Israeli and Palestinian Women Take a Rare Swim

At New York Times, "Where Politics Are Complex, Simple Joys at the Beach":

TEL AVIV — Skittish at first, then wide-eyed with delight, the women and girls entered the sea, smiling, splashing and then joining hands, getting knocked over by the waves, throwing back their heads and ultimately laughing with joy.

Most had never seen the sea before.

The women were Palestinians from the southern part of the West Bank, which is landlocked, and Israel does not allow them in. They risked criminal prosecution, along with the dozen Israeli women who took them to the beach. And that, in fact, was part of the point: to protest what they and their hosts consider unjust laws.

In the grinding rut of Israeli-Palestinian relations — no negotiations, mutual recriminations, growing distance and dehumanization — the illicit trip was a rare event that joined the simplest of pleasures with the most complex of politics. It showed why coexistence here is hard, but also why there are, on both sides, people who refuse to give up on it.

“What we are doing here will not change the situation,” said Hanna Rubinstein, who traveled to Tel Aviv from Haifa to take part. “But it is one more activity to oppose the occupation. One day in the future, people will ask, like they did of the Germans: ‘Did you know?’ And I will be able to say, ‘I knew. And I acted.’ ”

Palestinians can't travel inside from the West Bank because in the past they've killed Israelis. And it's not really "occupied." It's disputed. But if they're gonna protest, I'd prefer these beach trips to some Rachel Corries trying to block a tractor and getting killed like idiots. Simple joys are some of our greatest luxuries.

More details at that top link. Israeli authorities aren't jumping up and down in the water about this.

'Holidays in the Sun'

Upon request, from my 9 year-old son. Sex Pistols songs play on his Wii game, "Tony Hawk's Proving Ground." And I promised more skateboarding, so until then:

PREVIOUSLY: "Tony Hawk Birdhouse Tour 2011."

A Cheap holiday in other peoples misery!

I don't wanna holiday in the sun
I wanna go to new Belsen
I wanna see some history
'Cause now I got a reasonable economy

Now I got a reason, now I got a reason
Now I got a reason and I'm still waiting
Now I got a reason
Now I got reason to be waiting
The Berlin Wall

Sensurround sound in a two inch wall
Well I was waiting for the communist call
I didn't ask for sunshine and I got World War three
I'm looking over the wall and they're looking at me

Now I got a reason, Now I got a reason
Now I got a reason and I'm still waiting
Now I got a reason,
Now I got a reason to be waiting
The Berlin Wall ...

Lawrence Summers on the Euro Crisis

At Der Spiegel, "'It Was Always Understood the European System Would Evolve'":

SPIEGEL: It seems a currency union across borders without a fiscal union cannot work. Do we have to steer toward a United States of Europe in order for the euro to survive?

Summers: No. Surely, the common currency has been insufficiently supported by common political approaches. But we will learn over time from the European experience what elements have to be common in order to make the system work.

SPIEGEL: Has the response of European leaders to the crisis so far been too dogmatic and bureaucratic?

Summers: There is no politician who will ignore the laws of physics when building a bridge. But there is a tendency in politics in every country to suppose that the laws of economics are flexible and can be adjusted to political necessity. At some points this belief has led to a lack of focus on economic realities in Europe.

SPIEGEL: Can you cite an example?

Summers: In retrospect, it is clear that a currency union requires more attention to the fiscal policies of the member countries than was provided. More central capacities to address issues in the financial system are required. But it was always understood that the European system would evolve through events and that is what is happening right now.

SPIEGEL: Many European observers are particularly disappointed with the euro crisis management of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was dubbed "Madame Non" because she refused bailouts for a long time before finally relenting. On the other hand, she was under considerable pressure at home because Germans largely oppose the bailouts. Is there a way out of that dilemma?

Summers: The art of economic policy making is reconciling the political and the technical or arithmetic imperatives. You cannot move forward in democratic nations without sufficient political support, and all the political support in the world will not repeal the laws of economic arithmetic. But we ask our political leaders not simply to take the preferences of their citizenry as a given, but to help guide those preferences in response to necessity.

Keep reading. Summers discusses the debt ceiling debate in the U.S., and suggests it's mostly politics (default would be surprising) and taxes are too low. Of course, he was until recently a top economic adviser to President Obama. And according to Elizabeth Drew's recent piece at New York Review, folks like Summers bailed because Obama adopted a too conservative approach on deficits. Figures.

Debunking 6 Myths About Anders Breivik

At great essay from Daniel Greenfield.

