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Mark Steyn: Fantasy and "Fahrenheit 9/11"
The Jerusalem Post ^ | July 7, 2004 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 07/07/2004 1:58:21 PM PDT by quidnunc

If I were the late Osama bin Laden, I'd come away from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling a bit like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard: I'm still big. It's the pictures that got small.

Bin Laden and his colleagues in al-Qaida, their various subsidiaries and affiliates, the Wahhabi bankrollers in Saudi Arabia, and thousands of mullahs throughout the Muslim world believe they're engaged in a great crusade (whoops) against the Great Satan and the rest of the infidel world that will go on until they achieve final victory.

Michael Moore and his own fanatical worshipers, on the other hand, think it's all to do with Bush. Bush, Bush, Bush! Who's in the pay of the Saudis? Bush! Who's the top business partner of the Taliban? Bush! Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong? Bush — because he was paid to do so by a subsidiary of Halliburton run by a man who was at school with someone who has some stock in a company building a pipeline with someone who used to go bowling with the half-nephew-in-law of King Fahd.

Whatever the question, the answer is Bush. The message of Moore's film is: Get rid of Bush this November and all the bad stuff will go away. That's why its starting point is the 2000 election and the Florida recount. On the face of it, dimpled chads don't seem to have much to do with Afghanistan and Iraq. But, for Moore, this is where it all began, and this is where it will end: Topple Bush, and the world will once again be full of happy smiley people as it is in the slow-motion scenes of laughing children gaily flying their kites in idyllic Saddamite Iraq.

If I were the late Osama, I'd be insulted by Moore's picture. Al-Qaida's jihadi blew up plenty of stuff while Bill Clinton was president. He had the boys in America taking their flying lessons during the 2000 election, when Al Gore was ahead in the polls. The Islamists despise Bush, but they despise Clinton and Gore, and Carter and Kerry, too.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: anotherstupideqcerpt; fahrenheit911; marksteyn
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To: quidnunc

How much $ would it take for you to stop posting your partial steyns? I will gladly pay it.


41 posted on 07/07/2004 10:05:44 PM PDT by M. Thatcher (.)
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To: NutCrackerBoy

You can just read the first paragraph if you want to.


42 posted on 07/07/2004 11:05:18 PM PDT by Defiant (Moore-On: That throbbing anticipation felt by a liberal hoping for America's defeat.)
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To: Defiant; M. Thatcher; quidnunc
You can just read the first paragraph if you want to. -Defiant

You are not making sense. I read the whole thing at the original source which is what you are supposed to do.

(#41 to quidnunc) How much $ would it take for you to stop posting your partial steyns? I will gladly pay it. -M. Thatcher

Jerusalem Post charges you nothing. Just register, opt out of spam. Have you no respect for intellectual property?

43 posted on 07/07/2004 11:53:48 PM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
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To: M. Thatcher
...stop posting your partial steyns

Now what the heck is that, a half a beer???

44 posted on 07/07/2004 11:57:16 PM PDT by Syncro
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To: NutCrackerBoy
We've had this discussion many, many times, with asses probably even more stubborn than you, and I have no desire to do it again. Let me give the short version:

Q: Copyright blah blah
US: Fair use blah blah
Q: But but, I read somewhere...blah blah.
Us: No supreme court ruling. Issue not settled. It's Jim Robinson's board and he's all for it. Go start your own board if you disagree. Blah blah blah.

Did I leave anything out, guys?

45 posted on 07/08/2004 12:03:59 AM PDT by Defiant (Moore-On: That throbbing anticipation felt by a liberal hoping for America's defeat.)
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To: quidnunc; All
Hi, quidnunc...is there a Mark Steyn ping list that you know of?
46 posted on 07/08/2004 12:04:12 AM PDT by hummingbird ("If it wasn't for the insomnia, I could have gotten some sleep!")
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To: Defiant; quidnunc
I understand your (excerpted) argument on whether or not excerpting is required, and that is an ongoing debate. But regardless of whether something is excerpted, the link is provided so that you can do the right thing and go to the source. You have absolutely zero ethical leg to stand on if you are holding that it is proper for you never to follow the links.
47 posted on 07/08/2004 12:20:31 AM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
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To: Defiant
"They want America to fall so they can be in charge of it."

Is your implication that if the Dims went to a Dude Ranch, they'd pick the gentle, subdued mount and if none were available they'd shoot the stallion...then they could whip a dead horse?

If we see it that way, we agree.

48 posted on 07/08/2004 12:21:10 AM PDT by Positive (There's nothing sadder than seeing a group of great ideas being murdered by a bunch of brutal facts!)
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To: Tolik

bttt


49 posted on 07/08/2004 2:19:18 AM PDT by lainde (Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!)
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To: Defiant

Thanks Defiant and BTTT!


50 posted on 07/08/2004 2:23:13 AM PDT by lainde (Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!)
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To: Tolik

And thanks for the ping!


