BigDog's House

Moral Ground

2005-12-29T20:41:00.000-06:00

Imposing Your Preferences On Others Through Government

Couldn't agree more with Williams.

Art needs moral vision

"In Munich, however, force is viewed with the suspicion typical of the quasi-pacifist liberal. Using force against murderers is futile, the movie keeps telling us, for each dead terrorist is replaced by another one, each killing of a terrorist inspires another act of terrorist retribution. I wonder what would have happened if the same attitude had been taken regarding Nazis or kamikaze pilots. Thank goodness our fathers and grandfathers had more sense. They knew that evil men have to be destroyed, and you stick with the job until the evil men give up or are no more. They knew that evil men choose their evil to advance some aim, and will try to kill you no matter what you do, and are more likely to take heart from a failure to resist than to reconsider their evil aims or to abandon violence. They knew that the sorts of reservations Munich indulges are not signs of a sophisticated sensibility but rather the evasions borne of moral uncertainty, Hamlet-like doubts whose purpose is to avoid action and moral responsibility."

Munich the movie aside, I can't imagine a more insightful concise summery and dismissal of dangerous moral ambiguity.

Chinook Diplomacy

"....the Chinook has become America's new emblem in Pakistan, a byword for salvation in an area where until recently the U.S. was widely and fanatically detested. Toy Chinooks (made in China, of course) are suddenly popular with Pakistani children. A Kashmiri imam who denounced the U.S. in a recent sermon was booed and heckled by worshippers. "Pakistan is not a nation of ingrates," a local businessman told me over dinner the other night. "We know where the help is coming from.""

Refreshing.

People who don't get out much

2005-12-28T22:31:00.000-06:00

Federal agents' visit was a hoax

Well, DUH. What kind of paranoid, self-absorbed fool would believe that the American government would actually give a sh*t about what people are reading? What gets me are the people who BELIEVED his bullsh*t.

Stars turn backs on America's troops in Iraq

"The tradition of beautiful women thrilling the troops has continued - although while Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell showed up in Korea and Vietnam could boast Raquel Welch, in Iraq they have had to make do with sometime pop singer and reality TV star Jessica Simpson."

While I see no problem with the gist of the story, does the Guardian have anyone who is actually familiar with America? "Make do" with Jessica Simpson??? Check the tabloids and the entertainment mags, guys. Jessica is on the cover of most of them.

Frankly, Jessica Simpson is much hotter than Monroe ever was, imo.

European stuff

2005-12-28T10:00:00.000-06:00

EU states that berated Bush on Kyoto fail to hit emissions targets

No surprise. I contend that these nations never intended to comply. Kyoto is an ECONOMIC treaty intended to hobble the USA.

Why European women are turning to Islam

Perhaps Western secular relativist mythology is inadequate.

French Christmas soup not for Jews or Muslims

I hate it when I agree with a-holes. They are perfectly free to serve pork, their motivation notwithstanding.

The emerging shadows of tyranny

2005-12-22T14:15:00.000-06:00

Scary

"Last April, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by me titled "Mr. Spitzer Has Gone Too Far." In it I expressed my belief that in America, everyone--including Hank Greenberg--is innocent until proven guilty. "Something has gone seriously awry," I wrote, "when a state attorney general can go on television and charge one of America's best CEOs and most generous philanthropists with fraud before any charges have been brought, before the possible defendant has even had a chance to know what he personally is alleged to have done, and while the investigation is still under way."

"Since there have been rumors in the media as to what happened next, I feel I must now set the record straight. After reading my op-ed piece, Mr. Spitzer tried to phone me. I was traveling in Texas but he reached me early in the afternoon. After asking me one or two questions about where I got my facts, he came right to the point. I was so shocked that I wrote it all down right away so I would be sure to remember it exactly as he said it. This is what he said: "

"Mr. Whitehead, it's now a war between us and you've fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter.""

Overt threat from a public official not because of any wrongdoing, but because someone had an opinion he didn't like. He is explicitly saying he will abuse his position and power to pursue a vendetta. He should be removed form office and charged.

Now Executive warns: no smoking at home

"Key points
• Letters to be sent asking for no smoking one hour before public worker visits
• Plan to draw smokers' map of Scotland identifying where smokers live
• Smoking ban to come into force 26 March 2006

I hear Big Brother's footsteps.

Armored Humvees

2005-12-22T14:10:00.000-06:00

The “Ultimate Betrayal”?

"Why is it taking so long to design, develop, produce, and deploy — in adequate numbers — a troop-transporting armored vehicle that would replace the up-armored Humvee in Iraq? I've been asked that question time and again, not by soldiers and Marines who ride in Humvees daily, but by fellow journalists, many of whom have logged time in Iraq or Afghanistan. "

"One reporter said to me it was "criminal negligence" on the part of the White House and the Defense Department. Another referred to it as "the ultimate betrayal" of our soldiers.Despite their time in country, both reporters are wrong: Their opinions are based more on political animus than any real grasp of the facts."

This article is the best summery of the facts of this 'controversy' I have seen and is too detailed to summerize. Please read it, and stop making this a political issue.

Fools and our money

2005-12-21T22:46:00.000-06:00

Chimp's painting fools experts - A GERMAN art expert was fooled into believing a painting done by a chimpanzee was the work of a master.

""I did think it looked a bit rushed," she told Bild newspaper. "

Maybe not everything is art.

Mexico Retaliates for Border Wall Plan

"Mexicans are outraged by the proposed measures, especially the extension of the border wall, which many liken to the Berlin Wall. Some are urging their government to fight it fiercely."

"Our president should oppose that wall and make them stop it, at all costs," said Martin Vazquez, 26, at the Mexico City airport as he returned from his job as a hotel worker in Las Vegas. "More than just insulting, it's terrible." "

First of all, its nothing at all like the Berlin wall. AMERICANS can come and go freely from our own nation. Foreignors have no right to simply violate our borders and laws at will. See, this is why this issue should have been deal with with decades ago. Guys like Martin Vazquez think that they are entitled to break our laws and are contemptuous. Such gall.

There is good reason to get control of our own border"

Socialism Reborn

"Perhaps this is merely a pathology circumscribed only to countries south of our border. Yet as democracy spreads throughout the countries in which themajority of the people are mired in poverty, and often the victims of a lack of education, it is almost inevitable that many of them will be tempted by the old illusions of socialism, especially when these illusions are presented by populist heroes, like Morales and Chavez, whose stature in the eyes of their followers is often enhanced by their public defiance and continual denunciation of the United States. Furthermore, as the promise of socialism falls short ofits expectations, as inevitably happens, those who have made these promises will almost certainly increase the level of their anti-American rhetoric, in an attempt to shift the blame from themselves onto someone else -- and that someone else is certain to be us. "

"That is perhaps the best explanation for the startling rebirth of socialism in South America and in other parts of the world. The world socialism is increasingly being drained of its old meaning and is being replaced with a new one -- and its new meaning could not be clearer: it has become the rallying cry of those who despise the United States. It’s a slogan to gather together all those who regard us as the chief enemy of the human race. "

The Decade's Midpoint - In 2005 America's economy grew while Kofi Annan shrank

"But there were some significant happenings this year that may change the way the world works. Two thousand five saw a very strong American economy and some real success in the U.S. effort to bring freedom to the people of Iraq and defeat Islamic terrorism. The bad news was a Republican congressional failure to control federal spending and limit the expansion of the federal government, and the United Nations' failure to reform after its participation in the greatest corruption scandal in the history of the modern world."

Cheney cast tie breaking vote to cut spending. Good news, but its not nearly enough.

More News of the Weird

2005-12-20T14:12:00.000-06:00

Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

"THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. "

Sick bastard.

"And there was intense pressure to find a new labour force, particularly one that would not complain, with Russia about to embark on its first Five-Year Plan for fast-track industrialisation."

Hey, "True Communism has never been tried." lol!!

"Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail. "

Volunteers. Right.

On the side of Freedom

2005-12-20T13:10:00.000-06:00

East Europe Stands With U.S. on Iraq

"Echoing President Bush's warning that the road ahead will not be easy, they wrote that "Democratic transition is a long, painful process. It requires sacrifice. But, more than anything, it requires a belief that democratic values will prevail and people will have a better life as a result. We had that belief to guide us during the most difficult years of transition and we want to keep that belief alive in the people of Iraq. Maybe it takes countries with vivid recollections of tyranny to serve as the institutional memory of a larger community of democracies. If so, we are ready to fulfill that role." "

People who have actually lived under tyranny have more appreciation than pampered wannabe intellectuals who believe that they bravely tell "truth to power" by having an opinion in a nation where free speech is protected.

The Purple Finger

"I can hear the reporters and editors squawking that such coverage would make them “cheerleaders” for the war, that their responsibility is to air “dissent” and “critique” of the government. The idea lurking behind this protest — that American reporters are stateless professionals first and Americans second, if at all, with no loyalty due to their fellow citizens — strikes me as bizarre. I wonder how World War II would have gone if the media then had had the same attitude, if they had thought it appropriate to emphasize and exaggerate every setback in the middle of a long struggle, to second-guess every action, to dramatize the unfortunately unremarkable horrors of war, and to carp at a decision already debated and ratified by the legitimate machinery of democratic government — all the while their fellow Americans were under fire and being attacked by an enemy explicitly attempting to undermine our resolve. But leave that aside. For what we are asking is not that the media be cheerleaders for the war, but that they not be cheerleaders against the war. Every war has moments of success and moments of failure, achievements and bungling, casualties and heroes. All we ask is that the media cover both equally."

But don't dare question their patriotism.

Constructive criticism and questioning is one thing. Deliberately setting out to mischaractorize the war effort at every opportunity is another. Many journalists want it both ways. they want to be seen as nuetral, objective observers whose motives must not be questioned while advocating particular leftist, anti-American positions.

Iraq vote leaves Dems looking like the losers

"The Anglo-American political tradition is the most successful in the world in part because of the concept of "loyal opposition." Yes, the party out of office opposes the party in office and hopes to supplant it, but not at the expense of the broader political culture. A party that winds up cheerleading for a deranged loser death cult is the very definition of pointless self-defeating sour oppositionism."

Yes. One should be judged by one's actions and words.

Odd Notes

2005-12-20T13:02:00.000-06:00

Ugly muscles `an unhealthy myth'

Seems obvious to me that women have to really dedicate effort ot make themselves "ripped". I have dated a couple women who were that dedicated to gym workouts, and even their muscles were more slim and sexy than bulky.

This line strikes me as odd:

"We still run into this perception from women that if they lift weights they'll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger," he said. "Physiologically it's not possible for them to produce that bulk in muscle."

"He said even women at the elite level were prone to these fears."

What does he mean by "elite"?

Dog Days and Nights

Good dog observations. My dog is a bit more brave than Linda, but I also notice that his posture and behavior tells me volumes.

Bias

2005-12-20T11:06:00.000-06:00

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

Obvious to me, but its nice to have it quantified.