Bill O'Reilly Rejects Media's 'Christian Extremist' Description of Norway Killer

At The Blog Prof and Nice Deb, "Video: Someone In The MSM Finally Gets The Oslo Killer Story Right."

RELATED: At Eye Crazy, "Why are socialist moral relativists silent in the wake of the Norwegian terrorist attack?." Well, they're not silent, actually. They're cheering the attacks as a hammer against conservatives. See also Blazing Cat Fur, "Khaled Mouammar, Darling of the Canadian Left, Blames The JOOOS for Norway."

Sara Jean Underwood on Twitter

I just found her, and here's her picture at Wikimedia (© Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com):

Just call it a needed diversion from counter-jihad blogging. See R.S. McCain, "MSM Goes LGF: Media Trying to Blame Norway Massacre on Pamela Geller?"

Anders Behring Breivik's Contacts with English Defence League

I've been dealing with this all day, so I'm not going to worry too much if any blogging friends get ruffled here. This is about information dissemination in pursuit of greater knowledge. See previously: "Anders Behring Breivik Closely Linked to English Defence League, Telegraph Reports." It turns out that EDL's getting lots of attention. See Telegraph UK, "Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik emailed 'manifesto' to 250 British contacts."

Anders Behring Breivik emailed his 1,500-page “manifesto” to 250 British contacts less than 90 minutes before he detonated a bomb in Oslo.

Scotland Yard’s domestic extremism unit, which is investigating Breivik’s British links, has been sent a list of UK-based email addresses among 1,003 recipients of the document.

Breivik joined online conversations with members of the Right-wing English Defence League, telling them to “keep up the good work” in the months before he killed 76 people in Norway’s worst terrorist outrage.

He was told he would be welcome at EDL demonstrations, and wrote about visiting Bradford and London. He is also reported to have attended an EDL rally in Newcastle.

Using the name Andrew Berwick, Breivik emailed out his manifesto, and a link to a YouTube video showing him holding a gun, at 2.09pm on Friday, one hour and 17 minutes before his bomb detonated in Oslo. He addressed each recipient as a “Western European patriot” and wrote: “It is a gift to you … I ask that you distribute this book to everyone you know.”

Continue reading.

Also at The Daily Mirror, "Anders Breivik told English Defence League members to 'keep up the good work'."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Police probe claim Norwegian gunman marched with English Defence League." And The Independent, "Endorsement by mass murderer exposes EDL to fresh scrutiny":

Detectives are probing Breivik's boasts that he met "tens of EDL members and leaders" in the decade leading up to Friday's massacre. He claimed in his 1,500-page "manifesto", posted online, to have visited Britain twice since 2002 to attend EDL rallies and had more than 600 EDL supporters as Facebook friends.

Police in Britain and Norway are also investigating his claims to have met a group of ultra-nationalists in London nine years ago at which they vowed to resist the spread of Muslim influence across Europe.

Scotland Yard is understood to be probing whether he met former members of the Neo-Nazi groups Combat 18 and Column 88 – both now considered defunct – at that time.

However, security sources believe that Breivik is most likely to have been a lone wolf similar to David Copeland, the London "nailbomber" who killed three people in 1999, and suspect that his assertion to have been part of a far-Right uprising is fantasy.

But the resultant publicity has left the EDL – which is known to be infiltrated by Special Branch and the security services – in an unprecendented media spotlight. With its links to football hooliganism, it had been previously most associated with street protests sometimes degenerating into violence.

Founded in 2009 by Stephen Lennon, who was this week convicted of leading a group of Luton Town supporters in a massive street brawl, the EDL repeatedly stresses it is only concerned with fighting "militant Islam".

Its leading figures, none of whom have experience in mainstream politics, operate as a loose network.

On Monday, Mr Lennon made a rare foray before the television cameras to ridicule suggestions of links with Breivik, suggesting the EDL is changing its strategy in dealing with the media.

A tetchy encounter with Jeremy Paxman on BBC2's Newsnight left him forecasting that similar attacks could take place in the UK if the right of peaceful protest was taken away: "You need to listen because, God forbid, this ever happens on British soil... it's the time coming... you're probably five or 10 years away."

That's the interview at top. The Independent probably gives as good a summary as we'll get, although I'd like to see proof of the emails allegedly sent by Breivik.

RELATED: It's a far left-wing website, but they've got screencaps. See: "English Defence League in denial. In more ways than one."

Dan Peek, 1950 – 2011

Just learned of Dan Peek's death, at Wizbang, "Dan Peek, RIP."

I posted this clip last year, "This Is For All the Lonely People..."

