Douglas Murray on offending Islam

So apparently the Garland Shooting at the Pamela Gellar “Draw Mohammed” event raised this “controversy” about whether people approve of offending Islam.

Since people seem to continue to have a problem with this, let me summon Douglas Murray’s words after that initial Charlie Hebdo attack:

“They offended Islamic blashpemy laws, which European nations do not follow and do not believe in.”

“Twelve people were gunned down because European citizens asserted their right, and they have every right to do that… to do their job as cartoonists in a free society.

“The most important discussion at the moment is whether or not the press stands up for the right to draw what they like … the key issue cannot be stressed enough, most of us are not Muslims, we do not believe in Muhammad… Muslims should not expect non-Muslims to abide by their belief systems… There’s a growing idea in Europe that people who do NOT follow of Islam will also have to obey the rules of Islamic blasphemy.”

“Let’s get on to the substance of this … what Charlie Hebdo has asserted the right to do is treat Islam the same way they treat every other religion.”

The Wisdom of Yoda

I used to have this poster in my college dorm. Back before being a Star Wars nut was cool. May the 4th be with you.

Poster – Wisdom of Yoda. Had this when I was in college

Forget calories

Wait, no, you really should watch what you eat. Closely. Count those calories, in fact.

But if you’re making fitness about “I ran X miles, I should be able to eat X calories” you’re missing the point of fitness. And I’d bet you’re also frustrated at your lack of results.

I used to be this way, and then I discovered this is actually a very abstract (and ultimately wrong) way to measure fitness. Yeah, it works, to a degree. But notice that some people eat what they want and don’t gain weight, and so on?

That’s because the body’s functions are based on equilibrium. If it’s used to being a certain way, it’ll do what it takes to stay that way. And it’ll always find the path of least resistance to maintain that equilibrium. And if an out of shape body can find a way to check out, it probably will.

Meaning, fitness is not about how active you are or what you eat, but whether you let your body check out and lose its shape.

I’ve seen this phenomenon most in distance runners. It’s a common misconception that running far is somehow better than running fast. What happens is they run in a certain shuffle, which allows their core muscles to check out. So it’s a double-whammy. The core muscles don’t become a part of the workout, and they also don’t hold the organs in place properly (since they’re so slack) which allows them to distend. Basically meaning a slow runner can eat a lot more than a fast runner.

You see where I’m going with this?

Now it’s true, speed work is not for the meek. You’re asking a lot of those tendons, especially if you’re a beginner. But if you focus on those workouts that engage core muscles, and keep it working, and work it into your fitness regimen, that’s when you see your body change.

When your core muscles work, your other muscles have an easier time doing their performance. The weight will be off joints and tendons that were not meant to handle that weight. With your core solidly tucked away in your abdomen, you’ll also find the pressure off your back.

And yes, you’ll lose weight.

Everything changes.

You might even start to get interested in weightlifting.

In defense of the Inquisition

The Inquisition has a bad rap.

No, I’m not talking about the Spanish Inquisition, though if you haven’t heard, that also got a bad rap. The Iron Maidens and torture chambers and shadowy omnipotent clerical order were all myths perpetrated by rival powers. The BBC had a great documentary about this. And if you really want to get into it, this guy offers a good analysis.

I bring these up because the Spanish Inquisition has been so tarred as systematic atrocity that the very concept of an Inquisition itself has been tarred as some barbaric relic of the past. But if we take the time to dissect what an Inquisition really is, we find that it has solid legal standing and has a proper place in civil society.

If you just look at the word itself, Inquisition, it comes from the same root at Inquire. It simply refers to an authority figure asking questions of people. You could compare it to Israeli airport security. The American experience of security is a humiliating one: you get shoved through a porn scanner and have to take off your shoes, get felt up, or worse. Israeli security focuses more on asking you a whole lot of questions. What is your purpose for flying, who are you coming to visit, where do they live, etc. It’s a much more respectful experience.

With this understanding, we can understand the Spanish Inquisition to be a far more benign and legal procedure. And we can also use it to try and solve some modern issues.

