wombat_socho (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wombat_socho) wrote2011-01-30 12:52 pm
wombat_socho) wrote2011-01-30 12:52 pm
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Yes, she really is that stupid.
Naomi Klein can't tell the difference between unconstitutional government action and entirely legal action by a corporation. What a complete retard. And she presumes to lecture conservatives on...well, pretty much anything?
(Via Computerworld, an excellent article about how the Egyptian protesters are managing to find ways around the government shutdown of the Internet and mobile phone networks.)
Being the pessimist I am, I can't help seeing a rerun of 1979's revolution in Iran here, with Mubarak playing the role of Shah - except the Shah was more realistic about his chances once the Army turned on him. It's not entirely clear whether the Egyptian Army has done that yet, and I hope it's not the case, because then this really will be a repeat of the Iranian Revolution. Those of us who are old enough remember how well that went under Carter 1.0. I don't expect the sequel under Carter 2.0 to be handled any better; the military isn't the hollowed-out shell it was in the 1970s, but most of it is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment.
(Via Computerworld, an excellent article about how the Egyptian protesters are managing to find ways around the government shutdown of the Internet and mobile phone networks.)
Being the pessimist I am, I can't help seeing a rerun of 1979's revolution in Iran here, with Mubarak playing the role of Shah - except the Shah was more realistic about his chances once the Army turned on him. It's not entirely clear whether the Egyptian Army has done that yet, and I hope it's not the case, because then this really will be a repeat of the Iranian Revolution. Those of us who are old enough remember how well that went under Carter 1.0. I don't expect the sequel under Carter 2.0 to be handled any better; the military isn't the hollowed-out shell it was in the 1970s, but most of it is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment.
no subject
Mubarak actually is a dictator.
He isn't being opposed on grounds that he arrests men for murdering their wives.
I'm pretty sure Carter Part Deux hasn't spent his entire Presidency up to now giving messages of sympathy and support to the rebels who are "only pursuing freedom of religion". For one thing, someone would have to tell Obama to think that.
no subject
no subject
At least, as long as President "I'm-not-a-Moslem-I-just-enjoy-kissing-their-asses" doesn't get stupider than he is about Israel. Lose that, and the Caliphate stretches from the Indus to the Atlantic.
The last time that happened it took Genghis Khan and the Black Plague to end the Dark Age.
no subject
That period is when Islam had a stranglehold on progress. No knowledge or goods could be exchanged without paying protection money. It is during this period that the great "Islamic contributions" were brought to the West, such as the numerical system they took from India, the medical texts that were at Alexandria before their burning of the Library since the other books were not the Koran, and the abstract designs that arose from the execution for heresy of anyone who attempted to depict a real object. This was possible because of the increased prosperity of the local bandits as they shook down traders; it gave them the resources to indulge their mutual treachery, breaking down unified authority. (Centralized power over thought is always toxic to the pursuit of knowledge; look at Galileo, or what the Algorean cult is trying to do to Freeman Dyson).
I never heard Poitiers described as a highwater mark; it was a turning point in which the war with barbarism began being won.
And to be fair, what you and I think of as a nation-state didn't really exist before 1648.