Reflections  

Plank in the eye — While Congress ran away from the Dubai Ports deal, Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio) noted that "Congress does two things well: nothing and overreacting." True, and I think it's safe to assume he is aware that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act he cosponsored, which mandated onerous new accounting requirements for publicly traded companies, cannot possibly be regarded as "nothing." — Mark Rand

Outlook not so good — Inflation is rising. Real estate prices are falling. The Washington Times (March 14) reports that members of the business elite, "deeply concerned by what they see as reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign polices," are turning against the president, claiming he's "throwing money at complex problems and just doesn't care about the long term."

How has the president responded? By shutting his ears to their criticism, and leaning ever more on his own advisers. But this over-reliance on his inner circle has estranged his political colleagues: now they openly criticize his political appointments and sabotage his economic deals.

For now, the president still has the support of those who distrust the elite, those who voted him into office because he seemed like "one of them." But that common-man image can't hold out forever — will his patriotic boosters support him once they see how much his wild spending is taking out of their meager paychecks? Will they support him through a vast military campaign, even if it means the deaths of their children?

Yes, things are looking bleak for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran — oh, who did you think I meant? — Andrew Ferguson

Ugly as sin tax — Nevada recently considered taxing prostitution, which would mean a change in rhetoric for those satirists who describe sex as the only tax-free vice left in America.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, state legislator Phyllis Kahn proposed a tax on hair transplants and Botox injections. She would also like to slap sales taxes on laser hair and scar removal, laser treatment of varicose veins, cosmetic dentistry, and cosmetic surgery such as nose jobs.

Essentially this amounts to a tax on the ugly, not greatly dissimilar from Nevada's tax on prostitution, which soaks those not attractive enough to acquire sexual favors without an exchange of cash. — Tim Slagle

Feel the burn — By order of Iran's confectioners union, any Danish pastries sold in Tehran, the nation's capital, must now be called "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad Pastries." One of the capital's most popular bakeries, Danish Pastries, has covered up the word "Danish" on its sign with a traditional symbol of mourning, a black banner saying "Oh Hussein," a reference to an Islamic martyr.

A gang of fired-up Pakistanis dragged Ronald McDonald into the street by his red wig and set him aflame in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan and the main commercial hub in the prosperous province of Punjab.

A few blocks away, Colonel Sanders met the same fate, being dragged from a KFC and set ablaze in the street. By the time the protest was over, several people were dead. AP reports estimated that 15,000 had joined in.

In a similar but smaller demonstration of rage, a band of some two dozen black-veiled women stormed a half dozen or so gift shops in Kashmir and set fire to the displays of Valentine's Day cards. "We will not let anyone sell these cards or celebrate Valentine's Day," proclaimed Asiva Andrabi, the group's leader, holding up a burning valentine for the cameras. The cards and chocolates, she said, were "Western gimmicks," aimed at pulling upright kids away from their "roots": Godiva and Cupid as risque imperialists, both too suggestive of sexual impropriety to escape the notice of the morality police. The dire father of Iran's revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, might well have looked kindly upon Andrabi's tirade; as he once declared, "There is no fun in Islam." No fun and no heart-shaped boxes of chocolate truffles.

And no Pepsi. As Maulana Invadullah memorably said a few days after the Sept. 11 attack, explaining why he thought radical Islam would inevitably defeat the United States, "The Americans love Pepsi Cola, we love death."

Invadullah, who fought in Afghanistan's guerrilla war against the Soviets, elaborated: "War is our best hobby. We cannot live without war. The Americans lead lavish lives and they are afraid of death. We are not afraid of death. The sound of guns firing is like music for us."

What's increasingly clear is that these latest staged uproars aren't about Cupid or Colonel Sanders, or even about Danish cartoons. Those are simply the groundwork for the larger battle, the fight by radical Islamists to inflame the masses and silence the moderate voices within their own societies.

The plan of attack from the radical Islamists, working all too well, is to intensify the vicious cycle, to stimulate riots about Ronald McDonald, to announce a $1 million prize for the heads of the Danish cartoonists, to threaten the annihilation of Israel, to dare the police in their own societies to stop the mayhem, to burn and kill and push and push until the West is prodded into actions that can then be used to further escalate the paranoia and bloodshed, to attract more men and women like Invadullah and Andrabi to the cause, so that, in the end, like scorpions in a bottle, one side will be forced to beat the other into submission. — Ralph R. Reiland

© Copyright 2008, Liberty Foundation

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