I have received the following from a reader:
After being prompted by my computer to download and install the latest Windows update, it asked me to also upgrade my browser to IE7 (I was using IE6).I like to use IE most of the time because I run so many websites, and I like to see them through the same viewer as the majority of the population. So I decided to go ahead and update IE. After it finished, I was no longer able to launch an IE browser. In fact, any time I attempted to, it froze my entire computer. I even tried right clicking the IE icon on my desktop, so I could check on the settings and THAT made my computer freeze too. At first I thought it killed my internet connection, but fortunately I was able to connect using Mozila FireFox so I could do a quick search. What I discovered was that hundreds (probably thousands) of people have posted similar problems in the past week, meaning it is likely affecting MILLIONS of people. I simply did a Windows System Restore to yesterday's restore point, and all is good again. If you haven't updated to IE7 yet, I would suggest waiting for a few months and making sure the general word on the street is a "go" before trying it.
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WHAT A CONVERT TO ISLAM FOUND
In a fascinating memoir due in stores in February, "My Year Inside Radical Islam," Gartenstein-Ross describes how he was drawn to Islam because he saw it as a religion of peace. Over time, however, he watched himself and those around him seduced into a fanaticism that required them to loathe not only non-Muslims, but also Muslims who belonged to the wrong sect, listened to music or shaved. He had expected an open, accepting religion, only to hear sheikhs arguing that Muslims who leave the religion should be killed, that it is acceptable to kill civilians for jihad and that good Muslims should work to replace democratic governments with Shariah law....
He believes Americans need a more fact-based understanding of Islam, which requires the media to do a better job of reporting what Muslims think and say -- instead of papering over radical rhetoric. Once when a local reporter visited Al Haramain to write a piece on Ramadan, a co-worker refused to shake her hand, launched a defense of sorts of Algerian terrorists and lambasted a French policy that prohibited schoolgirls from wearing the hijab in class. The comments never made the story. Gartenstein-Ross writes, "And so, as I often did, the reporter chose not to acknowledge that a real clash of values existed here."
Islam's approach to homosexuality is another area that the left ignores in deference to multiculturalism. (Think of Bay Area liberals who voice outrage at the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but are silent about the Shariah policy on homosexuals -- 100 lashes or death.) Ditto the status of women.
Gartenstein-Ross also takes issue with those rose-colored-glass wearers who deny that there is any theological basis for Islamic extremism. "It's important to note that they do have an argument," he told me, if only to be able to engage them in argument and understand where they get their ideas.
Source
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BUSH GETS IT BUT CAN HE DO IT WITH A DEFEATIST CONGRESS?
President Bush said Tuesday he is not ready to abandon the battlefield in Iraq to sectarian insurgents whose violent attacks on innocent Iraqis are part of a broad goal to overthrow governments and send coalition forces running....
Insurgents "seek to convince America and our allies that we cannot defeat them and that our only hope is to withdraw and abandon an entire region to their domination," he said. "If we allow the extremists to do this, then 50 years from now history will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity and demand to know why we did not act."....
"Extremists are using terror to stop the spread of freedom. Some are Shiite extremists, others are Sunni extremists, but they represent different faces of the same threat. And if they succeed in undermining fragile democracies and drive the forces of freedom out of the region, they will have an open field to pursue their goals," Bush said in a speech at the NATO summit in Riga, Latvia....
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ELSEWHERE
I have just put up some more mentions of recent events in my life for anyone who might be interested -- including mention of a talk I gave about global warming. See here or here.
Leftist arrogance and elitism vividly displayed above -- courtesy of Zombietime
Return of the Luddites: "For years, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, exercising a lock on the party's economic policies, argued that the economy could achieve sustained growth only if markets were allowed to operate unfettered and globally. Overcoming protests from labor unions, a traditional constituency, the Clinton administration vigorously supported free trade agreements like Nafta and agreed to China's admission into the World Trade Organization. This approach coincided with a period of economic prosperity, low unemployment and falling deficits. Over time, this combination - called Rubinomics after the Clinton administration's Treasury secretary, Robert E. Rubin - became the Democratic establishment's accepted model for the future. Not anymore. With the Democrats having won a majority in Congress, and disquiet over globalization growing, a party faction that has been powerless - the economic populists - is emerging and strongly promoting an alternative to Rubinomics."
Bush admin respects liberties: "After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans' privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government's electronic eavesdropping program. Members say they were impressed by the protections.... Board members said that they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions, and that they wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust. "If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we'd be more reassured," said Lanny Davis , a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board's lone liberal Democrat. Alan Raul, a former Reagan White House lawyer and the board's vice chairman, said he also was impressed. "We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties," said Raul, author of a book of civil liberties. "In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections"
For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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