Schwarzenegger to Hometown: Remove My Name

Arnold is quite right to slap them down. They use his name and fame to benefit their town. Well, nothing wrong with that, I am sure Schwartzenegger was perfectly happy to help. How pretentious and immature are these Austrians to think they can discipline Schwarzenegger for following the law in California. Well, chidlish behavior has consequences.

News... of the Weird and Outrageous

2005-12-19T23:44:00.000-06:00

"AN OUTRAGED shopkeeper is selling his business after being tormented by a crazy whistling campaign."

"Mr Caminito, 56, said: 'There is a conspiracy against me and I have got sick of it. My health is suffering.'People come in and whistle and it's just to bother me because they know I don't like it. They do it on purpose."

I think his problem is his own attitude and behavior. Imagine being so thin skinned as to boot someone out of your shop for whistling. Yes, he is within his rights to not serve people and to ask them to leave - its his property. However, that kind of behavior will quickly gain a person a reputation. "Conspiracy" is too strong a word for it, but I believe that people are deliberately hassling him with whistling. He is selling his shop, his "health is suffering". Please. He's a ninny.

No ham for Christmas: Muslim menu for WA hospital

"A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended"

"It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal – containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs."

Lets think about this. Apparently, people can't eat the things they like because other people MIGHT be offended by the fact that they eat it. I understand not serving ham to muslims - or jews, its against their religion, after all.

What if I'm offended that my food is served only to muslim custom? I am not a muslim, what business does the hospital have forcing me to comply to their diet?

IMO, this hospital administrator is a dhimmi. A person who is frightened and intimidated and bends over compliantly to anyone who might possibly threaten him/her.

Police dog is defendant in lawsuit

A DOG is being sued? Crazy. Only people can be sued. Corporations can be sued only because incorporations create a "legal person" in the eyes of the law. If the law in that state allows property to be sued, they are in desperate trouble.

HEROES

2005-12-19T10:38:00.000-06:00

Lieutenant General William Yarborough, founder of the Green Berets, has died.

“Without America, I Would Still be a Refugee”

"I still owe the United States whatever I can offer," Alibrahimi, who barely escaped Hussein's murderous postwar rage in 1991, explained. "No one else came to save my people. No other Arab or Islamic country tried to get Saddam to stop killing us. Without America, I would still be a refugee and there would be no election here, no constitution, and no freedom. We would be living under Saddam and his sons forever. I had to come."

Privatize Education

2005-12-18T10:29:00.000-06:00

The Privatization Principal

"For years, the public-school establishment has rebelled against profit-making corporations engaged in educating America's children. It has drawn a line in the sand, saying it is unethical to make money off of kids and asserting that one can't be for public education and also support such nefarious ideas as vouchers or for-profit or non-profit alternatives. The public, according to polls, generally accepts the establishment's argument. Americans who care a great deal about their schools and support public education are still leery of private school choice, and seem nervous about private-sector solutions for ailing public schools....."

Teachers and administrators profit from their work, don't they? They are PAID to do their jobs. Universities and colleges are moneymaking enterprises. Tuition and public funding and endowments plus being tax free adds up to plenty of surplus used rather inefficiently. IMO, these institutions would be better off if they had an incentive to economize. i.e. responsibility to shareholders.

"It is ironic that a country built upon the notion of free enterprise, capitalism, entrepreneurship, and the power of ideas has for years embraced the idea that none of this pertains to how we educate our children. We have instead bought into the idea that there is only one way to provide public education: through a system that looks the same everywhere, funded by taxpayers and responsible to them through school boards. It is an idea of public education that has eschewed any potential benefit that might be derived from private-sector initiatives and ideas...."

This article's main point is that there is new hope for reform in the public school system. My excerpts edit this out since my interest is to point out the absurdity of our socialist school system. A system, imo, that has become unresponsive and self-affirming, ideologically contrary to fundamental American principles.

From accross the Pond:
Secular Education Loses the Faith

"The heart of the problem is that secular education has lost its backbone. The government trumpets the value of “choice” -- gearing schools towards the wishes of parents or local communities -- rather than setting down national standards. (Perhaps local governance is a better idea, instead of centralized, bureaucratized policies of 'giving' choice. True choice involves actual independence - BigDog) British schools today aim to make kids feel valued rather than to develop their minds: buzz phrases such as 'pupil-centered learning' and 'recognizing identities' pepper education policy documents. Meanwhile, the school curriculum is positively embarrassed about any scientific or rational heritage. Rather than elevating the achievements of Newton or Einstein, science classes often teach kids to consider the limits of their knowledge. Small wonder that Dr. Wahid felt justified in describing evolution as 'just a theory'."

"They hate us"

2005-12-17T17:13:00.000-06:00

Lancing the Boil

"The world does not hate the United States. Of course, it envies us. Precisely because it is privately impressed by our unparalleled success, it judges America by a utopian measure in which anything less than perfection is written off as failure. We risk everything, our critics abroad almost nothing. So the hope for our failures naturally gives reinforcement to the bleak reality of their inaction."

"The Europeans expect our protection. The Mexicans risk their lives to get here. Indians and Japanese want closer relations. The old commonwealth appreciates our strength in defense of the West. Even the hostile Iranians, North Koreans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, and radical Islamists — despite the saber-rattling rhetoric — wonder whether we are naïve and idealistic rather than cruel and calculating. All this we rarely consider when we read of anti-Americanism in our major newspapers or hear another angry (and usually well-off) professor or journalist recite our sins."

A common meme in the media and on the left is "Why do they hate us?" Generally followed by a list of supposed American sins that sum up to a paradgm that the US must rurn to socialism and give its power, wealth and soverignty to other people.

New home of the left

2005-12-16T10:39:00.000-06:00

Environmentalism as a Cover for Collectivism

"The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality."

"People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources."

"Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power."

The 'environmentalist' movement has always had more than its share of leftist ideologues, but following the collapse of the USSR and the obvious failure of the socialist/Communist model, 'environmentalism' became the new home of the left. Must be easier than working for a living.

Standing up to Oppression

2005-12-16T09:30:00.000-06:00

America’s Earliest Terrorists

"Take, for example, the 1786 meeting in London of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain. As American ambassadors to France and Britain respectively, Jefferson and Adams met with Ambassador Adja to negotiate a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy. "

"These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”"

"Sound familiar?"

Further, in their minds its immoral and wrong for non-muslims to resist. Nothing has changed.

Beware of the Fogh

Brave Danes refuse to bow to Islamic demands for suppressing free speech.

"A demonstration in Copenhagen by “as many as 5,000 Muslims” having failed to provoke a change of heart, in December, Danish Muslims announced they were sending “delegations” to a number of Islamic countries to meet with “senior officials and prominent scholars” although with what end in view they didn’t say. A spokesman named Abu Laban stated, “We have fled our countries because wewere denied freedom of expression so no one should play this tune with us. This is not a case of freedom of expression.” "

Let me see if I understand correctly. Abu Laban left his third world craphole country because of oppression. Now he wants to make Denmark into the type of nation he fled in the first place. What he is saying here is that no one else should be allowed freedom of expression if he doesn't like it.

Does he comprehend the concept?

I think he DOES understand. He just wants to be the one to be denying others their freedoms. This isn't about freedom or taking offense, its about power.

Friday Quote

2005-12-16T09:28:00.000-06:00

"The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." -- A.E. Van Vogt, "The Weapon Shops Of Isher", ASF December 1942

Last Notes

2005-12-16T09:11:00.000-06:00

Stadium named for Arnold Schwartzenegger to be renamed because Tookie was executed.

Immature

A jailstay changed my mind on death penalty

Sure it did. So the author went to jail and her delicate sensibilities were assaulted. I fail to see the relevance.

Listen to Yourselves!

"So here is what I think could be the foundation of a true teaching moment for the anti-death-penalty community. One of the main reasons its sermons don’t resonate beyond the choir isn’t that Americans are consumed with racist bloodlust or yearnings for vengeance. It isn’t even because all death-penalty supporters are unshakably convinced of the rightness of their position. It’s because the anti-capital-punishment crowd has lost all credibility."

"I’m sure that from within the movement, saying whatever it takes to save a life seems like a moral obligation — hence the last-minute appeals, the dubiously miraculous discovery of exonerating witnesses, and the rest. But from outside the fishbowl, it just reinforces the impression that nothing they say can be taken at face value."

The Moral Chasm

"The moral chasm between the opposing sides in the death penalty debate was perhaps best displayed on Monday’s Larry King Show, which featured defense attorney Mark Geragos, retired deputy D.A. Robert Martin (who prosecuted Williams), and syndicated radio host Dennis Prager. Also appearing were death-penalty opponents Mike Farrell and Sister Helen Prejean, who was made famous when she was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the film Dead Man Walking."

"Prager, a practicing Jew, a biblical scholar, and as decent and moral a man as one can hope to meet, expounded the traditional case for capital punishment, i.e. that crimes such as those committed by Tookie Williams cry out for the ultimate punishment, that for Williams to keep his life after taking the lives of four defenseless people is an affront to justice. Incredibly, both Geragos and Farrell proceeded completely to mischaracterize Prager’s statement as to mean that anyone who takes another’s life should be executed. I’ll give Geragos and Farrell the benefit of the doubt in saying they may have misunderstood Prager during what was a heated exchange, but the cynic might be forgiven for suspecting they deliberately distorted his words so as to portray him as a madman."

I am not as generous.

"“[Y]ou sit there and lick your lips about the death of a human being,” Farrell shouted at Prager, “you disgust me.” “Exactly right,” added Geragos."

"But the signal moment in the program, the moment that distilled the entire debate, came in a brief exchange between Prager and Sister Prejean. Was it immoral, Prager asked her, for Israel to execute Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust? Prejean hemmed and hawed, she bobbed and weaved, but she could not bring herself to endorse the execution of a man with the blood of millions on his hands."

Followup

2005-11-21T15:47:00.000-06:00

Teen's Mannequin Love-in

Michael Plentyhorse charged for indecent exposure. Interesting to note that he is referred to as a 'teen' in this article, and as a 'man' this article in my hometown newspaper.

Our Hands are Dirty....

2005-11-21T11:17:00.000-06:00

Yes, American hands are dirty - the dirt of honest labor and battle. A damn sight cleaner then anyone else who lives in the world and actually acts.

War is ugly, and insurgencies are even dirtier and less clear. This article The Dirty War: Torture and mutilation used on Iraqi 'insurgents' was brought to my attention by Dave Bones at Malungtvnews. I agree in principle that torture and indescriminate violence is detrimental to the war effort and the establishment of a stable, freer Iraq. I am also aware that the USA is not perfect, nor are all the people who serve in the American military or fight alongside us. I expect us to try, to make a serious concientious effort to maintain high standards of conduct and avoid civilian casualties. Civilians are still going to be hurt and killed unintentionally, individual Americans are still going to behave badly, and some of our allies are not going to have the same high standards of conduct.

It is my contention that some people will seize on any pretext to attack and undermine the US. Since these people cannot really fault American ethical standards or point to any actual legal or treaty violations that we have not openly and strictly enforced, they rely on inuendo and guilt by association.

