Sit at home and read a good book...better yet, read LGF!

I plan to boycott this thing now that I have some info on it. Would have probably gone If it was really about the crusades.

I wanted to see this too. Maybe I should just go find a documentary or something.

Someone correct me if I have this backward, but...I recall reading somewhere (here?) that CAIR had screened the film and gave it high marks. If that's true, then the film can't possibly be a truthful or accurate portrayal of crusade history.

Look on the bright side. Just think how much more pro-Muslim it would have been if Hollywood wasn't run by Jews.

The latest installment of PC kowtowing to the Religion of Peace.

Blech.. just another reason for me to despise the elitist jackasses in Hollyweird.

What's next? PC porn?

Remember was propaganda was pure, when it actually supported the government under which it was produced? Nowadays, it seems the only items that qualify as propaganda seek to undermine the state. Now, I personally don't feel that progaganda is in and of itself bad--it's just a way to get a group of people to think and act a certain way. It can be a positive force, and it need not be half-truths and lies. But it seems most of the mass media organs are in firm control of anti-American interests. I can't say for sure if Mr. Scott's film is such, but from all indications it's not going to be pretty.

And which Crusade is this supposed to be, anyway? It's not the First, I imagine (that's the one that went best for us, after all). Those wacky Franj and their Latin Kingdom.

...What's next? PC porn?...

I hope it's Fatima shagging Mohammed's goat.

So, a violent film about the last hours of Jesus is made... a horrid movie, too violent and polarizing, never go anywhere... wait... it made an ungodly amount of money (Pardon the pun), has had multiple releases, and had even caused people to admit to murders.

BUT...

a violent film showing evil christians... GREAT MOVIE! Wonderful Story! Destined for Greatness!

maybe we'll be lucky and only 5 people will go see it.

4 women who want to drool over the elf guy from Lord of the Rings...

and 1 gay guy who wants to do the same..

ronaldmagnus...you are correct. CAIR has approved the film just last week and stated the film was "balanced".

Well I was just waiting to hear that the muslims in the film had been switched for crazed groups of neo-nazi's from the former Soviet Union as the ones being fought against.
Kinda like the last Tom Clancy film.

WAAAY OT:

I just watched the new Family Guy, and it made me sad. First they show the Michael Mooron book "Dude Where's My Country", then a car with a Kucinich '04 sticker, and the most outrageous was talking about stealing Mel Gibson's "bathrobes, towels, and Nazi paraphenalia." I used to love that show SO much, and now I'm just sad. And American Dad isn't very funny either.

Search TalkinKamel's posts for better references.

I now want to check out the Bernard Hamilton book on Baldwin the Leper.

Why should historical accuracy get in the way of making a few $$$ ... Oh, and keeping your head...

#12 ted

I think when Family guy does stuff like that, its more to make fun of people who think that Mel Gibson would have those things..

At least, that's what I get out of it when I watch.

Kind of like South Park.

OT:

The uncensored version of the Calipari shooting report hits the media.

I have a copy of both the censored and uncensored versions linked. It's quite a read.

Hey, if CAIR and Dr. Hamid Dabashi (spit) think the film's okay, then we know that the movie ain't worth a warm bucket o' spit.

Thanks for the heads-up, Charles {and all you faithful Lizardoid minions}!

JAFLW

It's about the Third Crusade, I hear. And Scott says, "The Christians lose."

No doubt that's why he chose that period. Historians have vigorously denounced the whole project as historical "rubbish," and much too kind to the [bigoted word]s.

Of course there's no context--that the Crusades were Christendom's fight to preserve itself against the invading moslems, and to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."

- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Let the moonbats portray us as unable, and let them help us feign disorder. This is REAL shit now folks, steaming in our collective laps. I want peace, love and understanding (hummin' a little Elvis C.) as much as the rest of us. But this Yeehad crap is being taken to the streets (hummin' a little Doob Bros). Do not be decieved, and never for a moment throw down the garment and gauntlet of freedom and liberty. Yeehad is coming. Ready 2 Rock N Roll?

Maybe they should do the third or fourth crusade. I remember which one. You know, the one where Italian mercenaries are given a lift by the (Venitian?) navy under the promise that on the way they sack Constantinople.

Which they did, real good too. But I guess that was enough for them and they went home, never fighting the Muslims.

That would be PC, just white catholic boys killing each other under the egide of corrupt city-states.

No muslims were hurt in the making of that movie..

Enough of this logic to circumvent the likes of scrotum enlarging Chutch lovers, and CAIR approved movies.

Zombie, Why must you keep producing the truth...WHY?

This is another movie that will pass like a greasy fart.

America has grown tired of having bullshit added to our popcorn.

Ooops. "I-before-E-except-after-C". My bad. :)

# 12 tedzilla99

I saw it too, and I say, "Welcome back, FG!" It wasn't their best episode, but I am glad to have my old friend back in town. There were a few points where I picked up on Seth McFarlane's leftist stance (he was just on Air America, in fact), but as long as it makes me laugh, I can forgive it. It made me laugh.

As for American Dad, after the debacle that was its premiere after the SuperBowl, I didn't tune in tonight. FG is comedy gold; AD is comedy pyrite.

Maybe if we can convince the Muslims that they really are honorable fighters, kind and magnaminous in victory, only interested in defending themselves and not caring about conquest, they'll start acting that way ...
/dhimmitude off

#9 lancecakes

The New York Times led the MSM charge against "The Passion". It was attacked as too violent, too bloody, simplistic, anti-semitic, un-historical, un-Biblical, turgid, melodramatic, etc. The NYT was especially unhinged by the movie, savaging it on a daily basis for weeks. So it will be interesting to see how "Kingdom of Heaven" is treated by the same people who hated Mel Gibson's opus.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen "The Passion" and I don't intend to see "Kingdom of Heaven"

Some Oxford expert on the Crusades called the film "Osama bin Laden's view of history". That's good enough for me. I don't want to see it. Question is, should I see it so I can tell other people what's wrong with it?

The message board on IMDb is up again. Many pages.

I hope Christian groups here and overseas invest a lot of time, effort and money in undermining this movie, commercially and critically.

I've mentioned this before several times, and I'll mention it again:

It's time for conservatives/non liberals to produce their own feature films, and counter Blame America Hollywood.

Two or three films a year would be a good initial target.  And not documentaries, but movies.

There are plenty of conservatives who donate millions for their pet causes, it's time to pool resources and create a movie studio that produces non-liberal films about important topics.

For starters, a film about the Cold War that shows America's 60 year fight against communist tyranny would be a good place to start.

It's pathetic that there are zero films about Stalin, who murdered 20 million people.  Same goes for Mao, who murdered 25 million people.  "Progressive" Hollywood has managed to hide the horrors of these communist icons, and it's time to set the record straight.

And how about a film on the Venona Project -- what an amazing film that would be, Soviet spies right in the FDR administration from top to bottom.  It's been almost a decade since the Venona transcripts were declassified, yet Hollywood makes sequel after sequel about utter nonsense, for want of material?

Perhaps Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, James Woods, and others would be interested.
 

#12 tedzilla

I just watched the new Family Guy, and it made me sad. First they show the Michael Mooron book "Dude Where's My Country", then a car with a Kucinich '04 sticker

Every so often political moonbatty stuff will turn up, and it is sad. I was watching "The Incredibles" listening to the commentary with the director and the producer. At one point the director makes a moonbatty comment, while I still love movie, having him shove that bit of info in for no reason makes me appriciate it a little less.

#17 Just another

movie ain't worth a warm bucket o' spit.

Lets say one is paid 5.50 an hour.

and lets say that one can spit 1 mL every 5 seconds.

and Lets say that one bucket o' spit holds 2 liters (a small bucket)

I figure that it'd cost about 76 dollars to create one bucket o' spit.

;-)

I don't see why Muslims get worried about someone making a historical movie, where would they ever find information about Islam being violent, bloodthirsty, racist, sexist, fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, lying, backwords, terroristic, and cult-like. They're oppressed! The Israelis went after them during the Olympics in 1972! And Americans beat them up on a plane on 9/11! And the children in Beslan may have given them nasty looks! And the Sudanese want the West to stop them from practicing their religion (meaning killing blacks and non-Muslims). /sarcastic

You know, i'd be nice if they made a movie about the siege of Vienna. A bit like they did with that movie Waterloo.

The whole friggin army of Pasha Suleiman getting his ass kicked by a few band of mercenaries led by a decrepit 78 year old geezer.

Don't forget to show the Janissaries, Christian slaves forced to fight for the muslims...

#19 Cartman

Been ready.

#26 Paul

I seriously doubt it will receive the same treatment from The New York Slimes that The Passion of the Christ did.

#26 Paul

Well, that move was to support and prop up christianity...

This movie is to tear it down.

So it'll get awards.

Megan, those things are all true! Do not forget that the Jews also shrink Muslim penises with hair-combs designed by the Mossad. It is true. I read it in a Sudanese newspaper, translated by MEMRI so the jews could mock at us and laugh at us and say "hah, you Muslim women have small penises!". Is it any wonder we are forced to take part in martyrdom operations!

...think of it as an opportunity to destroy the myths surrounding Islam and the Crusades...looking forward to reading whoever creates the page that corrects misrepresentations in this movie...

# 18 Lady of Shalott (ylreveb)

The Third Crusade, eh? That's a pretty good one--with Richard Lionheart and Saladin, if I'm not mistaken. That one ended with a stalemate--although the Muslims were able to hold onto Jerusalem (the big prize) after their conquest after the Second Crusade.

# 20 dak

The Sack of Constantinople was the 4th Crusade--complete with intrigue, espionage, warfare, thrills and chills--and it never got to the Holy Land! Could be a good sequel (and they won't have to worry about dhimmifying it).

#30

Anybody not heard about the Venona project should read up on it. NOW.

It confirms a lot of thing... the Rosenbergs did sell da bomb to the Commies. Roosevelt's advisor was a Commie spy. Mac Carty was right. Etc.

The IMDB message board for KoH was deleted in its entirety due to Muslim extremists flooding the board.

Now the terrorists are messing with IMDB?!?! My second favorite website! This means WAR!

/rushes off to Underground Cornholio Bunker to commence launch sequence.

I smell multiple Oscars...or is that pig sh*t?

UCLA Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl stated "In my view, it is inevitable--I'm willing to risk my reputation on this--that after this movie is released there will be hate crimes committed directly because of it."

Now there's a bet I'd be willing to take. But, hate crimes committed by which group?

#43 fugazi

There's a difference?

Sounds like a fantasy movie with a fictional people they're calling "Muslims."

ohhh why didn't I see this ealier..friensd of mine noticed it at IDMB early...oh well i'll see it tomrrow,..
me and my friends wer really hoping it ouwld be a good movie and show the truth...oh well..still looks alikea good war flick.

Oh gosh. I have read description of the movie's plot, and I just assumed it was from the book Warriors of God, by James Reston Jr. It now seems James Reston Jr. is accussing the movie of plagiarism. (So, I guess there might be something to Reston's accussation!)

rushes off to Underground Cornholio Bunker to commence launch sequence.

LMAO!

Yeah, you know its going to be watched in Europe by all the (subliminalOt: Play Guild Wars, made by the same people who made Diablo 2 and warcraft) and come join my guildself loathing secularists. I hope it flops over here.

#35 fugazi35

It's both.

Also, why have there been mo movies about the heroes on 9-11? The cops, firemen, the people on the plane that went down in PA? Get Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis to play firemen on 9-11 and I think you could make 100 million, easy. Yet all we get is "Ocean's Twelve." Hollywood is the most bloated island of fetid PC garbage left in the country. Yikes.

#44 solomonpanting

Hate crimes can only be committed by Christian white men. If anyone else were to act out violently, it would be called "retribution" or "justice." That is, unless Muslims are the culprits, in which case it is known as "freedom fighting."

CAIR approved movie on the Crusades that they were allowed to provide advice through advanced screening.

YAWN.

I'll just read Evan S. Connel's Deus lo Volt again.

