How many movies have we seen with villainous Gestapo men, attired in leather-trenchcoats, marching down train corridors, demanding “Your papers, please!”? The ever-escalating securitization of America, fueled simultaneously by liberal Nanny-ism and by war-time security concerns, produces a thousand stories of nincompoopery and Jack-in-Office excess monthly. One irrational demand for personal ID on a bus in Denver seems to have inspired a web-site erected to do something about all this.

Despite the presence of a banner on that web-site from the Colorado branch of a loathsome organization, I’m inclined to sympathize with the lady’s position. I’ve come pretty close to taking a poke at courthouse rent-a-cops more than once myself.
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Story picked up Sunday, November 27th, Denver Post.
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A disagreeable example of just where this kind of thing can lead is provided by Malaysia, where a cellphone-captured video of a Chinese female suspect stripped and forced to perform “ear squats,” hands-free deep knee bends performed holding hands to ears, has produced a scandal being reported all over South-east Asia: Sydney Herald and BBC.

American Enterprise Online notes and debunks Urban Legends originated by the Left about the war.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds and Rand Simberg.

(Apologies to our readers. The blogging software has difficulties with exceptionally long postings, so I divided the original into two.)

The altered scene reads in the original:

TAMBURLAINE. Now, Casane, where’s the Turkish Alcoran,
And all the heaps of superstitious books
Found in the temples of that Mahomet
Whom I have thought a god? they shall be burnt.

USUMCASANE. Here they are, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE. Well said! let there be a fire presently.

[They light a fire.]
In vain, I see, men worship Mahomet:
My sword hath sent millions of Turks to hell,
Slew all his priests, his kinsmen, and his friends,
And yet I live untouch’d by Mahomet.
There is a God, full of revenging wrath,
From whom the thunder and the lightning breaks,
Whose scourge I am, and him will I obey.
So, Casane; fling them in the fire.— [They burn the books.]
Now, Mahomet, if thou have any power,
Come down thyself and work a miracle:
Thou art not worthy to be worshipped
That suffer’st flames of fire to burn the writ
Wherein the sum of thy religion rests:
Why send’st thou not a furious whirlwind down,
To blow thy Alcoran up to thy throne,
Where men report thou sitt’st by God himself?
Or vengeance on the head of Tamburlaine
That shakes his sword against thy majesty,
And spurns the abstracts of thy foolish laws?—Well, soldiers, Mahomet remains in hell;
He cannot hear the voice of Tamburlaine:
Seek out another godhead to adore;
The God that sits in heaven, if any god,
For he is God alone, and none but he.

Churchill and Wellington, Shakespeare and Milton, and all the other heroes of English history and English letters must be revolving in their graves at a speed of 78 rpm-s today at news of Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine the Great being presented on the London stage in censored form, the famous scene in which Tamburlaine burns the Alcoran rewritten in deference to Muslim sensitivities at a time when British military forces are in the field fighting Islamo-fascism.

Can one even begin to imagine imagine London stage performances removing (rather than adding by the barge-load) uncomplimentary references to Nazis during the time of Churchill? or scenes offensive to French sensibilities being excised during the Napoleonic wars? or the London theatre grovelling to Spain in the time of the Armada?

IT WAS the surprise hit of the autumn season, selling out for its entire run and inspiring rave reviews… (but) audiences at the Barbican in London did not see the Koran being burnt, as Marlowe intended, because David Farr, who directed and adapted the classic play, feared that it would inflame passions in the light of the London bombings. Simon Reade, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, said that if they had not altered the original it “would have unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions”.

The burning of the Koran was “smoothed over”, he said, so that it became just the destruction of “a load of books” relating to any culture or religion. That made it more powerful, they claimed.

aj-Jazeera gets some women and a kid right up front for their “manipulate the dumb Americans” shot in an insolent new blog titled “Don’t Bomb Us,” devoted to cynically exploiting the recent British press story and otherwise influencing Western public opinion.

Reuters is reporting that Boston has officially renamed the giant tree erected this year in a city park a “holiday tree” instead of a “Christmas tree.”

The Nova Scotia logger who cut down the 48-foot (14-meter) tree was indignant and said he would not have donated the tree if he had known of the name change.

“I’d have cut it down and put it through the chipper,” Donnie Hatt told a Canadian newspaper. “If they decide it should be a holiday tree, I’ll tell them to send it back. If it was a holiday tree, you might as well put it up at Easter.”