Lets fisk "The Charge Sheet" at the end of this article:

"Endemic torture of prisoners"

"The discovery last week of starved and tortured prisoners in an Interior Ministry bunker emphasised that detention without due process remains endemic in Iraq, echoing the Saddam era. In Basra, militia elements in the police used cells to imprison and torture their enemies. When the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal broke, it emerged that among the prisoners being maltreated by US soldiers were "undocumented" detainees who had been kept hidden from the Red Cross. And Britain was shamed by the death of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel clerk, in British military custody."

Yes, there is a problem here, Americans and Iraqis found out about an illegal prison and acted. Iraq is a scorpion's nest of vendettas, inter-tribal rivalries and violence. The difference is that under Saddam, the Sunnis and more specifically one tribe cruelly and systematically victimized everyone else. We are trying to change this paradigm, and its not going to happen overnight. We should instead look at this raid on an illegal prison as positive step to dealing with the problem. Of course, Abu Ghraib had to be mentioned again. Note the misdirection: "among the prisoners .....were "undocumented" detainees... hidden from the Red Cross." Okay, "among" doesn't mean that they WERE the same prisoners, it means being held in the same prison. Abu Ghraib was being used to house run-of-the-mill criminals too. The Red Cross is entitled to visit POWs only. If the author has an accusation to make, then make it. This author is a weasel, smearing by implication.

"Use of napalm and phosphorus"

"Last week the Pentagon admitted using white phosporus as an offensive weapon in last year's assault on Fallujah. Its official use is to create smokescreens to shield troop movements, but if fired into trenches or foxholes it can burn victims to the bone. The legality of this use is debatable. Last year the US also admitted, after previous denials, that it had used napalm - which Britain has banned - against Iraqi forces during the invasion. There is also controversy over the deployment of cluster munitions, which Britain has said should not be used in or near civilian areas."

This entire paragraph is bullshit. First of all, White Phosphorus is an incindiary. Yes, it has a dual use as a smoke screen generator, but think about it: we have other smoke devices. If WP was meant ONLY for smoke, why have it at all? The fact is that WP is a weapon used to kill enemies. The legality of its use is NOT debatable. The only debate is that some people WANT it to be illegal. The word "admitted" is inuendo, implying wrongdoing. Yes, the US uses incindiaries, like napalm, and cluster munitions against our enemies, so what? This is not "controversial" except that the author objects. So the Brits don't use cluster munitions sometimes? That's nice.

Nothing like insinuation when you have no actual arguement.

"Indiscriminate 'spray and slay'"

"Heavy-handed tactics against the insurgency, dubbed "spray and slay", have attracted much criticism. The current American offensive in the west and north-west appears to replicate the methods used in Fallujah: the population is ordered to leave before the town is sealed off and subjected to an air and ground assault. Those killed are invariably described as insurgent fighters, even in incidents where there is strong evidence that groups of civilians, including women and children, have been caught up in airstrikes."

Dubbed by whom? Your leftist buddies? I searched the net for the term "spray and slay" and I have found that this is a meme on many LEFTIST websites.* Our tactics have attracted much criticism, winning tactics will do that from people who want America to lose. The US is being extraordinarily civilized and merciful by announcing ahead of time where we are going to attack so that civilians can get clear, even at the expense of not surprising our enemies and letting them escape. Don't expect any credit or comprehension from the Left, however. Yes, of course civilians are "caught up" in the fighting. More inuendo here. The author is not directly accusing the US of deliberately targeting civilians, but he is trying to give the impression that the US is deliberately careless when, in fact, the opposite is true.

*"Spray and slay" is an obvious ripoff of "Spray and pray", a phrase used to describe enemy fighters who don't aim when firing their weapons, but "Spray" bullets all over and hope they hit something.

Internet Freedom

2005-11-21T10:48:00.000-06:00

The U.N.'s war on Internet freedom isn't over.

"Today no organization or government controls the Internet. The mechanics of participation--domain names, suffixes like .com and .org, and technical codes--are supervised by the independent organization Icann, an acronym for Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, based in America and loosely overseen by the U.S. government. Much of the rest of the world, gathered last week in Tunisia for the U.N.-hosted World Summit on the Information Society, wants to take over that responsibility, or as European Union spokesman Martin Selmayr put it, the U.S. must "give up their unilateral control and everything will be fine." Perhaps as fine as it is in China, where, according to the New York Times, "major search engines . . . must stop posting their own commentary articles and instead make available only pieces generated by government-controlled newspapers and news agencies." "

"Old Europe and the despotic nations want exactly that--international Internet content control. And they have convinced the EU establishment that U.N. control of the Internet would be just and appropriate. The last United Nations World Summit on the Internet--held in 2003--concluded that "governments should intervene . . . to maximize economic and social benefits and serve national priorities." The report of the U.N. Working Group on Internet Governance says it would have "respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, " explaining that meant "multilingual, diverse, and culturally appropriate content" on the Internet. "

Perfectly understandable. Tyrants and would be tyrants are demanding that the US give them power and money. Screw em.

Lies and Consequences

2005-11-20T00:53:00.000-06:00

War & Reconstruction - For Bush’s critics, even hindsight is cloudy.

"This is the mantra of the extreme Left: "Bush lied, thousands died." A softer version from politicians now often follows: "If I knew then what I know now, I would never have supported the war."

"These sentiments are intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible for a variety of reasons beyond the obvious consideration that you do not hang out to dry some 150,000 brave Americans on the field of battle while you in-fight over whether they should have ever been sent there in the first place."

You don't have to be an amnesiac to be a Democrat, buddy, but it helps

"PERHAPS THE biggest weapon in the arsenal of America’s critics is carefully selective amnesia. Conveniently forgetting important historical facts enables tactical amnesiacs to make claims about US policy that seem to support their contention that the country’s government is uniquely evil. "

Why We Went to War - What if people start believing that "Bush lied"?

"Yes, politics ain't beanbag. But there is a larger danger in the Democratic strategy of attempting to make George Bush into the Wizard of Oz, a man whose every statement about threats to American security is fantasy and falsity. Pounding through the media that the prewar intelligence was a conscious lie may incline the American people to believe the whole Iraq enterprise is false, and worse, that the very notion of weapons of mass destruction is also doubtful. The psychology of the big lie can sometimes run out of control. "

News of the Weird

2005-11-19T18:17:00.000-06:00

Beware of geezers! Blitz on pensioner buggy speeders

"SPEED-MAD pensioners who race along the pavement in electric-powered buggies are facing a council clampdown."

"Action is being taken after a number of incidents, in which high-speed mobility chairs have collided with pedestrians in the Lancashire seaside resort of Lytham St Annes."

"In one incident, witnesses claim a man in a buggy used his walking stick like a "jousting knight" to clear people from his path."

Reality bites Depp: DEPP: 'I CAN'T STAY IN RIOT-RAVAGED FRANCE'

A Metaphor

2005-11-19T14:00:00.000-06:00

$20,000 fine for employee's fall

"The worker had been using a chainsaw to demolish the walkway he was standing on when it collapsed. "

This guy was STANDING on the walkway HE was cutting apart with a chainsaw. Surprise! ITs a metaphor for socialism. A worker destroys the structure he is standing upon by voting for socialist policies, then when he falls and hurts himself, someone else is punished.

Friday Quote

2005-11-18T13:02:00.000-06:00

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do." - Ben Franklin

International

2005-11-18T11:38:00.000-06:00

Soft Wood, Hard Dispute Canada and the US have had an ongoing dispute over timber imports and tarrifs. Canadians seem to think they are righteous on this issue, demanding that US tarrifs end and that the money be "returned", presumably, their government even tho the tarrifs are paid by consumers.

Global Warming, Global Governance Kyoto is merely the latest attempt to impose world government.... and it wouldn't be a democracy.

Latin left's oil (& coke) boom "The U.S. answer to the left has got to be liberalization of our trade restrictions on Latin products and nations. The Democrats who almost killed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA, ratified by one vote in the House) are doing nothing to help. But the Republicans — by protecting the American sugar, textile, steel, orange juice, and beef industries — are asking Latins live by free-market rules we don't apply to ourselves. These restrictive quotas and our massive farm subsidies (to largely wealthy farmers) combine to make Latin America and its poverty fertile ground for subversion and leftist infiltration. "

Atlas Shrugs must be credited for finding this gem:

"Europeans have no rights when it comes to this issue and the European criticism of Americans is positively inappropriate. Europeans have no idea what misery the Iraqi people endured. I'd like Europeans to take a trip to Iraq to visit the 400 thousand person mass graves. People could no longer put up with Saddam's regime. The people of Germany and Austria could have never been rid of dictators like Hitler without a war. That was the price that had to be paid."

Must Read

2005-11-18T11:30:00.000-06:00

I have linked Walter E Williams ten part series on Economics for the Citizen here.

Economics for the Citizen - Part 1

Economics for the Citizen - Part 2

Economics for the Citizen - Part 3

Economics for the Citizen - Part 4

Economics for the Citizen - Part 5

Economics for the Citizen - Part 6

Economics for the Citizen - Part 7

Economics for the Citizen - Part 8

Economics for the Citizen - Part 9

Economics for the Citizen - Part 10

Odd Notes

2005-11-17T21:02:00.000-06:00

Has the Coalition Used Chemical Weapons in Iraq? Nonesense over the use of white phosphorus. The article specifically debunks George Monbiot, who I catagorize with Robert Fisk "he is that most valuable resource, a journalist whose judgments are not just mistaken, but reliably mistaken" - Simon Hoggart, and John Pilgar. Anti-American leftist cranks.

Police find semi-nude man inside Pavilion How did I miss this story in my own town? This is about as exciting as it gets here.

'Divide' and Conquer? More on the UN's efforts to control the internet. They want power and money, folks. Think the UN won't give into the temptation to use their power for political ends?

U.S., Poland discuss base Not just any base, an anti-ballistic missle base... right next to Russia. This would be the only (or first) such base outside the US. Other nations are allowing us to put in radar and tracking installations.

The UN said it, it must be true....

2005-11-17T00:21:00.000-06:00

U.N. claims U.S. social system violates human rights

"Problems with U.S. social benefit systems impede people struggling to overcome poverty, the United Nations said."

"High health care costs and lack of low-cost housing exacerbate poverty and this can be seen as a human rights abuse, concluded a 17-day fact-finding mission by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights Tuesday. "

Translation: Not enough welfare that ruins lives and destroys the economy. Because as we all know, the European model is so much better.... ahem.

"With higher per capita income levels than any other country, the United States also has one of the highest incidences of poverty among the rich industrialized nations. Some 37 million Americans, 12.7 percent of the U.S. population, lived in poverty in 2004. Some 45 million people were without health insurance coverage and 38 million households experienced food insecurity. There is a significant disparity in poverty between African-Americans, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, said UNHCR"

The "Poverty line" in the US is set at a certain percentage of household income. Many working people with children would be surprised to learn that they are "poor" by this crude standard.