#48 Sorge

It now seems James Reston Jr. is accussing the movie of plagiarism.

Linky please.

I could have told you so. How do you think they teach the Crusades in schools? Not a word about the millions of Asyrian, Coptic and orthodox Christians killed by the Islamic cultists.

#41 dak;

I second that; the first Venona book was Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Its authors were two leftist historians with egg in their faces who actually did an excellent job. (I guess they were ashamed.)

#49 mojo

Makes me feel old. The newest computer in my house (the only one I didn't build) is getting too slow to play the games from the "Value priced software" shelf.

Maybe I should start a collection? ;-)

#38 Aisha

Get real.

I have links to some good reading about the Crusades, What About the Crusades?

Enjoy

+Photi

I would love to see Mel Gibson make a movie version to the book "Gates of Fire", fictionalized story leading up to and including the battle of Thermopylae. Good stuff.

I was ticked at the Troy movie, the Alexander... I swear Hollywood is destroying the classics.

#54 Ward Clever;

I just followed Zombie's link. It is here.

Perhaps "Kingdom of Heaven" will be a big a box office disaster for Scott as "Legend" was. He's made some very good movies: "Alien", "Blade Runner" and "Blackhawk Down", but he's made some dogs too: "G.I Jane", "Hannibal" and the big bow-wow, "Legend".

Maybe Christians and Muslims can agree on this one: "It stinks!"

I won't be seeing it but my 20 year old sister just loves Orlando Bloom and would not care if the movie was about him killing christian puppies in an orphanage.

But I will not watch it, I will not support this crapola.

I just watched a preview on MTV (of all places, huh, and it looks like it wants to be Lord of the Rings so bad, but it can't be because it is trying to portray something that actually occured, rendering it stoopid...

#62 Paul

Hannibal was one of his? as in the sequal to Silence of the Lambs?

Lector is a hero of mine. except that whole evil 'killing and eating people' thing.

Follywood--bah! Definitely another film I will not see.

Venona at NSA.gov.

ZOMBIE:

The entire New York Times article is here for free: [Link: 64.233.161.104...]

Film on Crusades could become Hollywood's next battleground
NY TIMES
August 12 2004

By SHARON WAXMAN

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 11 - With bloody images of Muslims and Westerners battling in Iraq and elsewhere on the nightly news, it may seem like odd timing to unveil a big-budget Hollywood epic depicting the ferocious fight between Christians and Muslims over Jerusalem in the Crusade of the 12th century.

But 20th Century Fox is planning a release next year for "Kingdom of Heaven," a $130 million production by the Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott, shot in Morocco with hundreds of extras, horses and elaborate costumes. The script, by William Monahan, is based on real characters of the three-century Crusades, including Balian of Ibelin, a Crusader knight who led the defense of Jerusalem in 1187, and the Muslim leader Saladin, who defeated him...

[Link: 64.233.161.104...]

I figured it would be anti- western...I love that period history ..but will wait till its on turner classic or something.

#67 Ward

From your link:

The VENONA files are most famous for exposing Julius (code named LIBERAL)

Irony?

tedzilla99 and elastigirl

holy shit was that episode of family guy offensive. forget about the completing jesus trashing, i'm talking about the outright christian bashing. hinting that mel gibson is a nazi wasnt' even the worse part. toward the end when he falls of the cliff and louis comments on how she can't believe he did that, peter comments "he's christian, they dont' believe in gravity". wtf. imagine if he said, moslem, jewish, black, hispanic, etc... there'd be lawsuits filed ASAP.

#61 Sorge

Thanks Sorge. I think a lawsuit is coming.

I had a film set up at a studio where the antogonist was from the middle east. We were close to a green light.

There was no single incident that kept it from being produced. My website links my film credits and you'll know what it was and why it happened.

58 Ward Cleaver

shes mokcing the islamofacists

#70;

Yep, traitor Julius Rosenberg was codenamed Liberal. It seems his Soviet handlers had a sense of humor.

Oh lol the 3rd Crusade is the way the UN would do Crusades if they did Crusades.

#70 lancekates

The irony's not lost on me.

The Rosenbergs were kinda like today's liberals.

#74 Hari Seldon

She's given up all pretense of being a real poster. We've suspected for a long time that she's a froll. It's obvious now.

#77 Ward

Even though President Clinton had his heart attack, and I've known many MANY people who've become a bit more... down to earth... after a heart attack..

I still have issues with that liberal y'ick giving Communist China guidance systems for their missles.. . which get aimed at us.. . and our friends.

Crusades vs. Jihad:

Jihad is sometimes presented as the Muslim equivalent of the Crusade, and the two are seen as more or less equivalent. In a sense this is true -- both were proclaimed and waged as holy wars for the true faith against an infidel enemy. But there is a difference. The Crusade is a late development in Christian history and, in a sense, marks a radical departure from basic Christian values as expressed in the Gospels. Christendom had been under attack since the seventh century, and had lost vast territories to Muslim rule; the concept of a holy war, more commonly, a just war, was familiar since antiquity. Yet in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom, the Crusade was late, limited, and of relatively brief duration. Jihad is present from the beginning of Islamic history -- in scripture, in the life of the Prophet, and in the actions of his companions and immediate successors. It has continue throughout Islamic history and retains its appeal to the present day.

--- Bernard Lewis, in The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror.

The movie, to be accurate, needs to show the context of the Crusades -- the centuries of Jihad that preceeded it in which vast territories were lost by Christendom to Islam, via Jihad. The Crusades were a response to these centuries of Muslim conquest via Jihad, and the Crusades were late, limited, of relatively brief duration -- and ultimately unsuccessful. If the movie portrays the Crusades, in which the Christian role was offensive and the Muslim role was defensive, then it should also portray the centuries of Jihad that preceeded it, in which the Muslim role was offensive and the Christian role was defensive.

What is really needed is a movie on Jihad and dhimmitude, one based on the research of historian Bat Yeor.

#38 Aisha

I am wanting to marry you. But only if you are having an unpenetrated and repentant inner sanctum.

I will need you to, uh, shave down. As you know, mighty Moe's followers do not like an "experienced" woman. We can pretend you are an innocent 8 year old ready to give it all up for the glory of Allah (Peas be upon him).

Please be responding in kind if you are wishing for an overzealous and underhung husband. Together, we can can underachieve both of our sexual dreams.

31 William
I swear I have heard of such of studio, very small but it is fairly new.

51
Is that the thing that was talked about in Treason by Ann Coulter with all the on going tracking by American spies?

57 lance
Hmmm, well some of the older game are fun. I get a kick out of asteroid and solitaire.
That is the second plug I have made for Guild Wars. I apologize to all who thinks it is inappropriate. It is played on-line (no monthly fees) with MANY people and I would love to create a Lizardoid Guild. Guilds are groups of player in their own kind of club in the game. I don't want to join a guild where there are a bunch of Morlocks.

oops, 41 dak

A perfect way to handle the whole Red Scare era would be to do a mini-series on McCarthy-that was honest.

Say four episodes, two hours each. First two show how and where he came from, last two include all the famous incidents-both good and bad.

Some "dramatic licence" could be added, like a mysterious US Army officer whom visits McCarthy and tells him, "We've know there have been Communists in high places for years-we've been reading their mail since '49. And, when we told the President, he said that 'Hiss was a good boy', and tried to shut us down." Some other stuff, too.

I can see Kenneth Branagh as McCarthy. The trick would be honest resarch on the subject. And honest work, too.

#71 helloworld

I'm not against extreme humor on any subject as long as it's spread around and it's appropriate to the show. Or political commentary if it's what the show is about.
If I watch Dennis Miller or Al Frankin I know what to expect.
It's when it's thrown in where it doesn't belong. Such as on "Law & Order" one of the detectives making a remark about someone lying about WMD's in Iraq, when it had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the show, except a suspect had lied.

Sometimes, a movie is just a movie. Orlando Bloom is the hero and it has cool battle scenes.

#86 Liberality

Except when the producers try to pass it off as historically accurate. But then you don't care, since it adavances your agenda.

#86
And sometimes a movie is "Triumph of the Will". Anyway, I prefer Bloom as an elf; did you see him in "Troy", now that was a bad movie!

I normally like Ridely Scotts work. ALL his films are visually stunning. I even liked Hannibal.
I have problems classifying many films as "Hollywood" films anymore. Many are made overseas and the only American's involved are maybe..maybe the stars, possibly the writers and the producer.

#1, isn't there a new book coming out about how The Crusades were defensive in nature, not offensive?

That would be a wonderful choice to sit home and read.

Someone should make a film on the Koran in graphic vein of The Passion of Christ. Let's see someone put it all out there, the pedophilia, the slaughter of the Jews of Medina, the lies and deceit, the psychotic visions of Mohammed. That would be a film that I would go to see.

#84 zakueins

I remember a McCarthy TV movie many years ago (very anti-McCarthy):

Tail Gunner Joe (1977). Peter Boyle played McCarthy.

After checking Sorge's link in #61, I had to go to Amazon and look up Reston's Warriors of God and not surprisingly, it is a fanciful (and politically correct) fiction. Judging by "Historian's" April 6 review, it would be generous to describe it as "historical fiction" as there appears to be little historical fact in the book. I can only imagine what rubbish Scott's movie must be if he made concessions to CAIR from an already PC source.

#91 biff

Me too.

Here's a good book on the Crusades that everyone associated w/ Kingdom of Heaven should have been and should be forced to read:

Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas Madden

It's been a couple of months since I read it, but some key lessons come from Madden's book:

1) The Crusades did not inspire a unified anti-Christian jihad, at least for a while. There were Muslim cities in the area willing to ally themselves with the Crusaders. What a myth-buster that is. In other words, when the Crusaders proved they could win, some of the local Muslim cities surrounding Jerusalem voluntarily joined to the Crusaders side. A show of power does that in that side of the world, a show of weakness does the opposite. It wasn't until Saladin came along, 100+ years after the Crusades began, did jihad return as a motivating, unifying concept.

2) The Holy Land was won by the Crusaders, and would have stayed won, if not for idiotic geopolitical and military blunders on the part of the Crusaders. They attacked their Muslim-Arab allies, and left defensive positions in Jerusalem (the Battle of Hattin IIRC) only to get their armies slaughtered out in the field. And of course, the stupid sacking of Constantinople, which divided Eastern and Western Europe, not to mention the vile Anti-Jewish slaughters.

Winning in the middle east takes strength which commands respect and unity of the Western world. The Crusaders wasted it and thus lost, and the Left desperately wants us to do the same today.

#91 biff

Same here. But, oooh, imagine the fatwas on that!

I'm sure Ridley Scott and 20 Cent. Fox will spend a pile of money promoting this film and it will still flop. Watching it lose tons of money would be justice enough.

#97 lowandslow

More than likely. I read a movie critic column somewhere recently that said in plain language the the "Sword and Sandal Epic" has run out of steam, and that Braveheart and Gladiator were flukes in the big scheme of things. I kinda have to agree.

So where is Abe Foxman on this one?

#41 dak

Dh just got back from daughter's induction into Phi Beta Kappa. Small liberal arts college. The speaker, much to my amazement, gave a talk on McCarthyism. Not what you'd expect in that setting - he was quite clear that there were Communists all over. The Rosenbergs? So busted, with new Soviet docs as more proof.
I think his message: ya'll are smart kids, don't be moonbats.
Very refreshing...

In real context, the Templars were no worse or better than anyone else. The First Crusades started when the Seljuk Turks started killing and robbing Christian Pilgrims, and the West started to strike back against Islamic incursion, which had swept across Christian North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, Anatolia, Spain, Southern Italy (Muslim pirates raided Rome and Ostia) and Sicily.

At the time 1187, much of Southern Spain was under Islamic/Moorish rule. Southern Italy had only recently been freed from Muslim rule, as had Sicily. Muslims still raided into southern France. There wasn't much tolerance by Islam for Christians, or much peace either. Ironically, Islamic Scholar Averroes, had to flee Al-Andalus (Southern Spain) for Morocco and then France, since his endorsement of rationality in the worship of God wasn't much liked by the Ulema.