Canadian response to PC in Boston.

Depkafile is following up on its earlier report, stating that

Syria claims US forces suffered 11 casualties in a Syrian-US clash Thursday night, Nov. 24 without clarifying whether they meant dead or wounded.

Internal Syrian communications channels report Syrian “Desert Guards” border units fought US Marines who crossed into Syria at a point west of al Qaim. They also claimed 30 Syrian casualties.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report the battle took place at the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Abu Kemal. US forces were in hot pursuit of a group of al Qaeda operatives who fled across to Syria in escape an American attack pinning them down in Mosul. The US military delivered Syria an ultimatum to hand the terrorists over. The American pursuit continued Friday when Syria failed to respond.

Hammorabi, a pro-democracy Iraqi blog, has heard locally a version of the same story:

There are news of at least 12 American soldiers have been killed and wounded near the Al-Bo-Kamal area when they followed insurgents escaped to Syria. Fighting then broke down with the Syrians who had at least 3 casualties.

EARLIER REPORT

Pharyngula will be much linked for the video, and much quoted for this awe-inspiring description of gastropod love:

Oh, my. This video from the BBC of slugs mating is spectacular—it’s got mucus ropes, everting male organs, entwining penises, and penises forming a translucent flower-like globe. It made me feel rather homely and inadequate, truth to tell, but wow…appreciative at the same time.

He’s right. It’s a lot like what a friend of mine always used to say about lesbian sex: “really sort of poetic, and interesting to watch.”

Hat tip to John Cole and to Obsidian Wings.

Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau, speaking September 25th at the University of Toronto, told an undoubtedly-surprised audience that “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head,” and procceed to expose US preparations for interstellar aggression.

“I’m so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something.”

Hellyer revealed, “The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop.”

Hellyer warned, “The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, “The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide.”

Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, “The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today.”

Scott Johnson at Power-Line discusses a very sensible editorial in the New York Sun: “Should Bush and Blair Consider Bombing Al-Jazeera? ” observing that the vehemence of the British government’s response [to recent press reports] alone suggests that this matter is being taken seriously both in London and in Washington.

What interests me about the conversation in dispute is why anybody… should be surprised by it. Indeed, I would be surprised if Messrs. Bush and Blair had not discussed ways of limiting the damage done by Islamist propaganda, whose main conduit is indeed Al Jazeera TV. It may well be that the thought of silencing the Arab network crossed their minds, only to be dismissed as too risky. If so, were the two leaders wrong to consider that option?

I don’t think so. That shutting down Al Jazeera would be desirable from the Anglo-American point of view is obviously true. And if Qatar, a Gulf state that is nominally an ally of America (on which it relies for its independence), has allowed its capital to become Al Qaeda’s principal propaganda base, it has no right to expect America automatically to refrain from punitive action on its territory.

The wider issues raised by the Bush-Blair Al Jazeera exchange are two. First, how far can the West tolerate the dissemination of Islamist propaganda intended to poison the minds of Muslims against Jews and “Crusaders”? Second, how much information are Western governments obliged to give about their internal decision-making process, and are they justified in suppressing sensitive information, even if this means penalizing the press, to protect Western interests?

Little Green Footballs and Bare Knuckle Politics (hat tip: Michelle Malkin) cover attacks on two liquor stores in West Oakland by “about a dozen African-American men wearing suits, white-collared shirts and bow ties — a trademark of the Nation of Islam.” Television news reports have studiously avoided mentioning the Islamic aspect of the attacks.

The not-always-reliable Debkafile, an Internet publication devoted to reporting and analysis on terrorism, intelligence, Islam, military affairs, & security issues, published in English and in Hebrew, is reporting:

US Marines are locked in battle with Syrian troops after crossing the border from Iraq into Syria at a point west of al Qaim

November 25, 2005, 12:27 AM (GMT+02:00)

Both sides have suffered casualties. US soldiers crossed over after Damascus was given an ultimatum Thursday, Nov. 24, to hand over a group of senior commanders belonging to Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda force. According to US intelligence, the group had fled to Syria to escape an American attack in Mosul. Syrian border guards opened fire on the American force.

