…and this is a 
Two images of the patriotic warriors for America
Category: Politics
Posted on: October 24, 2007 8:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Here's the true, heroic history of America:
You know this is "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week", right? Now you must check out the true, heroic recounting of the horrors faced by one of Horowitz's neo-con speakers at the deepest pit of hell Wellesley. The girls made mean faces at her. This is cause for great fear and concern on the right: it suggests that Hamas is offering eye-rolling classes to their terrorist curriculum, and the Horowitzians cannot survive that kind of mockery.
We really are living in Roy Zimmerman's America. I don't think I like it much, even if it is funny.
Politics
Comments
I love Robot Chicken.
Posted by: Fnord Prefect | October 24, 2007 8:14 AM
They forgot to include the giant monsters.
Posted by: Brandon P. | October 24, 2007 8:29 AM
I love Roy Zimmerman. Saw him a couple of times, including the performance resulting in about 10 YouTube videos (which are worth watching!). Had lunch with him that day, actually. His mastery of phrase, verse, meter, and satire leave me in awe. It's not easy, but he makes it look like it just pours out.
And despite his job of looking at the dark side and poking holes in politicians... he seems an incurable optimist. or just a very good actor...
Posted by: Cuttlefish | October 24, 2007 8:36 AM
On second thought, scratch that. There was the polar bear.
Posted by: Brandon P. | October 24, 2007 8:46 AM
If rolling eyes could kill...
Posted by: fcaccin | October 24, 2007 8:51 AM
I just got into my office and found my very own copy of a Horowitz pamphlet. "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam." Should make interesting reading later. I'm so glad that I get to participate in IFW!
Posted by: dcwp | October 24, 2007 8:53 AM
They most emphatically did not. Giant monsters are instinctively drawn to Tokyo.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 24, 2007 8:59 AM
Dear God, I hope not. Morning commutes here are bad enough as it is with them being disrupted by giant monsters.
Posted by: Calton Bolick | October 24, 2007 9:23 AM
Sorry, can't make it. Busy, busy.
It's Massage Therapy Awareness Week.
And Wellness Awareness Week.
So, I'll be getting massages and feeling... well!
When I'm not encouraging women to get a Pap Test, that is.
I will also be doing my best to honor Alcohol Awareness Week.
Who knows, perhaps I will have time to give a moment of thought to David Horowitz as I turn my attention to National Disability Awareness Week.
Posted by: CalGeorge | October 24, 2007 9:33 AM
My bladder did a stint in the Bekaa Valley...
Posted by: raindogzilla | October 24, 2007 10:36 AM
Best line of the 1776 clip is "Hancock! NOW"
I was just informed of this Horowitz character when a family member sent me a movie that his organization did. It's not work friendly, but here's the link:
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
My opinion of the movie is on my newly resurrected blog.
Posted by: ilya | October 24, 2007 10:59 AM
In all seriousness folks, if this account of events is true, the students at Wellsely were being rude and a bad audience. If you choose to go to a speaker, any speaker, you should show basic courtesey and let that spekaer speak in quiet, and save your questions for later.
Given this speaker, I would've loved to have seen the students ask some sharply worded questions later. Did they? Anyone got a link? But, they still shouldn't have been engaging in "loud whispering" and the link.
Also, would anyone here like to refute the speaker's point about Shari law?
Brian
Posted by: Brian | October 24, 2007 11:01 AM
Best line of the 1776 clip is "Hancock! NOW"
I was just informed of this Horowitz character when a family member sent me a movie that his organization did. It's not work friendly, but here's the link:
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
My opinion of the movie is on my newly resurrected blog.
Posted by: ilya | October 24, 2007 11:07 AM
I once had a communications professor who was the only communications professor ever to make it into my good books when she said, "If you come up here and give a speech about a problem and your solution is 'we should spread awareness', I'll fail you."
Posted by: Dustin | October 24, 2007 11:09 AM
I have little respect for Sharia law, but the thought crosses my mind that the speaker is confounding Judeo-Christian law with secular law.
Posted by: Russ | October 24, 2007 11:10 AM
Incredulity is terrorism. Says it all, really.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 24, 2007 12:02 PM
Islamofascism Awareness Week? How apropos. By coincidence, I just saw and reviewed a film about that. C'mon over and tell me if you think I'm being too mean/nice to the filmmakers.