Saladin for a time tolerated the Latin Kingdom, mostly as a buffer state between himself in Egypt (where as a Kurdish general serving the Seljuk Turks he wasn't popular, to say the least). When they were no longer needed and too provocative, he eliminated them except for Tyre which remained. Thus provoking the Third Crusade and various entanglements with Richard the Lionhearted.

Point: Jerusalem and the Crusader Kingdoms were only a nuisance. Muslims still ruled in extreme Western Europe (Spain) and would continue to do so right up to Columbus's day. Muslim rulers were more concerned with Constantinople, Anatolia, and soon, the Mongol hordes that overran much of the Muslim world, starting with Ghengis Khan and the Central Asian kingdoms and Persia, and finishing with the destruction of Baghdad by Hulagu Khan (the Abbasid Caliphate) and the similar destruction of the Ayyubid dynasty in Syria, and the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt. Forget the Crusaders. The Mongol hordes were the real (and non-Christian or Muslim) destroyers of the Middle East. Hulagu killed anywhere from 200,000 to 800,000 people in Baghad, at the time the center of learning of the Middle East, and ever since a decrepit backwater.

You wouldn't find much to admire amongst Crusaders or Saladin's army, but the Mongols really were real villains, the enemy of civilization. Of course, that doesn't fit into the narrative of "Westerners = bad guys" but oh well.

#43 fugazi35 5/1/2005 08:08PM PDT

I smell multiple Oscars...or is that pig sh*t?

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

#101 Jim Rockford

Good synopsis. One political issue you left out: originally the Byzantines had asked for help from their fellow Christians in Europe, but Rome demanded the "Schismatics" submit to Papal authority, which the Orthodox, naturally, refused. This lack of any cooperation between Rome and Constantinople doomed the Crusades from the beginning.

#1 farng! 5/1/2005 07:32PM PDT
Sit at home and read a good book

better yet just download it without giving the author a cent for al-jazeera's version of history

I liked Ridley for his fine movies in the past, but he has now declared himself firmly in the ranks of the PC clueless!

Jim:

I have always wondered why it is that the Muslims do not harbor the same resentment for the Mongols, because they really were the end of their empire.

Maybe the movie will not be so bad. Orlando Bloom plays Balian of Ibelin, who I believe was a Crusader. Surely they would not make Orlando Bloom, the reincarnation of Errol Flynn a bad guy.

But the Crusades had villains and heroes on all sides. I know I read about one Crusader that was censured by the Pope for killing Jews. Which shows they tried not to make a habit of it.

But if not for the Crusades I doubt if Europe or Christianity would exist today.

#71 helloworld
tedzilla99 and elastigirl

...toward the end when he falls of the cliff and louis comments on how she can't believe he did that, peter comments "he's christian, they dont' believe in gravity". wtf. imagine if he said, moslem, jewish, black, hispanic, etc... there'd be lawsuits filed ASAP.

Make that Moslem or black, no one gets sued for disparaging Jews or Mexicans.

#85 Elastigirl
#71 helloworld

It's when it's thrown in where it doesn't belong. Such as on "Law & Order" one of the detectives making a remark about someone lying about WMD's in Iraq, when it had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the show, except a suspect had lied.

Exactly how I feel and hollywood and tv are constantly doing it. But, of course it's all by accident...don't you think?

/sarc off

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities had some great stuff on this movie today

Perhaps CAIR liked Kingdom of Heaven because the filmmakers already excised scenes of Muslim warriors spitting on the True Cross & other unacceptable material after a Muslim professor complained. (No doubt this editing was coincidental.)

Ghassan Massoud, who plays Saladin, said he wouldn't participate in any film (or scene - he demanded changes) that perpetuated negative stereotypes of Muslims, & wanted to show the 'facets' of Saladin: "Saladin fights battles, but he also enters into dialogue. We want to show that dialogue can be much better than war. Today, America has overwhelming force but it is as if they don't want to build a dialogue."

Writer Paul Williams notes that Saladin's facets included ordering mass beheadings of prisoners & selling others as slaves.

Among the other tidbits I learned along the way is that the mountain range namedHindu Kush translates as "Hindu Slaughter". Moslems named the range as a warning to others after committing genocide against the Hindu's in the area around 1000 ad.

Funny how Scott let the theocratic CAIR and other moslem groups dictate his movie...like he'd have allowed Christian groups to even CRITICIZE any project of his without running to the MSM to complain about the evil old Xtians?

Dumb dhimmi.

106 Terrye

Because the Christian West is dominant throughout the world. If ancient pagan Mongolian Religion and culture was as prominant as the Christian West today, they would place blame where it is due.

mojo:

Yes, that is probably right.

Like they say, the best revenge is living well.

I am sooo offended by the scawy movie that has muslims in it, I am going to cry about baaad bad Hollywood and exposed nipples making it impossible to live my christian lifestyle. I know nothing about the crusades or the history of islam but LGF says it poppaganda so I will take my spawn to see XXX:state of the union instead.

YOU'RE PATHETIC!

#7 Walpurgis Knight

Nowadays, it seems the only items that qualify as propaganda seek to undermine the state.

That is because the state cannot legally collect information to establish whether this "undermining" (also called "subversion") is done with the assistance or help of foreign governments, foreign entities or by domestic groups which seek the overthrow of our government.

Even if the state did have publicly available information that this was occuring, it would probably not do anything about it (what with "popular opinion" at risk, and all).

BTW, detecting and combatting "subversion" during and prior to the Cold War was an explicit authority of the Executive...but the congress (led by the charge of the ACLU and "public servants" like then Attorney General Ramsey Clark, among others) took that authority away incrementally in the 1970s; now we are fighting the fight no-handed.

At the point where Islamofasists and their Leftist, anti-capitalist boosters are using purely political means to achieve advantage, you have to make a decision...do we let them pursue their agenda through politics unchecked by legal means?

But even asking that question makes two bad asusmptions

...indeed, one very dangerous assumption - that they intend to continue using politics alone to advance their agenda, which seems mindnumingly stupid given 11 September 2001...

...and one very naive assumption, that even if they do not resort again to mega-terrorism (or any terrorism) they will stop pursuing their "agenda" at some point short of impinging on my rights and freedoms.

Since their endstate invariably looks something like Kabul, Afghanistan circa 2000, the Soviet Union at any time during the Cold War, or North Korea today...well, then I would call it subversion and ask why everyone else isn't doing the same.

hujambo

Why don't you troll some nice moslem sites like a good little dhimmi.

Let's start getting into the habit of avoiding really bad films if only based on their plot line. Don't want to pay good money for anti-American or -Western propaganda if we can help it. Shouldn't stop us from critiquing them, of course, even if based on a film critic we respect.

#112 hujambo
What a great argument, you really opened my eyes./

hujambo:

One thing about it I don't think any one on here will kill the actors or director or whatever.

I wonder what the reaction would be if someone made a film of the mass beheadings and rape and pillage and plunder etc that Saladin was really responsible for?

I doubt anyone with a family would even dare be in such a film.

Now that is pathetic.

OT
Michelle Malkin has a great picture of the billboard renaming LA as being part of Mexico.
It seems some folks didn't appriciate it and climbed up and hung the stars and stripes over the word Mexico.

hujambo  5/1/2005 09:57PM PDT

I am sooo offended by the scawy movie that has muslims in it, I am going to cry about baaad bad Hollywood and exposed nipples making it impossible to live my christian lifestyle. I know nothing about the crusades or the history of islam but LGF says it poppaganda so I will take my spawn to see XXX:state of the union instead.

YOU'RE PATHETIC!

Hey buddy, I got friends in the biz... if I chose not to pay for ticket to see one their flicks, it's my bidness, not yours... for Whatever the Fuck reason I chose... ...

This movie will not get one damned cent of mine...this is nothing more then dhimmi bs and shame on the people going to this trash!

Shame on Hollywood for continuing to help dull the ignorant masses in the West about the TRUE nature of Islam over and over again!

Oh for the day when someone will make on honest movie about the murderous cult of Islam and its depraved founder, Muhammed!

I pray that this movie bombs but I'm afriad every moonbat in Western civ will happily go to this along with our dangerously growing Muslim hordes!

#120 Albertanator
You don't have to pray it will bomb. It will bomb and not because it is Islamic neutral just because nobody wants to watch time period epics.

#119 BubbleG

Hi Bubble...funny how hujambo claims Charles knows nothing about the crusades or history of Islam but then offers no evidence or opinions as to why zombie, Kim Rockford, or Spiny Norman and all the others who contribute here are wrong...

pure intellectual arrogance...why wrap my head around a dangerous and complicated world full of deception, competition, and Machiavellian ideologues when I can just pick a utopian normative worldview and believe everything I see in a way that just feeds my base assumptions...

#112

Big bad hujambo scaring us with his sarcasm and superior culture.

PIMF Jim Rockford...damn...too tired to type.

This film might bomb or it might inspire some real curiousity about the Crusades and people will actually make an attempt to learn something.

nahhh.

But in truth they can say what they want but the world can see the Catholics picking a Pope amid the all trappings of tradition... meanwhile in the Middle East veiled women open fire on a bus in Cairo and a suicide bomber blows himself and 30 other to bits in Baghdad.

Who won?

Ahh, it must be nice to be a Islamic fundamentalist. Just make a death threat and watch those noodle-spined liberals eagerly submit. ("Yes Sir, whatever you say Sir. Is this Anti-Christian/Jewish/American/Western enough for you Sir?") Allah forbid they actually care about the truth enough to portray it in their "art." Sheese!

So I see some trolls are whining about our respone...where were they when a Muslim murdered Theo van Gogh for making a movie showing Islam's persecution of women?

#127 Megan

According to #86, 'sometimes a movie is just a movie.' :))

Mr. Massoud [who plays the great Saladin] says Americans are no good at dialogue.

What does that mean exactly?

Zarqawi and Osama are known for many things, but conversation is not high on the list.

I guess it is just more of that make love not war kind of thing.

Saladin must be spinning in his grave to know that some one who would even say such a thing would pretend to be him.

One thing you have to say for the Muslims of those days, they had not as of yet discovered victimhood. There was no whining or self pity.

He's dead, Jim @ 122

An the assumptions, don't forget those... This thread has nothing to do with Christians, it has to do with whether or not a producer, director, changed his movie to placate a specific group. I wonder if Scott felt threatened in some way.

taking sides in the crusades shows... that you automatically align yourself with regimes of centuries-old european kings (of nations your mongrel ancestors fled), that you collapse centuries of history into an eternal present where americans are always fighting muslims, that all you want is for your enemies to not be human. what do you know about the holy lands in the middle ages? what does that time period have to do with modern fundamentalism?

So hollywood is pc garbage propoganda. but white supremacists think the same thing, and blame it on the jews running hollywod. which is what the muslim extremists think, except they confuse hollywood, the u.s., israel and jews all together.

if you really want to be different from fundamentalists, stop thinking like one. for instance, you can be against bus bombings AND believe that the crusades were invasive wars against civilized muslim lands.

to those who bash islam as a faith and ridicule their faithful, I ask you: what the F*** are we doing providing Iraqis with liberating democratic freedom then?

man gotta love the imdb boards. i wonder if they got a full time worker deleting offensive posts. wish i could read some of them.

#59 from your link: the call for the First Crusade to defend Christendom.

"...You must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them.

"For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire.

"If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.

"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested.

"O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion!

"Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor.

"Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let hem eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide."

Pope Urban II, A.D. 1095

I am going to see the movie. If it deviates from historical truth, I will nail it.

Remember, Michael Moore taught us how to see Fahrenheit 911 for free. My ticket money went to "Legally Blonde 2."

Is the troll actually comparing us to white suremicists and Islamic terrorists? Because I don't see anyone threatening to kill Ridley Scott like Theo van Gogh was killed.