51 posted on 07/08/2004 2:24:02 AM PDT by lainde (Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!)
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To: quidnunc

Bump and bookmark


52 posted on 07/08/2004 2:40:39 AM PDT by lonevoice (Some things have to be believed to be seen)
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To: hummingbird
Yes. Pokey78 manages the Mark Steyn ping list.
53 posted on 07/08/2004 4:22:56 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: ccmay
They did in 1939, they probably will again.

And then, after the war, they took all the donated rifles, embedded them in cement, and dumped them in the ocean.

Now that I think about it, not unlike their treatment of Sir Winston.

54 posted on 07/08/2004 4:54:40 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (...and Freedom tastes of Reality)
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To: hummingbird
hummingbird wrote:

Hi, quidnunc...is there a Mark Steyn ping list that you know of?

Pokey78 has the Steyn ping list but he won't use it on my Steyn threads because his nose is out of joint because I excerpt the articles.

55 posted on 07/08/2004 7:26:18 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: quidnunc
His nose isn't out of joint. Speaking for myself, I don't want to be pinged to an excerpted Steyn article, I want to read the whole thing. Most of his list probably feels the same way, so he doesn't ping them to your Steyn posts.

You remind me of the type of kid in class who would race to the blackboard or beg, "teacher, teacher, pick me", the way you race the rest of us to be the first to post a Steyn or a Washington Times or a Victor Davis Hanson article, and you remind me of a sanctimonious phony by insisting on excerpting all of them, even though it has not been determined that that is legally required on this political discussion non-profit board. I bet Steyn and VDH don't even care. Steyn is on Hewitt's show all the time, and Hewitt is a longtime freeper, and they know that we post articles for discussion here. I'm sure they love being read.

We come to Free Republic in part to read the post and the comments in the same place. That's the value of Free Republic, to read good articles and to read the comments by a body of intelligent conservative posters. By adding an additional step or two to the process, you detract from the experience, and reduce the usage of this site. It's getting so Google news will be a better way to go soon, because nothing is more annoying than clicking on an article, and then seeing only a paragraph there.

56 posted on 07/08/2004 8:15:59 AM PDT by Defiant (Moore-On: That throbbing anticipation felt by a liberal hoping for America's defeat.)
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To: Defiant
Defiant wrote: I bet Steyn and VDH don't even care.

I don't know about Steyn, but Hanson's Web site is on FR's must-excerpt list.

As for the rest of your post, there's a reason why FR honors requests to excerpt, and that's because they're pretty sure that they would lose a lawsuit which was taken to it's conclusion.

57 posted on 07/08/2004 8:26:34 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: quidnunc
Hanson's Web site is on FR's must-excerpt list

More sophistry. Hanson's articles are all on NR or Town Hall or places like that, places that we don't have to excerpt. You go to Davis's personal site, get the same articles, and then excerpt them, sometimes long after they were originally posted here.

there's a reason why FR honors requests to excerpt, and that's because they're pretty sure that they would lose a lawsuit which was taken to it's conclusion.

The reason is a minor lawsuit against a minor player, like a local paper, would cost tens of thousands of dollars. A bigger lawsuit, like the one with the WaPo, would cost much more. JimRob doesn't want to spend the money on lawsuits, nor does he want to risk personal liability. He is therefore very risk averse, and just accedes to the requests, as he has explained at various times over the years.

The fact is that the issue has not been finally decided, and however it would come out with this crazy Supreme Court we have, we are free to post unexcerpted articles from sources unless Jim Rob has agreed otherwise. The Supreme Court has not decided yet that gay marriage is required by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Suppose it does. Does that mean that states are wrong NOW to enforce the law in a reasonable, alternate way?

If I see an article posted on a community bulletin board, I am free to read it, read it to a friend, and even write down what it says and repeat it to others. Technology changes; we need to adapt to it, and figure out whether an article posted for all to see on a web site is the same as an article printed on a community bulletin board, or whether it is as protected as a magazine sold on a news stand. It's an interesting question, and like the gay marriage issue, it's unsettled at the moment.

58 posted on 07/08/2004 9:04:31 AM PDT by Defiant (Moore-On: That throbbing anticipation felt by a liberal hoping for America's defeat.)
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To: RobFromGa; GretchenM; M. Thatcher; Dog Gone; Brian Allen; nothingnew
Here's what Q's thinking is leading to:

Company forced to pay royalty on 300 year old music

59 posted on 07/08/2004 9:24:54 AM PDT by Defiant (Moore-On: That throbbing anticipation felt by a liberal hoping for America's defeat.)
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To: Defiant
Defiant wrote: If I see an article posted on a community bulletin board, I am free to read it, read it to a friend, and even write down what it says and repeat it to others. Technology changes; we need to adapt to it, and figure out whether an article posted for all to see on a web site is the same as an article printed on a community bulletin board, or whether it is as protected as a magazine sold on a news stand. It's an interesting question, and like the gay marriage issue, it's unsettled at the moment.

It's only unsettled here on Free Republic.

It's been long-settled in the world of jurisprudence.

60 posted on 07/08/2004 10:10:44 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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