When the world needs a scapegoat, it seems the Jews will always do just fine, thank you. From the Jerusalem Post:
The study – “Intolerance, Prejudice, Discrimination: A European Report” –questioned roughly 1,000 people in each of the selected EU countries….
Asked to respond to the statement that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians,” 47.7 percent of the study’s participants in Germany expressed agreement – the highest number in Western Europe….
The statement “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews” met with 35.6% affirmation in Germany, while 35.9% of British respondents were in agreement. In the Netherlands, 41.1% favored the assertion, as did 55.2% in Poland, 45.6% in Hungary and 48.8% in Portugal. France declined to participate.
The researchers also asked whether “Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era.”
Almost half the Germans questioned responded in the affirmative; the country’s 48.9% result was the highest among the Western European countries. The Netherlands provided the lowest percentage, with 17.2% affirming that Jews were trying to exploit the Nazi era. The number for Poland was 72.2%, and Hungary reached 68.1%. France reached 32.3%, England 21.8%, Portugal 52.2% and Italy 40.2%.
Thankfully, with the world once again ready to line up against Israel in order to solve its problems with a Muslim menace that actually torments other countries (one hardly hears of honor killings and rioting in the “Jewish sections” of, say, France, or England — and the Zionists are very cagey about putting out fatwas on cartoonists or activists or politicians in the Netherlands, not to mention notoriously slow in threatening to kill Philip Roth, should he come out of hiding), Israel can always rely on the US and its government for both existential and corporeal support.
Until, you know, it can’t:
The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, recently told a conference hosted by the European Jewish Union that Israel is to blame for growing anti-Semitism harbored by people of Muslim faith.
“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”
[…]
Gutman was a major fundraiser for President Obama’s 2008 election campaign. He bundled $500,000 for Obama, according to OpenSecrets.org, personally giving at least $2,300 to the campaign.
In 2009, Obama nominated Gutman, a Washington, D.C. attorney, to be ambassador to Belgium.
Okay. So one rogue ambassador who thinks it’s easier to get rid of the problem by blaming the victim does not an official ObamaCo worldview make.
But what about if we throw in, say, the Defense Secretary?
At another conference, this one in Washington, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta surveyed the Middle East and discovered that at every turn, the Jewish state is to blame for problems in the Muslim world. Are there Arab uprisings that are bringing Islamists to power and endangering peace with Israel? Israel must placate the radicals. Are there constant provocations and taunts from Turkey’s Islamist government? Israel must beg for better treatment. Do Palestinians refuse to negotiate? ‘Get to the damn table,’ Panetta thundered twice — as if Israel was refusing to talk, instead of the reverse.
Here’s something you haven’t heard me say much lately, but in this case it’s an absolute truism: Bill Kristol is right. And when he writes,
“Just about the only thing in the Middle East that President Obama hasn’t blamed Israel for is the Iranian nuclear program. But when it comes to this, too, instead of supporting crippling sanctions or preparing military strikes, the White House seems to spend more time deterring Israel from acting than deterring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in the first place. And the administration’s energy seems more focused on undermining Israel and those members of Congress pushing for a tougher approach to Iran, than in undermining the Iranian regime.
“The Obama message is loud and clear: the world would be a safer, simpler, and more peaceful place if not for the troublesome Jewish state.
“Ambassador Gutman’s comments were not way out of line with Obama’s worldview. Nonetheless, we expect he will be recalled because the Obama administration won’t want to expend political capital defending him. He should be recalled, of course. But what the events of recent days emphasize is that the problem is not with one ambassador or with one cabinet secretary. The problem is President Obama.”
— he’s actually understating the problem.
To secure their own power and influence the left in this country, led by Obama, has been willing to pit identity group vs. identity group, play a constant game of class warfare, and even openly express its political intention to dismiss a large part of the electorate in order to concentrate on building a kind of cynical coalition of would-be ruling elite and permanent governmental clients — those among the poor and the dependent. In doing so, they hope to deflect the blame from themselves and obscure their own role in the governmental and social collapse they’ve precipitated and nurtured.
Scapegoating Israel is therefore second nature to these kind of crass, craven, cowardly ideologues: bullies join together with other bullies, and together they blame the victim for forcing them torment it.
