What’s the betting on when some Islamists will start arguing that the LAX shooting was actually a Jewish plot? Hadayat’s widow insists her dead husband had nothing to do with what happened.
GUNS DID IT: The Guardian frames the LAX shooting within the context of gun violence in America. I kid you not. Here’s Peter Preston’s view:
Two innocents killed at a ticket check-in are two too many. They are also mere drops in the ocean of blood which the US allows to flow daily – including on July 4 – through a society where guns and gun culture remain ubiquitous.
The lengths to which these appeasers will go to defend terrorism and attack the United States still take my breath away.
MORAL EQUIVALENCE WATCH: Nick Kristof, after yet another murder of Jews by a Muslim hater, worries about American religious bigotry. “If we want Saudi princes to confront their society’s hate-mongers, our own leaders should confront ours,” he preaches. Our bigotry is as bad as theirs’, he opines. Excuse me? When conservative Christians start murdering thousands of Muslim and Jewish civilians in the Middle East, it will be. Until then, there is simply no equivalence between anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. and anti-Western and anti-Semitic terrorism in the Arab world. One bigotry mouths off (often appallingly). The other murders thousands of civilians because of their religion and culture and glories in it. If Kristof cannot see that distinction, he should take a trip downtown and see the mass grave these evil fanatics created. They weren’t killed by the religious right.
HOW GERMS GET NICER: An archived article from the Atlantic provides some backing for my argument that some viruses mutate into less lethal forms as epidemics progress. Not necessarily true of HIV under drug regimens, but a hopeful possibility worth exploring.
RAINES WATCH: More checkable untruths in a New York Times editorial. Here’s what they wrote yesterday in another classic hack-liberal editorial about global warming:
Then came a more narrowly focused but equally disturbing report by The Times’s Timothy Egan about Alaska, where an astonishing seven-degree increase in average temperatures over 30 years has led to melting permafrost, sagging roads, dying forests, unexpected forest fires and disruption of marine life.
Here’s what the Alaska Climate Research Center has said about that Egan piece:
The article “Alaska, No Longer So Frigid, Starts to Crack, Burn, and Sag” written by Timothy Egan, stated that the average temperature has risen seven degrees in the last 30 years. This statement was repeated in an editorial by Bob Herbert of 24 June 2002. This statement is incorrect. The correct warming for Alaska is about 1/3 of the quoted amount for the last climatological mean 1971 to 2000 (see table below). It should be pointed out that the table presents data from first class weather stations, which are professionally maintained and generate high quality data. The three stations, Barrow, Fairbanks, and Anchorage, represent a cross section of Alaska from north to south. Further, Barrow, situated in Northern Alaska, which gave the largest temperature increase, is the only long-term first class meteorological weather station in Northern Alaska. All changes are based upon the time period 1971 to 2000 and are compiled from a linear trend.
Now this correction has been around since June 24. So has this chart which shows average temperatures in Alaska for the last century, in which the century-long rise has been around 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The Egan piece’s assertion of such a temperature rise has no basis in fact whatsoever. It’s made up. It’s a non-fact. It has expired in verifiability. It has gone to rest among the fjords of Alaska. It is an ex-fact. So when will the Times correct this mistake? And when will they stop broadcasting it as if it were something they should be proud of?
ME IN TIME OUT: Here’s a recent interview I gave to Time Out New York. I hope you like the picture. I was in a silly mood.
THE EGYPTIAN PROFESSOR: It turns out that professor Mona Baker of the University of Manchester, the woman who has blacklisted two Israelis from a scholarly journal because of their nationality, is actually Egyptian. She immigrated to Britain twenty years ago. But she didn’t leave all her background behind.
IN DEFENSE OF THE ECONOMIST: My friends over there tell me there will be a formal response to Bret Stephens’ article about anti-Israeli bias at the Economist later this week. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, a pro-Economist sends in this example of a long, recent piece on the Middle East from the Economist, which, he argues, is very well-balanced. It’s not free. But if you don’t mind paying, decide for yourself. UPDATE: Here’s a free version of the piece.
The Dish 