The Bookworm Beat — Saturday night leftovers edition (and Open Thread)

Woman writingBusy day. Very busy day and not a bad one either, because I got a lot accomplished. Just about the only thing I didn’t get done today was spending time at my computer. I’ve got a pile of open tabs left over from yesterday, though, all of which have aged well and still deserve to be read:

With the ceasefire, the media started ‘fessing up about the lies it told for Hamas

Once the ceasefire seemed to be sticking, foreign reporters started admitting that much of what they reported out of Gaza was untrue — and that they willingly reported these lies out of fear for their own safety.. Wondering how they’re feeling about their confession now that the war has resumed.

And considering how bad Hamas is, the media should be deeply ashamed

I wonder how all the so-called “pacifists” square their support with Hamas with the massacres it commits against its own people — for example, summarily executing Gazans accused of collaborating with Israel. And let’s not stop with executing alleged collaborators. Let’s call Hamas out on its long list of crimes against humanity (as complied by StandWithUs at Buzzfeed).

ISIS, a scourge unlike any seen since Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes

Hamas followers, however, are mere pikers when it comes to ISIS. I honestly don’t believe we’ve seen any military movement as brutal since Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes.  Even 20th century totalitarian armies acted with more deliberation when it came to mass slaughter.

What’s even more amazing is that ISIS is so terribly pleased with itself. Unlike the Nazis who recorded images of their torture for their own masturbatory pleasure, but otherwise tried to hide it from the world, ISIS is not hiding the beheadings, crucifixions, torture, genocide, and rape. It’s proudly circulating this information on social media.

Reading about ISIS’s depredations against armies, women, Christians, Yazidis, other Muslims, and anyone else in their way is so stomach churning I think it short-circuits most Americans. It’s one thing to watch this kind of horror presented with ghoulish enthusiasm, and lots of colored corn syrup, on a movie screen; it’s another thing altogether to realize that it’s being committed against men, women, and children, in real time, here on planet earth.

Obama deserves praise for taking steps to protect the Yazidis, but it’s apparent that he has no plan at all. This is a “seat of the pants” operation, where he’s going to try to put out a little fire here and a little fire there, even as the corpses pile up.

I actually wouldn’t want American boots on the grounds in a war against ISIS. To the extent that ISIS is a military movement (no sheltering amongst civilian populations for ISIS troops), my recommendation would be to track their movements and, when they’re reasonably consolidated, drop a storm of bombs on them with Dresden-like ferocity. ISIS fighters have parted ways with humanity and need to be routed out completely. Incidentally, Kurt Schlicter would agree with me.

And why can’t Progressives figure out just how bad Islamists really are?

David French struggles to understand why Progressives cannot wrap their heads around the evil that stalks the Middle East and, increasingly, Europe and America. In addition to his ideas (and you’ll have to read his post to see what they are), I do think a lot of it has to do with a terrible fear of being thought racist. After all, while Islam is not a race, the fact is that most Muslims have darker skin than the run-of-the-mill American or European leftist. For Progressives, then, criticizing dark-skinned people is so verboten, they’re willing to wrap themselves in an almost impenetrable blanket of denial.

Obama:  Knave or Villain?

When speaking about the disaster’s that have befallen America and the rest of the world during Obama’s presidency, many people are wont to cite to Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Myron Magnet doesn’t agree. He thinks that Obama has deliberately created both domestic and international disasters.

Or maybe Obama’s just a bureaucrat run amok

Jonah Goldberg wonders if Barack Obama isn’t just bureaucracy run amok in the form of one powerful individual:

But there’s a common theme to Obama’s foreign policy and [Mike] Barnicle’s rodent flatulence [blaming Cheney for ISIS]. They both work on the assumption that global events are things that happen out there. “The world stage” used to be a platform for U.S. leadership. For Obama, the world stage is more like, well, a stage where other nations put on a show for our benefit. There are plenty of good arguments for America to be more circumspect internationally (and plenty of bad ones). But I don’t think Obama and his supporters fully recognize that when the lead actor on the world stage decides to walk off and sit in the audience, it changes the performance and the roles of the other performers.

Read the whole thing. It’s one of Goldberg’s best.

Obama's mission accomplished

 

Whatever else Obama is, he’s not in Putin’s class

Bill Whittle thinks that, when it comes to Obama versus Putin, Obama is a naif facing off against a stone-cold killer who learned from the best (at stone-cold killing, that is):

A teaching degree — not worth the paper it’s printed on?

I’ve often thought that I would be a good teacher because I’m fairly good at explaining things. Long ago, when I was looking for ways out of practicing law, I toyed with the idea of teaching. At that time, I didn’t know that private schools often didn’t requiring teaching degrees, so I thought I’d have to go back to college to get a masters in teaching.

The thought of a teaching degree horrified me, though. My sense over the years was that one of the problems with modern teachers is that teaching degrees “un-teach” them, leeching out their common sense and ordinary knowledge and leaving, in their place, cant and political correctness. It seems I may have been correct in this supposition.

In Obama’s America, no good deed goes unpunished

Business life in Obama’s America: Help the government by bailing out failed financial institutions . . . then get reamed for those same institution’s past sins.

The IRS will be watching some pulpits — but which pulpits will it be watching?

Per an agreement with an atheist group, the IRS will soon be monitoring sermons at a House of Worship near you. Maybe I wouldn’t mind this so much if I thought the IRS would randomly check out all types of faiths, including black churches (“I don’t feel no ways tired!“) and radical mosques (“Jihad!”). I have a strong suspicion, though, that Obama’s IRS agents will only be haunting the pews of churches and synagogues in which the pastor or rabbi speaks about the sanctity of life or the sacrament of marriage.

Is HBO failing?

I don’t like HBO and I don’t like it for a very specific reason: It’s relentlessly Leftist and propagandizes in every documentary, commentary show, and most movies. Netflix’s original productions aren’t always better, but they’re still better than HBO — and they’re beating HBO in subscriptions.

Picture time

And a picture about Hamas’s co-conspirator in Gaza:

UNinvolved in Peace