I became interested in the concept over time, over many debates with people. Not all debates are good natured, generally they are toxic affairs where you only know you’re right when the other party changes the topic. And that’s what makes a standard debate ultimately fruitless – you lack any authority to have the other person acknowledge their error.

These last few months of debates with Muslims have shed some new significance on this issue. Where they claim innocence, but when you press them on issues like insulting their prophet, Jihad or Sharia, they change the subject, become violent, or shut you out.

But here in Western Democracies, we have the right to know these things.

So, when it comes to fighting Islamism in the developed world, we have some options. Islamic reformers have said that its two main tenets that make it incompatible with Western society are Sharia and Jihad, and they have to reform away from that. Or else what? What’s the incentive to voluntarily get away from it?

Why should the rest of us wait for Islam to have an internal reformation? Why can’t we put pressure from without with an Inquisition? If they live in our countries, we have every right to ask them such questions. Do they acknowledge Sharia law as a higher authority than Civil law? Do they agree with Jihad and religious spread through violent conquest? Do they agree that if someone insults their prophet they should fear for their life?

Why can’t we call them in for questioning on these issues? Why do we need to subject ourselves to all sorts of random surveillance, searches, and costly monitoring, when we see the ideology that is the wellspring of such violence?

The major criticism to anticipate is this violates the 1^st Amendment. Which is nonsense. The freedom of religion does not grant the right to freely commit crimes under the guise of religion. If there were, for example, a rash of babies being stolen by Jews to be used to make Matza (i.e. if Blood Libel were actually true and backed by evidence), then this kind of Inquisition would be justified.

The other doubt to anticipate is that subjects could lie to the inquisitor’s face. But that claim doesn’t hold much water either. First of all, it doesn’t match with my personal experience. People don’t lie, especially when it comes to deeply held religious principles. Apply that to religious leaders whose career depends on their word and that effect is multiplied. Besides, we’ve gotten good enough in psychology to learn how to ask questions in ways so it’s impossible to lie without eventually contradicting oneself.

At any rate, these are my thoughts on the issue. They are by no means final, let alone popular. It is more a thought experiment to get the ball rolling, and bring up some new ideas to deal with 21^st century challenges.

It will be because of the left, not the right

Thinking of sending this letter to the Economist, figured I’d post it here first. It’s in response to two contradictory articles they posted; claiming the PEGIDA march is Neo-Nazi (“Gone Boy on the Right“), and saying Jews don’t have to fear Muslim attacks (“Be Not Afraid“). The irony was a bit much not to write about.

SIR – I have this game I like to play with PEGIDA march pictures, called “Spot the Nazi.” I pore through the dozens of pictures of thousands of people, trying to find a single person, a single sign, with some neo-Nazi sign or signal. So far, I’ve found nothing. So I was rather amused when a tabloid picked up some obscure picture of one of the organizers in a Hitler pose and threw it all over the place like a political football. It wound up all the way on your journal (“Gone Boy on the Right”), so kudos for that.

I say this in contrast to the “Free Palestine” marches, where a child couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a neo-Nazi reference. Really, these marches were so glutted with stark raving mad anti-Semitism that it doesn’t bear repeating. It just reminds me of what Marx said, that things happen a second time as farce.

So it is rather cute that while you take such great pains to characterize the far right parties as neo-Nazi (implying some threat to Jews), you take equal lengths (“Be Not Afraid”) to be cavalier about the plight of Jews in Europe. Indeed your tone (the Jews deserve it because of Israel, and they’re so weird looking aren’t they?) does more to reaffirm fears than assuage them.

Fear tends to anticipate the final act rather than patiently wait for it: perhaps today Jews aren’t in clear and present danger in England. But they are in France, they are leaving in droves, and already Netanyahu has plans on his desk to absorb all 120,000 French Jews into Israeli society. England is undergoing the same demographic shift as France, and if France falls to Islamism and a flight of the Jews, England is not far behind.

And ironically, it will be because of the left, not the right.

Inferno Los Angeles – year in review

We’ve been in publication since the beginning of 2014, and we knew from the beginning that publicity would be an uphill climb. Nobody knew who we were as creators or a publication, and we were asking people to pay $30 for our book. We had no connection to publishers, distributors, or publicists, not so much as a cheat sheet to go by, and we had to sink or swim in the cutthroat world of publishing.

