very very good. i think i liked the "heaven pie" part best but altogether this was a very enjoyable read. unlike his thing, which i couldn't even quite finish.

my parents send me "hilarious" things, too. and then i send them the snopes page that counters them. my way is faster, but i think yours is more entertaining.

I know it's not very profitable to bring facts to bear, but I was more than a little put off by Steyn's statement "There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in "Palestine," Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali.". That demonstrates true ignorance about the state of conflict in the world.

We maintain a database on terrorist incidents around the globe, at it's true that attacks by radical Islamic groups have increased in number and ferocity, exponentially, every year since we started invading Islamic nations. However, to bring to bear a little perspective on the world of violent political action, let me point out a couple of other entertaining groups that leap out at me when I study the numbers from 2005.

#3 on the hit parade is the Communist Party of Nepal (73 incidents causing 35 deaths and 85 injuries). There are also active, and violent, Communist parties attempting to destabilize India (47 incidents, 69 deaths and 135 injured), Colombia (35 incidents, 59 deaths and 78 injured), the Phillippines, Peru, Turkey, and Greece.

There are violent nationalist/separatist groups attempting to shake off their oppressors in the non-Islamic regions of Assam, Nagaland and Tripura (India - 27 incidents between them), the Tamil end of Sri Lanka (33 incidents), the Basque region of Spain (an even older conflict, with 12 new incidents in 2005), and even our old favorites trying to boot the British out of Northern Ireland (dwindling to 2 incidents last year). There was also a bombing in Buenos Aires to drive U.S. Imperialism out of Argentina, and a similarly motivated attack in Bolivia.

I couldn't help but notice Lord's Resistance Army, which is described as promoting "a radical form of Christianity which it wants to make the foundation of a new Ugandan government" (9 incidents with 39 deaths and 65 injured).

There is even an Informal Anarchist Federation in Italy (8 incidents), if you want to talk about really old school terrorists.

In spite of Mr. Steyn's assurance that Islam is at the root of all violence in the world today, it looks to me like all the traditional ethnic and ideological struggles are continuing apace. They are simply overshadowed by the recent outburst of violence from Muslims who, for some reason, seem to think their way of life is under attack.

I wonder why?

that whole thing was so ridiculously unfounded and confusing that i don't even want to comment. i was offended at his statements about multiculturalism being a fraud - perhaps to him and the asshats he knows it is, but i honestly believe it's important to learn about and accept other traditions. we can't all be scholars on the exact details of ALL the world's cultures. so what if we ony know a little about buddhism, a little about native americans, a little about mongolians and enjoy "world music"? is that better than ignoring them altogether? according to him, it's just a waste of time? jeesh. perhaps if some of the countries he refers to spent more time educating their youth about other cultures and teaching tolerance we wouldn't have problems with terrorism and such. i know that's a RADICAL idea, isn't it?

and the whole argument about the West "losing" this drama because of low population.... it's not that it doesn't have merit - china and india are churning out engineers and work-ready citizens by the millions - the problems are that the U.S. is employing them to do work we should be doing here and abusing those populations who are suffering from all the tihngs that plague OVERPOPULATED countries.

the logic in all this is so flawed it's ridiculous. thanks for warming my blood - i was pretty cold there for a second.

p.s. the irony of your introduction about your brother turning into one of these types after getting married and HAVING KIDS is not lost on me here, either. i find that those who procreate, particularly those who can't afford to and give up their lives to do so, usually feed the need to defend themselves by attacking those who don't.

Genius. A wonderful rebuttal. Thank you.

And then there's this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/national/13baby.html?th&emc=th