Bookworm Room

Finally, Israel lashes back . . . at the misrepresentations in the European media.
Anyone who speaks Hebrew, French or Spanish, will have a huge advantage over me when it comes to appreciating the videos at that site.
To learn more about the ad campaign if you don’t speak those languages, here’s a little [...]

3 Comments »

As part of a larger opinion piece giving thanks that America is still un-European enough to resist Obama’s European-izing efforts, Jonathan Rosenbloom has this to say about the modern European character:
In A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, Robin Shepherd analyzes the cast of mind that predisposes Europeans to hate Israel so much, [...]

28 Comments »

I’ve been saying for some years that the biggest mistake the Islamists made was impatience.  Demographically, between their fecundity and the sterility of Western culture, Muslims were headed towards societal tipping points all over Europe within a couple of decades.  Had they set tight, they could have completed what they started in the Middle Ages [...]

9 Comments »

Had Europe been able to vote last November’s presidential elections, Obama would have swept into office with a vote above 95%.  Over there, they loved him.  He was the antithesis of the ugly American who rode into town and imposed law.  This was a guy who would be kind and gentle, and extremely deferential to [...]

No Comments »

I want to recommend two interesting things to read as a prelude to my core post.  The first read comes from a reliably good source:  Rusty Shackleford.  Over at The Jawa Report, he looks at the banality that exists side by side with the evil that is North Carolina’s recently arrested home grown jihadists.  It [...]

14 Comments »

I just finished reading a very bad book, although I owe it thanks for leading me down some interesting intellectual paths.  The book is Derek Wilson’s Charlemagne, which came my way through my book club (and it’s because of the book club that I actually finished a book I normally would swiftly have abandoned).  The [...]

6 Comments »

I’ve predicted in this blog that, if America continues to coddle Iran, Saudi Arabia will give Israel access to its air space, although it may well lie about that fact later.  Iran’s bluster was fine with the Arab Muslim nations as long as they thought the U.S. would ultimately slap down any Iranian pretensions to [...]

15 Comments »

Sometimes, you have to be poised on the edge of the volcano to realize the threat you face.  Until you get there, you might just think you’re climbing a beautiful mountainside.  Bruce Bawer, a gay man living in Europe, reached the edge of the volcano and wrote While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying [...]

6 Comments »

To the extent that this video may be the production of a pro-Muslim organization, it could also be seen as a boast, not a warning.  Regardless of the intentions behind it, those of us who cherish a Judeo-Christian, Western civilization must sit up and take notice — although I’m not sure that, in the end, [...]

5 Comments »

Charles, at LGF, is concerned that the “extreme right white supremacist” (his phrase) BNP party in England is gaining political ground.  If you check out the party’s blog, though, racial purity a la the Nazis or the KKK is not part of the party’s platform.  As far as I can tell, it wants to close [...]

29 Comments »

Even my kids have figured out that the best negotiation is one in which you negotiate in good will from a position of strength.  Barack Obama probably agrees with this principle, but it’s becoming obvious that he’s misidentified the source of America’s strength in any negotiation.  When presidents from prior administrations (excepting Carter, of course) [...]

6 Comments »

I know nothing about US Admiral James Stavridis.  I don’t know whether he attained his high rank because he’s a brilliant military strategist or just another political hack.  I don’t know if he believes in a strong America, or believes America’s best defense is to role over and play dead.  Indeed, as of this minute, [...]

15 Comments »

I’m still developing the same theme I’ve been hammering at for a week, because I think it’s important.  The ideas in this post should be familiar to you, but I’m trying to express them with more factual data and lucidity:
My mother, bless her heart, said something very important the other day. She said that Europeans [...]

23 Comments »

I wrote it a few days ago, but it just got published today:
The other day, Mr. Horace Engdahl, a man who normally occupies a rather obscure outpost when it comes to public awareness, bought himself a few minutes of fame by engaging in everyone’s favorite pastime: America bashing. Mr. Engdahl’s statements in this regard were [...]

11 Comments »

It’s short, so I’ll quote this post from Power Line in its entirety:
America: Last Refuge for the Left?
Mark Steyn makes a good point:
If Obama is elected in November, at G7 meetings, for the first time since time they began, America will have a more left-wing leader than any other member of the group – [...]

3 Comments »

I like to read British publications, as well as the Spiegel, and whatever other English language versions of European papers strike my fancy.  It’s useful to see what’s going on in other parts of the world and, more than that, to see how the local press views its own events.
One thing I’ve noticed in all [...]

10 Comments »

In an amusing article that compiles examples of American and European media hysteria about Obama’s world tour (think Madonna and the Beatles, only bigger), Denis Boyles makes an interesting point about the European fixation with an Obama (read:  black) Presidency:
Anyway, the gist: Europeans really really want Obama to be the next U.S. president, just as [...]

3 Comments »

Terry Sater writes about the fact that, coddled by loving euphemisms, Americans are marching headlong into the same dreadful socialist experiment that failed all over Europe — a failure that took place within the lifetime of every single American voter.  This is not a case of a few centuries or even decades having dimmed the [...]

8 Comments »

Charles Johnson of LGF periodically gets into spats with the people at Gates of Vienna because of their (possible?) ties to organizations that have the whiff of neo-Nazism about them.  As for me, I don’t know where the truth lies in those arguments.
I do know that Europe in the 20th (and, apparently, in the 21st) [...]

15 Comments »

J. R. Dunn has a wonderful antidote to political despair.  I have some optimistic predictions of my own:
I think the current gas crisis, coupled with the holes being punctured into Global Warming, and China’s status as No. 1 C02 polluter, will create a popular ground swell that will force the Demos’ hands (1) on ANWR [...]

1 Comment »

(This is the first in what I hope will be a series of very civil essays examining marriage.  Suek got me started with this idea based on a comment she wrote saying that, well, we need to figure out what marriage is all about.  Planned future essays will involve separating the religious aspect of marriage [...]

31 Comments »

I am a huge Georgette Heyer fan. I consider her one of the most amusing, sophisticated novel writers ever, and think it’s a shame that she got labeled as a pure romance writer, a genre that puts her in the “I browse that section wearing sunglasses and a scarf” category of books at any [...]

3 Comments »

One of the Democratic selling points — and it was certainly one that Monsieur John Kerry tried to hit hard — is that American conservatism is out of step with Europe, and that Democrats, with their advanced European attitudes, will help us be friends again with the rest of the civilized world. This sales [...]

No Comments »

In America, we think of historical Europe as a place were voiceless mastered were ruled by high-handed aristocrats. We assume that those days are over, wiped away by war, revolution, and the simple passage of time. The European Union, however, periodically provides timely reminders that Europe is still ruled by high-handed authoritarian figures [...]

16 Comments »

A political kerfuffle is never over until Mark Steyn has weighed in.  He’s now got a full column on Obama’s “bitterness” remarks and, of course, mixed in with the wonderful word play is a perfect analysis about America’s Guns and God “bitterness,” when compared to Europe’s no-guns, no-God “Eutopia.”
In my book “America Alone,” I note [...]

4 Comments »