Further, I am one of those people without health insurance. Some people have this axiomatic and foolish notion that a lack of health insurance means "no medical care". I PAY for my medical care. Its less expensive that way.

Food insecurity? What kind of weasel phrase is that? I thought Americans were fat. Make up your minds, are we fat ("Ha ha ha! Stupid, fat Americans!) or are we going hungry? I have an idea that these terms are rather loosely applied, and that they "statistic" that 38 million households - that is a hell of a lot of people - is an extrapolation of some survey which asked "Were you ever hungry any time in the past 6 months?" or some such question. You know how that will be answered. Anyone who might have skipped a meal because they are busy will be counted as "Food insecure"

Poor people in the US have the option of working their way out of poverty. This "17 day trip" by UN bureaucrats is simply their way of smearing the US. I expect this kind of behavior from leftist bureacrats working for a corrupt institution.

Newsbites

2005-11-15T17:00:00.000-06:00

Actor forced to stop smoking Some ninny ruined everyone's fun to accomodate his/her neurosis. What are the chances that anyone in the audience was close enough to smell the smoke?

What Causes Unemployment? Government solutions don't help.

Pa. May Let Hunters Use Prehistoric Weapon Get out your spears! Okay.... Javelins.

"struck fear in the hearts of Spanish conquistadors"?? Are you joking?

Iraq's National Security Advisor: Most Al-Qaida Suicide Bombers are Saudi Nationals Crossing Through Syria IMO, the Saudis are being macheavellian. They let fanatics leave Saudia Arabia to get themselves killed in Iraq. One of these days, Syria is going to get it.

Interview with a Rightwingsparkle

2005-11-15T16:54:00.000-06:00

Broads on Blogs: An increasingly popular political forum is attracting women with something to say, but is the blogosphere still a man's world?

"Kathy, who hosts Right Wing Sparkle (www.rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com) and prefers her real name not be used, remarks, "The benefits of an active blogosphere commenting is that so many voices get heard. The disadvantage is that unfortunately so many of those voices are shrill and insulting. I hate that?.But," she adds, "my Dad always said that 'cream rises to the top,' so I think that eventually the main blogs that will be read by the general public will be those who carry on civil discourse and voice their opinions in a thoughtful manner." "

and

"Females certainly have a different voice than men when blogging," says Kathy. "I think that's why a lot of the big male bloggers ignore us. Women view politics through the same prism that they view life--one that is colored by emotion." "

and

"Kathy cites the example of abortion. "Women bloggers on both sides will post long and emotional and detailed essays. Male bloggers throw a few sentences at it." "

and

"And knowing a writer's sex may reveal the context of a blogger's comments. Notes Kathy, "I think it's fairly easy to tell if it is a man or woman blogger. We are different, after all, even in the way we write." "

Common Sense

2005-11-14T21:50:00.000-06:00

SOUTHERN UNREST: Villagers to get weapons training

"About 20,000 residents will be trained and armed in the three southernmost provinces enabling them to defend their villages and spy on the movements of insurgents in the restive region, commander General Ruangroj Mahasaranond said yesterday."

Good, a government that can trust its citizens.

What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons?

"Guns are dangerous. But myths are dangerous, too. Myths about guns are very dangerous, because they lead to bad laws. And bad laws kill people."

Friday Quote

2005-11-11T19:04:00.000-06:00

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - George Orwell

Veteran's Day

2005-11-11T11:46:00.000-06:00

Random Dog Pic

2005-11-10T20:46:00.000-06:00

France - the ash-heap of history

2005-11-07T15:39:00.000-06:00

Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands

Telling people to wake up never works.

"The notion that Texas neocon arrogance was responsible for frosting up trans-Atlantic relations was always preposterous, even for someone as complacent and blinkered as John Kerry. If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness."

France's oposition was not principled. The factors influenceing Chirac were 1) an interest in keeping sanctions in place to profit from the corrupt food for oil program and illegal arms sales 2) keeping evidence of the food for oil corruption buried 3) buying "protection" from muslim radicals - which of course never works 4) the fact that France is too militarily weak to participate, and thus is in a position of more influence and power if they oppose diplomatically 5) Anti-American envy.

"If Chirac isn't exactly Charles Martel, the rioters aren't doing a bad impression of the Muslim armies of 13 centuries ago: They're seizing their opportunities, testing their foe, probing his weak spots. If burning the 'burbs gets you more ''respect'' from Chirac, they'll burn 'em again, and again"

France is weak. The French make good weapons, which they are eager to sell. Selling tech and arms keeps France afloat.

Troubling “Facts” of the Paris Riots

"It's in the last paragraph that the reporting of news gives way to disguised opinion: "The continuing unrest appears to be fueled less by perceived police brutality than by the frustration of young men who have no work and see little hope for the future." In Saturday's coverage, this opinion migrates to the front of the story, with references to "underlying frustrations" and "decades of high unemployment and marginalization." To statements such as these any perceptive reader should respond, "Says who?""

"Notice the use of the impersonal weasel-word "appears." Appears to whom? The Times writer, a French politician, an academic, an imam, or the rioters? The way this opinion is phrased obscures the fact that it is a mere opinion, an interpretation of the events described, not a fact. As such, the source of the opinion should be identified so we can evaluate its usefulness and integrity. But to say it "appears,” unconnected to a person with a point of view, is an evasion of responsibility. If this explanation was deemed so important for the story, then surely the reporter could have found someone to give him a quote expressing the opinion so that at least we'd know whose ax is being ground. And a thorough reporter would be sure to find other people with alternative interpretations in order to provide balance and give the reader a fuller range of opinion on the matter. Without this sort of attribution, however, the opinion then must be that of the writer and the editors of the Times. At which point we need to be asking why a newspaper that continually proclaims its professional objectivity is putting opinion into what's supposed to be a news story."

The NYT is left/liberal and biased. I don;t think its argueable.

"In the case of the Paris rioters, there are other explanations for their behavior that are more accurate than liberal clichés about “frustration.” As Dr Jack Wheeler puts it, “The problem is not that these Moslem kids are unemployed, but that they are unemployable. They are illiterate, unskilled except in crime, don't speak French well, refuse to assimilate into French culture and think being Moslem is more important than being French. Worse, they are paid by the French welfare state not to work, living well off the dole (and crime). The problem was epitomized by these words of a young Moslem rioter to a French reporter: 'In the day we sleep, go see our girlfriends, and play video games. And in the evening we have a good time: we go and fight the police.'”"

"Fight the police", sounds much more brave than it is. I am sure that they destroy property, stand around bragging to eachother, working up their courage, but how much courage does it take to throw a rock or a molotov knowing that you won't be counterattacked?

Eurabian Fights

"Decent law-abiding people who work, pay taxes, and raise their children properly have been begging the government to crack down on the Islamists and criminals who prey on them. If there is indeed 30 percent unemployment in the banlieues, it follows that 70 percent of the people are gainfully employed. High rents and low wages keep them in the housing projects. It is their cars that are burned, their public transportation that is interrupted, their safety that is jeopardized. Attacking bus drivers, raping women in cellars, hallways, and commuter trains, destroying public property, stealing purses and cell phones…this is nothing new. Young women are forced to wear hijab, one was burned alive for resisting advances, one was stoned to death, thousands are persecuted, confined to their homes, trapped in forced marriages. They beg, plead, and supplicate the French government to protect them. These are French women, born in France, and abandoned to de-facto Islamic rule in the country of their birth. It is their Islamist brothers, not French society, that reduce them to second class citizenship."

The Riots of Ramadan

"The majority of commentators blame the riots on the staggeringly high unemployment (as high as 35% in some areas) among the immigrant populations. However, the high unemployment is more symptomatic of deeper political and economic problems that the political class has been ineffective in addressing and understanding. For instance, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s longstanding economic policy has been to use the state to provide jobs while setting up trade barriers to protect French companies. Of course, this policy is self-contradictory and typifies the sclerosis of the French political class and perhaps of the Fifth Republic itself. With unemployment at ten percent for non-immigrants, the French economy is too sluggish and dragged down by the welfare state to generate jobs. "

"The government’s policy of housing these immigrants in public housing projects compounds the problem. Americans will be familiar with the "projects" that originated with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs and with the various criminal and social pathologies they created. The lack of private ownership and the lack of self-respect that accompanies it produce the conditions for these rioters."

As noted above. unemployment is only part of the problem.

Liar Liar, Pants on Fi.... oh, yeah, can't say that - Beavis

2005-11-06T21:38:00.000-06:00

Is Jimmy Massey telling the truth about Iraq?

"Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan, and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others."

"News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth."

"He wasn't."

"Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal."

The French buy his bull. What a surprise.

GOP Leaders to Bush: 'Your Presidency is Effectively Over'

Wow. FAscinating. Not what the article says, but what it reveals about the author. This guy is a liar. He's making it all up. Must be a good job. No need to do research or talk to people. just dream it up and write about it.

Note how un-named they are all are: "says a longtime, and angry, GOP strategist" "says a senior White House aide" "says a source within the office of House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert" "says a GOP pollster" "a GOP strategist suggested" "says a GOP strategist who has advised Presidential campaigns for 30 years"

A thought strikes me, is this author, Doug Thompson, a comedian? Is this website a put on?

Telling a lie is bad enough,but at a funeral for a hero?

Ah..... Bill. People just eat this stuff up.

Friday Quote.... on, ahem, sunday

2005-11-06T21:33:00.000-06:00

"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power ." -- Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the LA Times 15 Oct 1992

Two Fools and a Falsehood

2005-11-03T19:27:00.000-06:00

Chavez Warns of Moving Jets to Cuba, China

"President Hugo Chavez warned Tuesday he might share Venezuela's U.S.-made F-16 fighters with Cuba and China, accusing the United States of making it difficult for his country to obtain spare parts for the aircraft. "

Accusing? Damn right we are cutting off his supply. He is a self declared enemy of teh US who is harassing his neighbors. Seriously, tho, this joker thinks that this is some kind of real threat. F-16s are 1970s technology. The Rusians and Chinese have long since gotten acquired copies. The only thing they could use would be a look at the avionics. Venezuela probably never updated theirs since they got them in 1983. Cuba: What the hell is Cuba going to do with them? Chavez makes me laugh.

DEBUNKING THE PARADIGM OF INEXPENSIVE TERRORISM

"Regardless of the actual cost of terrorist attacks, a certain amount of money will always be necessary to fund attacks. Whether an attack costs $10,000 or $500,000, terrorists still need money, and will therefore leave a financial trail behind them. And unlike human sources, which can intentionally deceive, Levey notes "The simple fact remains that the money trail generally does not lie." Stemming the flow of funds can delay or prevent attacks -- even when the costs of bullets and explosives remain relatively low."

The World According to J.C.

"But tedious isn't quite the right word here, because it suggests mere boredom while Mr. Carter's prose manages to be irritating as well. Is there an English-language equivalent to the German Rechthaberei, which loosely translates as the state of thinking and behaving as if you're in the right and everyone else is in the wrong? Yet even such a term doesn't quite capture the sanctimony, the self-congratulation, the humorlessness, the convenient factual omissions and the passive-aggressive quirks that characterize our 39th president's aggressively passive world view. Mr. Carter is sui generis. He deserves his own word."

