntsman Says 'No' to Grover Norquist Pledge While Pawlenty Says 'Maybe'

There you go, friends. There is your Proven Non-Dhimmi Candidate, who I'm sure Ms. Geller will be endorsing momentarily.

3. They also claim that the man who contacted Perry about setting these seminars up, the Aga Khan, is now "troubling." Robert Spencer now (as in, this week) now pronounces the Aga Khan a representative for "stealthy jihad."

But Aga Khan hasn't been accused of bad behavior by anyone, except Pam Geller, and now Robert Spencer. And he was only accused last week.

The evidence against him is ludicrously weak: A Pakistan bank had been accused of having an Al Qaeda account. Nothing ever came of this accusation; the lawsuit (pressed by the widow of Daniel Pearl), was dropped, with no settlement.

Years later, Pakistan sold the bank to raise money, and it was purchased by Aga Khan as a money-making investment. In case you think the Aga Khan intended to front for world terrorism -- no, he had the bank sign a contract with the US Federal Reserve, which would patrol it for money laundering or any other sort of sketchy behavior.

If the Aga Khan was a terrorist buying a terrorist bank, why did he then put that bank under monitoring by the US Federal Reserve? Seems... dangerous, no?

Not only is this evidence ludicrously weak, but it comes extremely late anyway. Like, this past week. How can Pam Geller's guilt-by-the-thinnest-of-association evidence be chargeable to Rick Perry? Geller made these devastating findings (that a law-abiding man bought a bank, and put it under US Federal Reserve monitoring, to make sure it was law-abiding) this past week; how could Rick Perry have even known about these "allegations"?

Robert Spencer, as I said, now seems pretty sure that the Aga Khan is up to no damn good. But if Rick Perry had any doubts about the Aga Khan's status as a true moderate Muslim and a progressive good guy, he would have been reassured by... Robert Spencer, who vouched for him in 2010.

Furnish: I find myself in the curious (and somewhat uncomfortable) position of disagreeing with my friend Robert Spencer, for whom I have the utmost respect and with whom I almost always totally agree.
However, on this issue of whether moderate Islam exists, I think Robert may be missing something....

[prefatory statement about the threat of Wahabism and Sulfism omitted]

However, perhaps because Robert is so well-versed in the theology of Islam, as opposed to the historical record of how that religious theory has been acted out on the stage of history, he seems to overlook the key fact on the ground that certain minorities within Islam have developed a non-literalist, even allegorical, approach to reading the QurÂ’an. Foremost among these moderates are the Isma`ilis, the Sevener Shi`is, whose global head is the philanthropical Aga Khan. IsmaÂ’ilis may number only in the tens of millions (out of the total Muslim community of some 1.3 billion, second only to ChristianityÂ’s 2+ billion), but they do exist and they define, for example, jihad not as killing or conquering unbelievers, but as economic development and charity work.

[Further discussion of some other moderate Muslim sects.]

Robert Spencer: In all this my friend Timothy Furnish, whose work I admire, is entirely correct.

So there you go: As late as 2010, Robert Spencer, whose specialty and expertise is in identifying threatening Muslim extremists, expressly states the Aga Khan and his whole sect are actually truly moderate Muslims.

Of course, this was before Pam Geller blew the lid off the conspiracy with her dynamite discoveries.

Now asked why Perry should be condemned for believing Aga Khan to be a moderate in 2009, whereas Robert Spencer thought he was a moderate a year later in 2010, Spencer just says that since Perry was "partnering" with him (that is, doing two brief seminars in Texas), Perry should have "vetted" him.

Did Spencer feel the need to "vet" the Aga Khan before misleading the world by pronouncing upon his peaceableness and moderation?

And if Perry had vetted Khan, what would he have found? Why, that whole not-suspicious-at-all bank purchasing affair.

And then what? What do you do when you've successfully put together the pieces of the Routinely Purchased Bank Mystery?

I guess you denounce him or something.

