Spartacus

QOTD: "I haven't seen morale this bad since the Titanic"

Richard Stein, a financial services headhunter at Caldwell Partners, commenting on the spirits of Wall Street execs, as quoted by the WSJ.

QOTD: "My irresponsibility in spreading information online was a vent of negative mood, and was a neglect of the social mainstream."

Detained Chinese-American venture capitalist and micro-blogger Charles Xue, as quoted by the NYT.

QOTD: Carrots? We don't need no stinkin' carrots!

Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold in return? They say they want to offer us incentives. We tell them: Keep the incentives as a gift for yourself. We have no hope of anything good from you.

- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Look for the stick sometime in the spring of 2007.

Technorati Tags: Iran

QOTD: Tony Blair on Why We Fight

This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas - the poison that warps the minds of its adherents - are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core.

By this I don't mean telling them terrorism is wrong. I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive.

And then, since only by Muslims can this be done: standing up for and supporting those within Islam who will tell them all of this but more - namely that the extremist view of Islam is not just theologically backward but completely contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Koran.

But in order to do this, we must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress; that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away. The only way to win is to recognize this phenomenon is a global ideology; to see all areas, in which it operates, as linked; and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: Tony Blair

Must See TV

Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan, in the words of one blog commentator, "kicks some Imam ass" on Al Jazeera TV:

The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings . . .

You can watch the video of her comments via MEMRI here or read a partial transcript here. The discussion originally aired on Al Jazeera on February 21, 2006.

Ms. Sultan lives in Los Angeles and is one of the contributors to the reform-oriented Arab web site Annaqed (the Critic in Arabic). She is a brave, tough woman who is willing to say what many think but are too afraid or politically correct to admit in public. Watch the whole thing. (Via Glenn Reynolds and Daily Scorecard.)

Technorati Tags: Wafa Sultan, Clash of civilizations

Quote of the Day: Anti-Dowdification

Jessica Valenti, Executive Editor of feministing.com, reacting to Maureen Dowd's embarrassing latest opus, Are Men Necessary?

. . . Dowd’s assumption that young women or women in the service industry are somehow NOT smart and are more likely to “service” men in their personal life is just disgusting.

And I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, feminism wasn’t a fucking dating service! If some asshole doesn’t want to date you because you’re smart and successful, is it the fault of feminism or the asshole?

I don’t really buy into these studies, and Dowd’s questionable examples from the notoriously vapid movie industry don’t lend her argument any more credence. Let’s give men some credit; I feel like most couples I know are of equal intelligence. No?

Hat tip to Katha Pollitt via Real Clear Politics. (And, in case you were wondering, Jessica Valenti appears to be smart, good looking, accomplished and, evidently, able to get a date.)

QOTD: Keep Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the boys out of it

Richard Cohen, in a column titled "Support Choice, Not Roe," which appeared in today's WaPo:

. . . if the right to an abortion is a matter of privacy then why, asked Princeton professor Robert P. George in the New York Times, is recreational drug use not? You may think you ought to have the right to get high any way you want, but it's hard to find that right in the Constitution. George asks the same question about prostitution. Legalize it, if you want -- two consenting adults, after all -- but keep Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the boys out of it.

Quote of the Day

Cal Thomas, in his syndicated column (as published in the NY Sun), on Saturday's Millions More march:

Neither the problems of black Americans, nor the solutions to them, are in Washington.

QOTD: Peace is not the Answer

British author and journalist William Shawcross in an OpEd in yesterday's LAT:

It seems unlikely that many of the so-called peace marchers who trooped through Washington and London two weekends back listened on Thursday - at least not with an open mind or sympathy - to George Bush's cogent explanation of why coalition troops are fighting and dying in Iraq.

You did not see in those demonstrations, after all, many banners reading, "Support Iraq's New Constitution," "No to Jihad" or "Stop Suicide Bombers." The crimes committed daily against the Iraqi people by other Arabs who wish to re-enslave them seem to be of little interest to Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and their followers. Rage against the daily assaults on children, women, anyone, by Islamo-fascists and ordinary national fascists is not fashionable. Only alleged American crimes are cool to decry.

It's hard to think of a more graphic illustration of the horror the U.S.-led coalition is fighting in Iraq than the mass murder on Sept. 26, in which terrorists disguised as policemen (a New York Times headline called these butchers "fighters") burst into a primary school in Iskandaria, south of Baghdad, seized five teachers (all Shiites) and shot them dead. Children stood weeping through this atrocity.

Why do crimes like this make so little impression on those Americans and Europeans who want the coalition to abandon Iraq? The demonstrators think of themselves as moral, but it is hard to think of any policy more amoral than abandoning Iraq to such an enemy. . .

-   William Shawcross

Quote of the Day

Senator Frist, other members of the Senate, I view the vote this morning as confirmation of what is for me a bedrock principle, that judging is different from politics.

-  Chief Justice Roberts, at his swearing-in ceremony

Amen, brother.