As always, lots of good stuff at Crossroads Arabia, just start at the top and scroll on down. What caught my eye: Some Arab voices are poiting out that Islamism is bad for business and the exodus of Christians from the Middle East, especially Christian Palestinians.

Noblesse oblige is not yet dead in the UK: Prince Harry is soon off to Iraq with a troop unit.

European Jihadists Recruited for Action in Somalia. I’ll bet Europe won’t hinder their leaving.

I roast my own coffee beans but for the Philistines who buy supermarket coffee, Coffee Review surveys what’s out there: ” … the mainstream supermarket coffees reviewed here offered mainly mediocrity, bracketed by a couple of excursions into pretty good and more than a couple into sheer repulsiveness. Part way through this cupping it struck me as mysterious why anyone would even drink coffee if they were limited to the most common of the canned brands reviewed here. I suppose anything hot, brown, cheap and caffeinated beats NoDoz or overpriced energy drinks.”

Want to grow your church, synagoue or mosque? Use drums.

Holy Land Photos is just what it says, with 2,761 photos online.

Michael Totten is back in Lebanon, visiting many of the sites fought over last summer; he just posted about The Siege of Ain Ebel.

Which format will win the HD DVD wars, Blu Ray or HD-DVD? Movie Blog says that if the “Format War of the 80s” are proleptic for today, the issue was just decided. With finality. I see his point, but I have to confess this didn’t occur to me.

Belmont Club reports bad news for US troops in Iraq, and (surprise!) it’s from Iran.

1. Shrink Wrapped blog says that Flags of Our Fathers is not a story about heroism, it is an anti-heroic story. Strategy Page offers another review (my review here) that makes a point I haven’t seen before and didn’t think of myself:

([N]o one, anywhere smokes. This movie is rated R for soldier language and graphic violence including scenes of men with their guts literally blown out - but some things are simply beyond the pale.)

That’s right - in a time of our society where half the civilians and at least two-thirds of frontline troops smoked (probably more) there is not a cigarette to be seen, not even in bars. Hence, for this and other reasons, “In the end, Flags of Our Fathers tells us less about America in 1945 than it does about America in 2006.”

2. Michael Wilde has posted American Leadership and War. Which presidents and political parties were responsible for America’s deadliest wars? See 231 years of American warfare, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq, illustrated in 90 seconds.

3. The Jacksonian Party has a “Plan to Stabilize Iraq.” The post promises we won’t like the plan. They’re right.

4. A pretty fair article about blogs, bloggers and the Army was sent out Monday, “Army Monitors Soldiers’ Blogs, Web Sites.” Thanks to Michael Silence for the tip!

5. The formation of an Iraqi Islamist State? So it was announced by our enemy in mid-October.

A contributor to the Al-Firdaws forum stated that “This state will constitute a starting point to establish the upcoming state of the Islamic caliphate,” and called on other Iraqi jihadist factions to pledge allegiance to the new state (Al-Firdaws, 16 October).

Right according to form.

6. Via email, Richard Heddleson says that “DoD is starting to get it. A little too buttoned down, Irreverence free, but headed in the right direction. http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html Deserves broad dissemination, regular updates and daily visits.” Yep. I would point out that I called for “a deliberate domestic-information program and office to be established” 15 months ago.

7. Smallest Minority has a long post about the nature of human rights. I hope to have time to respond to it.

8. Jules Crittenden, whom I’ve cited (and sometimes disagreed with) many times, should be on your regular reading list.

9. A reader kindly emailed me links to a series on coffee in the LA Times. I parked the links and no longer have the email, but I do thank you, whomever you were, and I apologize for not hat-tipping you by name here. As my long-term readers know I am something of a coffee nut, these links are most appreciated. I don’t know how long the links will stay “live.”

- The new coffee connoisseur
- A passion for quality gathered steam
- Artisans of the roast
- Enjoy the show, and then a great cup
- Flavor stays in, buzz stays out

10. In response to the classified “sliding toward chaos” Central Command slide the NY Times printed, Gateway Pundit offers an argument that things aren’t so bad as they’re made out to be by the MSM in Iraq. Nationwide, there are now 90 Iraqi army battalions in the lead for counter-insurgency operations.

In response, I’d point out that the Iraqi army, even with serious problems that remain with it, the army is not the security challenge in Iraq. As Ralph Peters pointed out, the Iraqi army is the one institution that works even halfway well. The police are almost completely corrupt and the Shia militias seem to have at least quasi-official sanction from Maliki’s government. So the number of Iraqi army battalion in the lead doesn’t tell the whole story even though it is good news.