But we came in with certain advantages. First is the book itself. The simple beauty of the layout and the artwork draws people in immediately. And we kept it a perennial, meaning we expect to be actively selling this for at least the next couple of years.

Indeed, the traditional publishers’ schedule of “two month media blitz and forget it” couldn’t really apply to us when it took us a few months just to get into Barnes and Noble. Not to mention nobody would look at us until we had a physical copy to show them.

With that in mind, this year went better than we could have hoped. We exhibited at several conventions, including San Diego Comic-Con, Wondercon, Amazing Las Vegas Comic-Con, and a preview at Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco.

We’ve experimented with various forms of advertising. From online ads, to an ads in local journals, to a small neighborhood billboard.

We’ve had successful signings at events and bookstores, too many to mention here, but which include iconic stores as Barnes and Noble on 3^rd St Promenade, and Meltdown Comics, Hollywood’s premier comic book shop.

Our reviews are still lacking, as reviewers tend to like already established productions. But we got a small review in Fanboy Comics and a great writeup in The Argonaut, a local LA Beach Cities paper with a circulation of about 30,000.

Looking back, I would say bookstore appearances have been our best bet by far. Bookstores remain irreplaceable as a place to meet authors and find new and exciting material, and that remains our greatest asset.

So, looking to next year, our biggest issue remains the same. Once people see us, they love us. The issue is to get people to see us. We will keep pushing for more book reviews, more writeups, and more book tours, in Los Angeles and other cities.

UKIP – from a joke to a threat

It’s a testament to just how rare sentient thought is within the human race. The UKIP’s recent electoral successes sparked the predictable frightened reaction from dominant journals like the Economist.

And I say that by looking at the tone of the article. Britons have genuine concerns about issues like immigration and the cost of the EU, issues the UKIP are riding high on, but this article is not concerned with that. Rather, it attacks UKIP on the very issues that characterize a fledgling party: lack of organization, not-so-well-thought-out platform, or that they’re just riding on “charisma” (whatever that means).

Such are issues for UKIP to discuss among themselves, not for outsiders to criticize. Success and growth bring new challenges. The UKIP need to figure out how to handle their success and prepare for the next step of refining their message to reach a wider audience, actually handling power, and exercising it successfully.

Rather, the issue here for the rest of us is the vacuum in the discussion, or as they say, the elephant in the room. From my desk all the way here in Los Angeles, the issue isn’t even so much immigration itself, it’s that the immigrants are not being absorbed into British society, and are instead just festering on the margins, feeding off its safety net, and threatening to reform it in their image.

Muslim immigrants, specifically.

It is an issue that The Economist has made oblique reference to in the past in this study: They Can’t Imagine Not Working. It’s one thing to welcome immigrants, it is another to make sure society actually benefits from them, rather than them being an albatross around its neck. And it looks like England is drifting from the American benefit version to the European albatross version.

Why not admit it? In these days where politics has embraced social media, it is easier than ever to see what people are frustrated with. There is no way established institutions can deny what’s happening in the British population. On the flip side, it’s easier than ever to respond to it.

Like I said though, I’m just a guy sitting at my desk in Los Angeles, reading what the papers and select tweeters tell me. But this is a question I’d like to see discussed. And I’m not alone. If the Economist, the Tories, and other parties are willing to enter this discussion, they will attract the attention and passion of mainstream voters, and relegate UKIP back to irrelevance.

But if they simply caricature UKIP as some stuffy old character from Paddington Bear, they are leaving the UKIP’s main issue, and main cause for success, unanswered. That will give them greater and greater power until they can solve the problem themselves. If the UKIP really are the demagogues people say they are, it’ll be a much less effective solution than what could have been done by enlightened statesmen.

Response from ADL re: UCLA Divest motion

For those of you who don’t know, UCLA’s student government recently passed a motion calling on the UC to divest from Israeli companies and academic institutions. As an active Bruin, this disturbs me greatly. I wrote to the ADL, this is their thoughtful and complete response. I figured I’d make it publicly available.