When even drawing distinctions between right and wrong is a practice sacrificed to political expedience and the self-interest of the powerful — and the very categories of “right and wrong” are cast as insufficiently nuanced — we know that we have been enveloped, globally, by the postmodernist’s consensus paradigm, where truth is merely a function of power and influence, and might makes right is the rule, even as part of the postmodernist sensibility is to hide such unpleasant feints to power uber alles behind the husks of past paradigmatic observations, be they about individual freedom and autonomy, good and evil, or the inherent greatness of democracy.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these paradigms are not forces of nature. They must be identified, their brushstrokes noted, and then they must be themselves deconstructed, if we ever hope to return to the paradigm under which this country was founded and within which it is designed to function.
Everything else is merely window dressing.
(thanks to Sarah R and geoffB)
****
tangentially related: speaking of Nazis… (and yes, we were!)
Poland is a very bigoted country.
It must be a low-self-esteem thing.
Jews have always been society’s “canary in the coal mine.” The word “anti-semite” was coined to give a kind of scientific patina to Jew-hate, just as the modern phrase “I don’t hate Jews, I just oppose Israel and it’s undue influence” attempts to give a social justice patina to Jews-hate.
Bestest friends to Israel. EVAH
Is this a scene of modern religious ideological fervor trumping traditional religious fellow feeling — in the Gutman pronouncements in particular — or is this simply a crass attempt on Gutman’s part to purchase partisan political standing — hence ultimately commercial power for his firm — by means of a gestural chip, tossed to the progressive believers? Or, is Gutman so challenged in his view of the world, holding fairy-dreams in a place of substitution for the actual phenomena in his mental scheme of international relations, that he is unable to see the impossibility of the proposal he makes (nevermind the military clashes looming on the near horizon)?
Or in the worst of conspiracy cases, was Gutman instructed to make these pronouncements from on high, only to be made an example of (for the good of the team!) by means of the recall to which Kristol alludes (this I find extremely unlikely, since Gutman, were he uninformed of the double-cross from the jump, could easily spill the instructions phase of the street-theater — or if informed of the double-cross, would have to see some rationale in it worth his pretended disgrace in the recall, which, I don’t, do you? But then I only have to think of the Obama Administration and Fast and Furious to come to an urge to examine every angle).
Just look at this oppressive, dominant country. How are these poor Arabs supposed to abide by that enormous jackboot planted upon such an enormous swath of their land?
Bad times are coming, kids, as if that needed to be said.
It must be a low-self-esteem thing.
Just to run with that thought a bit, I have little doubt that the sentiments expressed in these kind of polls and by Ambassador Gutman are, in many cases, just a simple updating of the traditional European contempt for Jews. But I wonder if a good portion of these views, particularly to the extent they exist outside of Europe, aren’t moreso an easy expression of cultural self-loathing than they are of Jew-hatred, per se. Because Jews by-and-large, wherever they live in the world, are cultural westerners, whereas Arabs and other Muslims generally are not. So if you’re one of the westerners who subscribes to the avant garde view of The West as The Great Malefactor of History – routinely victimizing the rest of the world with its imperialism, colonialism, unfairly superior technology, Big Macs, and carbon emissions – it makes sense to sympathize with Muslims and antipathize toward Jews. Not merely because they’re Jews, but because they’re cultural westerners, and therefore must be wrong whenever they have a conflict with The Other.
How many of the respondents, I wonder, thought to themselves when hearing this question: “JeezuMary, how incompetent are these Israeli fucks when the population of the Palestinians has more than doubled in the last 50 years?”?
This would be the most incompetent genocide ever. The Joooooo is generally not known for his incompetence.
Surely there are those who see the devious hand of the Elders though Pablo, intentionally enabling the increase of the population so that it can collapse in an eventual famine, right? And staving off famine in the meantime by exporting food and staples to Gaza? All part of the plan.
Leaving all those greenhouses behind when they ethnically cleansed themselves from Gaza, knowing that poor, downtrodden Hamas would have no option but to destroy them was rather diabolical. Those sneaky Jooooos!
How many of the respondents, I wonder, thought to themselves when hearing this question: “JeezuMary, how incompetent are these Israeli fucks when the population of the Palestinians has more than doubled in the last 50 years?”?
