Bookworm Room

Tweet I went out to run one errand and came back to discover that Egyptian President Morsi had fled his palace after protesters breached police barricades.  I have no idea whether this means Morsi’s brief sharia reign is over, or whether he’ll be be, redoubling the oppression. What do you think?

3 Comments »

Tweet I’m guessing that a majority of Americans (a slim majority, but still a majority) know that America entered WWII because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  What few stop to consider is why we ended up fighting, not only the Japanese who had just bombed us, but the Germans as well, since they, after all, [...]

5 Comments »

Tweet First of all, it appears that the suspicions I voiced yesterday about the film that started it all are, if not true, at least headed in the right direction.  Poynter has a post detailing all the peculiarities about the film — the lies, the misdirection, and the purpose behind it (to incite violence).  It [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet The story goes that Sam Bacile, an Israeli living in America, created a crude video that so inflamed Egyptian sensibilities that they had to besiege the American embassy in Cairo.  I’ve been wondering how they got wind of that silly video in the first place.  Now I’m wondering if this whole thing wasn’t a [...]

10 Comments »

Tweet We all recall how Michael Moore mercilessly savaged George Bush because, when the first reports about the 9/11 terrorist attacks began, Bush was reading a story book to small children, and chose not to run screaming out of the room.  Fast-forward eleven years and we have a president who boasts that he’s better than [...]

5 Comments »

Tweet Yes, I understand that the embassy in Cairo is besieged but it does strike me as cowardly to abandon core principles as this juncture (emphasis mine): U.S. Embassy Condemns Religious Incitement September 11, 2012 The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings [...]

11 Comments »

Tweet When it comes to the Middle East, I’m hard-put to think of a more astute, knowledgeable observer than Barry Rubin.  In light of the Egyptian court ruling striking down large parts of the recent elections, and the military’s subsequent power move, he’s not sanguine about Egypt’s future: The Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court has just [...]

8 Comments »

Tweet I’ve been quiet about a lot of the revolutions in the Middle East.  The only one as to which I was really vocal was the attempted revolution in Iran — and that was because I thought the uprising could only benefit America.  That regime is so evil, that destabilizing it for awhile, even if [...]

11 Comments »

Tweet I’m with Sadie, that there’s something deeply off-putting about Obama casually applying the ancient Passover story to the uprisings in the Middle East: Passover recalls the bondage and suffering of Jews in Egypt and the miracle of the Exodus, but U.S. President Barack Obama says its message is reflected in Muslim uprisings. In his [...]

9 Comments »

Tweet I was remarkably silent on Egypt.  The situation was too fluid for me to grab a hold of.  I knew only that Obama’s policy would follow whoever seemed likely to win, since he will always hew to the strong man.  Now that it’s over, I was thinking of writing about the abysmal Obama performance [...]

9 Comments »

Tweet Let’s think about Israel from the Israeli viewpoint for a minute, shall we?  It is, by any standards, an extremely small country.  Within its own borders, it is a sophisticated Western-style nation that leads the world in scientific innovation.  Its political system is a parliamentary style democratic republic.  Although its system isn’t perfect, no [...]

10 Comments »

Tweet In honor of Mubarak’s strategic retreat to Sharm El Sheikh, here is the anthem of the 1967 War, which saw Sharm El Sheikh end in Israel’s hands, a situation that lasted up until Egypt got it back in 1982, as part of the peace treaty:

1 Comment »

Tweet Has the U.S. ever been so clueless as  it is today with respect to events going on in Egypt? CIA Director Panetta just admitted that he gets his information on Egyptian events from the media, rather than from his own agency. National Intelligence Director Jim Clapper, meanwhile, pontificates about how the Muslim Brotherhood is [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet When I was six years old, within a few short months, I went from having perfect vision to being extremely nearsighted.  I was discussing that fact with a friend today, and noted that I have no memory of ever having seen well without help from glasses or contacts. This comment made me realize how [...]

10 Comments »

Tweet Brian E added this letter as a comment to an earlier post.  In it, his brother, a teacher at BEN- Baptists Equipping Nationals, relays a communication he received from someone in Egypt.  I think it is important enough for everyone to read that I’m making it a separate post.  Thanks, Brian. My brother who [...]

4 Comments »

Tweet A lot of people keep talking about a desire for a “democratic” Egypt.  I hate to say it but, with the word “democratic” as the starting point, that’s not a very useful discussion.  The dictionary definition of a “democracy” is as follows: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme [...]

12 Comments »

Tweet One of the things I’ve noticed regarding the “news” coming out of Egypt is that it’s incoherent.  Because the situation is so big and so fluid, and because the reporters streaming in are remarkably uninformed to begin with about the region, the news stories remind me strongly of the blind man and the elephant. [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet There are few people on the scene sharper when it comes to Islamic dynamics than Daniel Pipes so, when he says he doesn’t see the Muslim Brotherhood walking away triumphant from the revolution, I take heart.

9 Comments »

Tweet When I read that the Obama administration is good with having the Muslim Brotherhood on board in Egypt, because it’s really not such a bad organization, I keep thinking of 1930′s rationalizations about Mussolini:  He made the trains run on time.  Surely our standards of decency are higher than that? Uh, no.  I guess [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet 1.  Faced with a popular revolt of the type we’re seeing in Egypt, can an American president make a difference? My sense is that, while we’re certainly not going to drop bombs, the American president (any president, not just Obama) is such a vast presence that both his silence and his speech matter.  His [...]

13 Comments »

Tweet When I was faced with troubling decisions in my life, I used to give myself a pep talk.  I’d tell myself that there were three things that could happen as a result of my decision:  things could get better, they could get worse, or they could remain the same.  So, I’d tell myself, there’s [...]

17 Comments »

Tweet When I read news reports saying that Mohammed El-Baradei had shown up in Egypt as a potential “democratic” leader, I was confused.  Surely this couldn’t be the same El-Baradei who served for so long as the head of the IAEA?  I couldn’t find specifics within my own brain, and was too lazy to look [...]

4 Comments »

Tweet Track me on this one: 1.  With help from Al Gore, Hollywood, and the entire Leftist panoply, global warming fears reach hysterical levels. 2.  As part of their apocalyptic battle against rising seas and dying polar bears, warmists declare ethanol is one of the answers (never mind that it turns out that it takes [...]

13 Comments »