Category: Networks

— Here’s the next thing on my reading list (Amazon.com):

Traditionally, “The Enlightenment” has been associated with France, America, and Scotland rather than Britain, which, strangely enough, is thought not to have had an Enlightenment to speak of. Roy Porter effectively upsets this view in The Creation of the Modern World: The British Enlightenment.

While returning the Enlightenment to Britain, Porter also provides a persuasive general defense of the movement against its Foucauldian, feminist, and/or postmodern critics who still “paint it black.” It was perpetually dismissed as “anything from superficial and intellectually na?ve to a conspiracy of dead white men in periwigs [who] provide the intellectual foundation for Western imperialism,” and one of the book’s strengths is that after reading it, one finds it hard to understand how these “critiques” gained such influence in intellectual circles.

Porter is a serious scholar, not a cultural jingoist, and his view of the development of modernity out of the philosophical, political, scientific, and religious elements present in Britain in the 18th Century is inspired.

— As many others have noted, USS Clueless goes into an extended historical narrative about Japan, and then draws the following conclusion about Islam

…before this war ends we shall have to make changes as radical to the majority of Islamic nations, especially the Arab ones. I fear that, because I don’t see how this war can end if we don’t, unless we are defeated. We can’t merely defeat them militarily; I think we have to break their spirit.

I think the parallel to breaking the spirit of the Japanese must have been Hiroshima, but the Japan part sort of made my eyes glaze over (I studied East Asian history in college, so I already knew about the fits-and-starts flirtation with modernity the Japanese went through.) There are many ways in which Japan differs significantly from Islam: Japan’s an island-nation historically isolated from the rest of the world, with a uniform racial composition and social structure, while Islam is a religion practiced by over a billion people in dozens of countries around the world, with varying degrees of accomodation to non-Islamic elements. So right out of the chute, the parallels aren’t really striking.

That being said, the task at hand in the Terror War has to focus in the Arab Islamists who refuse to accomodate the modern world, and the ultimate solution, in my humble opinion, is to replace their theocracies with secular governments on the mold of Turkey. This doesn’t mean “breaking their spirit” as much as it means liberating it from the yoke of ignorance and backwardness. Mohammed, bless his little heart, was a reformer who dragged the Arabs kicking and screaming into the seventh century. In the spirit of Mohammed, it would be nice if another reformer emerged in the Arab World to take them on into the twenty-first. This will probably take another hundred years or so.

— I received this in the mail today:
French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan To Convince Taliban of Non-Existence of God. The ground war in Afghanistan hotted up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taliban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.

However, plans to have the giant Christ kick the crap out of a slightly effeminate 80-foot Mohammed in central Kabul were discarded as insensitive to Muslim allies.

— Congressman Henry Hyde (R, Illinois) has summoned Gerry Adams to appear before a House International Relations Committee hearing on the IRA’s relationship with FARC terrorists in Colombia (Times Online)

Mr Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, has been told to attend a hearing on Capitol Hill next month and prepare to answer the question: “What did you know and when did you know it?” The hearing has been called after outrage in the United States over the discovery last year of three IRA suspects in the area of Colombia controlled by Farc.

Congress wasn’t interested in the IRA as long as it was simply a matter of Americans sending money to finance the bombing of English schoolchildren, but interfering with the Drug War is a whole different can of worms. Link courtesy of Iain Murray.

— This link from Kathy Kinsley goes a long way toward explaining the success of Currysphere nations in Internet Commerce, especially where it depends on B2B Web companies (Of Spice, Spray, and Senility

Sally Frautschy of the University of California at Los Angeles found that diets rich in curcumin, a compound in the curry spice turmeric, reduced the accumulation of beta-amyloid protein in rat brains. Rats treated with curcumin also fared better in memory-dependent maze tests than did rats on normal diets. The finding may explain why in India, where foods are loaded with turmeric, just 1 percent of people over 65 contract Alzheimer’s — the lowest incidence of the disease worldwide.

Turmeric is a root vegetable, a member of the ginger family like the galangal used in Thai and Malay cooking. So load up and be smart, spread democracy and libertarianism around the world, entrepreneur and grow rich. Curry recipes top right.

— Terrorist scum Gerry Adams takes a break from killing innocent women and children to march in Oakland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade:

GERRY ADAMS COMES TO TOWN St. Patrick’s Day weekend. He’ll be part of the parade here. Over in Oakland, Adams will walk down a new street named after him by builder Kieran Scallay. Her Majesty’s government objected to the tar being so honored

Thanks to Martin Pratt for pointing this out, so we can give him a proper reception.

— Inappropriate Moira Breen points to the Brit blogger who condemns the terrorist IRA:

Martin Pratt has a nice feisty blog. I’ve always wondered why, amid all the Yank-bashing, this topic has gotten little press:

[T]he biggest terrorist threat to the safety of the citizenry of this country remains militant Irish Republican in origin.

Strikes me that Americans could legitimately be hammered for supporting terrorists – against Britain.

Breen also says Pratt also has some cogent context on the Graudian’s pissy contents. Joe Bob says check it out.

— The Marc Herold Study on Afghan Civilian Casualties is bogus. Click this link to find out why.

— IRA terrorist Gerry Adams is sucking-up to President Bush, according to the Brit Telegraph (news.telegraph.co.uk – New York’s heroes join boycott of IRA man):

It was after Mr Bush singled out Irish-American firemen for their heroism on September 11 that Mr Adams was led forward by Congressman Peter King, an IRA supporter, to pose for pictures with them.

One guest said: “Adams was completely shameless. Some of the firemen looked pretty uncomfortable.”

The contradictions are making my head hurt.

— Here’s something we at Casa Bennett would like to see more of (St Patrick’s parade boycott by Orangetown NY police):

Several police and fire department honour guards will boycott New York state’s second-largest St Patrick’s Day parade over the choice of a former IRA member as grand marshal.

Why doesn’t the American press cover this?