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A VERY NICE BOOST FOR ZENPUNDIT

From Caerdroia – a Strange Loop. My Thanks ! Readers go visit them and read their post on Iraq becoming the 51st state

QUOTE OF THE DAY – REMEMBERING WHO OUR ENEMY IS:

” The author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all Muslims to execute them wherever they find them “

– Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

We can live in our world or in his. There is no compromise.

FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER AND GEORGE W. BUSH

There has been an undercurrent of debate since the destruction visited upon the United States on 9/11 and the war with Iraq whether we as Americans have chosen or been forced to assume the role of a new world-dominating empire. I am not sympathetic to that viewpoint but it is a growing and popular one and I recognize that the comparisons drawn by scholars like Donald Kagan between the magnitude of American power today and that of Rome of the ancient world have validity. At a minimum there seems to be a great popular consensus that the nation hovers on the brink of a great turning point in our history, one that could change the character of our Republic for good or ill. This brought me back to the first modern American historian to think in these terms, Frederick Jackson Turner whose paper on the end of the American frontier had an electrifying effect on the history profession and influenced men like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson who themselves went on to shape history itself. It occurred to me that while the ” Frontier thesis ” is part of what E.D Hirsch might call Cultural Literacy, outside of history seminars few intelligent people have actual read Turner firsthand. Therefore, here it is, a historian’s examination of America at a turning point – Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF MEMETICS

Probably the cutting edge of our psychological warfare operations today. Here’s a site, Meme Central, that gives an introductory look into the field of Memetics. If you have an interest in the intellectual history behind the origins of psychological warfare, multiculturalism, the manipulation of public opinion and what all this has to do with Moby Dick, consult Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological warfare and the Melville Revival by Clare Spark, Ph.d. Spark is also a recovering commentator for Radio Pacifica and an active contributor to many Listserv’s on h-Net. She did some real digging on this book and it is worth the investment of time to digest.

VIKING PUNDIT KICKS THE LIVING HELL OUT OF PAUL KRUGMAN

A masterpiece of de-legitimizing America’s walking, talking liberal echo chamber.