Mark Steyn: Fantasy and "Fahrenheit 9/11"

The Jerusalem Post ^ | July 7, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[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-

[sandbar]

What scares me is that more people are concerned about gays being able to marry, then the gays living through another attack. Yeah, THAT makes sense.

[Lyford]

"Every one a gem" bump...

[Defiant]

Now you're a lawyer in addition to a saint? Pray tell, describe the effect of a 9th circuit decision on cyberlaw on a 5th circuit court, in the absence of Supreme Court direction? What are the ethical obligations of a lawyer in connection with legal decisions which are not binding, but perhaps instructive, and how about if the parallel court's decision is wrongly reasoned? Do let us know your reasoning process, St. Quidnunc, because I so value your opinion.

Merely stating an uneducated belief does not a fact make.

[quidnunc]

Defiant wrote: Now you're a lawyer in addition to a saint? Pray tell, describe the effect of a 9th circuit decision on cyberlaw on a 5th circuit court, in the absence of Supreme Court direction? What are the ethical obligations of a lawyer in connection with legal decisions which are not binding, but perhaps instructive, and how about if the parallel court's decision is wrongly reasoned? Do let us know your reasoning process, St. Quidnunc, because I so value your opinion. Merely stating an uneducated belief does not a fact make.

I suggest that you spend a profitable few hours and study what's in the Stanford University Copyright & Fair Use Center web site here:

a href=http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/index.html

Colleges and universities have to be very mindful of copyright l;aw because of they have many, many students and professors publishing theses, dissertations and papers.

[Defiant]

You have provided this link before, reminding me of the exchange in "A Fish Called Wanda". Otto is very fond of citing Nietzche and other German philosophers. He does something stupid, and Wanda excoriates him.

"Was that smart, Otto? Or was it stupid?"

"Don't call me stupid."

"Right. To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people, you big ape."

Otto smiles knowingly, and softly issues his rejoinder: "Apes don't read philosophy".

"Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it".

[nothingnew]

quidnunc--a nosy person;a busybody***The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

Forget it Defiant...lost cause.

FMCDH(BITS)

[quidnunc]

Defiant wrote: You have provided this link before…

Yes I have, because it blows the arguments of the post-every-jot-and-tittle crowd completely out of the water.

[COBOL2Java]

1970 isn't that long ago. If you're, say, 50, you wear narrower trousers and shorter hair than you used to, but the landscape of your life – your house, your car, your kitchen appliances – doesn't seem significantly different.

I don't know about Steyn, but I am 50 and I most certainly do NOT wear narrower trousers! :-)

[Defiant]

I think he's referring to bellbottoms and long hair.

[happygrl]

Of the increase in global population between 1970 and 2000, the developed world accounted for under 9% of it, while the Muslim world accounted for 26% of the increase. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30% of the world's population to just over 20%; the Muslim nations increased from about 15% to 20%.

This is depressing.

[happygrl]

And they fear the Muslims less than the Baptists.

We Baptists are armed

[hummingbird]

May I please be on the Mark Steyn *ping* list, Pokey78? He's so great and I don't want to miss a thing he writes!

[hummingbird]

Thanks and have a great Friday! Hope Pokey78 will put me on the list. Steyn is fun to read!

[BartMan1]

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