#131 hujambo

taking sides in the crusades shows... that you automatically align yourself with regimes of centuries-old european kings (of nations your mongrel ancestors fled), that you collapse centuries of history into an eternal present where americans are always fighting muslims,

Yep. We righteously honor the legacy of our European ancestors who eventually brought freedom and prosperity to the world. What did the muslims bring? Death and squalor. Enumerate for us all the scientific advances and wonderful accomplishments of the oppressed, impoverished ummah. Waiting…

that all you want is for your enemies to not be human.

Actually, you wish that followers of muhammad were human. They’re not; they abandoned their humanity, truthfulness, and sense of fairness in the treatment of fellow human beings (aka the Golden Rule) in their blind obedience to a bloodthirsty lunatic from the 6th century.

what do you know about the holy lands in the middle ages? what does that time period have to do with modern fundamentalism?

islam was ‘perfected’ by allah, therefore it has not been allowed to evolve for 1400 years. If you believe otherwise, you are an apostate to be sentenced to death. islam was spread by the sword. All the formerly Christian nations such as Egypt and Lebanon were forcibly converted to islam. You tell me, genius, what has changed?

So hollywood is pc garbage propoganda. but white supremacists think the same thing, and blame it on the jews running hollywod. which is what the muslim extremists think, except they confuse hollywood, the u.s., israel and jews all together.

if you really want to be different from fundamentalists, stop thinking like one. for instance, you can be against bus bombings AND believe that the crusades were invasive wars against civilized muslim lands.

Better yet, we can believe the truth: That the Crusades were sometimes brutal and unjust. However, if it were not for the Crusades, a large portion, perhaps all of the world would have been crushed under evil islamic shariah law. We are different from the islamo-fascists by the very fact that we do think. Muslims are not allowed to think or question without being accused of fatal apostasy.

to those who bash islam as a faith and ridicule their faithful, I ask you: what the F*** are we doing providing Iraqis with liberating democratic freedom then?

You’re an incredible master of the non-sequitur, shit-for-brains. Muslims are the first victims of islam. They are born into a death cult with no way out. You don't ridicule the victims entrapped in a cult like Jim Jones', you tell them the truth and show them the way out. We’re trying to help them breathe the fresh air of freedom and life-affirming democracy. Freedom will spread throughout the Middle East, despite your preference to shackle your brethren in the chains of islamic tyranny for all eternity.

Do yourself a favor an sprout a brain; do a little reading. It would appear that you strolled into a battle of ideas brandishing a plastic fork, while your opponents are armed with light sabers. Oh the hand? You can probably have that sewn back on.

136 Freedom Fan 5/2/2005 12:51AM PDT

I believe you've ripped him a new one...metaphorically, of course.

freedom fan:

death-worshipping, non-human muslims gave us Algebra and geometry, a system of numbers, astronomy, and basically all the greek philosophy that survived the dark ages preserved in muslim libraries (from which we have the underpinnings of science in aristotle).

the crusdades had nothing to do with the spread of shari'a (which simply means "law").

you do yourself a disservice by conflating all followers of islam with the fundamentalists. if you think america's job is to *liberate muslims from islam,* then you are setting yourself up for a lot of heartache. and we're going to need a few more divisions in the middle east to do it. I truly hope that unlike you, that's not what our administration has in mind...

of course you can always join the "nuke 'em all" crowd here at LGF and solve some of these thorny dilemnas. I'll just be here using bible pages as rolling paper.

If all the folks who watched Passion of the Christ boycott this film, that'll send a message to the freaking hippies in Hollywood. War has been declared by an unholy union of muslims and hippies against Christianity. (retards think the muslims will eventually give them a safe communal society as long as they get rid of the big bad capitalist states). It's high time we stood up and said enough. And we can do it with our economic strength, not through retarded protests and hippie jam-fests.

Dammit, I was praying this would be a really politically incorrect film. I guess I was stupid to think Hollywood could resist throwing in their agenda.

I also hear the film is a "parable" for modern times. Which means Ridley Scott will beat us over the head with painfully obvious metaphors about how America = the Crusaders. If "Alexander" was any premonition, be prepared to see American flags on crusader shields as they drag naked Muslims around on dog leashes.

shari'a (which simply means "law").

Yeah, just like jihad means "internal struggle."

Oops, Alexander was Oliver Stone's. Meh.

During WWII, how many movies portrayed the Germans in a good light? How many movies changed the villains from Germans to another nationality so we didn't offend them?

anyone still up well ok i'll check back found a islamaphobe thread on imdb in their koh threads

Did anybody involved asked Christians what WE think about that movie? Have some representative groups of Christians of all stripes being consulted?
No?
NO?
Then...why do they ask one side's opinion, no, approval and at the same time act as if the other side was non-existent? IT IS THE FAULT OF WE, CHRISTIANS. We have been allowing this to happen in our own lands. Let's reclame Christendom as the muslims reclame the ummah. But, we keep fighting among ourselves, Catholic, Protestant (in it's quasi-infinite variations), Orthodox... We are ohhh so bright! Instead of fighting the enemy we fight other Christian believers, as if they were a worse threat to us than the haters of Christianity and the Christian cosmic vision.I wish we would awake and fortify what unites us and not what creates a divide. I wish we would pray together...

Who were Ridley Scott's financial backers?
Does anyone know?
i suspect Saudi money.

I just checked, Monday, May 2, 5:50 a.m. East coast time, and the IMDB message board is up and running.

Kindgon of Heaven Message Board

Oy: In a public high school in NJ:

MUSLIM YOUNGSTERS MEET THE TEST

[Link: thnt.com...]

Can't wait for the Christ Quiz.

#28 Ward Cleaver

Sorry, didn't see your post before my #147.

Hopefully, there might be an upside to this propaganda film -- that historians (some, anyway) WILL speak the truth, that the main motivation for the crusades was defensive. And then maybe people will actually be forced to discuss HISTORY, not PC myth.

Of course, any historians who do that (and there probably would be very few to begin with) will be subjected to death threats. So...

Compare to the book (and upcoming film)"The Da Vinci Code." A FEW historians have pointed out that it's half lies and the other half trash. But those reports don't get much airing.

It's all very depressing.

Wonder what will happen to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming firm (working title “Vengeance”) on the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes?

Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project

"DAY AFTER TOMORROW" GLOBAL WARMING DISASTER HITS TEXAS PANHANDLE! ALREADY SNOW, 0^o IN DALHART, TEXAS! BUT IT GETS WORSE! THE SNOW IS FORECAST TO GET EVEN HEAVIER! Watch all the winter weather action on the Amarillo WSR-88D NexRad Doppler Weather Radar Loop!

Give me a F(((in break.

It is a god damn movie. For F..k sake.

I will watch it and I am not a dhimmi.

If anyone asks you if you are going to see this movie just say, "Nope, It's Osama Bin-Laden's version of history". Leave it that and avoid big heated discussions about historical accuracy. I reckon that line, if repeated times by enough people, will sink the movie at the US box office.

Very unfortunate, Scott gave us Gladiator and Blackhawk Down. It still puzzles me to no end why the leftism sickness is so rampant and contagious in Hollywood, makes no sense.

Well, everyone was worried that when "The Passion of the Christ" was released all the redneck Christians, being naturally violent folks, would go out and drag Jews behind their pickup trucks. Fortunately, I don't think that happened.

I'm sure, since Muslims are a far more peaceful people, seeing a movie where Christian knights ride on horses beheading Muslims while shouting "Kill a Muslim, go to Heaven" will not inspire any bad behavior by the saracens.

#138 hujambo 
death-worshipping, non-human muslims gave us Algebra and geometry, a system of numbers, astronomy, and basically all the greek philosophy that survived the dark ages preserved in muslim libraries (from which we have the underpinnings of science in aristotle).

You don't actually believe all that, do you? I thought for sure you were just pulling our legs, but I'm getting the awful feeling that you have been fed so many lies to the exclusion of everything else that you actually think they're true.

I know you're probably a lost cause, and facts mean nothing to you any more, but try to grasp this:

First of all, I am vastly more knowledgable and educated than you, by many orders of magnitude, and I actually know what I'm talking about, as opposed to you, who are just parroting PC garbage stuffed in your head by Marxist teachers who didn't bother to inform you that they were Marxist. Anyway, on to the topic:

1. Arabs didn't give us the concept of algebra; the gave us the word algebra. There's a big difference. Algebra was practiced in India long long before Mohammed was born. The Arabs picked up the idea from the Indians, and passed it on to the Europeans. They were conduits, not inventors.
2. Same holds true for "the system of numbers." I know that they're called "arabic numerals" but again that was just the name the Europeans gave them, since the Arabs once again had copied an idea from the Indians and passed it on to the Europeans. See that little "2" at the beginning of this paragraph? Invented by a Hindu. Sorry.
3. "Geometry"? Surely you are in jest. Geometry was practiced by MANY ancient cultures, most notably the Greeks who had pretty much worked out plane geometry in toto at least 800 years before the Arabs appeared on the scene.
4. Astronomy? Say what? OK, in this instance the Arabs did advance the practice of astronomy a bit, but no more so than their predecessors or successors. And they sure as hell didn't "invent" astronomy, which has been around since prehistory. They were just one of many cultures that practiced astronomy.
5. "All the greek philosophy that survived the dark ages preserved in muslim libraries." That doesn't count as being creative or inventing something. All that means is that because of their nice dry climate their manuscripts didn't molder away like they did in most of Europe. Hell of an achievement. Bravo. I guess the Greeks get no credit for writing all the philosophy and science to begin with.

Look, in just about all these cases the story is the same:
Ancient culture (India, Greece, Egypt, Sumeria, Rome, etc.) creates an idea; culture invaded/attacked/wiped out by/traded with Arabs; Arabs copy victim's ideas; Arabs convey plagiarized idea (usually unimproved on) to Europeans as part of the mercantile trade; tell Europeans it's their idea, which the Euros fall for; subsequent research reveals true origins of idea.

The Arabs were good conduits and preservers of ancient knowledge when Europe was going through the Dark Ages. They were not very good at originating new ideas. At best, in a few areas, they provided marginal improvements.

When you grow older, hujambo, you will shake your head in amazement at the garbage you used to think was true. Trust me on this.

#59 Photio - Thanks for the link.

Perhaps Hollywood should make a movie about what the world would be like today if the Crusades had not taken place and Islam had spread unchallenged.

Hmmm... on second thought, they'd probably make it into some fantasy flick about a utopian worldwide Caliphite, ruling benevolently and justly under the most perfect government imaginable.

Nevermind.

#150

Fortunately Speilberg (a definite liberal) has so far been very true to facts when portraying Nazi atrocities against Jews. I have faith that his upcoming film will reflect the facts. At least I sincerely hope so, I am running out of watchable movies. I have not seen a film in the theater since Team America.

Charles has written about the UCLA Professor before (several times - not good sign...) [Link: www.littlegreenfootballs.com...]

El Fadl is being appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom

El Fadl states categorically:
"..Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war. Jihad simply means to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause...Holy war (al-harb al-muqaddasah) is not an expression used by the Qur'anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology war is never holy; it is either justified or not..."

The UCLA Professor is no benign figure.

#138 hujambo

That is not exactly the case, it appears that Algebra and early astronomy accredited to Muslims by your post actually originated in what is today India, Islam had not yet risen as a Religion in the region.

BTW-

The using the Bible for rolling papers.

Cute and funny, but it illustrates a point.

Marilyn Manson, who at the very least toys with Satanism, shreds Bibles during his shows. Some "fundamentalist" Christians will picket his shows, or try to keep him from performing in their city.

Maybe we should ask Theo van Gogh what would happen if Manson defaced the Quran during his shows?

#156 zombie

You don't actually believe all that, do you? I thought for sure you were just pulling our legs, but I'm getting the awful feeling that you have been fed so many lies to the exclusion of everything else that you actually think they're true.

Thanks, you saved me the effort of taking him on.
I work with a guy that sounds just like him. I have been dropping facts on the guy for months now. No, he hasn't changed from being a LLL, but he doesn't spew crap anymore when I am around.