I’m just guessing, but I suspect that if you did pose that question, a typical answer would be that Israel would like to eradicate the Palestinians, and possibly would have if not for the benevolent, restraining hand of “The New West”, as personified by the EU.
but I think also they’ve been a lot steeped in the idea that polish jews were sympathetic to communism
also I think the hyperbolically catholic identity of a lot of polish people leads them to project a hyperbolically jewish identity on what are just normal regular old jews
but whatever the reason they look like nose-picking idiots
“…if you did pose that question”
Yet Showy, the question was posed, in the form “is conducting” as opposed to “would like to” — but based on the relative prevalence of answers in the affirmative, at least with regard to those affirmative answers, no consideration of the increase of Palestinian numbers seems to have had sway. I suspect, as a tacit hypothetical, that the “ayes” don’t know of the population increase, but imagine whatever they like, i.e., that Palestinian numbers are on the wane, contrary to fact.
but I think also [Poles have] been a lot steeped in the idea that polish jews were sympathetic to communism
also I think the hyperbolically catholic identity of a lot of polish people leads them to project a hyperbolically jewish identity on what are just normal regular old jews
You could well be right on that, although I’m not sure I understand the second part. But I have very little sense for Polish views, specifically, on these issues. And as I meant to suggest, I think these views probably tend to be more reflective of traditional anti-semitism within Europe, and probably tend to be more reflective of cultural self loathing outside of Europe. Relatively speaking.
poles are by far more religious than the people of any other county in europe is my understanding
*country* I mean
Yet Showy, the question was posed, in the form “is conducting” as opposed to “would like to” — but based on the relative prevalence of answers in the affirmative, at least with regard to those affirmative answers, no consideration of the increase of Palestinian numbers seems to have had sway.
You’re right, and I wasn’t clear. I meant to say, if you posed a follow-up question along the lines of, “How do you reconcile your belief, that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians, with the fact that Palestinian population growth has been enormous, and thoroughly outpaced Israel’s? Particularly in light of the fact that Israel has an enormous, inherent advantage in military prowess over the Palestinians?”.
poles are by far more religious than the people of any other county in europe is my understanding
I see what you’re saying, but what wasn’t clear to me, or what doesn’t coincide with my perception, is that I don’t see that devout Catholicism tends to inherently lead to anti-Semitism (and just as disclaimer, I’m not Catholic). It seems to me there has to be another factor there (maybe political history/communism, as you say). But if devout or hyperbolic Catholicism leads to anti-Semitism (or at least, if the inverse were true), you’d think there’d be a major decrease in anti-Semitism in places like France, which is pretty much, to borrow Steyn’s phrase, post-Christian. And I don’t think that’s the case.
not “leads to” but I think it “makes one especially susceptible to,” particularly in a relatively homogeneous population like Poland
I’m just guessing, of course
Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews looks closely at the Catholic linkage in the genesis of Jew hate over the full course of European history, concluding Church doctrine played an undeniable role, whether “inherent” or no not quite the question, but as a simple background fact of development in law and practice. Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah, while leaning on Hilberg’s history to some extent, examined Polish attitudes to the annihilation of the Jews, and found the Poles particularly enthusiastic on that question, though I don’t recall the Polish religious aspect stressed in the film, so much as again, sitting in the background unattended.
there was a Polish underground too that helped the jews I will google
here it is
To date, 6,135 Poles have been awarded the title of Righteous among the Nations by the State of Israel—more than any other nation.
So that part there should not be looked over I guess.
not “leads to” but I think [devout Catholicism] “makes one especially susceptible to,” [anti-Semitism] particularly in a relatively homogeneous population like Poland
I meant “tends to inherently lead to” to mean the same thing as “makes one especially susceptible to”. I don’t see it, in my limited personal experience or in my conception of the relevant philosophy. But perhaps when combined with particular historical/political factors, it has that effect.