But Robert Spencer wants to denounce Perry for not knowing the details of the Lawfully Purchased US Fed-Monitored Bank Affair; he is much more modest about denouncing himself for his own lack of suspicion and research.

I mean, that's Rick Perry's job. It's not Robert Spencer's job to watch the jihad or anything.

BTW, sidenote, Robert Spencer can be read at his website, JihadWatch.com.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (1059)
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Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard:

ItÂ’s counterintuitive, but Obama has been hurt by the mediaÂ’s leniency. Both his presidency and reelection prospects have suffered. HeÂ’s grown lazy and complacent. The media have encouraged him to believe his speeches are irresistible political catnip, though they arenÂ’t. His overreliance on words hasnÂ’t helped.

The kind of media pressure that can cause a president to sharpen his game, act with urgency, or take bolder steps—that has never been applied to Obama. If it had, I suspect he’d be a more effective, disciplined, energetic, and popular president today. Ronald Reagan is a good role model in this regard. When the media attacked him over gaffes in the 1980 campaign, “Reagan responded like all competitive men by working to improve himself,” says Reagan historian Craig Shirley. “Experience taught him to be better and try harder.” He took this lesson into the White House.

. . .

[T]he media have condoned ObamaÂ’s avoidance of leadership. It started when he let Nancy Pelosi draft the $800 billion stimulus and continued when congressional Democrats put together the health care, cap and trade, and financial industry reform bills.

Remember the days when the press rudely shouted questions at Ronald Reagan during news conferences? I do. There were times when they seemed angry and wouldn't let him answer. Now they won't even hit-up Obama over something as serious as, say, Operation Fast and Furious where lives were lost and the trail of dirty deeds appears to lead all the way to the White House. When they do venture close to a topic not on the official White House approved topics list, they are sheepish, almost apologetic. Pathetic, primitive, in-group territoriality. I'd call it childish if it weren't so reptilian.

Republican administrations have to stay on their toes. Democrat administrations do not.

Tangentially related, Tim Groseclose, author of Left Turn, has come up with an interesting formula for calculating media bias.

Left Turn uses three different methods to calculate the Slant Quotients of media outlets. (A Slant Quotient of 50.4 is perfectly centrist. Higher numbers indicate liberal outlets. Lower numbers indicate conservative outlets.)

One method uses think-tank citations as the basic data. According to this method, the following are the SQs of twenty of the most prominent news outlets in the U.S.

. . .

A second method uses loaded political phrases (like “death tax” or “estate tax”) as basic data.

. . .

A third method notes two equally-true sets of facts about the Bush tax cuts: (i) that in dollar terms, the rich received a disproportionate share of the cuts, and (ii) that the cuts made the tax system more progressive—that is, after the cuts took place, the share of the total taxes that the rich would pay actually increased. Liberal politicians and media outlets tended to report fact (i) relatively more, while conservative politicians and media outlets tended to report (ii) relatively more. The third method notes the relative frequencies that an outlet reported fact (i) or (ii).

Check out his site for information on his book and to see some of the tables he has generated with these methods.

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Posted by: rdbrewer at 08:16 AM | Comments (184)
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A good Sunday morning to you, Morons and Moronettes. Lots of good news this morning, not the least of which is Irene starting to move out of the area. It has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, which just means that sustained winds are now below 75 mph.

There are currently no tornado watches up for the affected areas as Irene came ashore over New York City (!) at about 9 AM EDT. To give you some idea, in my 30+ years living in New Orleans, I've never seen an eye pass right over the city.

We now turn our attention to inland effects from tropical storms. Believe it or not, this is usually when people start getting killed. So if you're in the path, there's still plenty of storm to deal with.

In honor of CoolCzech, more below the cleavage... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:27 AM | Comments (161)
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I've got three books going at the moment: the second novel of F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" series, Legacies; Mark Steyn's doom-mongering tome After America; and Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown. I've got the Steyn book for the Kindle, but the other two in dead-tree editions: paperbacks are still the way to go if you're a cheapskate and don't mind buying used.

