sisu

It's not all about us

Just as when an Io moth spreads its wings to terrify avian predators (left), there's nothing more terrifying to feline prey species than Baby himself.

We just stumbled onto something huge this afternoon in an everyday imail chat with our beloved sis. Taking our cue from the awesome, out-of-the-box thinker Tuck for our previous post yesterday, we turned the image of an Io moth (above left) upside down and found it way more terrifying to our own human eye (below left).

But now our sis blindsides us with her take:

She:  I see something different . . . the upsidedown moth [above left] looks too cute and wide-eyed . . . like a baby.

We: LOL. YOU are human, and we are wired to see big-eyed fuzzy things as cute. Not so the bird, who unaccountably finds gaping little beaks pecking at their orange spot adorable.

She: If the moths looked more threatening upside down, I'm sure Mother Nature would have adjusted her plan.

We: You are being only human again. It would depend entirely upon which direction the bird was flying as to which was "up" or "down."

And there you are. The upside, downside thing is nothing more nor less than a human construct, the left-right, up-down thing of our wonderful Western mounted-insect-display case:

We'd never thought about it until today, but our reasonable -- to use our beloved Papa Ratzi's term -- way of mounting biological specimens is always with their heads up. (Texas A&M University Insect Collection photo)

We just realized this afternoon that we are so conditioned to view insects with their heads upside and their tails downside that we got it all wrong about how a predator might approach a butterfly or moth.

"Agile, powerful fliers with good vision"

The evil stare of the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) -- AKA Hoot Owl, Cat Owl or Winged Tiger -- strikes terror in the hearts of over 250 species it calls prey, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and other birds sometimes 2 to 3 times heavier than itself. (Newsday Photo/Bill Davis)

We know our hero, Papa Ratzi, has a lot on his mind right now what with leading members of  the Religion of Peace™ calling for his head for condemning religious violence, and we totally agree with TigerHawk when he says "For my part, I am sick of 'Muslim rage.'" As TH suggests in his heroic post, "Grow up!"

In the great evolutionary arms race between predator and prey, birds who want to eat moths and avoid being eaten by Great Horned Owls have learned to beware of that wide-eyed look. Enter, stage left, a number of moths like the Io (Automeris io) above, who have evolved arresting "eye-spots" they can flash to scare away predators. The image above by photographer, writer and naturalist Bev Wigney of Burning Silo is the "after" of a must-see "before-and-after" sequence she calls "Moth surprise."

But when you get a minute, Papa, we'd like to call your attention to the error of your ways when it comes to Darwin's theory of evolution. If we can believe what we read [via disinterested party], you are seriously misreading Darwin's "grandeur in this view of life":

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday issued his strongest criticism yet of evolutionary theory, calling it “unreasonable.”

Speaking to a 300,000-strong crowd in this German city, the former theological watchdog said that, according to such theories derived from Charles Darwin’s work, the universe is “the random result of evolution and therefore, at bottom, something unreasonable.”

The homily appeared to throw the Catholic Church’s full weight behind the theory of intelligent design (ID) -- a subject of massive controversy in the United States. [As we've blogged here early and often] The Catholic Church has for over 50 years accepted Darwin’s theory of random selection as the most probable cause of development, but has always stressed God’s role.

We guess it depends upon what your definition of "random" is, not to mention your definitiion of "unreasonable." Is Islamicist rhetoric unreasonable, yes. Is Darwinian discourse, no. More about that in a moment, but by way of example first, some fascinating news that field naturalist Darwin would have appreciated, "whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb."

Electron microscope images of moth wing scale at point of insertion left (University of Alberta photo) and butterfly wing scales (Pacific Biosciences Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa photo). "When you catch a butterfly or moth you may notice a powder that rubs off of them. This powder is a bunch of tiny scales." According to our own Museum of Science, Boston, "These scales detatch from the wings very easily. This may be an adaptation for escaping spider webs. If a moth flies into a web, the scales may stick but the moth will escape." 

"The emergence of hanging spider webs might have influenced the evolution of flying insects," according to scientists who have found "a 136 million-year-old piece of amber encasing pieces of web and trapped insects," reports MSNBC [via Diane Duane of Out of Ambit]:

The finding helps fill in the gaps of the origin of orb webs, and also indicates predatory spiders likely played a role in the evolution of flying insects. The study is detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Another example of our favorite blind paleontologist, Geerat Vermeij's observation that when it comes to evolution, "everyone is affected mostly by their enemies."