Sure, not. But while we speak of preponderances, as overlookings go, the more gross injustice, I think, would be to whitewash the religious role in the development of Jew hatreds, for the sake of the preservation of a picture of piety.
not devout catholicism per se – that wasn’t my thinking so much – cause there’s lots of places where you can find devout catholics that have no particular problem with jews – but devoutness of any flavor probably lends itself to a demonizing of “the other,” given other factors at work
though I guess Mr. Hilberg has looked at this more deeply
I agree Mr. sdferr but at the same time we don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable
Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews looks closely at the Catholic linkage in the genesis of Jew hate over the full course of European history, concluding Church doctrine played an undeniable role
sdferr, I can’t comment on the book you’re citing, being completely unfamiliar with it. But, to your view, would it be accurate to say that non-Catholic Russia, as one example, has historically been at least comparably anti-Semitic over its history? I would probably tend to agree that Protestant Christianity has tended to be less anti-Semitic than Catholic Christianity (and Orthodox Christianity may approximate Catholic Christianity on this score), but if Christian religiosity is the issue here, how does one explain the prevalence of these views in European countries with Christianity has been all but extinguished in recent decades?
In broad strokes, Hilberg says, in the Introduction to his work, and in the section of that Introduction entitled Precedents, this:
Sure, not. But while we speak of preponderances, as overlookings go, the more gross injustice, I think, would be to whitewash the religious role in the development of Jew hatreds, for the sake of the preservation of a picture of piety.
I’m not sure if you’re responding to me here, but I’m not trying to whitewash anything. As far as theological views go, I’m pretty much a skeptical agnostic, and I have no doubt that Christianity in Europe has historically been a subsntatial factor in promoting anti-Semitism. I’m just suggesting the view that it is perhaps a very minor factor in promoting anti-Israel views in Europe today.
devoutness of any flavor probably lends itself to a demonizing of “the other,” given other factors at work
I’d say devoutness is less an issue depending on what one is devout about. I would tend to think the devout Catholics on the Righteous Gentile lists did it because of their faith. e.g Irena Sendler
In broad strokes, Hilberg says, in the Introduction to his work, and in the section of that Introduction entitled Precedents, this…The Christian religion was not one of many religions, like other religions. It was the true religion, the only religion…
And that probably is an accurate description of theological views in Europe from, maybe 300 to 1900 AD. But I think it’s fairly evident that Christianity-as-the-one-true-religion is not the current view throughout Europe. And if it were, wouldn’t one expect it to result in at least as disparaging a view of Islam as of Judaism?
I wasn’t so much responding to you there Showy, as commenting on hf’s observation, and the need for it.
As to the role of Christianity in current Jew hatreds, I think we’ll find variances (precisely) all over the map, depending on which populations of Western Europe we examine, and how forthrightly those populations reveal their own self-understanding regarding their views.
It could as easily be the case, for instance, so far as an individual is concerned, that out of his adherence to a proper positivism, progressivism or socialism, [however we choose to term his political philosophical position] he may be as opposed to Christianity as he is to Judaism, both being the bearers of “obsolete” theological or superstitious belief, and therefore anti-scientific and false, politically misleading, yet in his proper adherence (simultaneously!) to his historicism, insist that these “religious” developments were absolutely necessary to the world-historical development of his own triumphant progressive views! So much for the leftist, who would not consistently be a Christian of any stripe.
Islamism today, or perhaps more correct to say, Islam simply, would be similar to Christianity in that regard, though differing as to the particulars of doctrine and law, not to mention as to actual historical fact. Which would entail another study altogether. At least as regards Hilberg’s efforts, which were focused on the history of the Nazi annihilation of the European Jews circa ’39 – ’45.
But the question I was posing wasn’t whether modern Islam is similar to historical European Christianity. It was whether a view of modern European Christianity as being an important impetus for anti-Israel view in Europe, is consistent with the fact that anti-Israel views in Europe have little correlation, from country-to-country, with practical Christian affiliation.
“Just about the only thing in the Middle East that President Obama hasn’t blamed Israel for is the Iranian nuclear program.”
Maybe not with those words exactly, but with progspeak and deeds he (and his ilk) has. Of course benign and peace-loving Iran must do all in its power to protect itself from that evil blight that is Israel. Just ask Gutman.