I've also been working my way through the most recent edition of The Fretboard Journal, which I often refer to as "guitar porn". It's a high-gloss quarterly that focuses on stringed instruments, and it's sort of a throwback to the old "craft magazines" you used to see before most of that stuff moved to the Internet. It focuses on builders and collectors as well as players, and features sumptuous photography -- it's sort of like Vogue, only featuring guitars instead of slinky European models.

I don't subscribe to many periodicals any more. The Internet made a lot of the magazines I used to subscribe to superfluous. I wonder if tablets like the iPad will lead to a renaissance of the old "magazine" format -- I kind of hope so. I like magazines, at least good ones. They're like a quick snack instead of a full meal, as a book is: you can read it when you have a few free moments here and there and then pitch it out when you're done with no guilt. Also, many smaller "hobby" magazines never made the transition to the internet for whatever reason -- cost, lack of technical skill -- and I've missed some of them. I still get a music magazine called The Banjo Newsletter which takes me right back to the old days: it's printed on newsprint, has songs and music tab along with the articles, and has a back section dedicated to letters and buy/sell ads. It bridges the gap between a "fan-zine" and a glossy professional magazine. I love magazines of this kind. It wouldn't be the same if it were internet-only.

Posted by: Monty at 05:04 AM | Comments (69)
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I hope all of our East Coast Morons are safe and well, and remain so until the storm passes.

Posted by: Monty at 04:44 AM | Comments (266)
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Hi everyone. We'll be down for about 15 minutes at 1AM CDT Sunday while we swap out the drive that failed during last week's power outage.

Just to head off questions: Yes, we have redundant power supplies and a UPS, so power failures shouldn't happen. Yes, we have hardware RAID and hot-swap drives, so no downtime should be necessary. Yes, I'm looking at other dedicated server/colo providers.

Update: Ran a bit later and took a bit longer than planned, and then the server was all like "Disks? What disks? I don't see any disks?" but I hit it over the head with a stick and it decided that it could see the disks after all, and here we are.

Update to the update: That added bonus outage wasn't me - that was the network switch at our hosting company forgetting where to find our IP addresses. I had to manually unbind them all, bind them to the main interface, unbind them again, and then bind them back to to the virtual servers, one at a bleeding time. Ugh. At least now I know what the problem was last weekend when the same thing happened. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:18 AM | Comments (91)
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Robert Spencer has a post insulting me, which, who cares?, but also rebutting more Daniel Stern's claims about the Geller/Spencer charges in the "Dhimmi Teachers" matter.

I still think they are wrong, for reasons I'll lay out, but first, I need to correct something I said.

Robert Spencer is wrong when he says that I, and David Stein before me, misunderstood what "the curriculum" was. No, not in the way he means. Geller and Spenser want to call the seminar material taught to teachers "the curriculum;" I always understood that that was not what Stein was talking about. Stein was talking about a curriculum, or lesson plan, by a teacher who'd attended that seminar, prepared for his students -- his point was "if this is the end product of what came out of that seminar, it sure wasn't dhimmi."

But I did refer to it incorrectly as "the curriculum" by the definite article -- "the curriculum," as David Stern initially had.

That "the" is important, because there is a big difference between "the curriculum" -- the official, board-approved curriculum being taught to all students -- and "a curriculum" -- the lesson plan of one teacher who attended the program.

If this were indeed "the curriculum," this would be the slam-dunk I thought it was. But it's not. It's just one of many different lesson plans, prepared by teachers who attended the seminars.

There were other teachers; they may have (and probably did) have much more Muslim-friendly Religion-of-Peace feelgoodery in their own curricula.

We know from Wiltse's curriculum that there was no interference with the lesson plans, however. Witse's lesson plan is fairly tough on Muslims, and decidedly pro-Israel. So we know there was no enforced Religion-of-Peace indoctrination.

However, Geller and Spencer are focusing on what the teachers themselves heard here.