The amber is the oldest known example of a web with trapped insects. Although only few pieces of the web remain, the arrangement of the preserved bits strongly suggests an orb web design.

For example, Grimaldi said, members of the family Lepidoptera, which includes moths and butterflies, are covered in scales that allow them to tumble out of sticky webs.

"And it happens that Lepidoptera evolved around the same time that spiders produced these webs," Grimaldi told LiveScience.

The types of insects caught in the fossilized web are important pollinators today, and may have been darting from flowering plant to flowering plant when they were captured by the web. Agile, powerful fliers with good vision, such as bees, would also stand a better chance of avoiding webs, much as they do today. Small, weak flies or less nimble fliers would have been, and still are, more commonly ensnared.

"Agile, powerful fliers with good vision." That reminds us of Benedict XVI himself when it comes to facing down the threat of Islamic fascism. But here's what we wish the great man would understand, quoted here from the blurb of Vermeij's book, Nature:  An Economic History:

From humans to hermit crabs to deep water plankton, all living things compete for locally limiting resources. This universal truth unites three bodies of thought -- economics, evolution and history -- that have developed largely in mutual isolation.  Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems -- competition, cooperation, adaptation and feedback -- govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle.

What could be more reasonable?

Update: Pajamas Media links with a great punch line:

However, one suspects that Evolutionists won’t be desecrating churches over the matter.

More tough love from John Howard's multicultural spokesman: "Australia Muslim leaders have been 'read the riot act' over the need to denounce any links between Islam and terrorism."

No more "hugs and handshakes"

"Unlike the enemy, when it came to Islam, her bomb-throwing was strictly rhetorical," writes Allapundit of Oriana Fallaci, who died today. "Indeed, Fallaci’s vogue these last few years was, I think, a reaction to western leaders mindlessly chanting 'Islam means peace' even as it becomes increasingly clear that huge swaths of Muslims have a decidedly nuanced view of what 'peace' might mean."

"Given the Pope's brave remarks just this week about Islam and jihad, which has Muslim leaders fuming (when are they not?), it has been heartening to see that [Oriana] Fallaci has had an obvious impact on his thinking," writes Michelle Malkin in her tribute to the woman referred to in our previous post (scroll down) as "the mother of all cognitive dissidents." As we noted, the celebrated and reviled Italian journalist, indicted in her native Italy for criticizing the Religion of Peace,™ was for years a voice in the wilderness trying to warn the West of the gathering forces of darkness. We've blogged here often about Fallaci's spiritual bond with Papa Ratzi -- with whom she had an audience last year -- who shared her alarm over Europe's suicidal loss of belief in itself. Perhaps sensing her time was running out, she gently but firmly chided her soulmate in an essay last summer on the London bombings, excerpted by Michelle, urging the Pope not to whitewash the "illiberal and anti-democratic -- no, cruel --essence of Islam" in the name of interfaith "dialog." Benedetto's uncompromising words this week would have reassured and comforted Fallaci:

Citing historic Christian commentary on holy war and forced conversion, the 79-year-old pontiff quoted from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

No wonder the usual suspects are upset and demanding an apology. Even as a Turkish lawmaker made the inevitable comparison of the Pope to Hitler, a Pakistani official unwittingly put his finger on the problem:

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

Denial and projection, weapons of choice among the faithful of the ROP. More excellent coverage from Time:

In a provocative speech citing the concept of jihad and referencing the Muslim prophet by name, Benedict sends the world a signal that it's time for hard questions -- not hugs and handshakes.

On Tuesday, in a riveting and provocative university lecture, the Pope explored the philosophical and historical differences between Islam and Christianity --a speech that would become the surprise centerpiece of a five-day visit that many had expected would be mostly just a walk down memory lane. There is little doubt left that Benedict is indeed highly attuned to the risks of fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, it is testament to where this problem stands on his list of priorities that he used the occasion of his triumphant return to Regensburg University, where he taught theology in the 1970s, to deliver a lecture that explored how Christians and Muslims may have historically viewed the relationship between violence and faith, based on the two religions' conceptions of the divinity.

His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity's view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that "God is absolutely transcendent." Benedict said that Islam teaches that God's "will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God's will.