(OK, I'll admit it: I love watching my Sitemeter spike when I get a Pharyngula link ;-).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | October 24, 2007 12:04 PM
It's not Godwin, but calling your opponents "mean girls" is another standard way of losing a debate. See: http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Snacky's_Law
Posted by: Wireless Enthusiast | October 24, 2007 12:07 PM
Yeah, just ask Michael "LiLo" Behe.
Posted by: Dustin | October 24, 2007 12:44 PM
They can!
If they're, like, twenty feet in diameter.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 24, 2007 1:21 PM
Video no longer available...
Posted by: Tozé | October 24, 2007 1:21 PM
Sensorship!
YOUTUBE REMOVED THIS VIDEO!
Does anyone know why?
If you do know why, do you have any comments?
Was there trademark infringement?
Was there inciting of a riot of some sort?
Was there actually real entertainment here?
Was there actually bona fide information to be gleaned?
Rupert Murdoch sucks!
Posted by: LeeLeeOne | October 24, 2007 1:22 PM
In my anger - I wrote sensorship..... That should have been Censorship.
However, since YouTube has sponsorship from we all know where, perhaps this was my Freudian slip?
Na, just a typo.....
Posted by: LeeLeeOne | October 24, 2007 1:24 PM
A good question. Unfortunately, we don't really know what questions or comments were made, since the only report we have of the event is this melodramatic blog entry by Phyllis Chesler, where Nonie Darwish was portrayed as the victim of gangster-like Hamas-trained college girls, who were unwilling to hang on her every word with sufficient reverence... My favorite part of Phyllis' entry was the description of the nice Jewish students "cringing and cowering" in fear of hurting the Muslim student's feelings. From the sound of it, I'm sure there was a lot of cringing going on -- that much I don't doubt.
Um, well...I guess I'll give it a shot. Here in Europe, I know plenty of Muslims that prefer life under a secular government over Shari'a law, but I haven't met too many that would opt for "Judeo-Christian" law. Personally, given the choice between Shari'a law and, for example, life under the Puritan's 17th century application of Biblical law, I'm pretty sure a godless heathen like myself wouldn't fare well in either situation. Instead, I would prefer Western-style 21st century democratic pluralism, thank you.
Posted by: j.t.delaney | October 24, 2007 1:26 PM
"but the thought crosses my mind that the speaker is confounding Judeo-Christian law with secular law."
Oh no no. All good things in society by definition come from Christianity. Er, excuse me, Judeo-Christianity.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 24, 2007 1:33 PM
In all seriousness, if I was misanthrope enough to give a speech about how "niggers" were inferior during "Niggers are Inferior Week" to the local KKK chapter at my University, I should expect a little more than whispers, eye rolling and girls needing to pee.
And that's the politest I can address your idiotic back-of-the-bus "assholes deserve respect and civility" post. Because, by god, they sure fucking don't because they sure as fuck don't give it.
Posted by: Moses | October 24, 2007 1:45 PM
If only that's what we actually had here in the US these days...
Jim D.
Posted by: Jim Downey | October 24, 2007 1:49 PM
Cartoon Network makes a parody of someone else's work and then throws some copyright bullshit around when people watch it? What are they, MTV Jr.?
Posted by: Dustin | October 24, 2007 1:53 PM
In all seriousness folks, if this account of events is true, the students at Wellsely were being rude and a bad audience.
My God, what is the world coming to - college students being rude to controversial speakers! Of course they're all Hamas-trained; they'd have to be, wouldn't they? Who else would be so dastardly as to take disruptive pee breaks?
Posted by: Nadai | October 24, 2007 2:00 PM
And here's something that Cartoon Network should learn...
THIS... IS.... THE INTERNET!
Once something's on the internet, it's on the internet. Forever.
Posted by: Dustin | October 24, 2007 2:05 PM
Russ, j.t.delaney:
Good argument. I think it is about time many people realize that not only are our religous freedoms guarnteed by the first ammendment, not any sort of Judeo-Christian tradition, but that the two flat out contradict each other. I wouldn't want to live under any theocracy Judeo-Christian or otherwise.