Now, looking at the sort of thing the teachers were taught -- it's the typical PC nonjudgmental soft-on-Islam sort of stuff. One thing Geller doesn't like is that the abstracts don't blame Islam for the Crusades; but my God, what was she expecting?

Can she point to any school-issued history book that says the Crusades were the fault of Muslims?

Now, indeed, this is all sort of weak PC stuff. But it's PC stuff of the perfectly routine variety. Academics teaching a course about Islam think Islam isn't too shabby; film at 11.

It's not the henny-penny turn-it-to-11 stuff Geller seems to think it is, but it is PC crap of the sort you always hear about Islam from any institution (any institution, that is, except those that are avowedly anti-jihad).

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

You know, I trust, that Islam considers it part of, the successor to and culmination of, the Judeo-Christian tradition, right? And they believe that Jesus, for example, is a lesser prophet. Lesser to Mohammad, of course.

That's what they believe. By writing this, I have not become a dhimmi nor endorsed this idea. I have simply given you information about what other people believe.

Obviously, right?

Not to Ms. Geller. Here she is, quoting part of the abstract of the seminars about the history and philosophy of Islam, and then reacting.

Emphases here are in the original, for once:

[Quoting the abstract:] Prophet Muhammad has become the paradigm, or role model, who is worthy of being emulated. As GodÂ’s chosen prophet and messenger, he best embodied how to live a life in accordance with GodÂ’s will. In this sense, he and the prophets before him, including Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jacob and Jesus, are perceived as exemplary muslims

[Gellar now, commenting:] The real question is, should our children be taught this steaming pile of propaganda? I would not want that dawah taught to my children in public school. I want a candidate who is up to snuff on this. Ahead of the curve would be ideal, but at least cognizant of it.

Are you serious?

Do you see what she is doing? She is either misunderstanding the quote, or cynically distorting it to create her latest round of Outrage!

What is the quoted material doing? It is explaining Muslim beliefs, same as I did a couple of paragraphs before that.

What is Geller claiming the material is doing? She is claiming the material is presented to teach teachers of the actual religious truth of the statement. She is claiming it is in fact a "dawhah," or invitation to prayer, or invitation to submission to the religion.

Did I mention this was a seminar for teachers, prepared with Harvard and UT at Austin?

Does she really not get that they would naturally discuss what Muslims believe? Given that that was the whole point of the seminar?

She either is cynically distorting, or credulously imagining, that a simple statement of what Muslims believe is an actual attempt to convert teachers to that Muslim belief.

Whereas 99.9% of the population sees a dry, academic statement of a religion's creeds, Pamela Geller sees a dangerous "dahwah" intended to indoctrinate teachers into Mohamaddan thoughts so they can then transmit their newly-adopted religion to the schoolchildren of Texas.

Look, I can't explain reality. Either you get this or your don't. If I say "Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died on the cross in a sacrifice by which all the sins of mankind were transferred to him," I am not attempting to convert you to Christianity.

I am simply stating a fact: This is what Christians believe.

I do not know what is a more damning conclusion:

1) That Geller does not understand this, and actually believes this is a "dahwah" presented in an effort to convert people to Savage Mohamaddanism.

or:

2) That Geller understands this is in fact simply a statement of Muslim belief, but finds the mere recitation of that belief a "dahwah" so hateful as to not be fit for public mention, even in a seminar devoted to instructing teachers on Islamic history and beliefs

Go ahead; go over there; find the material. I read the stuff. Most of it is dry academic stuff. Other stuff is, as I conceded, "soft" PC twaddle which talks about how diverse and vibrant Muslim societies were and that sort of thing.

Like when you look up any country in the encyclopedia? Like Haiti? You're going to be told it's a diverse and vibrant culture.

By the way, you might want to give Geller a break and say, "Gee, Ace. I don't know. I see what you're saying, with that quote, but based on the way I read it, it doesn't expressly identify this merely as the belief of Muslims; it actually seems to flatly declare these things about Mohammad as being true. Maybe you shouldn't assume bad motives. Maybe it was just written ambiguously."

Oh, very good point. But it actually wasn't written ambiguously.