ScrappleFace captures the essence of the fumers' response to the Pope's historic speech with only slight exaggeration:

Pope Benedict XVI today apologized for using a quotation in a recent speech that has offended Muslim leaders by implying that the religion of Muhammad has brought little good to the world, and much evil . . .

Upon his return to the Vatican a contrite Mr. XVI today said, “I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression about what Muhammad has done for the world. I was just quoting the old emperor. But upon further reflection, I was reminded of the mighty civilizations that Islam has spawned, and I marveled at their profound contribution to humanity.”

More about the Fallaci-Ratzinger kinship from our own post, "When an atheist and a pope think the same things," quoting an Opinion Journal interview with Tunku Varadarajan last year:

As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself," from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: "The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."

"I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."

In that letter to the Pope last summer, Fallaci referred to herself as a person "who loves you, because you are right about so many things." Amen. From his Tuesday speech:

Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats."

A host of tributes at Pajamas Media.

You can't herd cognitive dissidents

Neither conservative nor liberal in the contemporary sense, "cognitive dissidents" are well informed, think for themselves and aren't afraid to speak their minds. Sky-blue "Silk slip" from Victoria's Secret above evokes the free spirit of this emerging voice in the political landscape.

Neither fish nor fowl, the not-so-silent minority of  political "blends" with "some values from the liberal side and other values from the conservative side" that surfaced in response to Question 21 of Pajamas Media's Princeton Research poll -- blogged here -- have "passionate feelings from all sides of the spectrum, not just the middle ground." PMJ's naming contest for this disparate group of voices who will be heard, announced only yesterday, has drawn such an overwhelming response that they're pushing the deadline forward to tomorrow.

Our own suggestion, "cognitive dissidents," a play on the disorder psychiatrists call cognitive dissonance -- famously described by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs as "an important tool in the recognition and exposure of the modern moonbat" -- is offered in the spirit of the fearless fear-society warrior, former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky.

Bring on those logo-emblazoned PJ's!

Update: The mother of all cognitive dissidents -- indicted in her native Italy for criticizing the Religion of Peace™ -- Oriana Fallaci has died in a Florence hospital. We have blogged about her early and often as a voice in the wilderness trying to warn the West of the gathering forces of darkness.  "You cannot survive if you do not know the past," she famously said, citing the sad state of Western education today where "Students do not know history! They don't for Christ's sake. They don't know who Churchill was!!" Fallaci is dead. Long live Fallaci.

Kitchen patrol

At supper last night Baby gives Tuck an assist in cleaning his bowl.

All eyes and ears, Baby (left) and Tiny apply the think system to get us to open the microwave, where kitty treats lie just beyond their reach.

Tiny retires to "The Safety Zone" atop the coffeemaker, a convenient spot should any food-foray opportunities arise.

Update: Lots more cute kitty pix at Wonkitties, where Orloff and Pushkin are hosting the 129th Carnival of the Cats.

Update II: The animals keep on coming, this time two by two at Modulator's Friday Ark #104.

They should have listened to their young daughters

"Classic pajama in silky satin charmeuse with a subtle luster. An everyday luxury, for sleeping or blogging, from Victoria's Secret," we captioned this photograph in our post "To sleep, perchance to dream" two years back re what John Fund called "a watershed media moment," when CBS executive v.p. Jonathan Klein unwittingly put a twinkle in the eyes of Pajamas Media progenitors Charles Johnson and Roger L. Simon by dismissing bloggers as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas." We posted the same photograph a year later to celebrate PJMs coming to its senses after dabbling with the idea of dubbing our crusade with the tepid "Open Source Media" moniker.

"We’ve been calling these blended people 'X21s' in honor of the poll question," says Pajamas Media, inviting the Army of Davids to come up with a resonant metaphor for those of us round types who will never fit into the square holes of either the left or right side of the political spectrum:

It’s not exactly catchy, so we are now running a contest. Find a new name for X21 -- those political hybrids or blends -- and win the first pair of official Pajamas Media logo-emblazoned PAJAMAS. Your new name will also replace X21 on our site.

"X21" is exactly like PJM's unfortunate flirtation with the name "Open Source Media" in its formative days, a soul-deadening, Sharia-like tin-eared failure to listen to the girls. Here's what we wrote about it last fall just before the old boys came to their senses back when PJM was trembling on the brink:

As both Roger and PJM Editorial Advisory Board Chair Glenn Reynolds happily acknowledge, they should have listened to their young daughters:

Roger: She loved Pajamas and made a sad face at OSM.