I have long since discarded the old saw that Carter was a nice man who wasn't quite up to being President. Carter is a malicious anti-American toadie.

"There is more of this--personal slurs, particularly against U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, factual omissions (Mr. Carter accuses the Bush administration of making hardly any effort to reduce nuclear-weapons stockpiles but doesn't mention the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which involves the most dramatic nuclear cuts in history), trite sophistries ("a rising tide raises all yachts") and the invariable, habitual, irrepressible blaming of America first for everything from degrading the environment to alienating Syria. At a certain point it all begins to ooze and blur, in the way the speeches and doings of Al Sharpton or Michael Moore ooze and blur. Past a certain point, you just stop keeping track."

Bright Future

2005-11-01T15:53:00.000-06:00

Sheehan for President Oh, yes, YES! Don't tease me like this. I would love to see her run for any office.

Top 100 Intellectuals I recognize about half. Lets critique this list a little.... first of all NO journalists should be on this list. Paul Krugman is a dolt, not an intellectual, and his inclusion automatically makes the list risable. Some people I respect: Camille Paglia, James Q Wilson, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Posner.

Yes, I'm a Hunter -- Here's Why "Whenever I do tell people that I hunt, they often want to put me on the spot. They want to know how it's possible for a person who has attended college and lived in New York City and Washington, who plays violin and attends the symphony, who is raising three smart and sensitive girls -- all of whom, like their mother, are opposed to hunting -- can engage in something so primitive. They want to know how anyone can participate in a sport whose central aim is killing. Hardest of all is to explain why a blood sport should bring such pleasure, and even a kind of spiritual rebirth."

Why Ask Why? - "Terrorist attacks aren't caused by any policy except that of the bombers themselves."

With Friends LikeThese...

2005-11-01T13:23:00.000-06:00

There was no way to excerpt a small portion that summed up this article:

Our Damocles’ Sword

"The past week Muslim mobs besieged Christians in Egypt, defacing six churches and threatening publicly the Coptic Church's highest cleric. The mainstream media in the United States have not considered this attack worthy of substantial coverage. But why should we be surprised?"

"For years Arab Muslims have been murdering and enslaving black Christians in Sudan, and only recently has this atrocity been deemed worthy of the media's attention. In fact, with the exception of the religious press, the persecution and murder of Christians across the world over the years has been met with a shrug by most American media."

"This silence reflects the prejudices and superstitions of the liberal elite, who endorse a debased Enlightenment belief that religious faith is a quaint remnant of our primitive past, one that modern thought has discredited as a neurosis. Thus religion is considered a mere life-style choice, and Christianity is an option no better or worse than wicca, Scientology, or nudism. Unless, of course, the religion is non-Western. In that case, the allure of the exotic “other” creates a fascination and respect that put criticism of these faiths out of bounds, for such disparagement would be “intolerant” of the “multicultural diversity” we are all supposed to worship."

"That's why if Christian mobs were besieging and threatening Muslims, the media would be screaming about this despicable display of Christian intolerance and bigotry. That's why a bit of graffiti on a mosque will be reported on and decried, while the desecration and destruction of churches is ignored. Muslim touchiness about the sanctity of their holy places is respected, even as all over the world Muslim disrespect for Christian churches and Jewish holy places is shrugged away. When Palestinian Arab murderers took over and befouled the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Western media and pundits were silent about the desecration, just as they rarely concern themselves with the scores of Jewish holy sites the Arabs have destroyed over the years."

"The mind-set behind this double standard is curiously muddled. Religious faith is deemed a quaint superstition at best, a dangerous force of bigotry and oppression at worst — if you're talking about Christianity or Judaism. But non-Western religion is prized as an expression of “diversity” superior to the West. The result is the incoherence we see today: the most intolerant and bigoted of religions, Islam, is given a pass for its depredations, while the true religion of peace –– the religion of martyrs, not warriors, the religion of self- sacrifice, not conquest — is played up as a threat to the republic at home and a danger to peace abroad. Western historical behavior that was a violation of Christianity's core values is presented as typical, while jihadist violence, an aggression against the infidel entirely consistent with Islam's historical record and theology, is explained away as an aberration."

Our greatest threat is internal. I have no fear of economic or military competition with any other nation or coalition of nations. Our greatest enemy is internal failure. High taxes, tarrifs and regulation strangling our economy. Pseudo-intellectuals hamstringing our education system.
Anti-American leftists denigrating and degenerating our political system and starving, misusing and straightjacketing our military.

In this case, proudly "tolerant" media harm our nation and culture by distorting fact and hiding truth in the pursuit of their ideological agenda. This isn't a conspiracy, its simple human nature. Groupthink, self-aggrandizment, parochial self-involvement.

Update: Animals

Misconceptions

2005-11-01T11:28:00.000-06:00

Tribal Ignorance - What you think you know about Iraq's factions is all wrong

"In Iraq there are also two apples and one orange in the media-coverage basket (as well as many important fruits that, as I mentioned above, are never specified). To be a Sunni or a Shiite is to follow one or another Muslim obedience, but to be a Kurd is to be a member of a large non-Arab ethnicity as well as to be, in the vast majority of cases, a Sunni. Thus, by any measure of accuracy, the "Sunni" turnout in the weekend's referendum on the constitution was impressively large, very well-organized, and quite strongly in favor of a "yes" vote. Is that the way you remember it being reported? I thought not. Well, then, learn to think for yourself."

"This same tribal habit of mind—tribal on our part, I mean, not on the part of the Iraqis—allows some people to make the lazy assumption that the liberation of Iraq has created these differences, or intensified them, rather than sought to compose and heal them. The Saddam Hussein regime was based on a minority of a minority—a Mafia clique based in and around the city of Tikrit—and it stayed in power not by being "secular" or multiethnic but by being sectarian and by playing the card of divide and rule. It treated all the inhabitants of the country as its personal property, and it made lifelong enemies among all communities and all confessional groups. The differences between these groups are now specified in a constitution, perhaps a bit more than I would like, but are at least specified in order that no group is to be left out, or classified as second-class. "

Its very common for the ignorant to claim that Saddam kept tribal strife suppressed. Saddam's rule WAS tribal, and he used his power to make slaves of the nation to serve his tribe.

Linkmeister

2005-11-01T10:33:00.000-06:00

The Left's Cruelest Month Sucks to be a lefty

DVIDS - Military publications

Recycling A waste of time

Cold-blooded and wrong-headed on Iraq Sheehan's a bust, Scowcroft is just wrong

Rosa Parks: Pursuit of Profit vs. Racism

"Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

"Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem."

Don't forget to say ‘thank you’ after being looted

"Years ago, interviewing economist Walter Williams for a show ABC News called "Greed," I was perplexed when Williams said, "a thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him."

"That was silly hyperbole, I thought, but watching Congress spend, I see that I was naive and Williams was right. "

KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE

The enemy have made their intentions known. They have staked out their allegiances. They have broadcast their objectives on al-Jazeera -- the Fox News of the Middle East -- as well as on CNN, the al-Jazeera of the West. Yet millions of Americans across the spectrum continue to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.

Many still dispute whether Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. Though among the global terrorist network, the debate ended long ago. Just ask Osama Bin Laden:

"This Third World War is raging" in Iraq and "the whole world is watching,” he says. It is an outcome that will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation.

"You want an exit strategy? How about “victory.”

Unconventional Marines

Gitmo Gulag? Serious bad guys at Guantanamo would love to kill you. Have a nice day.

Revolting Tax

2005-11-01T10:29:00.000-06:00

'View Tax' Triggers Revolt in Rural N.H.

"The one-room cabin David Bischoff built in a cow pasture three years ago has no electricity, no running water, no phone service and no driveway. What it does have is a wide-open view of nearby hills and distant mountains _ which makes it seven times more valuable than if it had no view, according to the latest townwide property assessment. He expects his property taxes to shoot up accordingly."

"Bischoff and other Orford residents bitterly call that a "view tax," and they are leading a revolt against it that has gained support in many rural towns in New Hampshire."

"State officials say there is no such thing as a "view tax" _ it is a "view factor," and it has always been a part of property assessments. The only change is that views have become so valuable in some towns that assessors are giving them a separate line on appraisal records. "

Semantics. They are just greedy, demanding more taxes and driving out those who can't pay them.

Tiny, Frightened Dictator

2005-10-31T19:48:00.000-06:00

Chavez: Halloween part of U.S. culture of terror

"He said that is part of the U.S. culture -- "terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people."

I thought the Independant needed to chill. Chavez makes me howl.

Word from the ground

2005-10-31T19:41:00.000-06:00

We Have Enough Troops: A Soldier Explains

"With our new "modularity" concept now in action in Iraq, where battalions are more self-sustaining and have dedicated support companies, someone needs to explain why we still need tens of thousands of additional support personnel. Their abundance of leisure time is an indicator of their necessity." [Emphsis mine]

"The so-called "tooth to tail" ratio is an issue that the military has always struggled to keep the lid on. Unfortunately, the lid is gone and the problem is out of control. Our tail is far too large and our teeth are far too small. Until we fix this, our problems will continue. We will continue to be frustrated by effectiveness well below our potential or we will pursue an economically unsustainable troop buildup. Neither is acceptable. We have more than enough troops in Iraq. We can and must use them more effectively."

Ghouls, Ghosts and Americans, Oh my!

2005-10-31T16:41:00.000-06:00

Hallowe'en: How the hell did it get here and what does it say about us?

"The doorbell goes. Again. A cute little kid in a devil's outfit grins and holds out his hand. "Trick or treat, mister?" Oh really? What can a tousle-haired boy with freckles do for a trick? He can't be more than eight, but he's not impressed with the treat. "What's this?" "

"It's fruit. A satsuma. "You're having a laugh," booms a deeper, rougher voice from the shadows. A big brother. "Don't give him that crap.""

"There is nothing else. No chocolate, no sweets, just a satsuma: juicy, nutritious and cheap. Take it or leave it. They leave it, with a few choice words no eight-year-old should know. And so we wake up the next day to find eggs splattered all over the front door and the car doused in flour."

What does Halloween say about us? So far, nothing flattering about Cole Moreton. Give the kids some candy, its cheaper than your cheap fruit.

Cole goes on with predictable complaints about making money, "trashy" US culture "dominated by religious belief", etc. There is some accurate and relevant information about the origins of Halloween, but for the most part, the author is just pissing.

Lighten up, its time to party.

Monday Quote

2005-10-31T16:40:00.000-06:00

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens." --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy, "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:465

Field of Dumbasses

2005-10-26T13:36:00.000-05:00

Gang Rapists Attacks Unavoidable, says lawyer

"A violent gang rapist should have been given a lesser sentence partly because he was a "cultural time bomb" whose attacks were inevitable, as he had emigrated from a country with traditional views of women, his barrister has argued."