See, I haven't told you something --

Geller doctored the quote.

She doctored the quote to take out the prefatory part in the beginning that this is what Muslims believe, to make it sound like maybe, maybe this might be a dawhah.

Here is the actual quote as it appears on the site -- undoctored by Geller. The part of the quote Geller forgot to cite is in bold.

For millions of Muslims around the world, the Prophet Muhammad has become the paradigm, or role model, who is worthy of being emulated. As GodÂ’s chosen prophet and messenger, he best embodied how to live a life in accordance with GodÂ’s will. In this sense, he and the prophets before him, including Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jacob and Jesus, are perceived as exemplary muslims,

Yes, that's right, the sentence began "For millions of Muslims around the world...," clearly indicating what followed was their belief. She instead cut that out, beginning with "Prophet Mohammad was the role model..."

If she had quote it accurately, it would have been obvious this was a simple, unobjectionable statement of fact about the centrality of Mohammad in the Muslim religion. And that wouldn't have seemed outrageous enough to readers, so Geller helpfully "modified" it for you. So you'd be nice and angry, and maybe more motivated to Stop Islamization in America, order your copy now.

Don't believe me? Look it up. Search for keyword "Jesus" and you'll see who's giving it to you straight and who's giving it to you crooked.

Do check out her quotes. And do wonder why, if this is obviously such dhimmi dawhaw dirty-dealing, she has to strain so much and doctor quotes to convince you of that.

Now, we've seen one lesson plan from a guy who went through the seminar. He seems unconverted to Islam. He is, by self-description, a devout Christian, and an unapologetic Zionist. This man would be unlikely to come away from a pro-Muslim symposium and start talking up the splendid conquests of Mohammad.

But knowing teachers, I'm sure most of them taught their kids a PC version of Islam. Although I'm pretty sure there were exactly zero Muslim converts.

Having conceded that, I have to point out a couple of things:

1, I have to point out again that even if the teachers met with some Religion of Peace blatherers, there was no interference in their lesson plans. Wiltse says so, and his own lesson plan seems to prove that. It may not seem tough to Robert Spencer, but it seems tough to anyone not named Robert Spencer or Pamela Geller.

2, the sort of teachers who would be inclined to teach Religion of Peace nonsense... well, I'm sure they did teach Religion of Peace nonsense, but I have to question: Absent this seminar, were they likely to teach otherwise? I ask: What were these teachers planning to teach about Islam in the first place?

Assuming that Geller doesn't really believe that the purpose here was not, in fact, to convert the teachers to Islam, these seminars might have encouraged the soft-headed liberal position that the Religion of Peace Wants To Be Your Friend And Gets A Bad Rap.

And while I can acknowledge that, I'm having difficulty imaging that they would have acted any differently in absence of these seminars. Or what teachers teach in any other state.

Wiltse seems to have taught as he would have anyway, for example.

It seems to me that teachers were invited to hear a PC lesson on Islam. then permitted to teach whatever they liked, either incorporating or rejecting those thoughts.

On to the Grover Norquist charge. Geller, challenged on her assertion that Rick Perry was a dhimmi, then offered this new evidence to buttress her case:

Yes, all Perry did was give a speech in partnership with Grover Norquist, and promote it on his website. Norquist heads up Americans for Tax Reform, and Perry’s tax-cutting message is redolent of Norquist’s influence. But Norquist also has deep and extensive ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists, as I showed in the first commentary. That raises legitimate questions about whether or not Perry knows about, or cares about, or even endorses, that activity by Norquist. I certainly would refuse to speak at the same event in partnership with Grover Norquist – let alone promote it on my website. Shouldn’t Rick Perry have, too?

I responded:

Now, Norquist is widely known himself to be pro-Muslim; he believes they're a natural Republican constituency, and urges we make a move for them like Bush and Rove urge with Hispanics.

But Geller is trying to shore up her pathetic "Rick Perry's a Pro-Sharia Islamist Enabler" bullshit by linking him to the guy that everyone in DC is linked to in some way (fuck, even I was at his house five years ago).