What’s that again? That is, among the Christians of Europe, or some of them anyhow, there may well be a correlation with traditional Christian teachings and an anti-Israeli or anti-Jewry view (we needn’t posit Christianity as accounting for the whole of an European anti-Israeli view where such a thing exists, after all), where among the non-Christians, either there may be no correlation with traditional Christian doctrine or something lesser, buried perhaps, or overlooked by those espousing such an anti-Israel view themselves. So for all intents and purposes, we’re looking for a number of drivers — even though possibly interrelated drivers while distinguishable in themselves — for a general aggregated position encapsulated in opposition to Israel, if not as to opposition to Jews as such, of simple hatred of the Jews.
Or, I don’t know what the question is yet.
Not sure if this is you or a quote as the entire comment is in italic. Anyhow.
From 300 to 1054 there was generally one Christianity though there were schisms and also tensions between the “Eastern”, what is now known as Orthodox and “Western”, what is now known as Roman Catholic. From 1054 through to 1450 the split between East and West mostly widened though there were attempts to bring them back together. After 1450 the split into two Christianities was complete.
Most of eastern Europe, Greece and Russia being Orthodox and western Europe being Roman Catholic. This spilt into two parts lasted only 75 years or so then with the Reformation (1517 or so) there was a split in the Western Christianity into many different Churches.
My view is that the “problem” of the Jews stems from their religion producing a superior way of organizing a society and especially the raising of children. They produced kids that were less damaged in the course of growing into adulthood than the other societies they were surrounded by. This made for them being more successful and this success must of course be attributed to them being in league with some evil.
Islam did not have this as where it was, it was the dominate religion and after the triumph of Ash’arism around 1062 science, logic, and reason became non-Islamic and so they never developed in any way that would be generally envied by the Christian world.
Still, for our purposes the more alarming questions go straight to our government’s ideological sight-blindness in the formulation of policy. We are confronted by people, Obama and Panetta, as examples among them (and certainly not exhaustive of the ranks), who are operating in a dangerous fiction.
I’m going to stick with my comment here.
“They are going for a record to eclipse Mao, Stalin, and Hitler combined and do it in much less time too.”
Jew hatred is only part of it.
One way to split the world into two parts is over just how are humans to be considered in relation to the larger society. Is the life of an individual, any individual, human a net positive for society or a net negative? Is the elimination of large numbers of humans a good thing or an evil thing? Is a society better off with more people in it or is it better off if they are culled?
Some “isms” have one view on this and some have another. I’m in the more is better camp. The left veers the other way. Once you consider humans to be a drag on society then looking for those to be culled is only “normal”.
Which raises the question still remaining, geoffb, why “cull” the better organized, objectively more productive small societies, if that’s all what’s at work on the left?
There was a comment at Belmont Club on how to solve the Iran nukes problem which I put in a tweet and I going to quote here. Bullies can only be dealt with one way. They have to be confronted and shown that their behavior has consequences for them as well.
I’d add anti-missile defense in as well.
Not sure if this is you or a quote as the entire comment is in italic.
That was me. I forgot to put the html italic-end signal at the end of the quoted portion. To your point, you’re of course correct in identifying the various divisions within European Christianity over time. My identification of 1900 as a rough end date was intended to mark the approximate termination of predominantly Christian Europe, and its replacement with modern, post-Christian Europe.
In essence, I was acknowledging that European Christianity as a whole (as opposed to Catholic Christianity, in particular) had a role to play in historical European anti-Semitism. As to your final two paragraphs, I’d tend to agree with the overall points.
Because it is about power and control. Those small better organized, productive societies are not easily controllable and being uncontrolled are a threat to the ruler’s power. Thus they need to either be controlled or eliminated. Of course if/when they are controlled then they cease to be productive and then are a drag and so elimination is also a good for society. Either way people are a problem from this mindset.
Agreed, geoffb and sdferr.
Showy, I don’t know that I would peg Jew hatred soley on Christianity and Islam, especially using your marker of 1900. It was around the turn of the last century that those slaughtering fiends, the Marxists, first started raising their clenched fists. It was not a difficult trick to turn the average, undereducated worker who most likely grew up being suspicious of anyone unlike themselves and, if they were Christians, of Jews. And, from there to further capitalize on historical hatred of Jews as being the bosses controlling the means of production, wages and banking. The fact that this is all nonsense is irrelevant. ‘This’ being that the Jew was the Master, while he was more likely enslaved in hellish working conditions like they.
Re: #42.