"MSK, who, with his three Pakistani brothers, raped several girls at their Ashfield family home over six months in 2002, was affected by "cultural conditioning … in the context of intoxification", Stephen Odgers, SC, told the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday"

Dumbass. They should be punished more for being more likely to commit crimes again.

The Branding of the World's Top Intellectual: Noam Chomsky

"One of the most persistent themes in Chomsky's work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the "massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich" and criticized the concentration of wealth in "trusts" by the wealthiest one percent. The American tax code is rigged with "complicated devices for ensuring that the poor -- like eighty percent of the population -- pay off the rich."

"But trusts can't be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston's venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and with the help of a tax attorney specializing in "income-tax planning" set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions."

"Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution -- just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning."

I don't have any respect for Chomsky or his adherents. His arguements are predictable, turgid and obtuse designed to obscure a lack of sound arguement. He is also a hypocrite. Surprise.

UPS agrees to end cigarette deliveries to individuals

"The world's largest shipping carrier, UPS Inc., will stop delivering cigarettes to individuals in the United States under an agreement announced Monday with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The agreement is the latest in federal and state efforts to combat the sale of under-taxed cigarettes and to fight underage smoking. Most under-taxed or untaxed cigarettes are sold by Indian tribes, where the taxation of sales to non-Indians is disputed. "

The problem here is the NY Attorney General Spitzer. This guy is abusing his power.

Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler

HAHAHA! Couldn't say it better myself. Che was a real piece of crap. I am regularly amused talking to people who defend Che - they had a college course on him once - on the grounds of what Che would have done, if he had not been killed.

Calling Galloway's Bluff

Galloway behaving in a boorish, adolescent manner to the congressional panel and was praised in the media for it. The congressmen were polite and civil and unruffled and merely waited for Galloway to step on his own dick. Galloway praisers demonstrated their own lack of acuity and Galloway himself clearly doesn't realize he is in over his head.

Woah! Been Awhile, Here is some random stuff

2005-10-26T13:29:00.000-05:00

Check out the doctored photograph of Rice. Undoctored photo and link thanks: From the Pen.

Media Lied, People Died

Anatomy of a Photograph

Greenland icecap thickens despite warming

Are Americans Becoming Europeans? Hope nt, clearly some are opposing the trend.

Iran nuclear game too close for comfort Crazy autocratic terrorist asshole should be afraid.

Girl, 8, Credited With Year's 1st Bear Kill Nice shooting!

Political Virus Why the flu is a problem: politics

Taxes and Tyranny

2005-10-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

Ohio Police Arrest Woman For $1 In Unpaid Taxes

"Loveland City Manager Fred Enderle said the amount Combs owes isn't the real issue"

"Whether it's $1 they owe us or $1,000, it's not fair to the rest of the public to not pursue that person," he said. "There is some expense involved, but it goes back to the principle. We have laws. The laws have to be complied with. At what cost do you stop enforcing the law?"

Dumbass.

Technically, everyone can be arrested under these conditions.

In SD we are supposed to pay sales tax for any purchase outside the state that is mailed to SD. So if I order 200 bucks of books from Amazon, I need to go down to a state office, fill out a sales tax form and pay them $12. Every time. No one does it except politicians - read: republicans - who are rather unfairly excoriated if they fail to comply. Now, IMO, this means the law is stupid, but the reason I raise it is that everyone can be said to have avoided paying tax and could be arrested for it.

Venezuela's Chavez to Remove U.S. Missionaries

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered a U.S.-based Christian missionary group working with indigenous tribes to leave the country Wednesday, accusing the organization of "imperialist infiltration" and links to the CIA"

He wouldn't simply be hostile to religion...

"During the ceremony, Chavez granted 15 property titles for more than 1.65 million acres to the Cuiba, Yuaruro, Warao and Karina tribes. The documents recognize collective ownership of ancestral lands by communities with some 3,000 people"

COLLECTIVE ownership. There is the real rub. This land is not really owned by these people no matter what the documents say. They will soon learn that their property rights are strictly limited and subject to arbitrary coercion by Chavez.

Friday Quote

2005-10-14T11:41:00.000-05:00

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." -- John F. Kennedy

Hot Air of War

2005-10-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

An American “Debacle”?
More unjustified negativity on the war in Iraq.

"Such gloom seems to be the fashion of the day. Iraq is now routinely dismissed as a quagmire or “lost.” Osama bin laden is assumed to be still active, while we are beginning the fifth year of the war that is “longer than World War II.” Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo purportedly are proof of our brutality and have lost us hearts and minds, while gas prices spiral out of control. The U.S. military is supposedly “overextended” if not “wrecked” by Iraq, while the war in Afghanistan “drags on.” Meanwhile, it is “only a matter of time” until we are hit with another terrorist strike of the magnitude of September 11. To cap it off, the United States is now “disliked” abroad, by those who abhor our “unilateralism” and “preemptive” war."

All that is a fair summation of the current glumness.

But how accurate are such charges? If one were to assess them from the view of the Islamic fundamentalists, they would hardly resemble reality.

There is nothing wrong with constructive, accurate criticism of the war. VDH proceeds to destroy this unconstructive and inaccurate criticism.

I don't let MY dog drink from the toilet

2005-10-13T11:54:00.000-05:00

Metro talker: PETA's potty pranks

"If people want to pretend to be animals by dressing in their skins, we think they really should go for the whole look, including drinking out of the toilet," says President Ingrid Newkirk. "

Newkirk is a feeler. I am idly curious what she be paid for this nonsense. Other people's money....

HEROES

2005-10-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

VFW motorcycles drown out protestors

"[T]he engines of more than 100 Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcycles drowned out the voices of the Westboro Baptist Church members who were allowed to protest from 1-1:30 p.m. before the 2 p.m. funeral services for Staff Sgt. John Glen Doles."

BWAHAHAHA!

I have heard of these flakes before. Aside from the obvious inpropriety of protesting at a funeral, these wierdoes are protesting against the strangest thing. Apparently soldiers oversseas are being killed because God is punishing the US over homosexuals.

My mind boggles.

Random Good Stuff

2005-10-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

Criminal runs and hides from police. Police use his own dog to find him. American Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the proper name for the dog's breed, but I wonder if the writer would have used the more commonly used name Pit Bull if the dog had been unfriendly.

Ports refuse dock access to Greenpeace ship - Poor babies. They are so oppressed when they don't recieve preferred treatment.

Guinness! I love Guinness. Unfortunately, there is no good place to get one here. Bartenders always tap them off like they are lite beer. :-(

More Dog News: Do Dogs Think? Anthropomorphic, attributing human form or feelings to a god, animal, or object. People spend too much time attributing emotions to their dogs. I love my dog, and he loves me, but I don't make the mistake of treating him like a person.

Long Overdue

2005-10-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

Been busy and out of town. Prepare for belated blogging!

A cheer for the Japanese

2005-09-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

Japan May Cut Funds to the UN

"Stung by its failure to secure a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, Japan is signaling -- not for the first time -- that it may reduce its sizeable financial contribution to the world body. The warning comes at a time when the Bush administration faces calls in Congress to cut American funding to the U.N. if specified reform benchmarks aren't met. As the second-largest donor to U.N. coffers, Tokyo has long argued that it deserves a permanent seat alongside the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia."

Good for them.

I would have supported Japan's bid for Security Council permanent membership. Several reasons: Japan is a close ally, they deserve our support. Japan is a powerful nation, if nations like France and Russia are in the SC, so should Japan.

I have an underhanded motiv, however. If we allow many more people on the SC, it will become less effective and more indecisive. I want the UN to fail.

Friday Quote

2005-09-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

"...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents." -- Don B. Kates, writing on statistical patterns in gun crime

Turn up the heat!

2005-09-29T00:54:00.000-05:00

Assumption Function

"Yale economist Robert Mendelsohn has estimated the effect of global warming on the US economy and expects a net benefit. In a letter to Sen. John McCain he writes:"

"Climate change is likely to result in small net benefits
for the United States over the next century. The primary sector that will
benefit is agriculture. The large gains in this sector will more than compensate
for damages expected in the coastal, energy, and water sectors, unless warming
is unexpectedly severe. Forestry is also expected to enjoy small gains. Added
together, the United States will likely enjoy small benefits of between $14 and
$23 billion a year and will only suffer damages in the neighborhood of $13
billion if warming reaches 5C over the next century. Recent predictions of
warming by 2100 suggest temperature increases of between 1.5 and 4C, suggesting
that impacts are likely to be beneficial in the US."

The debate - if you can call it that - is friggen over. Lets warm up the globe and benefit the USA. No need to even listen to the whining of envrionmental whackos , the outrageous demands of UN bureaucrats greedy for wealth and power, or the puling of weak dysfunctional European bureueaucratic oligarchies.

Warmer = better for the USA. We win.

The spread of tyranny

2005-09-28T21:42:00.000-05:00

World Wide (Web) Takeover - The United Nations wants the Internet.

"The U.N.'s professed goals, which include expanding Internet access in developing countries and fighting spam, are laudable. However, the substance of its proposals — shifting Internet governance from the U.S. to a U.N. body — would produce an Internet in which regulations smother free speech, strangle net-driven economic growth, and threaten America's online security. "

I have heard of this before. If you read the article, not that the man in charge of the UN effort is a former high Chinese government official.

*****
Ex-Security Chief Blows Whistle on UN's Kosovo Mission

"Following five years of United Nations control and billions
of dollars of international aid, Kosovo is a lawless region "owned" by the
Albanian mafia, characterized by continuing ethnic cleansing and subject to
increasing infiltration by al Qaeda-linked Muslim jihadists, according to a
whistleblower interviewed by Cybercast News Service. "

Billions wasted and less than nothing to show for it? Hey! Lets give the UN control of the Internet!

*****
Have you noticed a pattern in the spread of tyranny?
The UN's Biotech for Food Scandal

"CHIBA, Japan -- John Bolton, the blunt and controversial U.S. ambassador to the UN, has promised "to advance American interests and ideals at the United Nations." During his first two months on the job, Bolton has denounced the United Nations Development Program for its "unacceptable" funding of Palestinian propaganda and publicly identified "countries who are in a state of denial" about the need for UN reform. He told a reporter that he feels "a little like Rod Serling has suddenly appeared and we're writing episodes from 'The Twilight Zone.'"

"I'm having a similar experience in Japan as a member of the US delegation to a UN task force on biotechnology-derived foods. The group is a creature of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets food standards on behalf of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO). The very scope of this exercise -- which has gone on for five years and shows no signs of abating -- makes no sense. It is concerned with regulatory requirements only for foods made with the newest, most precise and predictable techniques of biotechnology -- while exempting others made with far more crude and less predictable technologies, including irradiation mutagenesis and hybridization."

Over-regulating technology what will feed millions.

*****
Muslim women, children shield marine killers

"BANGKOK - Suspected Islamist insurgents avoided capture after torturing to death two Thai marines by beating and stabbing the bound-and-gagged victims behind a human shield of defiant Muslim women and children, horrifying the government and plunging southern Thailand into a fresh security crisis. "

Hide behind women and children. Such courage.