11. The “incredible disappearing Euro.” Literally.

One of the characteristics of True Religion is the ironclad belief in possessing Absolute Truth. We’ve seen a lot of that lately.

Because Islamists hold that their True Religion alone is ultimate, eternal and holy, “insulting” Islam is so grievous that it must be punished by death - the ultimate form of speech control.

But there are other True Religions whose adherents seek to control others’ speech, though not as violently as Islamists. Take for example, the Western Left. By now most blog readers are well aware of the suppresion through intimidation at Columbia University of speaker Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen border-watching organization. Peggy Noonan smmarizes:

As [he] spoke, angry students stormed the stage, shouting and knocking over chairs and tables. “Having wreaked havoc,” said the New York Sun, they unfurled a banner in Arabic and English that said, “No one is ever illegal.” The auditorium was cleared, the Minutemen silenced. Afterward a student protester told the Columbia Spectator, “I don’t feel we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. . . . The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration.”

This is a form of Holy War. I have explained before that al Qaeda’s main war is against other Muslims.

How can Muslims make war on other Muslims when it is prohibited in the Quran? The same way that Christians in Europe killed one another over religion during the religious internecine wars of Europe that occurred regularly from the 16th to 17th centuries. If you see yourself as the defenders of the true faith, then you exclude from the faith the other side.

… Al Qaeda excludes most of the world’s Muslims from the umbrella of protection afforded by the Quran. Either al Qaeda considers them apostate or heretical Muslims, thus not truly Muslims, thus permissible to kill, or al Qaeda considers collateral deaths permissible in the furtherance of its aims. Or both, in some way.

Do you see the ideological similarity (or identity) between the man holding the “death to insulters” sign, above, and the “angry students” at Columbia University?

Both are adherents of True Religion, the former a type of Islam and the latter a political absolutism. Both claim the authority to define whose speech, and what kind of speech, is permissible in society, and both will punish those who transgress. Both are tyrants.

Speech control is more insidious than we might think. Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, emails,

My new Op-Ed is now up on Examiner.com: “When will the right recognize the cost of conceding Web 2.0?”

In it I related my experience over the past several years watching my friends on the left build and control most every “node” in the emerging Web 2.0 and talk about how the Michelle Malkin/You Tube controversy is just the leading edge of a very broad sword which liberals are using to cut conservatives out of the online national dialog. I have been trying to wake folks up to this issue for a few years with no luck. Maybe now they will start to listen.

He analogizes that with radio, all stations are equally accessible no matter who makes the radio, but when persons with specific political slants own and thus control internet nodes, such as Google or Youtube, they can - and do - control whose content gets carried there. For example:

Enter Fox News pundit, author and top-rated blogger Michelle Malkin. Last week she received notice from YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing service, that her video had been deemed “offensive.” The result? Her account was terminated and her videos deleted.

YouTube refused to say why her videos were “offensive” and there was no avenue available to challenge the decision. Today, her videos are gone and her voice is suppressed on the most important video “node” on the Internet.

Some might note that Malkin can still host her videos elsewhere. Of course she can, but that would fail to understand the powerful forces of “network externalities” at play online. There is no Avis to eBay’s Hertz for good reason: Once an online network is fully catalyzed, there is no reason to join an alternative network. If you want to get the most money for your Beanie Baby collection, you are going to want access to the most potential bidders — and that means eBay.

YouTube is poised to become the eBay of video file sharing. If you want the biggest audience for your video, you want access to the most potential viewers — and that means YouTube.

Peggy Noonan concludes her column,

There’s a pattern here, isn’t there?
It is not only about rage and resentment, and how some have come to see them as virtues, as an emblem of rightness. I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail. It is about something so obvious it is almost embarrassing to state. Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This-listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity-is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing. …

Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don’t. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn’t come quickly, they’ll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don’t always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

Peggy, they don’t ever think they are bullying. They believe in a True Religion that cannot tolerate open dissent therefrom. They will not render “the price we pay for living in a great democracy” because they do not like democracy and oppose it in principle and ideology. “They want their vision imposed.”

They are tyrants and must be identified as such.

Update: Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe that,

[E]nemies of free speech … insist not only that speakers with politically incorrect opinions be shunned, but that anyone offering them a platform be punished as well. …

Environmental writer Mark Lynas, for example, puts dissent on climate change “in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial — except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.” This totalitarian view is taking root everywhere, making skepticism on climate change taboo and subjecting anyone reckless enough to question the global-warming dogma to mockery and demonization. Former vice president Al Gore lumps “global warming deniers,” some of whom are eminent scientists, with the “15 percent of the population (who) believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona” and those who “still believe the earth is flat.”