This Christian is planning her own boycott of one.

# 34 dak

That was the siege of Malta, not the siege of Vienna. Suleiman the Magnificent died in 1566. The siege of Vienna took place in 1683, the siege of Malta in 1565.

The septuagenarian in question was Jean de la Valette of the Knights of St. John.

Both sieges would make hella awesome movies.

2. Same holds true for "the system of numbers." I know that they're called "arabic numerals" but again that was just the name the Europeans gave them, since the Arabs once again had copied an idea from the Indians and passed it on to the Europeans. See that little "2" at the beginning of this paragraph? Invented by a Hindu. Sorry.

Wasn't this the same theory Hitler used for Aryans? A migrant people who left India and migrated to Germany?

He never invaded Iran.

First it was "The Sum of All Fears" and Tom Clancy who bent the knee; now it's "Kingdom of Heaven"! I refuse to see it because of it's 'whitewash' of Islam's early aggression.

Historians[not ideologues] have a word for works such as Kingdom of Heaven and that word is Revisionism.

As someone who has talked about the Third Crusade on previous thread and learned information as a result, that is all I can call this piece of haggis.

Like a flame Islam swept all before it as it carried the Prophet's word to all corners of the world while wielding a sword. The Third Crusade was just one more instance. Albeit a doomed one. History International ran a one hour show on the Third Crusade last night. Was an interesting though very condensed retelling, talked about tactics and politics.

I will purchase books on the subject and make up my own mind versus sitting in a dark theatre to be treated to several hours of violent inaccurate eye-candy.

Thank you Zombie.

Miguel,

Did anybody involved asked Christians what WE think about that movie? Have some representative groups of Christians of all stripes being consulted?

The New York Times asked some Jesuit douchebag his opinion. True to form, rolled over on his belly and began doing tricks for his Islamic overlords.

The Rev. George Dennis, a Jesuit priest and a history professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, who was one of five experts provided with the script for "Kingdom of Heaven," said he was impressed by its nuance and accuracy. "Historically I found it pretty accurate," he said. "I can't think of any objections from the Christian side. And I don't think Muslims should have any objections. There's nothing offensive to anyone in there, I don't think."

"Dhimmi" a break.

#16 Jheka:

From the report at Daily Blitz:

"...Specialist Mejia was able to bandage Mr. Calipari’s wound, but Mr. Calipari died a few minutes later. Specialist Peck also tried to assist with Mr. Calipari..."

So much for Sgrena's account of Calipari dying in her very arms where she 'felt his last breath'! She's such a Drama Queen and a GREAT BIT LIAR!

foreign devil,
Don't forget the "Interpreter". Such Hollywood tripe!

Everything you need to know about the Crusades:

"In Hoc Signo Vinces"

Too bad they closed the IMDb boards on KoH. But there is that other 9/11 stinker, "The Great New Wonderful", you know the one with Maggie Gyllenhall. That board seems lively!

Everything you need to know about the Crusades:

Muslims won, too bad for us!

Slightly OT:
Jonathan Tobin has a wonderful article in the Jewish Word Review today.

[Link: www.jewishworldreview.com...]

--->Myths of the Intellectuals
Insight on French bias also gives perspective on American enemies of Israel

In it he highlights the French-made documentary "Decryptage," and it compares the deaths and mythology around Al-Dura with the murder of 13-year old Ya'acov "Koby" Mandell.

It's a great read.

Sounds like this isn't worth watching for people who value historical accuracy. My husband and I see maybe two movies in a theater per year because that's when we can get a sitter, but I guess this won't be one of them.

It would be funny if a large percentage of the movie-watching public end up thinking that this is fiction like "Lord of the Rings" because they don't learn about the Crusades in school. Seriously, how much does the public school system really teach about history, despite requiring years of study in high school? Most of what I've learned about history is what I've read on my own, seen on the history channel, or learned from my husband, who's an engineer but reads more history books than the liberal arts majors I knew in college.

Logic:

If not for the Crusades there would be no Hollywood.

Hell... I doubt if there would be electricity or the combustable engine.

The truth is the Crusades took centuries and some were fought in the Holy Lands and some were fought right in Europe and Turkey.

So obviously that invasion thingee the revisionists talk about went both ways.

In fact the Knights of Templar actually lived in Jerusalem for years.

And the Holy Lands were Christian before they were Islamic, so it seems only fair to point out who started the whole ride in and kill the people and forcibly convert them cycle.

In fact if one studies the history of Eastern Europe it is amazing how many castles and strongholds were built and defended for the sole purpose of keeping out the Turks.

I just doubt that a two hour movie can give a decent overview of centuries of conflict that encompassed most of Europe, central Asia and the Middle East, even if they wanted to.

#134 Mr. Beamish

Remember, Michael Moore taught us how to see Fahrenheit 911 for free. My ticket money went to "Legally Blonde 2."

Great idea! Much rather my money go to Reese Witherspoon, whose ancestor signed the Declaration of Indepedence, than Michael Moore.

#136 Freedom Fan & #156 Zombie - much appreciate your contributions.

No Crusades = no Europe, no Renaissance, no Reformation, no modern science, no modern medicine, no space exploration, no computers. Just thought control & killing. Proof - Muslim culture has obviously stagnated for 1200 + years. Any single culture is going to stagnate. European and later American culture is a continual collection of other cultures, with emergent properties. It adapts to new data, new ideas.

#165 Psyduck -

Wasn't this the same theory Hitler used for Aryans?

No.

Zombies #156 is not "theory", it is well collaborated, pretty much undisputed history.

I agree that I was GOING to watch the movie. Now I'll boycott it, as well. I see for ymself the muslims today...and they are hardly to be admired. To be fair, some are...but not many. My daughter works with some at a nursing home, and they're crass and irreverant to the patients. They mocked the Pope's funeral, they mock the fact that Christian WOMEN keep the children, as opposed to muslim males. It's no wonder muslim women are so screwed up, what with prehistoric male thinking dominating their lives! I think I'll just send the money I would have used for the bloody movie to the Yellow Ribbon Project instead. God bless the coalition troops in this war. Anyone else want an address where to send money, items for the troops, etc? Better money spent than "The Kingdom of Heaven", for sure.

On the subject of Muslims using the technology or knowledge of others, look at today.

A bunch of jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan lusting after the ways of the 7th century and old days of glory...while at the same time using computers and videos.

As far as that is concerned Aljazeera is a great example of copying the infidel while at the same time trashing his culture.

There is not one major univeristy in the Arab world. With all that oil money they could have accomplished so much in terms of research and development if their rulers had been so inclined.

Christian critics plan boycotts of movies they find offensive.

Jewish critics will protest movies they find offensive.

A Muslim critic threatens to kill anyone associated with movies they find offensive.

And in the case of Theo van Gogh, the death threat was carried out.

Was Mel Gibson killed for his movie? No.

Didn't see Alexander, won't see this. I've boycotted myself into quite a few really good books lately...

I plan to see it - just like I saw MM's piece of sh%t.
Buy the ticket for another movie (so my money goes to someone I think deserving of it) and then plop my ass down to watch this
one. I do have to say, after reading all the comments concerning the "U.N." movie (so forgettable I forgot the name already,)that I will refrain from commenting on a movie until after I've seen it. No sense in getting my shorts in a bunch until then. I also think that it does "us" no good to jump all over a movie we've not yet watched. I love it when Hannity, Rush etc. expose those
LLL's that jump all over a book, article etc.that they've admitted they have yet to read - I think we should apply the same principal here lest we become the ying to "their" yang.

**I only made it though the first 20 mins. of the MM lie - I stood up, turned and faced the 20 rows behind me and stated in a very loud, firm voice that "if you sit through this traitorous piece of garbage you should be ashamed of yourselves". I had every intention of watching it beginning to end before I formed my opinion. I was so "moved" that I was seeing red. I had hoped to see, at least a few out of the hundred or so people in attendance, stand up and follow me out of the theatre. I waited outside for about 10 mins. to see if anyone would follow - not a one. It was a long,lonely ride home. The only pleasure I had was knowing my money did not go to MM.

#34 dak

Yes, a movie about the Battle of Vienna would be great, as would, say, one about the Battle of Tours, or a "Master and Commander" type flick about America's early battles against the Barbary Pirates! Ain't gonna happen though, unfortunately! Hollywood has an agenda, and they're pushing it like anything! Not only do they want to whitewash Islam---they want to "blackwash" Christians, as part of their new anti-Christian putsch! (Check out the article about Christians trying to take over the government in the latest "Harpers" magazine.)

#86 liberality

Unfortunately, this "reply" such as it is, is all too typical of the stuff I've seen on movie message boards: "I DUNT CARE ABOUT ALL DIS HERE KRUSADES STUFF! I JUST WANNA SEE ORLANDOOO, AND HIS CUTE LITTLE TUSH, AND LOTS 'N LOTSA COOL SWORD FIGHTING! A BIG BATTLE, WITH LOTSA COOL ELEPHANTS AND STUFF! I DON'T CARE 'BOUT ALL THIS EDUMACATION AND HISTORY, AND DIN'T THE ARABS GIVE US GEOGRAPHY? OR WAS IT GEOMETRY?

(Not that this kind of person can even put two and two together! You see the sort of educational system that produces fine minds like that of our chum, Hujambo.)

#87 Ward Cleaver

LOL! Great riposte to liberality.

#109 Darleen

Gee, when they explore Saladin's "many facets", are they going to explore the fact that he was alleged to be gay?

(Heh, heh, heh, sez Fritzie the Talking Kamel.)

Best way to see a movie like this: wait until it comes out on dvd. Then give it a month or two and the video store will sell the used dvd's at deeply discounted prices. You get to see the movie and no money goes to Ridley Scott or his dhimmi friends.

I'll probably see it eventually, but boy, am I glad I didn't pay my hard earned sheckles to see flicks like "Troy" in the theater. I went to see the Iliad and a Brad Pitt thigh display broke out.

Ok, that wasn't so bad, really.

The Muslims of the time are responsible for the crusades when they attacked Turkey, which was a Christian nation. They awoke the sleeping giant. They have a history of attacking Christian nations, and still the left bleet for them.

Terrye #117 & #129

1. Balian of Ibelin was a real crusader. You can check him out by using your favorite search engine. Avoid any website about him that features the words, "ORLANDO BLOOM!" in huge, bold black type! Unfortunately, it's already happening that the real Baldin is getting confused with the fake movie one.

(Another reason why liberality's post #86 just doesn't wash.)

2. Among the many differences between the real Balian, and the Orlando-Balian:
A. The real Balian was a rich and crafy nobleman, not a simple, earnest blacksmith.
B. He was never (as far as historians can tell) the lover of Baldwin IV's sister, Princess Sibylla. For one thing, he was married to Sibylla's stepmother, the strong-willed Maria Comnena, who would have pulled his beard out, if he'd even thought of such a thing! It was Balian's brother, Baldwin of Ibelin (lotsa Baldwins running around Jerusalem in those days) who wanted to marry Sibylla---not because he was smitten by love for her, but, with Baldwin IV dying of leprosy, he wanted to become king-consort.

Sibylla actually seems to have loved her husband, Guy of Lusignan (the part Orlando actually should be playing! Balian should be played by someone like Russel Crowe.)

LOL! If Saladin's upset about being played by Ghassan Massoud, you can just imagine how Baldwin IV feels, being played by Ed Norton!
(one of those tiresome Hollywood types who feels obligated to bad mouth America, and President Bush; check him out at the Famous Idiots website.)

BTW, the term "Dark Ages" was a term put upon a Christian time span by a liberal thinker. I'm not trying to be contrary to what zombie was saying, but I do want to point out to my fellow lizards that the term "Dark Ages" is liberal propaganda that is centuries old!

Just look up "Dark ages" on wikipedia...

Contrarian view time: I predict the film will be successful and that it will have the contrary effect that its PC inclinations intended!

