THE DAILY BLADE: “Secular” Turkey’s Prime Minister And President Are Now Both Islamists
The third time was the charm for Abdullah Gul. The devout Muslim whose wife wears a headscarf won Turkey's presidency Tuesday after twice falling short of the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to secure the position. In the third round of voting, he only needed a simple majority. Gul’s party, the Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds 341 of the 530 seats in the Turkish parliament, and he got 339 votes.
The Wall Street Journal reports that "[i]n a recent meeting with journalists, Mr. Gul said he would make use of his experience as foreign minister to … make the Turkish presidency more active on the international scene."
Gul made good on that promise even before assuming the presidency, having worked in tandem with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apply pressure on Israel last week to bring Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman to heel after he conceded last week that the near-annihilation of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks "was tantamount to genocide." While Gul was working Israel's ambassador to Ankara over, Erdogan was whining to Israeli President Shimon Peres that Turkey "was feeling "disappointed with its friends." Peres called Foxman, who then sent a letter of apology for "putting the Turkish people 'in a difficult position.'"
Given the Turkish military’s propensity to overthrow the country’s government, Gul might not be around all that long - if he does not exercise his veto power over any legislation passed by parliament under the leadership of political ally Erdogan that is perceived to pull the country towards Islamism.
The Associated Press reports that "top generals did not attend the swearing-in ceremony … Local media interpreted their absence as a protest against the 56-year-old Gul. … The military has ousted four governments since 1960, and an initial presidential bid by Gul was derailed over fears that he planned to dilute secular traditions. Some commentators said the generals' failure to show up for Gul's oath-taking was ominous."
So Easy, A Conservative Can Do It
Writing about that Associated Press-Ipsos poll on the number of books Americans read in the previous year, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Sauders pounced on how AP reported the findings – specifically, that "liberals read more books than conservatives":
The poll found that among people polled who read at least one book in the last year, liberals read nine books and conservatives read eight.
When I called Michael Gross, associate vice president of Ipsos public affairs, to find out more about the Ipsos poll, he told me the one-book difference "is within the margin of error, it's not a statistically significant difference."
This statistically insignificant finding was enough to give former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-CO), now the president of the American Association of Publishers, an excuse to crow about how much smarter liberals are, as compared to conservatives:
"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple of slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes.' It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes,' on every page."
She also told AP that liberals "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion." …
Notes Saunders, "[a]ccording to Schroeder, as a conservative, I've got a bumper sticker for brains."
Brevity - not bloviating - is the soul of wit. The reason liberals can’t say anything in less than paragraphs is because they are smug, self-satisfied windbags.
That’s why The Stiletto thought it was more than a bit of a stretch for people to "worry that [the new ABC sitcom "Cavemen"] will reinforce racial stereotypes by encouraging viewers to identify the maligned Cro-Magnons with African-Americans," as Stanley Fish put it in a recent column, "A Fictional Minority" (TimesSelect subscription required).
Though the writers and producers all disavowed any equivalency between the proto-humans and blacks, Fish insisted on insisting, "[o]f course it’s a show about minorities and racism."
As a conservative, perhaps The Stiletto is being too literal but she believes the show is not about racial prejudice at all. It’s about the prejudice against people who are – or are perceived to be – intellectually inferior by the elites. Clearly those Cro-Magnons are conservatives.
Mobile Phones For Muslims
Nokia has launched a special-edition cell phone for Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa that features "a unique portfolio of pre-loaded applications including a collection of Azkars for the morning and the evening, an Islamic Organizer with audible alarms for the five daily prayers, a Qibla direction indicator and a Hijri calendar," according to a press release. "The launch coincides with the Holy month of Ramadan and the offer includes a full range of applications, carefully tailored to meet the needs of consumers in the Arab world."
The Stiletto is willing to bet that the Nokia N73 Special Edition will soon become the cell phone of choice amongst Islamofascists for remote control detonation of car bombs and IEDs.
Maybe conservatives pick better books. Are there any statistics as to how many liberals/conservatives have read, say, The Da Vinci Code or something by genocide deniers?...
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Is Pat Shroeder really that dense? People who write letters to the editor and people who picket much learn to be succinct. And what books? I read into double digits but its mostly fiction. Harry Potter 7 took me a day while one on Japanese American internment took roughly a week.
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