Dunce Cap

So, did you hear there's a new Pope? Yeah, Benedict. "Good word." A German or something. He was in the Hitler Youth. You've heard of Hitler, right? He was like this racist dictator or something about a hundred years ago. Anyway, a totally bad dude. So this new Pope Benedict -- I guess he's like the President of the Catholics. Catholics are like Christians. But the Pope isn't a dictator, like Hitler was. Well maybe he is a dictator, but not a bad one. More like a King. King of the Catholics. Or Emperor. Something like that. Anyways, so Pope Benedict was giving a lecture at the University of Regensburg? I guess that's in some town called Regensburg. And in this long boring lecture he quoted some old dead emperor -- dude named Manuel II Paleologus ... Mexican I guess ... thought he was German -- who said to this Persian dude -- that's Iranian -- anyway, this Manuel dude said, "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and in-human, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Then the Pope went on to talk about how Allah -- that's the Moslem god -- was transcendent.

Yes. This is all idiocy for the following reason. In Somalia over the weekend, a nun was killed. Retaliation. And so on. It seems the adherents of the Religion off Peace have once more yet again been offended yet again once more. And what better way to express their outrage than by murdering nuns? Very linear thinkers, these Moslems. Because a scholarly pope quotes a single sentence from a Byzantine emperor six hundred years ago, blood must be spilled in the streets.

But all this is old hat. We do remember the Cartoon Jihad, after all, when all of Islamdumb rose up in righteous ire against the insidious Danes. No, honestly, we have learned to expect nothing less from Dar al-Islam -- and nothing more. CAIR, that sensible group of moderate Moslemites, has condemned the Pope's words as "derogatory". I mean, who but a monster would quote a Byzantine emperor's opinion about Islam? It's, it's so, so provokkkative. Flecks of spittle are spraying from my lips even as I contemplate the matter. If you could see me, I'd be quite embarrassed. I've totally lost control of myself. I just now had to pick myself up off the floor. If I knew any Catholics, I'd go out and kill them. In sympathy for the poor inflamed and derogatorated CAIR muslimists. You know what it's like to be inflamed. It's like sunburn, or an erection. Not to be tolerated. And of course, if you are Moslem, you don't have to tolerate anything. Especially the opinion of long-dead emperors.

As I say, old hat. Old tiara, papal and imperial. Old kalipha turban. There is no insight to be found here. Moslems, like any third world tribe, are subject to mass hysteria, delusions, religious frenzies, mob violence, etc. It's obvious. Beyond all possibility of rational debate. What? -- you think I've made an unfair and sweeping generalization? -- based on prejudice and ignorance? I...I hardly know what to say. I thought we were friends. That you should turn on me like this is inexplicable. Don't you like me anymore? I'm going to have to riot about this. I'm a Dane -- I guess I'm going to have to burn down my embassy.

The real point, the new hat -- the really pointed new hat, then -- is this: Somebody sat in the audience listening to the pope, and deliberately took that one line, out of context, and broadcast it to the Moslem world. Just as somebody scoured the back pages of Danish newspapers for cartoons. And so on. Do you notice a pattern?

The dust of the Arab street is being stirred up, on purpose. Dust is so useful, and there's so much of it. It obscures the harsh outlines of reality. It hides faces. It's almost as useful as the dark of night. Add a little blood and it makes a mud that will slow down pursuers. Yes, in a very crude and obvious way, third world Moslems are being manipulated. By whom? You can fill out your own list. Yeah, it's just flame to the tinder -- stupid people need only pathetic excuses to demonstrate their stupidity -- but I suppose it's a good thing to identify the firebugs, rather than blame the forest for burning. Hmm. Looks like I've stumbled upon a solution. And coming from me, by now you must know what that would be.

If you could travel back in time, would you kill baby Hitler?


J