——Pravda is meanwhile corroboratively reporting that:

The Iraqi government on Thursday called on Syria to detain “dangerous” insurgents who fled across the border to escape a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the area this month. Government spokesman Laith Kubba also said that insurgent attacks are expected to rise before the Dec. 15 general elections. He said attacks by “Muslim extremists and Saddam (Hussein’s) criminals” will be their last stand.

John Hinderaker at Power-Line today posted these Pew Poll results, noting the differences in levels of support between what he refers to as “leaders” and ordinary Americans. I think myself that, over the lifetime of the post-WWII Baby Boom generation, an unprecedented cultural cleavage has grown up between members of the aspirative, educated upper middle class, the community of fashion; and ordinary Americans, what used to be thought of as the lower middle class.

Just as it is necessary for the self esteem of most upper middle class Americans to distinguish themselves from the commonality of mankind by attending elite schools, pursuing prestigious careers, driving foreign-made luxury cars, and applying keen discrimination to every possible kind of consumer good right up to, and including, the groceries, it has also over time become increasingly vital for members of the American community of fashion to distinguish themselves politically from the other species of lesser mortals making up the general population. Just as one needs to have German or Japanese automobiles and French cheese to lead the good life, one also needs to have a European socialist (revolutionary, while at school) view of domestic policy, and an anti-American perspective on world affairs. Alas! sound judgement on the best consumables, personal ambition, and enough ability to get ahead in life these days are no guarantee of the accompanying possession of an iota of common sense.

Today’s American elite lives in a dreamworld of its own, insulated by comfort and privilege from reality, and intellectually hypnotized by its own self-constructed cultural echo-chamber playing loop tapes of the cliches of long-out-dated leftist ideology.

Landing on Plymouth Rock

Partrick Spero last year supplied some accounts of the first Thanksgiving.

Other Thanksgiving history web-sites are here and here.

The First Thanksgiving
Kevin on The Liberty Papers contrasts the perspective of Leftist author and University of Texas Professor Robert Jensen of Thanksgiving as:

...the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.

...an American in revolt. I am revolted by the holiday known as Thanksgiving. I have been accused of wanting to go backwards in time, of being against progress. To those charges, I plead guilty. I want to go back in time to when people lived communally, before the colonists’ Christian god was brought to these shores to sanctify their terrorism, their slavery, their hatred of children, their oppression of women, their holocausts.

Writing in his diary of the dire economic straits and self-destructive behavior that consumed his fellow Puritans shortly after their arrival, Governor William Bradford painted a picture of destitute settlers selling their clothes and bed coverings for food while others “became servants to the Indians,” cutting wood and fetching water in exchange for “a capful of corn.” The most desperate among them starved, with Bradford recounting how one settler, in gathering shellfish along the shore, “was so weak … he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”

The colony’s leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called “communism.” Property in Plymouth Colony, he observed, was communally owned and cultivated. This system (“taking away of property and bringing [it] into a commonwealth”) bred “confusion and discontent” and “retarded much employment that would have been to [the settlers’] benefit and comfort.”

Just how did the Pilgrims solve the problem of famine? In addition to receiving help from the local Indians in farming, they decided allow the private ownership of individual plots of land.

On the brink of extermination, the Colony’s leaders changed course and allotted a parcel of land to each settler, hoping the private ownership of farmland would encourage self-sufficiency and lead to the cultivation of more corn and other foodstuffs.

As Adam Smith would have predicted, this new system worked famously. “This had very good success,” Bradford reported, “for it made all hands very industrious.” In fact, “much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been” and productivity increased. “Women,” for example, “went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn.”

The famine that nearly wiped out the Pilgrims in 1623 gave way to a period of agricultural abundance that enabled the Massachusetts settlers to set down permanent roots in the New World, prosper, and play an indispensable role in the ultimate success of the American experiment.

A profoundly religious man, Bradford saw the hand of God in the Pilgrims’ economic recovery. Their success, he observed, “may well evince the vanity of that conceit…that the taking away of property… would make [men] happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” Bradford surmised, “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

The real story of Thanksgiving is the triumph of capitalism and individualism over collectivism and socialism, which is the summation of the story of America.

I’ve heard a lot about Tom Delay, but I hadn’t heard there was another campaign finance case underway. JayTea at Wizbang points to a story by Bullwinkle at Random Numbers highlighting MSM’s hypocritical double-standards in the case of Hillary Clinton’s potential campaign finance scandal.