BeautifulSoup

Wonderful! The universe gives me exactly what I need right when I need it I'd previously linked this somewhere along the way, but I'd forgotten about BeautifulSoup (via Ben, via the Daily Python URL). This should allow me to use Python instead of Perl for a spidering project I'm working on.

Update: Hmm... my only question is... why not pipe the page through Tidy and then parse it with a real XML parser? I'm not asking rhetorically either.

Permalink | 8 Comments | Tags: Programming | id 4952

18:53 (utc-4)
edited: 19:28 (utc-4)

 

War against "terrorism" or Islamic fascism?

Our "war on terror" is really a war on Islamic fascism. In many ways Islamofascism is not much different as a political ideology than the evils of Nazism or Communism. However, it differs from other political ideologies with world domination in mind in that its adherents hope for rewards not in this world but in death. This, among other things, makes them more dangerous than their predecessors-in-evil.

However, a lot of this is obscured because the Bush administration chooses to refer to our enemy as "terrorism", not Islamic fascism. At its base, this is a nonsensical "enemy" to be fighting as terrorism is a method that our enemy uses but not our enemy itself. The only cause for this euphemism I can imagine is that Bush wants to fight the war on Islamofascism without chancing angering the Muslim community, not only here but in other countries. By nominally embracing Islam while denouncing "terrorism"... well, I'm honestly not sure what Bush hopes to accomplish.

While I've thought the euphemism of the "war on terror" may have been justified for reasons of realpolitik, and I trusted Bush's wisdom on this (no, I'm not joking), by failing to identify our enemy Bush fails to make it as clear as possible who and what we're really at war with. I think as time goes on the Bush administration has been making more explicit some of their goals, such as spreading democracy and reforming the region, which I believe were long held but left implicit. However, what are they really accomplishing by continuing to refer to our enemy as "terrorism" rather than Islamofascism? Is this still justified? Was it ever justified? Why was it done in the first place? Why did Bush so often refer to Islam as a "religion of peace"? Was he doing it to try to diffuse fears in the Muslim world that he was fighting all Muslims (which probably could have been done as well by signaling out Islamic fascism separate from "generic" Islam), or did he really believe it himself?

To reiterate, I excused Bush on this until now because I figured it was a political necessity. Someone pushed me on it tonight which caused me to think more about it. After thinking about it I'm no longer sure it was wise.

Permalink | 10 Comments | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 4951

00:38 (utc-4)
edited: 00:42 (utc-4)