The Professor: As the Insta-Daughter said, "Pajamas sounds cheerful. Open Source Media sounds . . . educational."

As we always say, girls just wanna have fun.

Taking our cue from the InstaDaughter, we suggest "Cheers" or something of that ilk to replace "X21."

"The politicians don't know what to do and I am just a 19-year-old"

Rudi Bakhtiar of Fox News shows the world how to wear the veil. Gorgeous, sensuous fabric of early-morning-sunrise color with lots of male-slaying hair rays showing up front . . . and just  below the scarf, a lovely bit of cleavage. This woman is one of our all-time faves.

The Miss England winner, Hammasa Kohistani, whose family left Afghanistan after the Taliban gained power, won the beauty pageant last year, which was marred with controversy. She received death threats and calls to stand down from Muslims who believed that the beauty contest went against the Islamic teachings on women. If media quotations in the Daily Mail can be believed [gak], this woman believes that "Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more." It reminds us of that Miss America quotation from way back, the bottom line of which was a contextless "Love." Beauty queens, like Hollywood celebrities and Democrats, are not known for their philosophical insight.

The lovely looking but clueless British Muslim Miss England, Hammasa Kohistani, exemplifies the stupidity of both so many women and Western multiculti types. Even as she enjoys all the benefits of Enlightenment-derived freedoms, she has the nerve to instruct us in the error of our ways. Her words are as vacuous as any beauty queen's that ever pranced down the walkways of our own Miss America Pageants but nonethless resonate with a grain of truth:

It is not for me to answer how to get people to turn away from terrorism. The politicians don't know what to do and I am just a 19-year-old.

Yes, darling. You are just a 19 year old. You have a lot to learn.

Beauty is empowering, of course, as the vapid Miss England exemplifies, but what about beauty and brains? It doesn't get any better than Iranian American entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari (above), the next "space tourist, "who paid a reported self-earned $20 million to be launched on a Russian Soyuz space capsule for a visit to the International Space Station next week.

A self-made American millionaire who fled with her family from Iran as a teenager when the Mullahs were going bazonkers, Mrs. Ansari is the embodiment of the creativity that freedom can unleash, "a role model for other women who want to do the unexpected" according to a NYT article today. Like a broken clock, the NYT gets it right once in awhile.

If only those legions of angry Muslim males who fear their own sexuality and project their fear upon their womenfolk by forcing them to hide their lights -- both physically and metaphorically -- behind the veil could just relax and see that we're all in this together.

"It's possible he sees his own identity as being American"

"Keith Ellison, running in Minnesota, would be the first Muslim to serve in Congress. He has had to defend past associations with the Nation of Islam," notes the Washington Post caption to the photo above right. (David Joles, Minnesota Star Tribune) The lively debate surrounding the primary candidacy of this bluest of blue-state Democrats has been set in motion not by the local MSM but by a couple of A-class bloggers. "I lead my life in a way to not make religion a big deal," says the candidate. (alt.muslim photo left)

"How can you tell Bill Clinton is lying?" went the old saw. "His lips are moving," came the reply. It's the very definition of a slick politician. Now bloggers are asking the same question of U.S. Congressional primary candidate Keith Ellison, Minnesota's DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) Party's anti-war, pro-Hillarycare golden boy. From the Washington Post:

Jewish Democratic activists have rallied around Ellison. Samuel and Sylvia Kaplan, a Minneapolis couple who are influential fundraisers, said he reminds them of the late senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minn).

But is Catholic-raised Muslim convert Ellison really the Wellstonian ultra-liberal he claims to be? Describing the candidate as "an intelligent and articulate lawyer," The Washington Times explains:

Although DFL endorsement is usually tantamount to nomination in this very liberal district, and DFL nomination is, in turn, tantamount to election, Mr. Ellison . . . was not vetted thoroughly. A number of controversies about his past quickly surfaced.

"Soon after Mr. Ellison won the endorsement of Minnesota Democrats at a party convention in early May, the blogs began drawing attention to the lawmaker's background, and in particular his affiliation with a black Muslim group that espouses anti-Semitic views, the Nation of Islam," reports The New York Sun:

"They've driven the discussion by their own research and analysis," a political science professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., Steven Schier, said. "That's been the real dynamic of the race."

