THE DIOGENES REPORT
The Wit, Wisdom & Wituperation of Emanuel L. Strunin
“a few steps ahead of the curve”
November 2003, VOL. III, # 28

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WHAT CULTURE WAR?

The premature universalists, as Reinhold Niebuhr called them are singing the siren song of “all cultures are equal.” Don’t fall for this outrageous lie. Was Nazi culture equal to Jewish culture? Of course not! Was Russian Communist culture equal to America’s culture? Not on your life! And Islamic culture makes Western culture seem like paradise.

The headline said that calls to jihad are luring hundreds of militants into Iraq. They are gathering to kill Americans who say they are there to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Where were the jihadists when Saddam Hussein was murdering hundreds of thousands of Kurdish and Shiite Muslims? Murder, tyranny and oppression are an integral part of Islamic culture so why should Muslims fight against basic elements of their culture.

Nah, there’s no culture war. 

A news report from England tells about a Kurd who stabbed his daughter 17 times because she wanted to live like an English girl. The police say this is but one of a dozen recent ‘honor killings’ in England. Similar ‘honor killings’ by Muslims have been perpetrated in the U.S., as well as the hundreds if not thousands that are carried out every year elsewhere in the world.

Nah, there’s no culture war.

The leader of one of the largest Islamic organizations in the United States, Abdrurahman Alamoudi, who has been touted as a ‘moderate Muslim’ shocked the Bush administration when a Federal prosecutor disclosed the Alamoudi hailed the bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in which scores of people were killed. Remember, Alamoudi is a moderate Muslim, whatever that means.

Nah, there’s no culture war.

The following excerpts come from teacher’s guides and textbooks of the Palestinian Authority:

Mother, I will soon leave, prepare the shroud Mother, I am heading for death…I will not falter. Mother, do not cry for me if I fall. For death does not frighten me, and my destiny is to die in martyrdom. (textbook, grade 7)

Be guided by the Muslim Jihad in order to liberate the Muslim land from the thieves. (teacher’s handbook, grade 11)

Write six lines wherein you explain to your friends the supreme value of Jihad for Allah. (textbook, grade 5)

If you have 5 Jews and you kill 3 Jews, how many Jews do you have left? (grade school math book)

Nah, there’s no culture war.

Just last year an Arab-American newspaper in New Jersey began serializing The Protocols of The Elders of Zion, that anti-Semitic forgery written by Russian czarist secret police. The Protocols are widely published in the Muslim world.

Nah, there’s no culture war.

Within the past year, European officials dealing with terrorism have finally admitted that they have uncovered well-established networks of Muslim militants with potential to commit terrorist acts, and affiliations that stretch across Europe to operatives in North America, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. A top French judge dealing with terrorism said: “the threat is much wider than Al Qaeda. It is like a spreading cancer. There is no structure, absolutely none”.

Nah, there’s no culture war.

A leader of Al Qaeda bragged that his organization is planning a major action against the United States which will result in the death of 100,000 Americans.

Nah, there’s no culture war.

 

ACROSS MY RADAR SCREEN

They Combine The Worst Of Levantine Culture With Kremlin Bureaucracy

The Israeli Government has forced their nation's only honest radio station off the air. Arutz-7 is a “pirate” station that transmits from a ship in international waters. Its message of religious Zionism rubs many Israeli politicians both right and left the wrong way though no one can claim that the station distorts the news. Arutz-7, however, does continue to disseminate the news to a worldwide audience via the Internet.

The treatment of Arutz-7 is just another indication of the distasteful people who are in leadership positions in Israel.

On the positive side, God must indeed love the Jewish people and the Land of Israel since he keeps them flourishing despite their leaders.

When Will The State Department Join The War On Terrorism

By now most Americans know that Muslim translators, as well as a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo have been involved in treasonous acts on behalf of the Muslim terrorists they were assigned to monitor and question. This is not surprising given that the Muslims supposedly working for the U.S. undergo minimal screening. By not asking which mosque they belong to, we are getting members of the most fundamentalist and terror-supporting mosques in America. It is “politically incorrect” to ask this kind of question, and it may be illegal in a peacetime environment, but we are at war.

When the military claims that there is a shortage of translators of Arabic, I wonder why they don’t bring in Arabic speaking Israelis or Jews from Syria or Iraq or Morocco living in the U.S. Now I learn that the State Department issued a directive that no Jews be used as translators since it would offend the terrorists in Guantanamo, as well as those known as “peaceful Muslims” elsewhere in the world. Good old State prefers to deal with America’s enemies rather than with its friends. That is the on-going history of State. 

The Selective Conscience At The New York Times

Paul Greenberg, in his syndicated column calls it “an act of historic justice” that a Columbia University historian has recommended that the Pulitzer board revoke the prize awarded in 1932 to the New York Times’ correspondent Walter Duranty. He won it for his glowing reports on Stalin’s Russia while purposely neglecting to write about Stalin’s crimes of genocide.

Greenberg praises the Times for taking the lead in revising the historical record and hiring the historian. Then Greenberg gets silly by asking if the Times will do something similar about Maureen Dowd who regularly misquotes George W. Bush rather than focusing on a serious issue like the Times’ handling of the Holocaust. Reading the Times during World War II would have made one miss this cataclysmic event. The Times must have employed a team of Walter Durantys as reporters and editors to miss the murders of 6,000,000 Jews. Perhaps it’s time for the Times to turn in all of the Pulitzers it got for WW II reporting.

 

HEADLINES AND COMMENTS
Headlines from the world press. Comments by Diogenes.

