The Smoke Machine

It seems to be a badge of honor among the liberal community to have been a target of some group of conservative conspiracy. Daniel Shore can't talk for ten minutes without bringing up the fact that he was on Nixon's enemies list. Nowadays it's the "vast right wing conspiracy" that confers the honors. Krugman has been criticized to be sure, but that is pretty much the lot of anyone who writes a column for a living. (See Eric Alterman's list pigeonholing pundits according to their "reflexive" response to Middle East issues. It just needs a name. How about the "vast anti-Arab conspiracy.") Apparently Krugman feels injured because some, notably Andrew Sullivan, have accused him of hypocrisy and made a good case for the accusation. So now he's a martyr.

I've always mistrusted claims of conspiracy, because they never seem to really accomplish anything. The VRC is a lot like the rest. If it had overthrown the NYTimes or WaPo or the network news, it might have some credibility, but so far, it hasn't made it's presence felt other than by annoying the Clintons and Mr. K.

Boston first city to drop suit against gun industry

I heard this covered on NPR which included a soundbite from an activist claiming this was a "learning experience" like those undergone by plaintiffs suing the tobacco industry. Of course, the tobacco industry was guilty of fraud about the safety of tobacco, whereas the gun industry has never claimed anything about guns which it can't stand behind.

Arab Delegates Endorse Saudi's Mideast Peace Plan

I think the U.S. is making a big mistake to support this "peace" plan. All it will accomplish is to make Israel less secure.

I would prefer for the Israelis to just start liquidating every Palestinian leader until they find one who doesn't think the solution is to kill all Israelis. The Arabs cannot speak with one voice or hold any consensus together for more than 30 seconds.
They fight more among themselves than they do with the rest of the world, and they are outrageously hypocritical when it comes to Palestinians. They don't want them and don't treat them any better than the Jews do, but they expect Israel to live with them and even make concessions to them. Not even Jordan, which is their real parent country, wants them.

Why? Because they are terrorists and have been inculcated with a terrorist ethic for 50 years. Their parents encourage their children to become suicide bombers. They have no industry, no education other than memorization of the Quran and learning how to turn themselves into bombs. They have no economy, except for what slops over from the Israelis. The reasons for all of this is their "leadership" which uses them as pawns in its own silly power struggles. If the Palestinian people had any sense they'd hang Arafat and his crew, throw out Hamas, al Aqsa Brigades, the Islamic Jihad and all the rest and apply for Israeli citizenship en masse. But the chances of that happening are about as good as for the Saudi Peace Plan succeeding.

Saudi, in Emotional Plea to Israel, Offers 'Land for Peace' Proposal

Of course, Prince Abdullah speaks for effete royal family which most Arabs see as usurpers. It's version of Islam looks fine on the Newshour but it seems to be out of touch with its own people.

VodkaPundit has a great post on the latest muder-suicide in Israel. This has been linked already by Instapundit, but if this will help get Steven Green some juice at Google, I'll link to it too.

What I'm Learning About Arabs and Islam

I'm about a third of the way through The Middle East - A short history of the last 2000 years by Bernard Lewis. It's an interesting read, but not an easy one. What I'm learning is mostly that the problem we have today is not so much with Islam as with Arabs, but that it doesn't really matter because the Arab personality has suffused Islam and created the terrorists.

Arafat Snubbed at Arab Summit

He wanted to give a speech via satellite, but wasn't allowed. He recalled his delegation. None of the "moderate" Arabs sent representatives. So the conference was spent calling for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews.

When will we figure out that people who can't even get along with their own fellow Muslims will never be reliable parners in peace?