FrontPage sez:

Handing over Gaza was a gamble. Sharon knew it was. But he also knew it was necessary to allow the Palestinians room to succeed or fail of their own accord. They were returned Gaza without strings and they had free, open and democratic elections. They collectively chose the Hamas terrorist group. And Hamas chose destruction over development. Today, all Gazans - those who chose Hamas and those who did not - are reaping the whirlwind.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=DC574F37-B823-4D07-9344-0BE6DFB9F7C5

Bombay Effect

As Taliban take over the Swat Valley in northeast Pakistan, the troops sent to fight them are distracted, according to the AP.

On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India.

"The terrorists' aim in Mumbai was precisely this — to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east," said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region. "The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_valley_of_fear
Scenic Pakistani valley falls to Taliban militants
By NAHAL TOOSI

GOV Gets It

The premier website of the anti-jihad, Gates of Vienna, delivers today the definitive assessment of Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- as reflected in the unreflective opinions of the left.

Bear in mind that a “massacre” is what occurs when one or more Palestinians are killed by Israelis. When a suicide bomber blows up dozens of Jews, or a Qassam rocket drops into a school, that’s not a massacre. It’s an act of random vandalism, or a criminal matter to be investigated by the appropriate authorities, or justifiable resistance against illegal occupation by a foreign power, or an understandable reaction to decades of apartheid oppression.

Take your pick. But, unless Palestinians are dead, it’s not a massacre.

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

Not All Equal

At the Brussels Journal, a brilliant essay by frequent contributor Takuan Seiyo from more than a week ago now. I missed it then; we have a taste of it now.

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 5: From Screeching Cats to SDG
From the desk of Takuan Seiyo on Fri, 2008-12-19 21:08

If I had the opportunity to counsel a person of lesser intellectual potential, domestic or imported but earnestly yearning to better his lot in life, this is what I would say in the context of China’s piano-playing
tsunami, though it can serve as a metaphor for the larger context: You may be just a minor cabinetmaker in a small, dinky shop. Your alcoholic father beat you when you were young, and your native
lower-class culture discouraged education.

You will never be invited to the emperor’s gilded chambers like Mozart was. Beautiful women will not faint upon your entrance, as they did upon Liszt’s. Your name will vanish forever a few years after you are dead. You have no chance of being equal. Don’t let Body Snatchers propaganda fool you. Forget the self-esteem crap they teach you in school. Even if you had the means to buy yourself a piano and give up
your saws and chisels for the practice of music, even if you used your minority status to gain admittance to a prestigious conservatory under Body Snatcher rules, even if you practiced 12 hours a day, you will never be Mozart’s equal. And that’s not because of the mystery of his genius.

For Mozart was the son of a great musician and the brother of a great musician, and the grandson, on his mother’s side, of a talented amateur musician. And Clara Schumann, a giant among virtuoso pianists, was not only the wife of the composer Robert Schumann and the great love of composer Johannes Brahms, but also the daughter of Friedrich Wieck, perhaps the best piano teacher of the 19th century. And Beethoven was the son and grandson of professional musicians. And there were at least 60 individuals surnamed Bach in the annals of Western music.

And it’s no different in our times. Krystian Zimerman is the son of musicians. Yo-yo Ma is the son of musicians. Ennio Morricone, a living legend, is the son of a trumpet player. But he also honed his native talent – as have all the others-- by decades of arduous study and
journeyman work. But with all the opportunities given, and with all your hard work, you still cannot be equal -- because your genes are not equal. You were not born a blank slate; banish Body Snatchers’ lying promises. They are lying to flatter you so that you vote for them, or to sell you stuff you don’t need.

Life is unfair. It cannot be made fair by reengineering society, which is the Body Snatchers’ sacred project. It cannot be made fair by giving everyone a subhonest mortgage loan and putting a flat-panel import TV in every parlor. Both the left and what passes for the right lie about this.