Indian Capital Terrorized By Monkeys
Are they Sunnis or Shiites?

White House Backs Limits On Spending For Medicare
They have no limits on spending to rebuild Iraq.

First U.S. Warship In 30 Years To Visit Vietnam
Keep it away from the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnamese junks.

Audubon Starts Deer Hunt In Greenwich
That’s a change, in Greenwich it’s usually a dear hunt.

This Year’s Nobel Prize In Medicine: A Personal Letter 
To My Fellow Medical Doctors About This Shameful Wrong (Advt.)

To repeat, the only one dumber than a dumb Swede is a smart Norwegian.

Arab Scholars Blast U.S. Policy In Mideast
1. Arab scholars: an oxymoron.
2. You can count the Arab scholars on the fingers of one hand if you’re wearing a catcher’s mitt.
3. Five Arab scholars…one opinion. Five Jewish scholars…10 opinions and counting.

C.I.A. Needs To Learn Arabic, House Committee Leader Says
How about learning the correct techniques for information gathering and analysis first.

Bush Asks Lands In Mideast To Try Democratic Ways
Did he ask them to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too?

Ferry Captain Remains Silent In Questioning
Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done.

The Worst Place To Drop A Cellphone? Try This
This idiot dropped his cellphone down a toilet bowel on a Metro North commuter train. When he tried to fish it out his arm got stuck and they had to call a fire department to dismantle the toilet to free him. Luckily the phone didn’t ring because he might have stuck his head in the bowl to answer the call.

New Egyptian Party “We Are Not Arabs”
No shit. I could see that when I visited Cairo. You want to know who they are? Look at the statues of the ancient Egyptians then look at today’s Egyptians.

Poll: Europeans See Israel As Threat
These are the same people who didn’t see Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini or the Muslims who are overrunning their continent as threats.

Homeland Security Says al-Qaeda Intends To Use Cargo Planes In Attack
Let’s take this warning seriously because Fedex and UPS planes are always on time.

Conviction Voided For Ex-C.I.A. Man In Case Over Libya
Judge said that Government faked documents so why don’t they free 
Jonathan Pollard on the same basis?

Government Of France Will Try To Make French More European
Last time they tried it they invited in the Nazis.

Survey Says: Women generally Happier Than Men Worldwide
The hell with worldwide, how about in the home?

IRS Worried More Americans Feel Cheating On Taxes Is OK
They only feel cheating is OK if they don’t get caught.

Woman Sues Restaurant Over Condom In Chowder
The chef didn’t want her to get crabs.

Ice Cream Shop Takes Center Stage In Terror War
The C.I.A. knew that chocolate was Usama’s favorite flavor and this shop was shipping tons of rocky road and chocolate swirl to the Afghan-Pakistan border, so they got suspicious. And, by the way, the owner also shipped $20 million to al Qaeda.

Teen Found After Abduction Report At Airport
The kidnappers knew that his family wanted him back at any cost, so they demanded a $340 ransom.

Islamic Outrage At Saudi Blasts: Arab World Turns On ‘Heinous’ al Qaeda
By the beard of the Prophet, we’re paying those guys to bomb only infidels 

Bush Needs Experienced Help With Iraq
Would he consider the pilot and bombardier from the Enola Gay?

Owners of FAO Schwartz Want New Funding To Get Them Through The Holidays
Everyone who shops at FAO Schwartz needs more funding to get through the holidays.

I Must Make You A Millionaire (Ad headline)
But while I’m working on it, you’ll make me a billionaire.

Police Say Con Artists From Nigeria Targeting City Residents
Where are the Immigration officials, these guys are taking jobs away from 
American con artists.

Sniper Trial Defense Is Likely To Focus On Trying To Avoid Death Penalty
Did the victims ask for mercy because of extenuating circumstances before the snipers gave them the death sentence?

Enlisting Aid To Education In The War On Terror
That’s great, helping secular schools in the Muslim world. But, please Mr. Bush
extend the same courtesy to American schools.

NOT A HEADLINE BUT WORTHY OF COMMENT
An associate of Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian leader was unnerved by an Israeli army raid near in his compound and clenched a submachinegun as he declared he felt the “smell of paradise.”
He was so frightened that it wasn’t actually Islamic paradise that he smelled, it was something he did in his trousers… but the odor was close enough to make him imagine it was Islamic paradise.

 

QUOTES I LIKE
Diogenes considers them clever, not that he necessarily agrees with them. 

None so empty, as those who are full of themselves.
- Benjamin Whichcote

A blind child will never be able to drive a truck, but they can read and write in the dark. And who can do that.
- Sabriye Tenberken

What one man can imagine, another can achieve.
- Jules Verne

I suppose it can be truthfully said that hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
- Robert Ingersoll

One should never be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation for the intellectually unemployed.
- Oscar Wilde

I won’t say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
- Barry Goldwater

To answer Barry Goldwater: exactly where it is.
- Diogenes

The nation had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to give the roar.
- Winston Churchill

Sir Rodney: This cable installer was caught swindling customers.
King: Hang him!
Sir Rodney: When?
King: Next week sometime, say, between 7 A.M. and midnight.
- WIZARD of ID (comic strip)

To get the truth from a newspaper you have to read between the lies.
- Anonymous

I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and
forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
- George Carlin

I’m not young enough to know everything.
- J. M. Barrie

Good pitching will always stop good hitting, and vice versa.
- Casey Stengel

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides!
- Arthur Schnabel

I’ve never been drunk, but I’ve been overserved.
- George Gobel

 

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