Distractions or Part of the Thinking Process?

LISA BELKIN in NYT makes an interesting observation in her article referring to recent studies of the amount of time people "slack off" at work.

There is a point, of course, where distraction becomes blatant slacking off, but I would argue that some percentage of time wasted during work is actually a part of the work. I call it gel time, when a corner of your brain noodles with a problem while the rest of your brain checks the baseball scores or looks for replacement coffee mugs on eBay. In other words, gel time is what you have to do to make you ready to do what you need to do.

Daniel Pipes: The attempt to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a has begun -- but the world is in denial

QOTD:Daniel Pipes: The attempt to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a has begun -- but the world is in denial

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a (Islamic law). Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide 'caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

What the world owes "Palestinians" and their ideological benefactors

QOTD:Dennis Prager

Judea Pearl, the father of murdered Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, has devoted his life since his son's murder by Muslims in Pakistan to building bridges to the Muslim world. He told me on my radio show that he is sad to report that '99.99 percent' of the Muslim world does not believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. It is no wonder, then, that so few Muslims religiously or morally condemned Palestinian terror against Israeli Jews. At best, some Palestinians condemn Palestinian terror as counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. Period. It may be impractical, but not immoral or un-Islamic.

QOTD: Lileks on Arafat and the UN

QOTD: James Lileks

All you need to know about Arafat was that he insisted on wearing a pistol when he addressed the UN General Assembly. And all you need to know about the UN, I suppose, is that they let him.

Roe's affect on political discourse

James Taranto in The WSJ on how the Supreme's decision in Roe v. Wade has skewed the political discussion on abortion.

Roe v. Wade is a study in unanticipated consequences. By establishing a constitutional right to abortion, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court no doubt thought they were settling the issue for good, accelerating a process of liberalization that was already under way in 1973. But instead of consensus, the result was polarization. The issue of abortion soon after, and for the first time, took a prominent place in national political campaigns. By 1980, both major political parties had adopted extreme positions--Republicans favoring a "pro-life" constitutional amendment to ban abortion, and Democrats opposing virtually all regulation on "pro-choice" grounds. Every presidential and vice-presidential nominee since then has toed the party line on abortion.

Polarization over abortion coincided with a period of Republican ascendancy. Since the parties split on abortion, the GOP has won five of seven presidential elections, and no Democrat has had a majority of the popular vote. Republicans took over the Senate in 1980, and both houses of Congress in 1994. Obviously, many other factors have contributed to Republican success, but it is hard to look at these results and conclude that abortion has been a winning issue for the Democrats. Thus, the politics of abortion has favored the party that opposes the court-imposed "consensus."

This is not to say that America has embraced the near-absolutist pro-life position that the Republican Party formally endorses. Most Americans are moderate or ambivalent on abortion, rejecting the extreme positions on either side. One reason Republicans have an advantage is that as long as Roe remains in effect--taking off the table any restriction that imposes an "undue burden" on a woman seeking to abort her pregnancy--Republicans are an extreme antiabortion party only in theory. When it comes to actual legislation, the GOP favors only modest--and popular--regulations. The Democrats, on the other hand, must defend such unpopular practices as partial-birth abortion, taxpayer-subsidized abortion, and abortions for 13-year-olds without their parents' knowledge.

...And if Republicans keep winning the presidency and appointing Supreme Court justices, Roe v. Wade may eventually be overturned. (This almost certainly would have happened in 1992 if the Senate had approved Robert Bork's confirmation five years earlier.) ... If Roe were overturned, the politics of abortion would change dramatically, and in the Democrats' favor. With the legality of abortion itself on the line, the debate would shift away from the pro-choice extremes, forcing pro-choice politicians to take a more centrist (and popular) position. Republicans would be torn between their antiabortion base and more moderate voters, for whom an outright ban on abortion is a bridge too far.

The best solution for both parties would likely be a return to the status quo ante Roe--that is, for Congress and the president largely to ignore abortion, and leave its regulation to the state legislatures. This would allow politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, to tailor their views to match those of their constituents and their own consciences, and it would remove abortion as a polarizing issue from national elections.

Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy - New York Times

The NYT carries this interesting tidbit...

...it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces

Fun Facts

Pew Global Attitudes Project Fun Facts:

The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted among more than 17,000 people in 17 countries this spring, finds that while many Muslims believe that radical Islam poses a threat, there are differing opinions as to its causes.

...The polling ...finds that in most majority-Muslim countries surveyed, support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence in defense of Islam has declined significantly. In Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia, 15% or fewer now say such actions are justifiable. In Pakistan, only one-in-four now take that view (25%), a sharp drop from 41% in March 2004. In Lebanon, 39% now regard acts of terrorism as often or sometimes justified, again a sharp drop from the 73% who shared that view in 2002. A notable exception to this trend is Jordan, where a majority (57%) now says suicide bombings and other violent actions are justifiable in defense of Islam.

...Anti-Jewish sentiment is endemic in the Muslim world. In Lebanon, all Muslims and 99% of Christians say they have a very unfavorable view of Jews. Similarly, 99% of Jordanians have a very unfavorable view of Jews. Large majorities of Moroccans, Indonesians, Pakistanis and six-in-ten Turks also view Jews unfavorably.

In the Asian countries surveyed, views of religious groups are generally more moderate. India, with its substantial Muslim minority, is closely divided with respect to views about Muslims; 46% hold a favorable view while 43% view them unfavorably. Opinions of Christians are considerably higher: 61% favorable compared with 19% unfavorable. Most Indians (56%) offer no opinion on Jews; those that do split 28% favorable to 17% unfavorable.