----------------------------

It’s Western Civilization that’s God’s equalizing gift. If you play Mozart’s music in your shop, you will make better cabinets. Even cows yield better milk with Mozart. So, first, chuck all those rap CDs. Forget about the stupid Associate degree the Snatchers will give you if you just enroll in their stupid Multicultural Studies program at their stupid Community College. Make cabinets. But make them the way JS Bach composed music: SDG [soli deo gloria]. Laborare est orare – to labor is to pray. And pipe in a bit of Bach or Schubert while you are working, for that will put you in touch with a higher power, a power that will infuse you.

In time, you will have become the best cabinetmaker in town. You will make so much money that you will be able to hire a chamber orchestra for your daughter’s wedding. And that daughter will have spent her childhood helping you in tidying up your workshop at the end of the day. While Bach is on your portable CD player. And her son will get started on the violin when he is four years old, which will help him in becoming a successful engineer.

By then, your seed will be in the pool of potential equals. And a hundred years later, perhaps a Mozart or a Galileo bearing your surname may be born.

You are standing at the threshold of a magnificent cathedral, the edifice of Western Culture. Much of it was built SDG, for a glory greater than man’s glory. Even the side chapel of its science was built with a sense of that glory, and awe. It’s a capacious edifice too. It will take you in no matter where you live, no matter your race, religion or social background. It will reward you and your heirs a thousand times over, if you love it sincerely. But if you are foreign-born and live in the West, leave your other baggage outside, and enter in a spirit of reverence and humility.

Read it all at http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3700

Defending Israel

From the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this op-ed (pdf) by Amos Oz. Mr. Oz is no hawk, but neither is he a defeatist bent on national suicide for his homeland.

ISRAEL MUST DEFEND ITS CITIZENS
Amos Oz
The systematic bombing of the citizens in Israel’s towns and cities is a war crime and a crime against humanity. The State of Israel must defend its citizens. It is obvious to everyone that the Israeli government does not wish to enter Gaza; the government would rather continue the ceasefire that Hamas violated and finally revoked. But the suffering of the citizens surrounding Gaza cannot go on.
The reluctance to enter Gaza stems not from indecisiveness but from well knowing that Hamas is actually eager to cause Israel to embark on a military operation: If dozens or even hundreds of Palestinian civilians, women and children are killed in an Israeli action, radicalism would gain strength in Gaza, Abu Mazen’s rule in the West Bank might collapse, and Hamas extremists could replace him.
The Arab world will rally together around the atrocious sights that Al-Jazeera will air from Gaza, and the world court of public opinion will rush to accuse Israel of war crimes. This is the same court of public opinion that remains unmoved by the systematic bombing of population centers in Israel.
Massive pressure will be exerted on Israel to restrain itself. No such pressure will be placed on Hamas because there is no one to pressure them, and there is almost nothing left with which to pressure them. Israel is a country; Hamas is a gang.
What remains for us to do? The best thing for Israel is to achieve a total ceasefire in exchange for alleviating the blockade of Gaza. If Hamas insists on refusing the ceasefire and continues bombing Israeli citizens, we must take care lest the military action play into Hamas’ hands. Hamas’ calculation is simple, cynical and evil: If innocent Israelis are killed – good. If innocent Palestinians are killed – even better. Israel must act wisely against this stance, and not out of
the heat of the moment.


http://mfaex.castup.net/mfa/public/sderot/AmosOz/AmosOz-ENG.pdf

Check Out RonMossad

Excellent assessment of the current situation viz-a-viz the current Israeli "aggression" and how it came about. Good pictures of explosions and damage, too.

http://ronmossad.blogspot.com/2008/12/war.html

More Good News from Gaza

From YNet:

Earlier Saturday, Hamas interior minister confirmed that all Hamas
infrastructure in the Strip was hit during the string of IAF strikes. The
Palestinians further reported that one of the strikes was aimed at a Hamas cadet course readying for its graduation ceremony. According to the Palestinian police spokesman in Gaza, many of the cadets were killed, including Tawfiq Jabar, commander of the Gaza Police.