I’d agree but also must say that each separate “Christianity” spent much time and effort converting and or eliminating the others. Not just in the reformation (1500 & 1600s) either. The Fourth Crusade being an especially vivid example.
There are ways of reading the Bible which can be used to rationalize hatred of Jews by Christians. At the same time their are also ways of reading it that would teach against that very thing. Rulers who feel threatened by internal forces have always looked to find some external thing to focus blame onto. The Jews of the diaspora being perfect for this in Europe. The Chinese played s somewhat similar role in East Asia.
Showy, I don’t know that I would peg Jew hatred soley on Christianity and Islam, especially using your marker of 1900.
Leigh, I don’t know if I was clear on this, but that was roughly my point. Or, more specifically, that while Christianity was certainly a significant factor in European animosity toward Judaism for many centuries, today (and in recent decades) it is a negligible factor contributing to the animosity that remains.
Thanks. I thought that was where you were going.
Whatever the religion-based bigotries against Jews (and they certainly exist), don’t forget that Jews are also capitalists—bankers, merchants, money-lenders (because the European Christians wouldn’t let them own land)—and that’s why the National Socialist Hitler was able to persuade his fellows to exterminate them, even when they didn’t have a problem with Jews before, e.g., Mussolini, who had Jews among his cronies, acceded to Hitler’s wishes to gather the Jews from among the Italians and send them to death camps, too.
Hence the Jew-hatred in the Occupy movements, who are anti-capitalist and therefore anti-Jew.
Arendt, at the intro to Origins of Totalitarianism, looking at the absurdity of anti-semitism as a driver of Nazism in particular and Totalitarianism in general, suggests that it was precisely the moment when the Jewish titans of industry and capital had lost their power (yet retained their wealth) that they became most repugnant to the commonfolk (in line with an observation by Tocqueville to the same effect, viz the Aristocrats facing Revolution). This isn’t her final judgment, however. That introduction is twisty in the extreme. But a nice piece of phenomenological process, for all that.
Hypersensitivity, or a manifestation of the recognition of a relentless propaganda campaign building brick by brick in the US?
Hill, Hill, Hill. *sigh*
This shouldn’t be news coming from the gal who went to a Human Rights Summit in Communist China when the Big Dog was Prez.
I’d fear for the rights of women if Israel goes under from the machinations of Hill and her Boss-man.
That might even be true in “World Ends: women and children hardest hit” sort of way.
An OT bleg of sorts: have we kicked around Yuval Levin’s essay on Constitutional Conservatism yet? Because this:
Seemed awfully familiar for something I hadn’t read before. Anyways, it’s worth a read, if for no other reason than because it’s a useful corrective to Niall Ferguson’s recent brain fart.
“have we kicked around Yuval Levin’s essay . . . yet?”
Not really, though it’s been linked a time or two, and commended here and there. It truly is a splendid effort of summation, I’ve thought, Ernst, at least from my own point of view of the matter.
when mark levin’s next book is published this will be discussed.
I thought so too, sdferr.
I think it was Fritterdorks’s comment on Levin that was mostly commented upon, now that I’ve thought about it.
You’ll excuse me, I hope, if I don’t bother to read Friedersdorf on Levin. I’ve been mincing meat and vegetables much of the afternoon for a chili, so I’m in mince overload and can’t take any more of it right now.
He is precious, isn’t he?
Well he seems to think so anyhow. I myself wonder whether he collects Hummel figurines.
“I myself wonder whether he collects Hummel figurines.”
yes of course because he is too stupid to know how to produce them.
I was kind of wondering if he collected Precious Moments figurines.
PMI poisoning antidote, chewed raw by the handful. Or alternatively, this, applied liberally in a swinging fashion to one’s firmly grounded left thumb.
Someone actually read Freiersdorf? Why?
conor probably got a participation trophy at sum point. go 1 n conor.
the atlantic: east coast idiots looking for validation for their credentials.
we need a web site: “the collective stupidity”. non stop leftist “policy”.
If neither the haba-haba-haba-habañeros nor the hammer does the mindbleach trick, this Salt’n’Peppa shaker makes a fine backup.
yay Mr. Herman is gonna endorse Newt
that is helpful
it’s time for the party to unite around a not-Romney, and it looks like the highly flawed and contemptible Mr. Gingrich is our man!