South Dakota in the News Overseas

2005-09-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

Cage-brawling, a sport where (almost) anything goes

"Eye-gouging, attacks on the groin and putting a finger into any orifice are banned, but otherwise anything goes in cage-brawling, the new style of prizefighting sweeping America's Midwest."

"With the sun sinking behind the spreading cornfields of South Dakota's Great Plains, Lee Lohff, the 23-year-old unbeaten champion of the little town of Yankton, boxed and wrestled with Steve Sperb, also from Yankton, in a frantic flurry of jabs and kicks, bouncing from side to side of the chain-link cage."

This stuff has really been going on for years. Its simply more popular and coming to that attention of the press and elected officials.

"In nearby Sioux Falls, the county commission has banned cage-brawling from city property or establishments that derive more than a quarter of their income from alcohol sales. Any promoter must provide proof of at least $1 million (£550,000) in liability insurance."

"I don't like this kind of fighting," said Mark Johnson, one of the commissioners considering the future of cage-brawling. "But I also don't like treading on people's right to do these things.""

Private property, private citizens, consenting adults.... damn straight they are free to fight. Its not much of a controversy here. I have read and heard a little bit about this stuff in the local press. One or two local elected officials were Righteously Outraged (read: squeamish) about cage fighting. Most people don't care. I certainly don't.

Europe vs America

2005-09-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons

"Unlike some forms of bigotry, anti-Americanism is most virulent among Europe's elites. Everyday Germans and Brits and Italians tend to be more appreciative of American culture, economic achievement, and government than their political lords. But ordinary Europeans have relatively little influence on the direction of their societies. The thing about European governance most striking to American eyes today is its comparatively undemocratic nature. In much of the continent, elections mean little, unaccountable bureaucracies and elites commandeer the most important decisions, the same people hang onto power endlessly, and policies that would not survive the test of popular opinion are simply instituted by administrative fiat. To cite just one example, direct election of mayors has been blocked in many localities, with national authorities insisting on appointing local leaders themselves."

That makes those European nations pretend democracies. An oligarchy ruled by a class of bureaucrats largely if not completely insulated from accountability to voters.

The European Descent

"Like the bedraggled patriarch in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" who can't make sense of why his daughter would ever want to leave the fold, Europeans cannot for the love of Zeus understand why the world does not pay constant homage to their clear superiority."

Europe long since lost any such pretensions.

"Well. Sorry to be so blunt, but what have you done for us lately? Since long before the Second World War -- which marked Britain's decline in the same way that the Great War washed away continental pretensions at moral superiority -- Europeans have rested on their laurels. With the end of the Cold War and the onset of new global economic realities, those laurels have become wreaths -- beautiful elegant verdant crescents like those that adorned the caesars' magnificent craniums, but symbols of glory days long past nonetheless."

All things must end. Europe's shining role in history doesn't have to end now, but it will if they continue along this path.

"Robert Kagan identified the trans-Atlantic divergence in his prescient Of Paradise and Power, a sort of "America is from Mars, Europe is from Venus" approach to geopolitics. The United States sees itself as idealistic, man's last best hope for freedom -- a freedom worth fighting and dying for. Europe, pacifistic and cynical, wants nothing more than to conduct business as usual (under America's protective umbrella) -- and send diplomats to bargain with terrorists and tyrants."

Bargaining with our enemies is the worst aspect of the trans-Atlantic split. While claiming moral superiority, Europe deals with the most vicious tyrannies free from the condemnation from academic and leftist critics, while the US handles these same odious tyrannies with at best distaste and is excoriated.

Today’s Euro-USA Split Will Persist

"Red-state/Blue-state tension in America reflects a similar divergence between America and Europe. As the United States becomes more conservative, it increasingly sees Europe as a fringe San Francisco or Massachusetts, not a mainstream Grand Rapids or Ohio. Europe’s rhetorical intrusions into our recent Presidential election confirmed that Europeans often embrace agendas that bother Americans — pacifism, radical secularism, utopian environmentalism, blind support for the U.N., socialized health care, government steering of the economy, redefinition of marriage, strident abortion rights, and open euthanasia"

The US should have allies that share similiar values. Japan, Australia, Poland, India, and a host of smaller nations. I see no reason to persist dragging along wretched and weak European nations when there are more vibrant and courageous friends to cherish.

"The differences between American and European material wealth are now marked and growing — Americans increasingly enjoy larger homes, more cars, more appliances, cheaper food and energy, more advanced health care, and more disposable income. A recent European visitor to my farm, a member of the professional and affluent class, was stunned when I showed him the new suburban houses and multiple cars of first generation immigrants from Mexico living nearby — in the poorest section of one of the poorest inland counties of rural California. “They seem wealthier than I am!” he exclaimed. In a global sense they really are, even without the subsidized train tickets, day care payments, and a government-guaranteed six-week vacation."

America should reform its immigration proceedure, encouraging ambitious Europeans to move from their declining nations to the US. We should also remove governmental roadblocks to American prosperity: Lower reformed tax system like the Fair Tax, smaller less regulatory government, and the elimination of the welfare state.

Some Europeans desperately try to deny the truth to themselves:

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. "

Depends on how you count your statistics. For example, in Japan, infants are simply not counted until 2 days after partuation. Not surprisingly, they have a stunningly low infant mortality rate. See, if a baby is stillboarn or dies within 2 days, it doesn't count. Thus comparisons of infant mortality rates with the US are meaningless. Especially when the US uses its medical technology to save every premature infants whereas in other nations they are considered simply miscarriages.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Uh huh.

'Developing'? America has practiced democracy for 300+ years, long before gaining independence.

Update: I forgot to point out the use of weasle words in teh article. If you read it, not the use of "many" repeatedly.

All this BS is really smelling up the place

2005-09-26T23:45:00.000-05:00

Florida's 'Force with force' law sparks campaign to warn tourists about potential violence

"Warning that Florida streets have the potential to morph into the O.K. Corral, gun-control advocates will launch an international campaign to alert travelers about a new state law that allows people to use deadly force in self-defense.' "

How often have anti-Second Ammendment types warned of an 'OK Corral' or 'blood on the streets'? It never happens.

" "It's a particular risk faced by travelers coming to Florida for a vacation because they have no idea it's going to be the law of the land," said Peter Hamm, communications director of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "If they get into a road rage argument, the other person may feel he has the right to use deadly force."

Its the law of the land in many states. Hasn't been a problem elsewhere.

"In a flier the group plans to pass out at Miami International Airport and possibly Orlando International Airport, tourists will be admonished to take precautions that include: "Do not argue unnecessarily with local people." Newspapers ads, billboards and the Internet will also be used to spread the word."

Translation: You want media attention cheap. What a load of bullshit. Disputes will not be settled with guns. It doesn't happen here, or in any state where carrying firearms is legal. These wimps are just making shit up.

BTW: Violent Crime at Lowest Level in 30 Years, Survey Says in no small part due to many more states allowing citizens to carry guns legally. Bad news for the anti-Second Ammendment liars.

Belated Friday Quote

2005-09-26T23:42:00.000-05:00

"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave." -- "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775

Bullshit Upload...

2005-09-26T23:26:00.000-05:00

What is wrong with this pic?

Hint: you didn't see it in the newspaper or on MSM TV.

JAGS Not Welcome on the campus of Spoiled Brat Univ.... er, sorry make that Yale Law School. Oh, you're a lawyer? Ivy league? Wow.... I am so..... underwhelmed.

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina What a bunch of crap. Even if the Navy has dolphins that use darts with sleeping agents, do you really think the military didn't evac their vunerable assets? And even.... even if they had such dolphins and didn't evac them... do you think they "store" their weapons "hot"?

Funny anecdote. During the Vietnam war the Navy had a problem with enemy infiltrators using scuba gear to sneak into harbor to plant charges. The Navy deployed dolphins which harpooned enemy swimmers in the ass. The harpoon was attached to a bouy so they could be tracked from the surface. After two enemy infiltrators were harpooned and captured like that, the commies never sent another. Heh. I like dolphins. but not for the same reason some people do. Dolphins are predators, with a predators sociability and instincts. Woof!

A Quiet Country Market

"It begins quietly. A couple drive into a country town to shop and look at the literature on display at the Vegetarian Festival. By accident they stumble on an outpost of The Coalition Against Civilization, an organization dedicated to an ideology called eco-primitivism. The harmless-looking vegetarians are passing out pamphlets looking for a few good species traitors, who would work towards "spreading and developing theories and practical means to bring about the destruction of civilization and defend what wilderness remains." "

Dare them to go live in the wilderness without modern society. Buh-bye. Unfortunately, they are as likely to leave society as celebs are to leave the USA.

Badly timed traffic signals cost Union City big bucks

"Every ticket generated by red-light enforcement cameras in the city before last Saturday will be dismissed due to a snafu — letting thousands of red-light runners off the hook and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in anticipated revenue. "

The problem was described as a snafu. I call bullshit. They did it on purpose.

HEROES

2005-09-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

God-Fearing Spartans

"And in quiet moments the troops explain themselves in terms that call to mind an earlier America: God, country, honor, duty. "The clichés were spoken with utter seriousness," Mr. Kaplan assures us. "That's ultimately why these guys liked George W. Bush so much. . . . He spoke the way they did, with a lack of nuance, which they found estimable because their own tasks did not require it.""

There is nothing wrong with patriotism. What is shameful are those who chose to denigrate the very culture that gave them the freedom to chose.

"If "Imperial Grunts" serves no other purpose, it is a wonderful corrective to the disenchanted troops we sometimes see on the television news or in the new TV series "Over There," or read about in the dispatches of reporters and pundits who are themselves disenchanted by the war on terror."

I have seen "Over There."

I just ordered 2 copies of this book.

Que violins

2005-09-22T13:11:00.000-05:00

Katrina aid too risky for some illegals

"Some have managed to get into shelters run by the Red Cross and Catholic Charities, which provide food and medical care, no questions asked. But when U.S. citizens in those shelters flock to cardboard tables where FEMA, Social Security and Internal Revenue Service agents sit, Latinos stay behind, watching from their cots, relief workers said."

Why exactly is this a problem? Should our tax money be used to comfort non-citizens who are in this country illegally? They get food and shelter in an emergency as a basic human thing to do.

"In his national address Thursday, President Bush read off a list of services that the estimated 40,000 Mexicans and 150,000 Hondurans who lived in the New Orleans area cannot get: checks from Social Security, mail delivery by the Postal Service, money to rent apartments and temporary trailer homes."

Cry me a friggen river.

******
Artist's body found three years after forest death

"A TALENTED artist from Crosby, Liverpool died after handcuffing himself to a tree in a dense forest, an inquest heard yesterday."

Darwin.

******
U.N.-Plugged

"On Monday afternoon the electrical power blew out at U.N. headquarters, forcing the secretary-general and the foreign ministers of four of the world's most powerful nations, along with France, to evacuate the executive offices on the 38th floor. Nonessential U.N. staff were sent home--leaving a friend to quip, "Does that mean all of them?""