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3645001,00.html
Hamas source: IDF strike unexpected

Fewer future Jihadis!! Always good news.

Israel Strikes Back -- At Last

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli warplanes
retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing nearly 200 people and wounding 270 others in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years.
Most of those killed were security men,..
Hamas said all of its security installations were hit and responded with several medium-range Grad rockets at Israel, reaching deeper than in the past.
One Israeli was killed and at least four people were wounded in the rocket attacks.
The air offensive followed weeks of intense Palestinian rocket and
mortar fire on southern Israel, and Israeli leaders had issued increasingly tough warnings in recent days that they would not tolerate continued attacks."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081227/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians_74

Israel demolishes Hamas compounds, over 200 dead
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

Early results of the most recent Israeli response to the renewed (never-ending) Arab-Muslim assault on the Jewish homeland are good and encouraging. Massive, concerted, "disproportionate" retaliation is, of course, the only sensible way forward for Israel. One may hope the surrounding Arab states will eventually take the message – Israel is legitimate and permanent –, the understanding a less intellectually and ideologically challenged group would have got decades ago. Islamist density and capacity for self-delusion and obfuscation, however, is observably immense. We shall see.
Note particularly: "Hamas said all of its security installations were hit and responded with several medium-range Grad rockets at Israel, reaching deeper than in the past." As virtually all observers understood, the goons of Gaza busily utilized the "cease fire" they never fully observed to upgrade their stockpile of Jew-killing weaponry. "Land for peace?" Harrumph!

How 'bout: "Quit the jihad fools, or die like dogs." Sounds a better plan to me.

More Encouraging News from dar al Islam

This first morning after the blessed mass of Christ we are pleased to present for your edification, enjoyment, and heartening TWO MORE examples of liberality and dedication to human rights from... guess who?

If you said "The Grand Ummah," you win a BIG prize.

First, courtesy of WorldNet Daily, there emerge blessed tidings of tolerance from the Sharia Capital of the Arab Middle East -- the Gaza Stripped. This is a nifty tale of Islamic interfaith dialog in action. That is followed by a heartwarming story of educational opportunity from our stalwart ally in "the War Against Terrorism," The Peoples Republic of Shariastan. Hat-tip to Morningstar.

Muslim grinches steal Christmas; Christians warned against celebration: 'We are living under a state of fear'

"We were warned not to celebrate in the streets or ring the church bells, otherwise Christians would be targeted. We are living under a state of fear," the Christian leader said."There is nothing we can do about the situation. We don't want to infuriate anyone," he said.

He said he had reason to believe the threats emanated with Jihadia
Salafiya, a Hamas-allied Islamic outreach movement in Gaza that recently announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law. The organization, which is not directly connected to Hamas but publicly supports it, has been suspected in a string of anti-Christian attacks, including the bombing of a Christian bookstore in November 2007 and the murder of the store's manager,
local Christian resident Rami Ayyad.

Contacted by WND, Abu Islam, chief of Jihadia Salafiya, denied making any threats against Christians.Still, Abu Islam commented, "Gaza is a Muslim state. Why do 3,000 Christians need to celebrate
openly in a territory of 1 million Muslims? Any celebrations are clearly for missionary purposes and must not be tolerated."

In the case of Ayyad, who managed the only Christian bookstore in Gaza, his body was discovered riddled with gunshot and stab wounds. Just before his murder, Ayyad, a Baptist, was
publicly accused by Abu Islam’s group of engaging in missionary activities.