I also think the best way to combat people like Horowitz would be by presenting your own arguments and the basic facts in the public square, not by organized potty breaks. This will be hard and take a long time. Social progress always is and does.
Posted by: Brian | October 24, 2007 2:36 PM
"Also, would anyone here like to refute the speaker's point about Shari law?"
Darwish's point:
"In Darwish's view, "the happiest Muslims on earth are those who live under Judeo-Christian laws, not under Shari'a law." These young girls are "disconnected from the reality of Islam." Or, they are exercising the "only power anyone, men or women, are allowed to have: the power to enforce the status quo and to further the Muslim jihadic mission.""
Well first off, let's note that only four Muslim countries (from memory) actually practice Sharia law - Saudi Arabia; Sudan, and Afghanistan along with some Nigerian states. Malaysia applies "personal law" to its Muslim citizens based on Islamic practice which varies between the different states of the Federation.
So, the majority of Muslims don't actually live under sharia law.
Historically too, the interpretation of sharia law has varied dramatically across the world and over time. Javanese Muslim women were probably the most liberated on the planet up until European and American women caught up in the mid to late 19th century. They owned businesses in their own names; had equal rights in divorce and custody cases and didn;t wear the veil.
I'm also curious as to what "Judeo-Christian" law is?
Is there some bizarre fundamentalist sect that applies the Levitical penalties for adultery?
Or maybe she has in mind the Catholic countries that have near-total bans on abortion.
Or maybe she's thinking about the situation that applied in Argentina until a couple of decades back where the reported rape rate was exactly zero because any woman who tried to report a rape was charged with either prostitution (if single) or adultery (if married).
Or maybe she has in mind the continuing practice of honor killings in Brazil and other Latin American countries (which thankfully has been dramatically reduced in recent years but still persists).
Lest anyone think I'm singling out Latin America, I'd urge people to read about the treatment of women in Christian countries in subsaharan Africa.
Then we can talk about the Filipino sex trade and the millions of Filipino women forced to work overseas as domestic servants and nurses in conditions of virtual slavery.
But hey discussing the imperfections in how the "Juedo-Christian" world treats women doesn't serve to make us all feel better about killing those dirty islamofascists.
Posted by: Ian Gould | October 24, 2007 3:19 PM
Nonie Darwish? OK, she's one of the talking heads in the Obsession movie. Her Wikipedia article suggests (but doesn't explicitly state) that she converted to Evangelical Christianity.
That being said, I am irritated by the attitude of some college students (and this goes back to when I was an undergraduate) that the correct way to deal with a speaker you don't like is to disrupt the talk in some way. The speaker may be the worst miscreant in the world, but I claim the right to hear them out, and make that determination for myself. I don't grant someone else the right to do my listening and thinking for me.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | October 24, 2007 3:51 PM
Or watch it on Cartoon Network's own site. They get pissy with youtube because it gets traffic and makes ad revenue off of someone else's work.
http://www.adultswim.com/video/index.html?section=Comedy&collectionID=8a25c3920ef15683010ef20fc9d2015d
Posted by: Robster, FCD | October 24, 2007 4:05 PM
It's funny they would take that one down, considering Youtube is stuffed full of Robot Chicken segments. I can't believe Seth Green would care, but what do I know?
Posted by: ZorkFox | October 24, 2007 4:56 PM
Imagine that creationists had a long history of and a current practice of murdering biologists. Then just imagine a bunch of creationists showed up at your talk and started glaring at you for pointing this out, and for spreading evolution, plus disrupting your talk by speaking and moving around. Now imagine that the only reason you haven't yet been murdered is because you had escaped from the US and were now living in a country where only a few creationist had migrated.
I read a book by another Egyptian apostate and he was almost murdered before he escaped the country. He merely expressed doubt in Allah and mentioned that he no longer believed before they were after him. He spent some time incarcerated.
Maybe that puts some prespective on it.
Actually if anything it's the speaker who's being treated like a nigger for being uppity.
Posted by: Brian Macker | October 24, 2007 10:52 PM
Maybe that puts some prespective [sic] on it.
That's a strange new term for "hokey and ridiculous paranoid fantasy spinning" I wasn't previously aware of.
Posted by: Calton Bolick | October 26, 2007 9:35 AM