As IF Times

link Fareed Zakaria on Donald Trump and coded racism – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

Racism again. What else?  When there is no other platform upon which to defend a position, use the default racism one.   This allegorical platform will soon collapse with the weight of all the idiots jumping on board.  I suspect most people roll their eyes at the suggestion of racism whenever there is an allegation of misdeed by a non white person.  With the passage of time and overuse, this accusation loses any bite, much like calling someone a bastard.  Unless of course, they are.

Apart from being desperate, it’s inane and dreadfully unoriginal.  Ironically, the fact that this accusation  can only be levelled against whites and not the other way around is in itself racist.   Typically, when there are no other arguments available to support the actions of a “person of color”, the race card is played like some universal get out of jail free card.  This notion was on grotesque display some 15 years ago during the infamous O.J. Simpson circus, er trial.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, O.J. was absolved of the murders he was accused of principally because of accusations of racism. 

In the recent U.S. elections, charming members of a social club known as The New Black Panthers, whose members just happen to be all black, wearing paramilitary garb and wielding night sticks,  were posted at voting  stations in the hopes of helping people out who hadn’t decided on how to vote.  In looking at the case, the Attorney General decided that there were no coercive threats implied by these plucky young men and certainly no racism.   In the case of Arizona attempting to control the amount of illegal immigrants in that state with simple rules that ID’s must be shown were met with howls of, you guessed it, racism.  In the case of the on going tragic comedy which is airport security, the entire travelling public is subject to Mexican prison-like search procedures to protect against allegations of racism by avoiding targeting young men of Muslim appearance.  The fact that all aircraft terrorism has been perpetrated by young men of Muslim appearance  is as Al Gore would call it, an inconvenient truth.   This brings up the old joke about the statistic that 2 out of 3 people in the world are Chinese.  In our crowd, that could be Bill, Frank or Sui Chow, but we suspect that it’s Bill. 

Getting back to Zakaria on CNN or Credibility Not Necessary, rather than bleating about racism, he should be thankful that someone brings up the simple idea that there should be full disclosure from a man who is supposed to be the President of all the people.  The fact that there’s any mystery at all regarding the President’s past, his education and his friends should concern everyone, whatever his race.  Typically, if  someone has to resort to a racism accusation to quell any criticism, the argument they are pushing is probably lost. It’s like the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse in school.  It’s the hail Mary of excuses.  It’s the height of conceit for Zakaria and others to ascribe any criticisms of the President’s shortcomings to race alone.  It’s possible he’s just plain vanilla incompetent.

link Pastor Terry Jones released from custody after his bond is posted.

There are innumerate church and other religious groups in the U.S. that pursue beliefs that may be questionable to non adherents. Not a lot of people would ordinarily know or care what Pastor Terry Jones does with his flock of parishioners down in Florida.  Adults are free to believe what they want.   In any free society, this is one of the cornerstone elements; people can subscribe to their own versions of truth and reality.  Certainly, there are no shortage of choices for people’s religious beliefs, or of course for the right not to have any.  It’s like the cheese display at Whole Foods where customers have a selection ranging from the benignly mild dairy flavours all the way up to the truly offensive strong ones which approach rotting fish in old socks.

There are no placard waving demonstrators inciting people to eat one cheese over another.  There are no threats of death to those not acknowledging the superiority of their cheese over everyone else’s.   No one is expected to treat any one cheese with any particular reverence.  Some are appealing only to those with narrow, specific tastes while others are more suitable for the masses.  Some spoil and rot when exposed to air, others have more robust longevity.  Naturally, there will be attempts to convince people of the merits of certain types but this stops well short of coercion.  Free samples are given in order to attract customers, but no commitments are necessary.  Eventually, people will consume what they feel most comfortable with.

Why can’t religions be exactly the same?

This Terry Jones character is obviously out to sell his brand of religion and perhaps that’s distasteful.  But what he also does is call bs on the political correctness created by the popular media for a particular faith, namely Islam.  When the media drew a line connecting the violence and deaths in Afghanistan to his burning of the Koran, it became the truth.  Just because they said it was so, the media have credited Jones with single handedly rousing the ire of otherwise peace loving Afghan Muslims to a frothing fervor, enough to go on a killing rampage.  It’s a real toss up to see which of the three groups involved here is the nuttiest.  Relatively speaking, Jones appears the most sane.  The U.S. has seen episodes of flag burning, cross burning, record burning, book burnings, effigy burnings and even bra burnings, but until Jones came along, no one could cause massive murders on the other side of the world by simply burning the pages of a  Koran.   Who would have thought a Pastor from an obscure town of 23 in Florida could be so influential?

A guy like Jones who has that kind of influence should be harnessed for commercial gain.  Get him to push Coke over Pepsi, GM over Ford, Apple vs PC, or margarine versus butter.  To lock  him up and demonize him?  Forgive them, they know not what they do.  The global warming idiots had better hope Jones doesn’t take umbrage with their cause.