Ayyad’s bookstore, owned by the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April 2007, after which he told relatives he received numerous death threats from Islamists. WND quoted witnesses stating Ayyad was publicly tortured a few blocks from his store before he was shot to death.The witnesses said they saw
three armed men, two of whom were wearing masks, beat Ayyad repeatedly with clubs and the butts of their guns while they accused him of attempting to spread Christianity in Gaza. The witnesses said that after sustaining the beating, Ayyad was shot by all three
men.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?a=PAGE.view&pageId=84518
Posted: December 24, 20088:50 pm Eastern
By
Aaron Klein© 2008 WorldNetDaily

ISLAMABAD (AFP)--Taliban extremists in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat
valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female
students, officials said Thursday.

The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in
an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local
officials told AFP.

"You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do
not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted
the commander as saying. "We also warn schools not to enrol any female students;
otherwise, their buildings will be blown up."

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination
featuring Pakistan's only ski resort.

Durran said local Taliban leaders were determined not to allow girls to
attend school, saying: "We want to enforce the true Sharia in the area --
for this, we are fighting and laying down our lives." Swat residents said
Taliban fighters had already destroyed scores of government-run schools, leading
some to set up private schools in their homes to educate girls.

An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580
schools registered in Swat -- once known for its top-flight schools. But the
official, Naeem Khan, told AFP: "Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252
schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together." Education
has suffered badly in
Swat as a result of the ongoing fighting between
Taliban-linked militants and security forces, with only a handful of schools
still open in the region's main city Mingora, Khan
said.
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200812250412DOWJONESDJONLINE000357_univ.xml
Taliban Threaten To Kill Pakistani Schoolgirls - Officials12-25-08 4:12 AM
EST

My personal candidate for quote-of-the-day goes to the "local Taliban commander," that inestimable champion of equality Shah-Shah-Shah, Shah-Shah Durran: "...stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls." And high time to take a stand on the issue, too, I say! Gloria Steinem, Nancy Pelosi, are you listening? This bell tolls for you.

Over at American Thinker, An open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science just about completely scuttles the ungainly, untimely, and completely phoney "global-warming"/Al Bore/refreeze-the-polar-bears juggernaut. Some excerpts:

Dear Senator McCain, Sir,
YOU CHOSE a visit to a wind-farm in early summer 2008 to devote an entire campaign speech to the reassertion of your belief in the apocalyptic vision of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change - a lurid and fanciful account of imagined future events that was always baseless, was briefly exciting among the less thoughtful species of news commentators and politicians, but is now scientifically discredited.

. . . . . . . . . .

If the United States, by the ignorance and carelessness of her classe politique, mesmerized by the climate bugaboo, casts away the vigorous and yet benign economic hegemony that she has exercised almost since the Founding Fathers first breathed life into her enduring Constitution, it will not be a gentle, tolerant, all-embracing, radically-democratic nation that takes up the leadership of the world.

It will be a radically-tyrannical dictatorship - perhaps the brutal gerontocracy of Communist China, or the ruthless plutocracy of supposedly ex-Communist Russia, or the crude, mediaeval theocracy of rampant Islam, or even the contemptible, fumbling, sclerotic, atheistic-humanist bureaucracy of the emerging European oligarchy that has stealthily stolen away the once-paradigmatic democracy of our Mother of Parliaments from elected hands here to unelected hands elsewhere. For government of the people, by the people and for the people is still a rarity today, and it may yet perish from the earth if America, its exemplar, destroys herself in the specious name of "Saving The Planet".

. . . . . . . . . .

For most of the past 600 million years, the mode of temperature - the temperature that most often prevailed globally - is thought to have been 12.5 °F higher than today's temperature: for today's temperature, in the perspective of the long recent history of our planet, is unusually low.

At both Poles, it was warmer only half a century ago than it is today. For temperatures in the Arctic, see Soon et al. (2004). For the Antarctic, see Doran et al. (2002).