QOTD: Pat Sajak

QOTD:Pat Sajak

The people there [in France] were so nice, I had almost forgotten a friend's advice upon my departure: "Be sure to drive on the left side in England. Do that in France, too, because you'll run over more French."

QOTD: Carolyn Glick

QOTD: Carolyn Glick in JWR

THE FACT that the US and Europe have yet to make any strong statements condemning the terrorist about to take over the Iranian government should be a warning to Israelis. They are told by their leaders that if Hamas takes over the Palestinian Authority then the kid gloves will come off. Israel will finally have the international legitimacy to really take it to the Palestinians. But the Iranian situation seems to indicate that just the opposite is the case.

If the Iranians can elect a man like Ahmadinejad to their presidency and not suffer immediate international isolation, then it is simply not credible for anyone to believe that a Hamas takeover of Palestinian society will cause any reformulation of the European and US policy towards the Palestinians.

Like Ahmadinejad, Hamas has made it absolutely clear that it is serious in its plans to transform the Palestinian Authority into an Islamist state.

And this is why they did it

Amir Taheri describes what is unfathomable to the Left -- why the Islamofascists do what they do.

Moments after yesterday's attacks my telephone was buzzing with requests for interviews with one recurring question: but what do they want? That reminded me of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, who was shot by an Islamist assassin on his way to work in Amsterdam last November. According to witnesses, Van Gogh begged for mercy and tried to reason with his assailant. "Surely we can discuss this," he kept saying as the shots kept coming. "Let us talk it over."

Van Gogh, who had angered Islamists with his documentary about the mistreatment of women in Islam, was reacting like BBC reporters did yesterday, assuming that the man who was killing him may have some reasonable demands which could be discussed in a calm, democratic atmosphere.

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.

...There are many Muslims who believe that the idea that all other faiths have been "abrogated" and that the whole of mankind should be united under the banner of Islam must be dropped as a dangerous anachronism. But to the Islamist those Muslims who think like that are themselves regarded as lapsed, and deserving of death.

It is, of course, possible, as many in the West love to do, to ignore the strategic goal of the Islamists altogether and focus only on their tactical goals. These goals are well known and include driving the "Cross-worshippers" (Christian powers) out of the Muslim world, wiping Israel off the map of the Middle East, and replacing the governments of all Muslim countries with truly Islamic regimes like the one created by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and by the Taleban in Afghanistan.

Strange Bedfellows

USATODAY reports that the GREEN Party in Austria wants to arrest the new president of Iran for suspected terrorist activities, including murder.

Wow, when the Green Party begins pressing for the arrest of terrorists (albeit not going there and killing them), it certainly makes for unpredictable allies. We can only hope that this is the signal of a change in the policies of the EU, but this is probably an anomaly.

In Austria, Green Party leader Peter Pilz told the newspaper he wants a warrant issued for the arrest of Ahmadinejad, who he alleged "stands under strong suspicion of having been involved."

Pilz accused the hard-liner of planning the murders of Kurdish resistance leader Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou and two of his colleagues, all of whom were shot in the head at a Vienna apartment by Iranian commandos on July 13, 1989. A fourth victim survived the attack and was able to crawl out of the apartment and alert Austrian authorities.

Pilz told Der Standard his source was an unidentified Iranian journalist living in France, who he said also claimed to have evidence that former Iranian President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani gave the order to have Ghassemlou killed. He did not elaborate.

He said Ahmadinejad, then a high-ranking member of Iran's elite revolutionary guard, allegedly traveled to the Austrian capital a few days before the slayings to deliver the murder weapons to the commandos who carried out the attack. Austrian authorities have said the gunmen apparently entered the alpine country with Iranian diplomatic passports.
Pilz said the journalist was contacted in 2001 by one of the alleged gunmen, described as a former revolutionary guard who has since died in a drowning accident."

Founding Principles

Keith Thompson inFrontPage Magazine on the Founding Father's intentions in setting up constitutional government.

The final chapter of [Thomas Sowell's book] The Quest for Cosmic Justice is titled The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution. That's what's at stake [in today's political debates], but it's not going to happen. Not as long as men and women who understand that the true meaning July 4, 1776 is alive and well in the recognition that

* a government without limits inescapably descends into tyranny;
* the proper role of federalism is to create safe conditions for the states to experiment in creating conditions in which culture and economy may freely evolve;
* the only alternative to interpreting the Constitution to mean what its words say in the plain language of the time in which they were written is to reduce our nation's guiding charter to the status of the Framers' unfinished to-do list, and thus to subvert the rule of law.

QOTD: Caroline Glick

QOTDCaroline Glick

The reason for Rice's insistent support for Abbas is clear. The US, in committing itself to President George W. Bush's 'vision' of the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and perhaps Jerusalem, has mortgaged its entire Middle East policy to a 'solution' of the Palestinian conflict with Israel that has no relation whatsoever to the realities on the ground. The reality on the ground is that Palestinian society is unified by a dedication to the destruction of Israel, not the establishment of a Palestinian state. Abbas is a reflection of his society.

In backing Abbas, the US is not shoring up a weak leader who wants a different future for the Palestinians. The US is backing one Palestinian terrorist organization — Fatah — against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet since Fatah coexists harmoniously with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, by backing Fatah, the US is effectively backing all Palestinian terror groups. That is, the US commitment to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as quickly as possible simply blocks its path from developing any strategy for actually addressing the true reality on the ground. And at the same time, by calling for Israeli "confidence-building measures" to strengthen Abbas, the US is effectively weakening its ally.