————–

Thank you for contacting ADL regarding your concern, especially as a UCLA alum, over the recent passage of a BDS resolution targeting Israel by the Undergraduate Student Association. We are well-aware of this particular situation and worked diligently with the UCLA Jewish and pro-Israel students, staff and faculty in helping them determine their best course of action. We reported on this situation last week on our website and Facebook page. I have included the links for you below:

· ADL Los Angeles Blog: Jewish Students Display Strategy and Strength in Face of BDS Movement on Campus

· Access ADL National Blog: California Campuses See Increase in Anti-Israel Activity

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, both on and off campus, are something that ADL has been fighting since they first became active. We are a great resource for Hillel professionals, Jewish and pro-Israel undergraduate and graduate students, university administrators and campus leaders on issues related to anti-Semitism, responding to anti-Israel activism and developing pro-Israel programming. ADL provides most of its support “behind the scenes,” empowering students, faculty and staff to stand up to effect change.

ADL has a multitude of resources, including a Webpage talking about BDS and other anti-Israel activities in the U.S. and how to combat these activities, as well as one specifically for campus issues, College Campus Affairs. All of our resources and publications are free and available to the public.

We appreciate the time you took reaching out to us about this. Please continue to check our website and social networking pages to see further updates about campus activities and what ADL is doing on campuses across the country.

Sincerely,

ADL (name redacted)

Migrating away from Facebook commenting

Facebook has a problem with Jews. I hate saying that, I hate complaining about things I have no control over, but I too have shortcomings and I have to complain. They suspended me from commenting for 24 hours because I put forward the following in a comment on someone’s post:

The Jews are ONE people.
They have ONE G-d.
Their ONE capital is Jerusalem.
The heart of Jerusalem is Temple Mount.

Makes no sense, does it? Makes no sense to me.

To add insult to injury, I see the lie that Israeli Jews are some fake Ashkenazi Zionazi conspiracy all the time. It’s not even worth fighting it, the hordes repeat it so often. And I’m not the only one, in face, there’s a quiz about it. And I hear other Jews complain that their rebuttals get removed from Facebook all the time.

Now I’ve defended Facebook against its detractors for years, because I know they never challenged the core of its business model – the ability to moderate people’s interaction. In fact that’s an adage: the Internet belongs to those who can moderate it.

Now, was what I said provocative? Sure why not. I don’t think it was insulting or hate speech. But at this point, if Facebook blocks this, I have no idea what else I, or others, could say defending Israel that will get them forcibly removed from the conversation. Remember they also blocked my Blood Libel pic, a pic that generated two lengthy threads and the ADL deemed important enough to act on.

And if we are to have a discussion on Israel, it means especially Jews need to be free to express their beliefs without fear of being shut down. Facebook cannot guarantee that, and that means they cannot moderate the discussion. We need to move the discussion to other channels.

I will also look into a Twitter plugin, since a lot of my discussion has been on there, and has been free of censorship.

CNN complicit in fake West Bank “shooting”

I knew it the moment I saw the camera footage CNN showed claiming an IDF soldier shot an Arab with live ammo. It was fake.

Not just because the guy fell to the ground in a way that would make an Italian soccer player blush. But because the scene looked quite familiar. And it is. It’s a known “Pallywood” fake death site.

Take a look two screen grabs. Here’s the current stage of the West Bank “shooting”:

West Bank “shooting” per CNN

And here’s the stage of the above Pallywood video:

Everything is the freaking same. They didn’t even bother to move the dumpsters.

Now, to me this isn’t another “gotcha” moment for Pallywood. Arab sympathizers spam lies like Hamas spams rockets, and it gets tiresome to constantly catch them. No, this time I point the finger at CNN.

Because, much like the White House State Department, established institutions need to do a basic level of fact checking before they make public statements. To not make even this rudimentary level, before attaching it to the POTUS or a major media channel, is no longer a glitch or some oversight. You become complicit in spreading lies and corrupting an institution.

To benefit terrorists, at that.

UPDATE: Turns out the two videos are actually the same video. From back in May. Apparently CNN also likes to recycle old footage.

Pallywood fall (2:55):

CNN fall:

Mr. Biggs's blog

Damning social commentary from the guy who brought you Inferno Los Angeles