From 1700-1998, temperature rose at a near-uniform rate of about 1 °F per century [Akasofu, 2008]. In 1998, "global warming" stopped, and it has not resumed since: indeed, in the past seven years, temperature has been falling at a rate equivalent to as much as 0.7 °F per decade [Hadley Center for Forecasting, 2008; US National Climatic Data Center, 2008]. Very few news media have given any prominence to this long and pronounced downturn in the temperature trend.
It is now thought possible that no new global annual temperature record will be set until at least 2015 (Keenlyside et al., 2008).

Despite rapidly-rising carbon dioxide concentrations, there has been no new record year for global temperature in the ten years since 1998; and, in the United States, there has been no new record year for national temperature since 1934 - a record set almost three-quarters of a century ago, and well before humankind could have had any significant influence on temperature.

. . . . . . . . . .

The UN's climate panel [IPCC, 2007] thinks that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration compared with 1750 might occur later this century on current trends, and may lead to a global temperature increase of almost 6 °F. However, numerous papers in the peer-reviewed literature confirm that the UN's central climate-sensitivity projection must be excessive.
Allowing for the fact that the UN's climate panel has exaggerated the effects of temperature feedbacks, the temperature increase in consequence of a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration could be as little as 1 °F. Values as low as this have been suggested in the peer-reviewed literature (e.g. Chylek et al., 2007).
You have proposed, in your speech that three-fifths of the US economy should be closed down by 2060. Do you not think that a far greater degree of scientific certainty as to the effects of minuscule increases in carbon dioxide concentration on temperature would be advisable before strategic damage on any such scale is inflicted upon the US economy from within, and by a Republican?

Sir, the implication of your quoted remark is that the "serious and credible scientists" who are warning us that "time is short and the dangers are great" outnumber the equally "serious and credible scientists" who are not warning us of anything of the kind. The reverse is the case. A recent survey (Schulte, 2008) of 539 peer-reviewed scientific papers published since January 2004 and selected at random using the search term "global climate change" reveals that not a single paper provides any evidence whatsoever that "time is short" or that "the dangers are great".
The notion of imminent, catastrophic climate change is a fiction that is almost wholly absent in the scientific literature.

. . . . . . . . . .

The "central facts" about "rising" sea levels are as follows.
Sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. It is 400 feet higher now than it was then. The rate of increase has averaged 4 feet per century. Yet in the 20th century, when we are told that "global warming" began to have a major impact on global temperature and hence on sea level, sea level rose by just 8 inches.
That is just one-sixth of the mean centennial rate over the past 10,000 years. Why so little? Because almost all of the world's ice - including the vast sheets that once covered much of what is now the United States - melted away long ago.

There is not and has never been any scientific basis for the exaggerated projections by a certain politician that sea level might imminently rise by as much as 20 feet. That politician, in the year in which he circulated a movie containing that projection, bought a $4 million condominium just feet from the ocean at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco.
You may well ask whether he actually believed his own prediction and, if so, why he spent so much buying a condominium that - if his prediction were right - would very soon be worthless.

All of these propositions must be proven true before any action is taken to tamper with the climate, still less the fatal, self-inflicted wounds that you would invite your nation to make to her economy:
1. "The scientists, politicians, and media behind ‘global warming' are honest": They are not;
2. "The debate is over and all credible climate scientists are agreed": They are not;
3. "Temperature today has risen exceptionally fast, above natural variability": It has not;
4. "Changes in solar activity do not much impact today's global warming": They do;
5. "Greenhouse-gas increases are the main reason why it is getting warmer": They are not;
6. "The fingerprint of anthropogenic greenhouse warming is clearly present": It is absent;
7. "Computer models are accurate enough to predict the climate reliably": They cannot be;
8. "Global warming is to blame for present and future climate disasters": It is not;
9. "Mitigating climate change will be cost-effective":

It will not;
10. "Taking precautions, just in case, would be the responsible course":

It would not be.

And there's much more; check it out.

From Wikipedia: Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (born 14 February 1952) is a British politician and business consultant, policy advisor, writer, and inventor. He served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher's policy unit.