How do I get off saying this. Ridley Scott is a great director, among the best. He consistantly advances film as an art, and let's just stipulate that Scott, like most artists in his field is left of center.

I suggest LGFers look at it this way- people are going to see a stirring battle between Christians and Muslims- writ large on the silver screen. Do any of you really think that the people paying and watching the movie are going to cheer for the Islamic side? I do not. With all due respect zombie (and I do admire your work monitoring the enemies of freedom), I submit the best thing conservatives can do is actually cheer for the film. Oliver Stone's Platoon did not result in a sudden love and affection for the Viet Cong- they were and they are still not seen as our friends but the enemy.

This film is going to show the savagery of war. It is going to show Islam as the enemy of Christianity and it will instead of causing America and the west to go soft on Islam, it will bring about rational inquiry into the Crusades and strengthen the public's midset to the war in which we currently find us.

As a Jew, I know what the Crusades were and what happened to Jews caught in the middle of them- the Crusades were after all directed against all unbelievers.

But just as I said the Passion of the Christ was good because it reinforced American Christian faith, KoH will be good because it will teach a very important lesson: what the crusades were about and what people do in the name of their faith.

For those unconvinced, remember this, the bigger the deal made about any movie, the more buzz it has. As the ADL learned about the Passion, in our society without prior restraint on speech, the worst thing you can do about a book, person, or film is to make a bigger deal about them than they really are.

If ADL would have just said, "We think Gibson will falsely depict Jews as the killers of Christ. We hope that people of good will and faith will use the film to learn more about the history of the time period and work with us to foster ever better interdenominational relations."

Unfortunately, the right already has its dander up on this film. I wish they would try it my way for once.

I know that a lot of scholars are upset about this movie.

I have found one thing to be true: you can trash America all you want but some of these old Brits with degrees from places like Oxford and Cambridge take European history very seriously and it pisses them off when someone does this kind of revision.

Amazing. I never thought I would be rooting for a positive description of the Christian Crusaders who slaughtered Jews like sheep over the Muslims who, despite killing Jews and treating them like slaves, did not participate in the "excesses" against Jews to the same extent (although I'm not sure how much that is really saying). How times have changed.

#189 RepJ

Yes, there was actually a lot going on the so-called "Dark Ages," which weren't really all that dark!

By the way---like Hugh, over at JihadWatch, I'd like to know who'se backing this movie with their money! I'd also like to know how Sir Ridley was able to pull strings with the King of Morrocco, in order to film over there?

legalpad
Legally Blonde 2, they use that movie in the ER as a non-drug emetic!

Dr. Hamid Dabashi, featured in Columbia Unbecoming, was given a private screening by Ridley Scott and gave the film his stamp of approval, as Scott viewed him as “an important Muslim in New York.”

That is all I need to know.

I will never see this tripe. If this noted Israel-basher approved, then this film is a guaranteed whitewash designed to evoke sympathy for the muslums. Not a nickel will be spent by me to support them.

Funny, the "chill wind" claimed to exist in the area of free expression cited by leftists (and noted intellectuals) such as Tim Robbins and his "life partner" Susan Sarandon seems to blow in from the left. What would these leftists think if a film was pre-censored or screened before a family values or Christian group? The howls of censorship and Mcarthyism would be deafening. But it is perfectly fine for an islumic interest group and terror advocate to have prior review. No outrage there of course.

Typical of the radical left.

Over at DhimmiWatch today, one of the commentators, Chevalier de St. George, also wants to know where the money for "Kingdom of Heaven" came from.

Howzabout it, Lizardoids? Anyone wanna try and hunt it down?

By the way---check out some of the stills from "Kingdom of Heaven", on [Link: www.joblo.com,...] or someplace like that! Baldwin IV, in that unhistorical, unhealthy but oh-so-cute metal mask almost looks prettier than Eva Greene as his sister, Sibylla! He looks weak, silly and effeminate---not at all like the tough teenager, who had himself loaded onto a litter and carried into battle, when he could no longer ride, who spent his life fighting, even when he could no longer walk.

Meanwhile, Saladin is played by handsome Ghassan Moussad, who is very good at standing around, looking imposing and noble. Massoud has gotten almost as much media attention as the ever-popular Orlando, whereas Ed Norton as Baldwin has been barely mentioned---Norton's usually not even listed as a member of the cast. But there's no agenda being pushed in this movie, oh, no indeed. . . )

/Historical Note: Saladin, while he was described as being handsome as a young man, was, by the time he locked swords with Baldwin IV, a slight, slender Kurd, in poor health, not physically prepossing, or striking in appearance. Heavens, he may well have looked more like Yassir Arafish in his last days, than he did like Massoud!)

#146 Chevalier de St. George

You and me both, St. George!

(I'd also like to know how Sir Ridley managed to wangle permission to film a movie about the crusades in Islamic Morrocco.)

I was watching one of the most fabulous of Hollywood Films the other night on the tube: "Easy Rider." And when I was small I thought this was cool? I must have been an idiot.

I laughed out loud at how bad the script was, the absolute immorality of the movie, etc...about the only thing worth saving was the soundtrack which was pretty good.

I predict the same thing of some of these same PoS's being produced now. The clueless will look back in about 25 years and realize what a piece of garbage some of these PC propaganda movies are.

Michael Moore, if he doesn't die from an MI before his time, will be a pariah. He'll be shunned as a moron and traitor.

#156 zombie

Excellent job. And I learned something. Thank you.

138 hujambo

Congratulations! Your posts were utterly skewered by the mysterious LGF legend, Zombie.

of course you can always join the "nuke 'em all" crowd here at LGF and solve some of these thorny dilemnas. I'll just be here using bible pages as rolling paper.

Don't know what you're smokin buddy, but I can guess. If you had been paying any attention at all to my posts, you would know that folks like Jheka and me fight the "nuke 'em all" crowd with every fiber of our being every chance we get.

Have fun desecrating the Holy Book of the Jews and Christians, which was ripped off and perverted by muhammad. As Ed Mahmood said:

Maybe we should ask Theo van Gogh what would happen if Manson defaced the Quran during his shows?

Yeah the muslims were real scholars, just as they are yet today. In 642, the muslim Caliph Omar ordered that all books in the library of Alexandria, Egypt be destroyed.

He said "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." Therefore, the books and scrolls were taken out of the library and distributed as fuel to the many bathhouses of the city. So enormous was the volume of literature that it took six months for it all to be burnt to ashes heating the saunas of the conquerors.

So you buddies were the original antagonists for Bradbury's Farenheit 451 (the temperature at which books burn). Suppose the advent of the dark ages had anything to do with the fact that the muslims burned the entire collection of the worlds knowledge at the time, in order to heat their bath water?

Incredible. Amazing. Incomprehensible. That muslims actually took baths, I mean.

one more point to add
*CAIR gave it their approval...

That pretty much does it for me.

Our culture has been so threatened that we cant even portray history accurately in our own country.

Also, I have yet to hear a word on the media regarding all the grumbling from Historical scholars regarding this sensitive movie.

Why did he pick THIS topic, if he wanted an epic, why not Ghangis Khan? That would be a movie that *I* would want to see.

hujambo

Come back when you've actually studied some real history, sugarplum!

"I'll just be here using Bible pages as rolling paper."

But, remember, hujambo is a member of the sensitive, tolerant Left, and NOT one of those horrible, "nuke 'em all" bigots! No, indeed! His hatred of Judeo-Christianity is simply his little way of expressing himself against an evil Republico/Nuke-em-all/Zionist/Crusader society, which won't provide him with free rolling papers! NEVER call him a bigot!

(Heh, heh, heh, sez Fritzie the Talking Kamel. . . )

Ed Mahmoud

I think we know what would happen if Manson, or hujambo, started defacing Korans, for rolling papers, or for any other reason.

But we must remember---THEY are of the sensitive, tolerant Left! If they deface Bibles, it's not because Christians and Jews are easy targets! No, no, no! They are showing courage, and rebellion against societal mores, and---and---and---they want free drugs, man! And Save the whales! etc., etc., etc., and so forth.

(Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. . . )

156 zombie

You are truly "it," "da bom," "baddd," and, in my own personal out-of-date slang, really way cool. Thank you.

And re hujambo's comment:

Christians, remember, you are the only Bible some people will ever read.

Hooray for zombie. Who says LGF isn't educational?

Heya TalkinKamel,

Methinks the huji has left the building as hujimbo took a licking.

How are things?

I predict that this will be as successful as the 2001 Eid stamp. First the Post Office, now Hollywood. When are the intellectual powerhouses going to figure out that you just can't make money giving Muslims blowjobs?

#207 Anna

Heya, Anna! It's going okay. How about you?

You know, Saladin was looked upon in a positive light way before "The Talisman". Dante considered him a virtuous pagan---in Limbo, rather than hell. (The Inferno, Canto IV.)

I'd be interested to know exactly which mass beheadings of crusaders y'all are talking about. I did read that Saladin offered to send Richard I of England his physician when he was wounded. (Medicine in the Muslim world was better than that in the Christian world. Look up 'Maimonides'.) But I suppose that may be apocryphal.

It's interesting to note that the Crusaders, on the whole, weren't very good at Crusading. I can't imagine why modern Christian warriors want to tack the name "Crusade" to any endeavor they undertake. I mean, the only Crusade they really won hands-down was actually fought against the French.

If I were to see this movie I would pay for a ticket to something else. It will make a huge amount of money overseas and in the ME if it is truly as muslim-friendly as it seems, but losing the US dollars is definitely a huge hit for a film.

Someone mentioned that there should be a production company that was devoted to less-leftist causes. Unfortunately the Hollywood machine is firmly entrenched. Anyone can make a movie. It's getting it distributed that will bring you up short. The same leftists that control the studios also own all the theaters.

Get some conservatives to open a theater chain and maybe we'll have a chance.

#156 Zombie

Nice post. I have linked to an interesting letter sent to Carly Fiorina (then CEO of Hewlett Packard) in response to a speech she gave extolling the scientific and scholarly virtues of Islam. The author lays out in detail the contributions of various non-Islamic civilizations to science, technology and the arts – particularly Christian Assyrians (the author is a Christian Assyrian). He pointed this out to Ms. Fiorina and how the Arabs were quick to appropriate these advances as their own.

[Link: www.ninevehsoft.com...]

#200 freedom flacK: at the time of the crusades, christians were afraid that taking baths would make them ill. muslims had resplendent bathouses in every town. this could go on and on... there's no arguing with people who wish to denigrate an entire civilization because it makes them feel better about a complicated world. you and the muslim extremists deserve one another-- I just wish the rest of us didn't have to be in your way.

re: smoking the bible: I said that because that's what you think of me already. that I'm an immoral dirty hippie, etc. etc. well, I guess we'll have to wait for the day of judgement to see who won out on the moral scales. luckily LGF'ers won't be running that contest.

btw, why don't you go to colorado springs and ask one of those evangelical radicals what they think of judaism... they're with us now, sure, until the rapture, when the jews can burn in hellfire... strange bedfellows...

#213 hujambo
at the time of the crusades, christians were afraid that taking baths would make them ill. muslims had resplendent bathouses in every town. this could go on and on.

Oh, back for more abuse, eh? I'll be happy to dish it out.

1. At the time of the Crusades, taking baths DID make you ill, idiot. Most water supplies in urban or village settings were contaminated with sewage runoff, and were filled with all sorts of microorganisms that led to diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, etc. Unless the water was boiled beforehand, if you took a bath in that stuff and some of the water got in your mouth/nose or other mucus membrane (which it almost always does), then you could (and often would) become infected. There was no running water from fresh water supplies in those days, and the germ theory of disease had not been discovered, so no one knew to boil their water before bathing in it. Hence, bathing in urbanized settings often led to illness. Guess those Europeans weren't so stupid and superstitious after all, hunh?
2. "Muslims had resplendent bathouses in every town." Fascinating! Every town, hunh? Every single town from Aghanistan to Spain had a resplendent bath house in 1100? Wow, the things one learns on LGF. I'll have to write that one down in my little book of facts.