The bulk of the trouble for Mr. Ellison, 43, has come from Minnesota Democrats Exposed, a blog run by a local Republican operative, and a national conservative blog, Power Line, which is best known for helping to bring down a CBS News anchor, Dan Rather . . .

Since the flap over his ties to the Nation of Islam, Mr. Ellison's record on Jewish issues has been spotty, local leaders said. He unequivocally condemned Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, a position that few politically active members of the American Muslim community have been willing to take. However, he recently appeared at a Muslim-organized fund-raiser for his campaign at which a leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations spoke. Many Jewish leaders view that group as apologists for terrorism.

On the one hand Ellison's smoothly articulated progressive politics and photogenic personal style make him the perfect candidate for the ultra-blue Fifth Congressional District. "Ellison doesn't emphasize his Muslim faith, but he doesn't shy away from it either," according to alt.muslim:

"It's good for people to see a reasonable, moderate face of Islam," said Ellison, who has worked with the local Muslim community to promote civic participation . . . [He] remains unfazed while he hits the campaign trail. "I just started studying [Islam] and found it interesting," said Ellison of his conversion many years ago. "I lead my life in a way to not make religion a big deal."

We were intrigued with the comments of OmarG at alt.muslim, responding to other commenters' concerns:

I'm not sure that his identity is based soley on [his] being Muslim. It's possible he sees his own identity as being American or Black American and that Islam is his religion, not necessarily his identity. That's why I don't believe Muslims should seek to become a political block like Jewish Americans have: its too narrow and even many American Jews refuse to take part in the identity politics that some members of their communities try to foster and good on them for it.

Do we hear a melting pot bubbling? Ellison has said that he "never shared Nation of Islam's anti-semitism and should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did." Some have taken him at his word, while others are not so sure. Then there's the matter of his association with and acceptance of campaign contributions from the controversial Council on American-Islam Relations, credibly dubbed by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs "the premier Islamist front group."

Conspiracy theorists worry about taqiya, described by Paul Sperry, author of Infiltration, as the "Muslim art of telling 'white lies; to defend the faith and further the cause of Allah, as instructed in the hadiths, the sacred supplements to the Quran." According to LGF reader jlfintx, presumably quoting from Sperry's book:

Lying about religion to avoid “persecution” (or the consequences of murdering innocent people is my translation) is accepted by Muslims and called taqiya.

The Arab media often uses taqiya to cast Islam in the best light and the west in the worst light, severely distorting facts in the process, admits the editor of the London based daily Al-Sharq Al-Aswat.

Richard Landes's Pallywood comes to mind, of course, but it reminds us of our own media as well. As Scott Johnson of Power Line, quoted in the New York Sun article said, "I think I've eaten their lunch on this story. They're so paralyzed by political correctness they've let us have a field day," he added, referring to the Minneapolis Star Tribune's dhimmitudinous failure to raise questions about Mr. Ellison's past. "That said" -- as they say -- we're thinking, based on all we've read from all sides, that Scott & Company may be overreacting regarding the likeliness of candidate Ellison's intention to turn our nation into a Sharia state. On the other hand, it's possible to read into the words of Ziad Amra, a Minneapolis businessman who was one of the coordinators of that fundraiser where Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Hamas supporter spoke.

"It's only one of 435 [House seats], but it would be a start. You have to start somewhere."

Islamists' patience is legendary. As a Hezbollah commander told a Guardian reporter recently, "Patience is our main virtue."

Update: "We came together, all colors, all faiths, all of us," a jubilant Ellison said, savoring his victory. John at Power Line is skeptical: "It remains to be seen whether even the heavily Democratic 5th wants to send a fringe candidate like Ellison to Congress. In the meantime, [Republican opponent Alan] Fine can use your support to get his message to the voters."

Interestingly, no one beyond Minnesota MSM and Minnesota bloggers took much interest. RINO Senator Lincoln Chaffee's victory in Rhode Island's primary -- with a record voter turnout -- led both local and national news broadcasts. As Jim Addison of Wizbang! noted yesterday, Chaffee opponent Cranston Mayor Steve "Laffey has the conservative credentials, but the GOP establishment is backing Chaffee as the only chance to hold the seat in 'dark blue' RI." Politics as usual.

Update II: Best quote of the day -- from Allah at Hot Air -- re hold-your-nose-and-vote Chaffee win: "My heart says Laffey but my brain says RINO."

Glenn Reynolds never linked

Too much of a good thing at the other end of D. Challener Roe's "2,996 Project: A Tribute to the Victims of 9/11." All afternoon it's been unavailable. At first we thought to our selves, "Instalanche." But no. Glenn Reynolds never linked. After searching out something we'd heard about earlier in the day -- via InstaPundit -- we realized that a link from the awesome Wired was to blame:

"Back in 2001, blogs were still very much the geek toy of the Slashdot set," he said. "(But) this collective tragedy demanded a forum to be shared by people all around the world who wanted to talk about what happened with anyone because it was the only way of making any sense of it. Were it to happen again, blogs and social networks would play an enormously cathartic role."

The vivid events live on in countless blog posts. NYC Bloggers, a directory of hundreds of New Yorkers' blogs, continues to link to dozens of articles for posterity, while the September 11 Digital Archive project maintains a historical catalog of noteworthy blog posts among 130,000 e-mails, audio recordings, video clips and photographs documenting the event.

This year, another project is recruiting 2,996 volunteer bloggers to post individual memorials celebrating the life of each 9/11 victim.

Well, there you are. Once the big day is past, the link will become accessible, but no one will be there.

A virtual lamp beside the golden door, revisted

"It’s been nearly three years since 9/11," wrote Michele of A Small Victory two years back, inviting her readers to add their own two cents' worth to her Voices 2004. "Where do you stand right now as far as emotional recovery goes? Have you moved on? Healed? How does your emotional view of 9/11 differ now from three years ago? Do you find yourself more hopeful than you were then?" We're republishing our response, which seems to have stood the test of time, in that we still agree with ourselves.

How would Osama answer the question "Do you find yourself more hopeful than you were then?" We think he would be of two minds: 1) Yes and 2) No.

1) Yes. Surely the evil genius whose own demons made him wake the sleeping giant* must be gratified to see the Orwellian inversion that has taken place in some large portion of the popular imagination, where the lunatic ravings of homegrown academics blinded by their hatred of America -- the Susan Sontags and Noam Chomskys of this world -- have metastacized into a toxic worldwide anti-American hysteria that threatens to derail the War on Islamic Extremism (Condi Rice's term for the War on Terror).  We could write volumes about that.  We have, in fact, written blog volumes about that.  Listen to Sontag's solipsistic, a-historical, hyperventilating pontifications from her New Yorker essay published in the aftermath of 9/11:

The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. [Note to Ms. Sontag:  Our response was our own.  It was visceral.  We didn't wait for some public figure to tell us what to think or how to feel.] Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? [Note to Ms. Sontag:  You haven't a clue re the terrorists' motives. See Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer et al.]

Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall.

2) No. Despite the appeal of Sontag & Company's "arguments" to all who would blame America first, Osama must be worried about our country's pesky refusal to cut and run.  9/11 was, in fact, like Pearl Harbor in that the enemy realized he had awakened a sleeping giant.*  In fact, the enemy has awakened two sleeping giants. America stands taller than ever on the world stage, staring down the nattering appeasement crowd on the one hand, and tearing down the terrorist networks and support systems on the other, thanks to the great leadership of President George W. Bush, his remarkable team of seasoned advisors, our superb military and the Coalition of the Willing.

But 9/11 awoke another sleeping giant, one that may have been slouching towards some kind of cyberBethlehem waiting to be born even as world attention was focused elsewhere.  We're speaking, of course, of the blogosphere. A virtual lamp beside the golden door, this new medium was a beacon to the virtual "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" in the wake of 9/11, giving voice to those who had been voiceless -- Iraqi bloggers, milbloggers, homefront bloggers and bloggers of every stripe, seekers of wisdom and truth who weren't buying what effete academic elites and mainstream media pack journalists were selling anymore.

Update: Dan Riehl links 9/11/09.

*Note. "In the movies Tora! Tora! Tora! and Pearl Harbor, [Japanese naval commander] Yamamoto's character says, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.' Considerable doubt exists, though, whether he actually ever said (or wrote) anything like that; it was probably invented for the movies, although it may well have encapsulated some of his real feelings about it," according to Nationmaster Encyclopedia. Update post 2004 election: False but accurate?