The silencers are at work in the marketplace of ideas, using hook or crook to smother opinions they dislike. The lust to censor is as powerful as ever. If only liberty’s defenders were equally vigilant.

Speaking of “global warming,” I posted a follow-up essay on how another characteristic of the Left’s True Religion is apocalypticism (the world is about to end), of which “global warming” is only one manifestation. (Thirty years ago they said the world was going to freeze and that the danger was a new ice age.)

… is watching this guy. And good on them, too.

It occurs to me that I haven’t done a posting of just links in a long time, so herewith a belated addition to my “linkagery” series.

1. A joint Muslim-Christian press conference in Washington, DC:

“Violence is not the answer,” said Imam Mahdi Bray, of the Washington DC-based Muslim American Society (MAS).

2. Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to Stone Age,” if it didn’t support US against Taliban. Bush administration denies charge, sort of.

3. Why is the Internal Revenue Service the country’s “speech police?” Jay Sekulow wants to know. He says the rules of political activity by churches, regarding their tax exemption, have been selectively enforced to favor some political speech over others, and it’s time to let churches exercise their First Amendment rights.

Speaking of which, I posted on Sept. 15 that Tennessee candidate for the US Senate, Democrat US Rep. Haorld Ford, had filmed a campaign as inside his home church in Memphis. Here’s a grab from the ad:

Ford makes only a passing reference to the church, not mentioning it by name, then moves on to cast aspersions on the integrity of his opponent, Republican Bob Corker.

4. Senior al Qaeda leader calls for Muslims to evacuate New York and Washington, DC, says major attack is near. Andi comments,

I’ve discounted al-Qaeda video and audio tapes in recent months, but that does not mean that I’ve discounted the threat. I firmly believe that the United States will see another terrorist attack on its soil, one that could dwarf 9/11, but the tapes and warnings have been numerous since 9/11 and I see no correlation between claims and actions, perhaps that’s by design.

I wrote more than two years ago that Al Qaeda doesn’t threaten what it plans to do, and does do what it never threatened.

5. Coolest Insurgent Act - Stealing almost $7 million from the main bank in Ramadi in broad daylight, then, upon exiting, waving to the Marines in the combat outpost right next to the bank, who had no clue of what was going on. The Marines waved back. Too cool.

There are a lot more categories. Such as why in Kusaybah, “you can’t fight City Hall:”

Bad Guys arrived at the government center in the small town of Kubaysah to kidnap the town mayor… . There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor’s hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machinegun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can’t fight City Hall.

Read the whole thing.

6. Why did the chicken cross the road?

Iraqi Makeshift Government: The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

WWE: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only
cost the US government $326,004.

Muqtada al-Sadr: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

There’s more.

7. Briton Gerard Baker, always read-worthy, writes that Europe continues to pathetically cave in to Islamists, even in Afghanistan.

8. Speaking of Afghanistan, Portland, Ore., TV Channel 8 has an outstanding Afghanistan blog. Not just American entries from soldiers there, also lots of information and entries about Canadian troops, too. Like this Canuck trooper:

The Canadians aren’t pathetically caving in, that’s for sure. Remember, their initial force to Afghanistan was the largest combat operation Canada mounted since the Korean War.

Here’s a page of links to videos from Afghanistan.

If you have three grand lying around with nothing to do, why take a Zero-G flight like the astronauts do? And lots more interesting stuff linked at MurdocOnline.

** US News on the link between terrorists and organized crime, an excellent piece.

** Saddam’s WMDs - two members of the Iraq Survey Group say they darn well did find them, too: One and Two.

** Cuttin’ and runnin’ - Sen. Joe Lieberman’s eloquent rationale of why we can’t do that and an excellent piece by Robert Kagan & William Kristol.

** Blackfive lands a book deal with Simon & Schuster. Good on yer, mate!

** You won’t see this on the news: the story of an ordinary American, and how we are now a poorer nation for his loss. Married less than a year, he died along a dusty road in Iraq. But before he died, he saved a fellow soldier, a fellow American, earning the Silver Star and our respect and gratitude.

** “Europe – Thy Name is Cowardice“: This from “the most powerful voice in the German media against the reappearance of the rotten European appeasement policies of the 20th century.”