Moron.

this could go on and on.

So, you're saying your ignorance is bottomless and goes on without end? I'd believe it.

hujambo, I hate to break the news to you, but the "knowledge" they gave you in college is all a giant steaming pile of dung. You don't know that yet, but after a few years out in the real world you'll run up against reality and realize you've been lied to. I hope this starts you on the road to real self-education.

Re: #213 Hujambo

"at the time of the crusades, christians were afraid that taking baths would make them ill"

So what's your point? Europe was just beginning to emerge from the Dark Ages caused by what - various barbarian invasions and the collapse of the Roman Empire (and civilization). Hint - think of Rome and the term public baths should come to mind.

#214 zombie
At the time of the Crusades, taking baths DID make you ill, idiot.

If bathing made one so ill, why was it that the Jews, who washed their hands before eating, were so much less likely to die of various plagues and illnesses in those times? (Which usually led to the local Christians running them out of town or setting them on fire, but I disgress.)

Or, I suppose, my father could have been lying to me when he told that story about the netilat yadayim every Passover. I can't back it up with anything other than that. Though if washing was as dangerous as you say, it's amazing my ancestors survived.

So, were the Medieval Jews superstitious morons for washing, or were the Medieval Christians morons for refusing to do so?

I can't speak to the idea of Muslim bathhouses. It sounds fishy to me.

#213 hujambo

Oh, no, we don't think you're an immoral, dirty hippie;

We just think you're a jerk, who doesn't know much about history (or anything else) but bloviates on about it anyway.

(Hippie? HIPPPIE? I'm beginning to think ya got stuck in a time warp! Oooh, heavy! That's a REAL LSD trip!)

#214 Zombie

Actually, both Western and Eastern observers remarked that the Crusaders of the Holy Land, the poulains, did bathe regularly, used unguents and perfume essences and, sometimes even depilated all their body hair, in the manner of the Moslems. I recall reading somewhere that Israeli archaelogists have uncovered bath houses built adjacent to the humble dwellings of Poulian sugar cane farmers, which shows that even the relatively poor Crusaders liked keeping clean.

For the west, it's as you say---taking a bath is a life-threatening proposition, with no central heating, or clean water.

hujambo, by the way, is using a very typical trick many use in whitewashing the Moslems; he is making them sound much more modern (like us) than they really were, and making Westerners sound far more barbaric and backwards than they really were.

(Oh, and thanks for doing a great job!)

(And if hujambo thinks evangelicals are bad, he should talk to some "loving", "tolerant" and "compassionate" Episcopalians about Zionism, and the Palestinians. It'd be a real eye-opener.)

zombie, your logic is flawless. if by flawless you mean sophist. see, the romans had little things called aqueducts. the europeans let theirs fall into disrepair; muslim lands still had theirs. how do you explain this technological gap? could it be that the arabs were enjoying heights of civilization unknown to europe at the time? that they ruled the seas, traded further afield, and were producing arts and crafts of unmatched quality in urban centers like baghdad?

we get it, muslims were always animals, fine. christians are the best. whoo-hoo yay christians. all american soldiers are christians. all americans are christians. jesus made america and the m-1 abrams to kill some backwards hajis.

as for your "self-education," i'm sure it's suitable for the lgf circle jerk, and you certainly seem to think you're a genius. but I don't regret my (years-old) college education, thanks.

#216 grendelkhan
If bathing made one so ill, why was it that the Jews, who washed their hands before eating, were so much less likely to die of various plagues and illnesses in those times? (Which usually led to the local Christians running them out of town or setting them on fire, but I disgress.)

So, were the Medieval Jews superstitious morons for washing, or were the Medieval Christians morons for refusing to do so?

No, that's a good point. The different is this: it's a matter of full immersion. Washing one's hands is usually a good idea, because hands can get covered in germs. When you wash your hands, even in germ-y water, you make them cleaner. There are no mucus membranes on your hands, so even if the water was contaminated, if you wash your hands and then dry them before picking your nose or whatever, then you have improved your personal hygiene and decreased the chance for infection. A full-immersion bath, in tepid germ-filled water, is what was dangerous. So neither the Jews nor the Christians were morons.

As for the bath houses in the Ottoman Empire (and yes of course there were some in major cities like Constantinople, but not in every single freakin' town), the water was heated to above pasteurization level, which killed most of the germs, so bathing was OK.

And no, the Turks or Arabs didn't invent this concept -- the Romans had been doing it for centuries, and the Medieval folks just emulated the Roman custom.

#210 grendelkhan

Sadly for all lovers of happy stories, and happy endings, all those tales of Saladin sending his physician, peaches, snow, a bottle of asprin, etc., to good King Richard are probably apocryphal, as are all the laudatory tales---dating from around the 14th Century, long after the Crusades---which depict him acting like a chivalrous Christian knight, falling in love with the lady Sibylla of Antioch, etc. They seem to be inventions of minstrels who never met Saladin, or traveled to the Middle-East. They're pretty stories, they're not historically accurate.

Oh, and the Moslems probably did know more about medicine, though I am no medical historian, so I cannot say how much, or in what way they may have been superior. To reiterate the point I made in my previous post---once again, we are invited to see the Moslems as far more advanced, then they actually were---"Moslem medicine was more advanced then Christian medicine"---well, that's fine as far as it goes. But no one's medical knowledge at that time was very great. For one thing, Moslems' knowledge of the human body was limited (just like the Christians) because they didn't allow dissection of human cadavers. And, again, they believed in the theory of humors, and in bleeding.

(Oh, and Maimonides was a Jew! Don't expect to see him appear in any Crusader movie any time soon, though he certainly deserves a starring role!)

And, of course, the big push for the nobility of Saladin came with Sir Walter Scott, and with Kaiser Wilhelm (yes, THAT Kaiser Wilhelm!) A really interesting book, or movie could be made about the highly strange convergence of the Occult movements, the Eugenic movement and the general romantic movement of the late 19th, early 20th Centuries, and how they affected the ghastly later 20th Century.

In my next post, I'll mention some of Saladin's beheadings. Stay tuned!

Here are some beheadings Saladin arranged:

"Reynald of Chatillon was the only prisoner of note to be killed after Hattin, although the sultan (Saladin) bought all the surviving members of the military orders from their captors in order to induldge in the barbaric custom whereby men of piety, unskilled in the use of weapons, were allowed to try their hand at executing the prisoners. This spectacle, we are told, made Saldin smile."

Bernard Hamilton, "The Leper King and His Heirs", Cambridge University Press, Page 231.

This massacre of all the capture military monks has been well-documented in other sources.

There is also Saladin's brutality to the Sudanese guard and their families, when he took over Cairo, and dethroned the Caliph, and he had at least one unfortunate young man crucified for being, "A hater of G-d." (I've posted that on other threads; I'll post it again, if you like.)

#219 zombie
As for the bath houses in the Ottoman Empire (and yes of course there were some in major cities like Constantinople, but not in every single freakin' town), the water was heated to above pasteurization level, which killed most of the germs, so bathing was OK.

Perhaps I'm being way too picky here, but the pasteurization temperature usually used for, say, milk, is 161 fahrenheit, which will scorch the flesh from your bones if you leap into it, no joke. I can't imagine why the ancients would have chosen to heat the water up that hot before bathing in it. It would have cost more time and energy, and introduced a very real danger of burning oneself. As they didn't have the germ theory of disease, there'd be no reason for them to go to the trouble of making the water dangerously hot, anyway---and heating water to a usefully hot temperature (say, 120 degrees) doesn't have a significant enough effect on germs. Not to mention that huge stagnant pools of warm-to-hot water with people-grime sloughing off into it all day long would be a good, rather than bad, environment for microbes.

But this is all supposition, in any case.

#219 Zombie

Interestingly, Carobeth Laird, who wrote "Encounter With an Angry God", describs rural Californians Hispanics/Indians at the beginning of the 20th Century behaving in much the same way. They were actually very clean people, washed face and hands, etc., but they would not take full baths, because, "Baths make you sick!"

These were very rural, old-fasioned people, with no indoor plumbing, living very much as Medieval people must have lived. And, according to Laird, they seemed quite clean, and usually healthy.

#218 hujambo

christians are the best. whoo-hoo yay christians. all american soldiers are christians. all americans are christians. jesus made america

What is this bizarre obsession with Christians? Don't you realize that the Left's blanket generalization that "all non-Leftists are fundamentalist Christians" is just a propagandistic talking point? You're not actually supposed to believe it. Try to get this through your head: I am not a Christian. 70% (at least) of LGFers are not Christians. I don't think "Christians are the best." All of those stereotypes you have about us are completely off the mark and unconnected to reality.

Look, everyone knows that the Arab world's high point in its history coincided almost exactly with Europe's low point. No one is denying that. But this brief moment in history is endlessly harped on and wildly exagggerated for political purposes in today's media and schools. Yes, between about 750AD and and 1250AD the Middle East was better off than much of Europe as regards to certain amenities and technologies. But the difference was not as big as you have been led to believe. The vast majority of people in the Middle East during the period were peasants who basically lived at the same subsistence level as the Europeans did. And most of the extra comforts and knowledge in the Middle East at the time were either borrowed from elsewhere or traded for, or left over from past civilizations. And then it all came crashing down and this brief flourishing was over.

There's a difference between admitting historical truths and just being a cheerleader for "Christians." Man, are you out in left field. I used to think that much of the Leftist verbiage was just an act, a smokescreen to purposely muddle the issue, but I can see now that there are people who actually believe it. Sad.

#222 grendelkhan 
Perhaps I'm being way too picky here, but the pasteurization temperature usually used for, say, milk, is 161 fahrenheit, which will scorch the flesh from your bones if you leap into it, no joke.

No no no, you heat it up to over 161 degrees (212 degrees is better), and then you cool it down before climbing in. When you drink pasteurized milk, you aren't drinking scalding milk; it was heated up to kill germs, then cooled down for human use. Sorry for the confusion.

#222 grendelkhan

It may just have been that the Romans, like the Japanese, and the Finns, who enjoyed saunas, liked hot, hot, HOT baths, because of the powerfully relaxing effect they have. (Certainly Pasteur was a long, long way in the future!)

hujambo

Dude, I think it's time you climbed back into the time warp, and return to 1973.

#224 Zombie

humjambo's obession with Christians is, basically, the Left's obessesion with Christians.

Christianity is, I believe, going to be the next thing the Left goes after---as it's been going after the Jews (a.k.a. "Zionism") for decades.

I don't think the point is that the Muslims were terrible people, they were an empire and were known to be very brutal. So were a lot of other people.

But I think the point here is that if a movie were made showing the Muslims in a light that was less than flattering heads would roll, literally.

The Christians were not perfect, but the Crusades were not just a pursuit of wealth and land they were also a defensive conflict fought by Christians to save their faith. That there were atrocities on both sides of the conflict there is no doubt.

It is difficult for us today to understand the emotions involved here, but at least when they make a movie like the DaVinci Code or the Kingdom of Heaven we don't tend to worry about some crazed Christian killing people.

Islam had no Reformation, the Christians did.

They are stuck. So yeah, if you think that taking a bath is a something to brag about, Saladin was known to bathe from time to time.

so what.

The problem is time stopped for them and catering to this revisionism is not going to help them move forward. It will only feed their delusions.

#220 TalkinKamel

Thank you for your input. My knowledge of Saladin was limited to his involvement with Maimonides; the idea, as I recall, was that the greatest Jewish mind of the age worked in Muslim-controlled lands, because Christendom wasn't particularly friendly to learning until the Renaissance. And, of course, now a significant portion of the engineering faculty of the university I went to were emigrants from predominantly Muslim nations in search of academic freedom. How the wheel turns, etc.

Now I've looked up Maimonides, and it seems that he was born in Córdoba (lovely place, my filthy assistant tells me), under Muslim rule, and emigrated to the middle east, also under Muslim rule, so one couldn't really say that he was running from an oppressive Christian government. Ah well.

#226 dude, who needs a time machine, when I can smoke all this refer and have mind-transporting sodomy with multiple partners, which is my due as a dirty hippy atheist liberal.

zombie, as for trading and accumulating knowledge not counting as innovation, the Chinese called. They want gunpowder back. And spaghetti. please consult your local druid for immediate reversion to pure european culture.

#224 Zombie

. . .And you make some very good points about the culture of the time! Yes, the Moslem world had some amenities the Christian world didn't---but, again, that is always exaggerated, and the Islamic world is always made to sound more like the modern world than it actually was!

(And it must be remembered---among the amenities that helped make Moslem life, at least for the upper classes, so comfortable, was a steady of slaves!)

Hey, if it's culture and comfort, refinement, cleanliness, artistic-sensibilities and decadence you want---hey, the Christian Byzantines may have out-done everybody!

As for the left's hatred of Christianity, they are ignoring the fact that modern liberal thought would not exist if not for certain Christian doctrine. The sermon on the Mount was radical in its time.

I am not a fundamentalist. But our idea of helping the poor, doing unto others, judge not least ye be judged etc have found their way into western liberal thought.

Even people who do not believe in God can acknowledge and understand this.

What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response , a book by Bernard Lewis.

For centuries the world view and self-view of Muslims weemed well grounded. Islam represented the greatest military power on earth -- its armies, at the very same time, were invading Europe and Africa, India and China. It was the foremost economic power in the world, trading in a range of commodities through a far-flung network of commerce and communications in Asia, Europe, and frica; importing slaves and gold from Africa, slaves and wool from Europe, and exchanging a variety of foodstuffs, materials, and manufactures with the civilized countries of Asia. It had achieved the highest level so far in human history in the arts and sciences of civilization...

And the, suddenly, the relationship changed. Even before the Renaissance, Europeans were beginning to make significant progress in the civilized arts. With the advent of the New Learning, they advanced by leaps and bounds, leaving the scientific and technological and eventually the cultural heritage of the Islamic world far behind them.

#230 Hujambo

Re: "please consult your local druid for immediate reversion to pure european culture. "

Would by chance be the same European culture as say - Greece or Rome? Just asking.

Get it through your head - Europe was savaged during the Dark Ages with wave after wave of barbarian attacks coinciding with an enervated Roman Empire that collapsed under repeated attacks by Huns, Vandals, etc.

Heya TalkinKamel,

I am doing fine. I think we have an amatuer ideologue with oral diharehha. But what do I know, I like facts and not theories. Probably should order the paperback version of Baldwin the Leper King.
For instance when the Muslim forces from Egypt took Acre after Saladin defeated the Army of Jerusalem at Hattin. Because Acre resisted; the able bodied were sold into slavery while the others were put to the sword. When Richard III retook Acre because it resisted, he had slayed 3000 Muslims by decapitation.
So in a modern sense, what both sides did was a war crime. But for those times, it was part&parcel of waging war. One professor at Sandhurst offered the opinion in that History International piece that by killing those Muslims Richard actually weakened Saladin's reputation as a leader because Saladin had done nothing to save them.
Oh for amusement sake, notice even the pro-jihadis are using the Western version of the Caliph of Damascus and of Cairo? Oh the insensitivity of these people, CAIR should declare a fatwa about 'Respecting the true name of Salah ad Din!' What do you say?

Wasn't Saladin actually a Kurd?

Hujambo,

If the Mid East culture was so exquisite as you attest, where is it? Most of their ilk don't have clean drinking water. Is there a bigger enema pile than the Middle East anywhere in the world?

As for the typical Christian bashing, can't you come up with something original? Why don't you fly down to Honduras, take a boat ride to Calcutta, fly over to the Sudan, and ask what the locals think of those dirty evangelicals?

What you'll hear are the words caregiver, hospice, builder, charity, and the like. In fact, about 98% of the charity work done in 3rd world is either conducted by those awful Catholic Charities or the dirty evangelicals. Want something closer to home? Should we criticize the Red Cross, Salvation Army, John 3:16 missions? How about Habitat for Humanity? Are they the scum you're talk about? And I'm sure you wouldn't dare make use of any of those Catholic or Baptist hospitals.

Show me your works Hujambo. Dig deep because you won't find many. You're a dope with a chip on your shoulder about people of real faith - with the exception, of course, of those who espouse your godless way of thinking.

goodbye-natalie: here's my blog about my works.

kivu.blogspot.com

I can't abide those who use their sense of righteousness to belittle others. you may be a fine person, but you're guilty of sin-- vainglory.

Ridley Scott is an English director whose been very successful in Hollywood, and given the current tenor of left leaning Britain these days, no surprise

I also wonder did he get his financing from Hollywood solely or did he get some financing from the UK and/or Europe

these days many large films get financed in complex multi party deals which could indeed include financing from LA, London and somewhere in Europe

Just for fun, what the jews would have done ( under jewish law) back then if we had had a mighty army:

"When you take the field against your enemies and Adonai your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife, you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive's garb. She shall spend a month's time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife. Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her" (Deuteronomy 21:10-15).

While taking civilian women captive during war may be inconsistent with our contemporary sense of morality, the biblical injunction presumably attempts to counter the wanton rape of women common during times of war. Furthermore, by granting the captured women time to mourn for their families, forcing men to marry female captives before having sexual relations with them, and forbidding these women then to be sold into slavery, the Bible attempts to protect the women's dignity, even within an inherently degrading situation.

[Link: www.myjewishlearning.com...]

Also interesting if anyone will talk about the crusades as a forward stratgy, making the arabs fight for the holyland instead of focusing on attacking europe. Much as many suspect that all the arab fighters going into iraq are being diverted from any missions against the USA mainland and civilians.

#236 Terrye:

Yes, Saladin was a Kurd.

#235 Anna

Interesting! It may well be that Richard's killing of the 3,000 prisoners weakened Saladin's reputation! Hee, heee, yeah! I say CAIR should declare fatwa! Defend Saladin's honor!

(Yes, the troll has both mental, and verbal, diahrehha, but, it's basically just a poor lost soul that came here from Santa Cruz, circa 1973.

Hopefully it will return there---soon.)

#238 hujambo

If you can't abide those who use righteousness to belittle others, and a sense of vainglory---how can you possibly stand yourself?

#243 good one. [/ululate] you can't spell diarrhea, much less diagnose it.

#237 Goodbye_natalie

I checked out the website jambo listed; it's about the Congo, and seems like your basic, progressive, "Oh, isn't this awful?" sort of thing. The first article quotes Jan Egeland, head of UN Humanitarian Affairs (and we ALL know how humane the UN is, don't we boys and girls? Can you say, "Sexual Abuse in Liberia?" I knew you could. . . )

Can't tell just from looking at it whether or not jambo runs it, reads it or really has anything at all to do with it. Anyway, it's certainly not like building a hospital, or much of the work evenagelical Christians have done.

jambo

How can you accuse anybody of "sin", or "vainglory"? Isn't the whole idea of sin sort've a Judeo/Christian notion? I mean, shouldn't we all just accept other cultures as they are, and not judge? Isn't that what we evil guys are doing here on LGF? Judging other cultures? Aren't all cultures equal?(Except Christian ones, which are evil, and Islamic ones, which are superior to all others because Moslems took baths during the Middle Ages.)

/Oh, come on! I don't need a tag!

:>)

Anna

Yes, do get the paperwork about the Leper King!

#243 jambo

Don't have to spell it, to be able to recognize it when you smell it!

(It is vainglorious to correct other people's spelling. It's also a sin.)

:>)

Well Mambo Hajambo,

I checked it out. What the hell is it supposed to be - Lucy, Apeman, Congo River Dancing?

If that's your idea of "works" then no wonder your posts come across as some kind of pompous ass with a room temperature IQ. What do you do for a real living? Scrounge for bugs under rocks or something?

It did provide a good laugh, though!

P.S. to Mambo,

Man, they're burning your website up! Eight posts since June 2004! So far, you've beat your website hits with your facetious posts in this segment alone!

I'll bet LGF and the clan are scared to death your influence may sway the masses!

But keep up the good work! Nice pictures of the gorillas...hey, by the way where's that good old Muslim religion working tonight in the Congo? Bleeding the natives? Or just raping Koko the gorilla? Probably beats the Mrs. at home.

Hujambo

Islam has changed within the last 200 years, the intellectuals in Islam up to the beginning of this century were attuned to the modern world and sought out to modernize the Islamic world with fervor. Ignorance only existed in the uneducated classes who had nothing to fall back on other than the local Imam. Nowadays the intellectual elites of Islam, and fueled by leftie ideology, believe that the path of religious zealotry and adherence to Quran is the way to go because it is above all else "Muslim". Now instead of the Imams being contradicted by intellectuals are instead being justified by Muslim intellectuals. This all means that Islam back in the days of the crusades might just be different than how it is now. Had Islam existed for the last 1400 years in the form it is now, no Christians would ever have existed in the Muslim world, especially in the Arab world. Unfortunately with the changing times, Christians are fleeing the Arab world like animals from a forest fire.

You cannot judge western advancement by picking medieval peasantry for an example. That is like someone a 1000 years from now picking Harlem, NY to be the standard which 21st century is to be judged by. The claim that they were more civil than the western world was never studied by any scholar, it was just assumed to be accurate. During the time of their "golden age" They made no significant discoveries, they recycled what was left to them by the Greeks and re-invented it to fit their uses. If you comb through history you will find that many of their scientists and leaders were non-arabs, people like Al Jabir, Qa'Qua, Al Jahith. Even the overstated advancement in mathematics was clearly re-used material from Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus and etc...

Have you seen a Muslim bathe before prayer? I have, it constitutes washing of the face, the hand up to the elbow and feet all done with sprinkling water and rubbing, no soap. Not exactly sanitary. The very fact that sanitation was an issue in western world is a testament to the size and prosperity of these cities. Someone has to make the point that Islam during that time wasn’t all peaches and cream, this does not stem from hate, but fact, sugar coating a movie so a few fascist Muslim organizations are happy is not a solution, it propagates their propaganda and that is dangerous.

[Link: www.aina.org...]

#247 Goodbye_natalie

Uhh, maybe it's about helping River dancing gorillas?

Actually, having looked over the site, I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be about, besides the Congo, and how bad it is there, and how the UN, or somebody, should DO SOMETHING. (By the way---lotsa luck counting on the UN to fix things, Jambo!) And it does look like he writes all the articles himself.

Well this was a lively, informative thread. Thank you Zombie and everyone, I learned a lot.

Hujambo, kudos. I hafta admit you got some balls for taking on some of us older folks. You engaged and I don't believe you qualify as a troll. Hang in there; we will find the truth together. Consider this your initiation into LGF. Welcome.

#229 grendelkhan

You're very welcome, I'm glad I had some input to give!

I think one problem in presenting the Crusades is that they are so complex, and there are so many fascinating characters involved in them: (Maimonides, Saladin, Baldwin IV, the real Balian of Ibelin, not the Orlando version, William of Tyre, etc.), that a movie can't really encompass them all. I've said before, I think a mini-series, such as "I, Claudius," might be a better way of approaching it.

The Caliphate of Heaven has a 60% fresh score on the tomatometer today.

#253 Jinn & Tonic

Hmmm, doesn't look as if even Orlando the Adorable can really save this film!

Orlando Bloom was good as an elf in LOTR.

I liked it when he was shooting orcs with arrows and used one arrow to stab an orc by hand (then re-used it to shoot at another orc with a bow.)

253 Jinn & Tonic

Perhaps my favorite review:

"Kingdom fulfills the requirements of grand-scale moviemaking while serving as a timely reminder that in the conflict between Christianity and Islam it was the Christians who picked the first fight."
-- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

#256 Freedom Fan

Ayup, ayup, it was all the fault of those bad ol' Christians!

And the Battle of Tours, and the Islamic conquest of the Christian Middle-East and Africa never happened!

/Of course it's sarc.!