Just as Sen. Coburn whapped Newt upside his pun’kin haid?
what?
I will google
They’s got issues stretching way back, them two.
the more cocksucker establishment Team R Senators don’t like the nominee the better I think
and all the better if they’re from the white trash christer wing of the party
*senators* I mean you hardly ever have to capitalize it
weird… they go the whole article and don’t mention the Arizona law or recently-enacted laws elsewhere
Sara Smile
“according to tallies released by the Department of Homeland Security last week”
hahahaha good one
What kinda chili did you make, sdferr? It’s supposed to snow this week and that sounds like a good idea after an afternoon of stacking firewood on the porch.
There is a lingering possibility, which, while we certainly can’t count on it, neither can we count it out altogether, and that is this: supposing a self-control challenged egotist like Newt wins the Presidency (o fell day) but arriving the first time at a White House under his own command, stops to think, for who knows what reason he might stop to think, of the enormity of the history already behind that place and that office, and the enormity of the good his own sobriety in that office can do, if only he can find some source of self-restraint. It’s not a likely thing, I think, but it is still, as I say, a possible thing. He can determine not to be undone by his habits, and stay ever on guard against himself (or at least for four measly years).
last time around Coburn endorsed Meghan’s coward daddy, so you can see just how highly he thinks of the presidency
I will pray for him Mr. sdferr. All I know is we have to get rid of this Obama person.
We just have to our poor beaten-down little country can’t bear another term of him.
I tend to make chilis up as I go along leigh, what with my local grocer catering to the Mexican folk hereabouts. So I go buy three or sometimes four different sorts of dried chilis (today, guajillos, anchos, & moritas), a couple of meats to mince (today, a chunk of beef, a chunk of pork and left-over smoked turkey thighs from T-giving), then some fresh peppers (today, poblanos, pasillas and 1 habanero): brown the meat, paste the water reconstituted dried peppers with onion and garlic in the blender, fry it up, chuck in whatever stock I happen to have on hand (today, smoked turkey bone and chickens stock) and simmer, along with the usual assortment of spices and so-on, then finish late with the fresh peppers diced, along with another installment of fresh diced onion and garlic.
Sounds fantastic. I have loads of dried chilis from my last trip out to visit my daddy in Santa Barbara. I’ll have to check my freezer for odds and end of meats. Stock I have a-plenty.
hah I just went to Santa Barbara me and NG went to La Super Rica have you been? I never knew about it my whole life I am so glad someone told me. The vegetable tamales were amazing plus the #16.
also they had very very tasty sandia I wish I had some right now
It came tasty, just had a bowl with half a pound of fresh tortillas for slopping. Full now.
I’d never had vegetable tamales before my whole life neither. It’s just not something I’d ever order – but I read online before we went that they were pretty special.
I’ve had vegetable tamales at Bobby Flay’s once great restaurant, but they seem too scary to make on one’s own. You really need a name like Lupe or Consuela to do it properly me thinks.
Tamales are semi-fun to make with a couple of kids or an enthusiastic assembly group, especially with banana leaves. Otherwise, drudgery to the nth.
vegetable tamales you have to do that thing where you slightly burn some of the vegetables just so
I’d never try to do them on my own cause I’m not very enthusiastic about making the foozle
I’ve been exploring the halal grocer downstairs a lot lately
my favorite thing so far is called mango shrikhand
it’s a dessert… it kinda defies description it’s so good
it’s kinda like a mango sherbert except made with real cream, but the texture is much richer
it’s impossibly rich… the box says they eat it with a kind of bread… but next time I think I’m gonna try it with angel food cake… at a certain point after it’s thawed you can spread it like frosting
I avoid Middle Eastern food like the plague. I don’t even like hummus. Though they do put a nice char on a dead animal and falafel is pleasant enough.
this is actually more Indian… it’s cause of how Indian is so chock full of muslims… so all the food at this one is Indian –
they have a frozen chicken biryani that’s really very good… I think it’s made and packaged out of someone’s kitchen cause it doesn’t taste processed at all
cause of how *India* is so chock full of muslims I mean
The text of Howard Gutman’s speech in Belgium.