Alice Banchini of Alice in Texas has written an interesting post on Civilisation and its enemies. In this post she analyzes the three factions she sees: Islamofascists, Americanists, and Europeanists. Steven Den Beste wrote something a little similar to this early this year in his post Three-way Struggle. Viriginia Postrel in her book The Future and its Enemies describes the struggle between dynamists and stasists.
I think they’re all talking about roughly the same thing and I’d like to suggest a slightly different way of looking at it: tribal traditionalists, Fordists, and millenial capitalists. [continue reading…]
Try this for a fancy dessert that’s incredibly delicious and incredibly easy. Please note that this recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate. Not milk chocolate. Not baking chocolate. Lindt Excellence is especially good. If you’re feeling flush use Callebaut.
Bittersweet Chocolate Truffle Tart
at least 10 servings
1 pie crust made with Oreo crumbs (homemade or pre-fab)
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1¼ cups heavy cream
1 Tbsp. orange liqueur or 1 Tbsp. dark rum
Make a chocolate crumb crust according to the instruction on the Oreo crumbs box or see below.
Place the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan,
bring the cream to a simmer over moderate heat. Pour the hot cream over the
chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds. Stir until the chocolate is melted and
smooth. Add the liqueur. Strain the chocolate cream into the crumb crust and spread to form a smooth even layer. Refrigerate until chilled and set, 3 to 5 hours. As soon as the chocolate is firm , cover the tart with plastic wrap. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
It’s particularly nice when you garnish the center of the tart with a few fresh raspberries or strawberries and a few fresh mint leaves.
Oreo Crumb Crust
1 cup Oreo crumbs
¼ cup melted butter
Mix crumbs with butter.
Press into 9” tart pan or springform pan (or regular pie pan).
Robin Burk of Winds of Change has a great interview with a young Iraqi woman who is working as General Petraeus’s translator. Get another distinctive point-of-view on the war in Iraq.
I’ve been serving as an election judge for more than sixteen years now and I have to admit I’m not looking forward to the election this time around. I originally began this gig to do my civic duty and to meet my neighbors and I still enjoy that part well enough. But my sense is that there are some pretty angry people out there and some of that anger is bound to be turned against me just because I’m there. The strategy of the news media these days in perseverating on allegations of people being disenfranchised and voting fraud seems to be to introduce a relationship of antagonism between voters and the election process.
The tape appears to be from al-Qaeda’s media liaison organization. It has a banner crediting the Sahab Production Committee. The speaker refers to Bin Ladin and Zawahiri as “our leaders” and praises the 11 September attacks.
Intelligence officials believe:
Videotape message likely produced in late summer ’04 due to references to current events such as the 9/11 Commission.
Individual is college educated, either American born or raised in the U.S.
The U.S. is actively seeking to identify the individual. Adam Gadhan – aka Adam Pearlman of Southern California – remains the chief candidate but another still unknown individual may be possible.
Pearlman was highlighted by the FBI in May as an individual most likely to be involved in or have knowledge of the next al Qaeda attacks.
US intelligence officials say the danger is that if this individual is an American citizen, he will be immersed in the culture and customs and have the ability to travel in America freely and unnoticed.
Developing…
UPDATE: Rev. Donald Sensing (back at least temporarily from hiatus) has a good analysis of why the tape is in all probability an empty threat.
The Intifada may have hurt Israel, but it consumed Palestine, leaving it with only the counterfeit of a functioning society. Terrorism leaves nothing but ash. And when Arafat dies, as all men must, his legacy, no less than his corpse will be contested by a swarm of pretenders — a power struggle, of possibly surpassing savagery among men nurtured — at the European taxpayer’s dime — for their skill at terror.
The person on the tape that may-or-may-not be a story has been suggested to be someone called “Assam the American”. Here’s what Drudge says in the link I cited below:
US intelligence officials believe the man on tape may be Adam Gadhan – aka Adam Pearlman, a California native who was highlighted by the FBI in May as an individual most likely to be involved in or have knowledge of the next al Qaeda attacks.
According to the FBI, Gadahn, 25, attended al-Qaida training camps and served as an al-Qaida translator.
The disturbing tape runs an hour — the man simply identifies himself as ‘Assam the American.
Matt Drudge has been reporting all day that ABC is in possession of a tape warning of an impending terror attack on the United States:
In the last week before the election, ABCNEWS is holding a videotaped message from a purported al Qaeda terrorist warning of a new attack on America, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The terrorist claims on tape the next attack will dwarf 9/11. “The streets will run with blood,” and “America will mourn in silence” because they will be unable to count the number of the dead. Further claims: America has brought this on itself for electing George Bush who has made war on Islam by destroying the Taliban and making war on Al Qaeda.
ABCNEWS strongly denies holding the tape back from broadcast over political concerns during the last days of the election.
It’s beginning to look as though there’s something to the story after all: [continue reading…]
Zenpundit has posted his next two examinations of Dr. Thomas Barnett’s deleted Scene on System Perturbation, Section III here and Section IV here.
I continue to find Dr. Barnett’s notion of an integrated Core and a non-integrating Gap perplexing. How long has there been a Core? What is its history? If it existed a hundred years ago, what were the then-Core’s rule-sets? How have the rule-sets changed over time? [continue reading…]
The person on the tape that may-or-may-not be a story has been suggested to be someone called “Assam the American”. Here’s what Drudge says in the link I cited below:
