Author: Sal

That we’ve misunderstood the beheadings. Some snippets:

This is not about us — it is about them. The beheading films are recruitment tools. They’ve been around for a long time, part and parcel of the first generation of “jihad” home movies, circulated mostly in North Africa to excite homicidal fanatics and lure them into the Islamist bands. The main difference between then and now is that their marketing and distribution have improved, thanks to their comrades at al Jazeera and al Arabiya, and the Internet.
…
We cannot wage an effective war unless we understand the nature of our enemy. If we do not grasp that the terrorists’ ranks are full of people who are there precisely because they are thrilled by the prospect of beheading human beings, we will fail to see the war through to its necessary conclusion. The beheadings are about them, not us. They show us very important things we need to know: What they are, what they want, what they will do if we do not stop them.

Read the whole thing!

Green vs. black by Thomas Sowell in the washington times today. This will make your head spin.

Among the many luxuries wealth can buy is insulation from reality — the most dangerous luxury of all. Another dangerous luxury is a sense of being one of the wonderfully special people with superior wisdom and virtue. Environmental extremism flourishes among those who can afford both luxuries.
Did you know people in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Sausalito, across the bay, own 80,000 acres of land in Kenya? What are they doing with it? They are setting it aside as a nature preserve,to keep poor people in Kenya from hunting animals for food on those 80,000 acres.