See the write-up at Ultimate Classic Rock, "FOUNDING AMERICA MEMBER DAN PEEK DIES AT 60." Also Aaron Goldstein at American Spectator, "Dan Peek, R.I.P."

Plus a news report at Kansas City Star, "Dan Peek, founding member of soft-rock trio America, dies at 60."

Sixties too young. God bless Peek's family.

British Progressives Allege Melanie Phillips Took 'Part in the Norway Massacre'

Well, no surprise, as they say.

See Melanie's blog, "A wider pathology." And she writes on Twitter:

Dozens of writers cited in Norway psychopath's ravings. So why am I being singled out? Atrocity ignites left pathology.

Yep, pathology. So clearly obvious by now. Progressives are having a psychotic field day attacking conservatives who've been standing up for freedom and democracy. And Melanie responds:

... Breivik name-checks a vast number of mainstream writers and thinkers, including Bernard Lewis, Roger Scruton, Ibn Warraq, Mark Steyn, Theodore Dalrymple, Daniel Hannan, Diana West, Lars Hedegaard, Frank Field, Nicolas Soames, Keith Windschuttle, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Hayek, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi, George Orwell and many others; indeed, it’s a roll call of western thinking and beyond, past and present.

So why doesn’t [Sunny] Hundal refer to any of these people who have also been thus name-checked? Why has he singled me out in this way? It looks like yet another crude attempt to smear me by a writer who has long displayed an unhealthy obsession with my work (see here and here and here for example).

The Hundal reference goes to the progressive blog, Liberal Conspiracy, "Oslo terrorist cited Melanie Phillips in his manifesto." And then an update, "Compare Phillips now to her writing after 7/7." And then "Flying Rodent," another deranged blogger at Liberal Conspiracy, piles on, "What are people like Melanie Phillips calling for then?":

I think that now, more than ever, fingers need to be pointed squarely at those who have been disseminating this poisonous cack, and searching questions need to be asked.

First up – What the fuck did you think you were doing?

And back over at Melanie's blog, she concludes:

Already, through the selective and distorted use of this document and the amplification of such malevolence through Twitter and the net, a blood-lust is building. Thus I am receiving emails such as one from Carsten T Holst-Lyngaard who says:

I congratulate you on your part in the Norway massacre;

or this from Taper Collins:

blood on your hands. hope you’re happy with the effects of your anti-everyone vitriol. abhorrent.

Breivik may be one unhinged psychopath – but what is now erupting as a result of the Norway atrocity is the frenzy of a western culture that has lost its mind.

Word.

ADDENDUM: As I was about to hit publish, Melanie has just published a new essay, "Fanaticism, mass murder and the left."

The suggestion that Breivik’s behaviour resulted from political rage – let alone from reading thinkers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill or Winston Churchill – is frankly itself an opinion in need of treatment.

Melanie notes Bret Stephens and "the millenarian mindset," which I cited as perhaps the best explanation so far as to what happened in Norway. But go RTWT. Now we're getting somewhere.

Lawyer Says Anders Behring Breivik 'Insane'

At Telegraph UK, "Norway killer: Anders Behring Breivik 'insane'."

Anders Behring Breivik was “surprised” he was able to carry on shooting students on Utoya island for 90 minutes before police eventually caught up with him, his solicitor said, as he made clear he regarded his client as “insane”.

Anders Behring Breivik Closely Linked to English Defence League, Telegraph Reports

Well, Telegraph UK is reporting Breivik's ties to EDL. Given Gates of Vienna's aggressive defense of English Defence League, and of course the massive citiations to Fjordman, etc., at the Breivik manifesto, it'd be interesting to see GOV's response.

Not to put too much emphasis on this (since I consider Breivik a lone actor and crazed criminal sociopath), it's nevertheless interesting --- amid all the blame shifting to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer --- that Atlas Shrugs and SIOA explicitly distanced themselves from EDL last month. See Pamela's report, "EDL SHAKE-UP." Pamela indicated that while she once supported EDL, the group had become infiltrated with crackpots and racists, and that she could no longer support the group if it continued its path to extremism. Her comments stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment at Gates of Vienna, and Pamela updated at Atlas Shrugs, "LORD OF THE FLIES: MACHIAVELLI COMES TO THE BLOGOSPHERE," and "THE EVIL THAT MEN DO."

Again, the point here is more to how Gates of Vienna would like to respond to news from Telegraph UK. Comments remain closed at the blog, which is exactly opposite to how Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have responded to allegations. Moreover, others are pointing out Pamela's rejection of EDL as well. See The Right Perspective, "Pam Geller Shrugged Off EDL Before Attack."