Ummm... we're not allowed to talk with Grover Norquist anymore, Pam? Can't sign his anti-tax pledges? I guess all those conservative pols and wonks going to the Blankday Morning Meetings are, what? Jihadis, now?

Yeah. I'd say that just about takes care of all that.

Geller seizes on my mention of going to his house as I'm bragging. No, I'm not bragging. You have, not unexpectedly, missed the point.

The point is that you are engaging in Guilt by Association. This guy knows this guy, and this guy spoke with this guy, so this guy's a dhimmi.

We are moving several steps from actual jihadis here. The chain goes: Rick Perry met with Grover Norquist for anti-tax agitation purposes; Grover Norquist has an institute for Muslim outreach; some guys at that institute have connections to, at least, people suspected of being jihadis, or at least, in one further attenuated step, knowing jihadis themselves.

I can buy the chain of shame all the way until the point that people who know Grover Norquist, but themselves are not guilty of anything, are now culpable, simply because they know him and have not, as Spencer and Geller seem to prefer, ostracized him, denounced him, and cast him out of their circles.

My point in mentioning the Wednesday Morning Meetings is-- are those people dhimmis, too? That's a Who's Who of Establishment DC. Yes, I know, RINOs; but jihadist-enabling dhimmis?

Am I a dhimmi? Well, I know I am, for Spencer dismisses the entire magazine Commentary as "dhimmi" and surely I'm as dhimmi as they.

My point was that Grover Norquist -- whether he should or should not be cast out of Republican circles -- remains a DC fixture, and an establishment figure.

Is Michele Bachmann a dhimmi too? Or Mitt Romney? Or Newt Gingrich?

“I talk with [Mitt] Romney directly,” Norquist said. He mentioned that Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) will be attending his Wednesday meeting this week and that Gingrich recently sent him an unsolicited statement strongly opposing backing down in the debt talks. For Norquist, any other position would be unacceptable.

How about Allen West, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio?

...Earlier this year, Norquist spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference, along with Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Thad McCotter, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, and Newt Gingrich.

Commenters tell me Geller is big on Sarah Palin. Well, okay then. I have to also ask: Is Sarah Palin a dhimmi too?

Yes, that is Sarah Palin shaking the hand of this dangerous Islamist-enabler. The article, dated June 15, 2011, says the picture itself was taken "last year," which means Sarah Palin was shaking the hand of this jihadi-symp during the same period when Rick Perry gave a speech with him.

Are we going to keep pretending that Grover Norquist is on a Terrorist Watch List and that anyone having any dealings with him is also suspect?

Or are we going to just say that Grover Norquist is a big DC Establishment players whom politicians routinely, and without considering the Jihad Implications, meet with? more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:11 PM | Comments (603)
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As ever, hi there, Morons and Moronettes, and welcome to this evening's combined Irene update and overnight thread. As this is my first ONT, I'm a little nervous about this one, so let's get to the serious side first and then we'll get to the fun.

Bullet points about Irene: 1) still headed for the NYC area and likely to get there at hurricane strength, 2) and importantly- the winds increase sharply with height. 20 and 30 stories up, the wind is going to whip through at about 20 percent higher speed than at the surface. If you're up in the air, make for damn sure you're not near the windows. Anything in the air that high should be considered a real threat.

Update: Tornado Watch in effect until 5 AM for all of DE, the greater Philadelphia area, NYC, Long Island, southern CT, coastal Maryland, and all of NJ.

So let's go below the fold for details... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:26 PM | Comments (462)
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They are soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Regiment, based as Ft. Myer.

They are charged with the guard of the Tomb of the Unknowns. In a hurricane, in a downpour. In whatever comes their way. They don't care.

21 steps. They will keep this guard no matter what happens.

It's what they do. To honor the fallen, the "unknown." Unknown to us, known but to God.

from Slublog, MelissaR, and GingerB.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:00 PM | Comments (140)
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