ADDENDUM: I'll have more on this, but to be clear. Counter-jihad bloggers are not responsible for the unfathomable evil of Anders Behring Breivik. Indeed, Jason Papas provides an important analysis indicating that left-wing progressive ideologies of "identity politics" provide a key explanation to the killer's motives. That is:

His [Breivik's] politics is what the left commonly calls “Identity Politics”. It has little grounding in the [classical] liberal thought which is common in the anti-jihadi writers that he cites. They are first and foremost alarmed by the illiberal nature of Islam. Breivik agrees with the problem but has adapted a collectivist solution that is obviously his own. He has stepped off into an imagined war of all against all. He is alone in this war as he deserves to be.

Given that, one might think that Gates of Vienna would emerge from their medieval dungeons and join the debate. We need more discussion on this, and the new information on Breivik and EDL provides a new area of investigation.

Added: Kathy Shaidle sends this along: "Norway: EDL leader Tommy Robinson holds his own against old pansy on BBC TV."

Update 3:30pm PST: Stogie comments: "Norway Shooter and the English Defence League."

And see Exposing the English Defence League, "English Defence League in denial. In more ways than one."

The Character Assassination of Robert Spencer

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine (via Blazing Cat Fur):

Robert Spencer has never supported a terrorist act. His crime in the eyes of the left is to have told the truth about Islamic fanatics beginning with the Islamic prophet who called for the extermination of the Jews and said in his farewell speech that he was called to fight until all men say that there is no God but allah.

See also Daniel Greenfield, "In Defense of Robert Spencer."

No tragedy goes long without exploitation, and the atrocities in Norway are no exception to that rule. The media is hard at work accusing researchers who monitor and warn about Islamic radicalism and terrorism of being responsible for the actions of an extremist and a terrorist.

Is silencing researchers who have put years of effort into exposing networks of radicals the right response to a terrorist attack? No reasonable person would think so. But that is exactly what media outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic are trying to do.

Also, a response at Jihad Watch, "New York Times convicts Spencer of guilt for Norway murders." And Spencer at Human Events, "Accept Jihad, Or Children Will Die."

NewsBusted: 'Americans have been suffering through a heat wave'

Via NewsBusters:

Glenn Reynolds Talks with Jerry Pournelle

An fascinating interview, adding a lot of information to some of my postings on the Space Shuttle program:

Pournelle was once a professor of political science, and way back in the day, when I used to read a lot of paperback fiction, I read The Mote in God's Eye. More here.

Elizabeth Drew: 'What Were They Thinking?'

At New York Review of Books. I enjoy reading Drew, if only for a wistful reminder of old establishment Washington:

Someday people will look back and wonder, What were they thinking? Why, in the midst of a stalled recovery, with the economy fragile and job creation slowing to a trickle, did the nation’s leaders decide that the thing to do—in order to raise the debt limit, normally a routine matter—was to spend less money, making job creation all the more difficult? Many experts on the economy believe that the President has it backward: that focusing on growth and jobs is more urgent in the near term than cutting the deficit, even if such expenditures require borrowing. But that would go against Obama’s new self-portrait as a fiscally responsible centrist.

Lawrence Summers, Obama’s recently resigned chief economic adviser, said on The Charlie Rose Show in July that he found it “dispiriting” that “all of the energy is on the projected deficits…when the problem right now is that the economy is in danger of stagnating from lack of demand.” The Republicans had made it clear for months that they would use the need to raise the debt ceiling as an instrument for extracting concessions from the Democratic President in the form of more cuts in federal programs. And the President assented to their premise, but only if there should also be some additional revenues. Were they all insane? That’s not a far-fetched question.

The President argued that it’s critical to make cuts that will “get our fiscal house in order,” so that the American people and the politicians would accept the idea of new programs leading to growth and more jobs. But there are numerous indications that the public is ready for such programs now, and serious analysts see no reason why he should not also be taking such steps now, even if this increases the deficit in the short run. But that would be at odds with Obama’s current self-portrayal. People who are looking for work, or worried about their unemployment insurance, or getting their kids to college, may not be impressed with the argument that they must be patient while the President adjusts his fiscal image in time for the 2012 election.

Since the President wanted to cut spending but also increase taxes and the Republicans insisted on cuts with no new taxes, they were for months too far apart to find much agreement on a budget plan to be attached to the debt ceiling increase—which had to be enacted by August 2 to avoid a default. No one could quite believe that this would happen, because it was so unthinkable; it was assumed that the two parties would reach agreement. Each side actually expected the other to be more flexible. The Republicans assumed that the President would be pliable; the Democrats didn’t expect the Republicans to be so inflexible about raising taxes.

The whole essay goes on like this, portraying Republicans as obdurate and conservative ideas as mythical. What Drew can't explain is why Obama is losing. Why is the president unable to get a budget and debt ceiling deal. It's not GOP "hostage-taking." Listen to that press conference from yesterday and pay attention to the rhetorical legerdemain. Especially good is how Obama finesses his massive overspending as Bush's fault: "We were expecting a $1 trillion deficit by the time I took office," he lies. And he lies some more by blaming his own deficits on the "recession" and not the failed stimulus and ObamaCare. He's a pathetic political hack. Republicans are the ones "winning the future" here, by standing up for budget restraint. We don't a have revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Democrats just don't seem to learn that key lesson.

See also Los Angeles Times, "Dueling plans for debt ceiling." And New York Times, "Parties Head to Showdown as Obama Warns of a ‘Crisis’." (At Memeorandum.)

'Love Me Two Times'

Jim Morrison was 27 years-old when he died, as was Amy Winehouse. Heard this one yesterday afternoon on The Sound LA. Part of a great set while on the road:

2:01 - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman Turner Overdrive

2:05 - Let My Love Open The Door by Pete Townshend

2:08 - Love Me Two Times by Doors

2:47 - You Got Lucky by Tom Petty

2:50 - Crossroads (live) by Cream

2:55 - All Along The Watchtower by Dave Mason

2:59 - Empty Spaces / Young Lust by Pink Floyd

Tony Hawk Birdhouse Tour 2011

At Birdhouse Skateboards:

RELATED: X-Games Seventeen kicks off this week. I'm taking my boys to the vert final on Saturday. I'll try to post on skateboarding throughout the week.

What Is Anders Breivik?

From Bret Stephens, at Wall Street Journal, "The Oslo Terrorist is Neither Christian Nor Conservative."

On Friday morning Breivik wrote that "today you will become immortal." He seems to have meant it literally. Whatever else might be said of that particular longing, it can hardly be called religious (what then would be the point of an afterlife?), or Christian (murdering children en masse is not a tenet of any Christian faith), or conservative (a political tendency that is fundamentally anti-utopian).

What it is is millennarian: the belief that all manner of redemptive possibilities lie on just the other side of a crucible of unspeakable chaos and suffering. At his arrest, Breivik called his acts "atrocious but necessary." Stalin and other Marxists so despised by Breivik might have said the same thing about party purges or the liquidation of the kulaks.

These are the politics that have largely defined our age and which conservatives have, for the most part, been foremost in opposing. To attempt to tar them with Breivik's name is worse than a slur; it's a concession to a killer with pretensions of intellectual sophistication. And it's a misunderstanding of what he was all about.

Norway, Europe and probably the U.S. will now have anxious debates about xenophobia, populism and the rise of neofascism. These are worthy topics, but they are incidental to understanding what happened on Friday. What we witnessed was the irruption of an impulse—more psychological than political—that defines a broader swath of the ideological spectrum than most people would care to acknowledge. As for Breivik, there ought to be no question as to what he is: evil incarnate.

Stephens' essay emphasizes a key point I raised in my analysis of the manifesto: "Breivik hopelessly romanticizes an earlier time that is simply not coming back. He's crazy in that sense." Still, it bears remembering that indeed Breivik's influences were in conservative writings, and that's not to discount his the millenarian infirmities. The answer to Breivik is somewhere between Stephens' analysis and Ross Douthat's, "A Right-Wing Monster." That crazed criminal resides somewhere between millenarianism and the rhetoric of cultural conservatism.

Kevin DuJan Returns to HillBuzz!

See, "A personal note of thanks to our readers" (via Zilla of the Resistance on Twitter):

It takes a lot of work to produce the 25,000 or so words of original content I generate here at HB hitting the Left in every way I know how. Forgive the Harry Potter reference, but it’s like locating and taking jabs at Horcruxes every day, and being bitten, slashed, and assailed in return by the Left in all its hydra forms. The Alinsky Rules book is a tome Voldemort would love, for sure. I’ve endured these nonstop personal attacks for two years plus now, and I just can’t pretend they haven’t changed my DNA in some ways. This stuff won’t truly beat you unless you let it, but it will succeed in thoroughly beating you down.

Here's wishing that guy a long life. And more at the link.

New Media Branding

This applies from professional journalists to bloggers and beyond.

From Reflections of a Newsosaur, "Why journalists need to build their own brands."