******
Spain reinforces enclave borders

"On Tuesday, 12 were injured when a group of around 70 tried to cross the double fences using home-made ladders. Three have died since August. "

"Spain's Guardia Civil says it is working to bring all the fences up to six metres in height. "

"Some rights campaigners have criticised the force used against the immigrants. "

Spain has a perfect right to enforce its borders. Anyone who is killed invading someone else's territory/property has only themselves to blame.

That's my term!

2005-09-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

Weasel-Words Rip My Flesh!

"Like its fellow weasel-words—some, few, often, seems, likely, more—many serves writers who haven't found the data to support their argument. A light splash of weasel-words in a news story is acceptable if only because journalism is not an exact science and deadlines must be observed. But when a reporter pours a whole jug of weasel-words into a piece, as Louise Story does on Page One of today's (Sept. 20) New York Times in "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path toMotherhood," she needlessly exposes one of the trade's best-kept secrets for all to see. She deserves a week in the stockades. And her editor deserves a month."

Weasle words! I use that term regularly. I go farther than this author. Using words such as "type""

""The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq."

Type in this context could almost mean anything. Its meant to give the impression that the same food British soldiers eat is being rejected by Americans. In fact, "the same type" could mean anything.

Weasle depends on context. The intent is to mislead, as stated by the author, "By fudging the available facts with weasel-words, Story makes a flaccid concept stand up—as long as nobody examines it closely."

Faking the news

2005-09-20T13:20:00.000-05:00

Pallywood

Hilarity ensues. Solomonia examines how news is faked by "Palestinians." Note that there are a lot of people standing around with nothing better to do.

Of course, the MSM is complicit. They are bright people, they would never be fooled by this crap. Instead they edit this stuff.

Belmont Club:

"Some may argue that 'the Israelis and the US military are also cooking up stories', but that is beside the point: because the point is that nothing on packaged television can be inherently trusted, and Pallywood demonstrates that. If the 60 Minutes host can dish out fantasy -- as he unambiguously does in this case -- then who else can you trust?"

Lefty Lunacy

2005-09-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

Castro: Cuba could have saved U.S. victims

"President Fidel Castro on Monday lamented that the U.S. government had not still responded two weeks after he offered to send nearly 1,600 Cuban doctors to help Hurricane Katrina victims, saying the team could have saved lives"

Uh huh. we have nearly a thousand dead, most of whom were in Louisiana. More doctors wouldn't have helped. Evacuating in time would have.

*****
ANWR Protest: 'Don't Drill, Storm Capitol Hill'

"A press release said "busloads of citizen lobbyists from across the U.S. and Canada" plan to join the protest, which will include a drum procession by Native Americans and "large crowds of citizens with signs."

Several points: One is that ANWAR is the size of Texas. Yes, many parts of ANWAR are beautiful pristine wilderness, but the part they actually intend to drill is crappy desolate tundra. Second the methods they plan to use are low impact. build roads in the winter on ice, which melts leaving nothing. Sidways drilling so that one drill site can pump a whole area. And when its done you dismantle that! Third is that ANWAR is a great place to drill oil, the water table is extremely low, no spill is going to contaminate it. If there is, you scoop it up and process the mess.

These 'Native Americans' protestint are no doubt the ones who live nowhere near the place so they are upset that they are not getting a big check. Looking for their payoff.

"While the arguments against ANWR drilling will be laid out at Tuesday's protest in Washington, a grassroots business/citizens' group called Arctic Power is offering ten reasons why ANWR drilling is a good idea."

BTW, I have noticed that the only people who use the term "native American" are white liberals. Indians call themselves by their tribal name or use the word Indian, as in the American INDIAN Movement.

I hate these al Qaeda bastards

2005-09-20T12:14:00.000-05:00

Rerun:

Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas

"Coalition intelligence sources who have examined this tape said it appears to be an al Qaeda experiment with lethal chemicals at the terrorist group's former Darunta camp in remote Afghanistan. The coalition sources said no intelligence agency is believed to have seen such poison-gas experiments before this tape, which is part of a large archive that sheds new light on Osama bin Laden's terror network, with images of lessons on making explosives, terrorist training tactics and previously unseen images of bin Laden and his top aides."

"The disturbing tape begins with several men, some wearing Afghan style sandals, rushing from a room, shouting to each other to hurry. A dog is left behind in the enclosure, and after the men leave, a white liquid that gives off a gas is seen seeping from the left. The men's identity is never revealed. "

"Soon, the dog begins reacting to the gas, licking his lips in a sign of increased salivation – a sign, say some of the experts who were shown the tape by CNN, of a nerve agent. "

Al Qaeda's Video Lessons In Terror

"Al Qaeda videotapes obtained by CBS News show that a serious, comprehensive and deadly terrorist training program was carried out in Afghanistan, reports CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton"

Need another reason to hate them?"

"When you see people immediately falling down, or animals immediately falling down, twitching like that, looking like they are in agonizing pain, choking for breath, that is clearly a sign of a chemical agent of some sort.""

Update: Many on the Left want to withdraw from Afghanistan, where these experiments were taking place. These are WMDs being tested for use on on civilians. That means you.

"End the corporate occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan"

Operation FREE BALBOA!

Boo Hoo

2005-09-19T22:29:00.000-05:00

Emotional Rather blasts 'new journalism order'

Rather was disgraced and retired after a career of 'advocacy journalism'. Shut up already.

Payback - Anti-Americans get to take a swipe.

2005-09-19T20:31:00.000-05:00

Tons of British aid donated to help Hurricane Katrina victims to be BURNED by Americans

"US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees."

What hungry Americans? The Mirror doesn't seriously believe that anyone in America, or more specifically from New Orleans, is hungry, unless they are on a diet. The issue at teh Dome in NO was the local government being stupid, preventing food and water from being sent because they didn't want the Dome to be a "magnet". I.E. a purely political problem..... the problem being incompetance.

"The aid worker, who would not be named, said: "This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve." "

Uh huh. Anonymous. Probably knows that the statement above is a lie, doesn't want their name attached. Makes good copy tho, run that puppy!

"The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq."

A little offended by that, maybe? "Type" is a broad definition. It can be the same TYPE but be expired, or stored improperly. That

"Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madnes." "

Starving? lol.

"Everyone is revolted by the chaotic shambles the US is making of this crisis. Guys from Unicef are walking around spitting blood."

AHA! Unicef. The USA made the UN and Unicef look like idiots in the Tsunami. Also the UN looks really bad lately - corruption, bloated bureaucracy, and repeated charges of sexual abuse. Payback!

"If they are trying to argue there is a BSE reason then that is ludicrously out of date. There is more BSE in the States than there ever was in Britain and UK meat has been safe for years."

Outright lie.

Hyperbole aside, this is pretty dumb. The FDA is just one of many government departments and agencies that have too much money, too many people, and too many regulations.

Random Linkage

2005-09-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

Puppy joins prayers

Seems that a dog hangs with some monks and imitates their behavior..... Hint: its a dog.

---------
'Dream hunts' aim to draw more children to the sport

"Samantha, a freckle-faced, pony-tailed fourth-grader, was on a bear hunt. Not the pretend kind, but a real one for black bears that live in the woods of southwestern Vermont. She had won a "dream hunt" given away by a Vermont father of five who wants to get more children involved in hunting. She traveled about 200 miles from her Bellingham, Mass., home and was missing three days of school to take him up on his offer."

Cool. Hope she bags one.

---------
Burger King recalls 'sacrilegious' desserts

"THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is with drawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim. "

"The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad"."

Nutbar

"He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims." "

He wants money.

BK should grow some balls.

---------
Oliver Wendell Roberts
In a less nasty age, he'd be confirmed 100-0.

"This strange new liberal respect for precedent--stare decisis--is certainly amusing. Liberals are only too happy to embrace Lawrence (overturning state sodomy laws), Roper v. Simmons (banning the death penalty for juveniles) and numerous other decisions that have overturned well-established precedents in order to achieve liberal social policy goals. But when Republican nominees are before the Senate, the left suddenly declares that the only "genuine conservatives" are the kind who endorse all liberal precedents."

Roberts made several senators look like fools. It was clear that Kennedy didn't even grasp the questions he was asking. I think his aides are letting him down. Yes, he is stroking his supporters, but he isnt' doing himself any good. Not, I suppose, that it matters.

---------
'BLAIR SHOCKED' over Katrina Coverage

"Tony Blair was shocked by the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, describing it as “full of hatred of America”, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, revealed on Friday night."

I am surprised myself... that Blair would publically state the truth about the BBC.

--------
U.S. Acts to Finish Divisive Border Fence

YEAH! How dare the US enforce its borders! A fence will hurt the swamp! Oh, the humanity.

--------
Company admits slave history

Wimps. This is just the first step in extorting you. 1) Illinois was never a slave state 2) people alive now - in the US (as opposed to other places in the world) are not slaves 3) the people who are now employed by this company never owned slaves.

Dumbass

2005-09-17T00:31:00.000-05:00

Humanist Group Blasts Bush for 'Promoting Prayer'

"A humanist group is criticizing President Bush's call for a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance Friday for Hurricane Katrina victims, accusing him of using religion to deflect from the administration's "poor response" to the victims of the storm."

"The American Humanist Association said Bush used "religion as a diversion instead of fully admitting his mistakes and focusing on responsibility and readiness" regarding the Katrina disaster."

" "Mistakes were made at every level, but Bush's blunder was that of misplaced priorities, where his desire to invest in preemptive wars outweighed his concern for the safety of Americans," Roy Speckhardt, executive director of AHA, said in a statement."

I see. What this is REALLY about is pushing a leftist political agenda. The idea is to criticize Bush, and not constructively. The God thing is just an excuse.

I am an atheist and I don't care a wit when Presidents pray or talk about God. ALL Presidents mention God frequently, as do most politicians. Its simply no skin off my nose. I am happier with officials who think that there is a higher power that will judge them and a moral code that constrains their behavior than the idea of people in power who gratify only their own egos.

Does this fool Roy Speckhardt understand that he and his group are politically irrelevant? Most people are comfortable with religious references and elected officials who pray.

Explaining their decline in audience....

2005-09-16T17:48:00.000-05:00

To ABC's surprise, Katrina victims praise Bush and blame Nagin

No excerpt, its copy protected. Link thanks: Newsbusters which is now linked under News and Information.

HERO

2005-09-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

Bush Rules Out Tax Hike to Fund Recovery

"Bush said it's important that government quickly fix the region's infrastructure to give people hope. Asked who would pay for the work and how it would impact the nation's rising debt, Bush said he was confident the United States could pay for reconstruction "and our other priorities." "

"He said that means "cutting unnecessary spending" and maintaining economic growth, "which means we should not raise taxes." "

WOOT!

Friday Quote

2005-09-16T15:01:00.000-05:00

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create...." -- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819.

I agree with a Commie!

2005-09-15T23:35:00.000-05:00

Chavez says the UN should move to Jerusalem

You know, Hugo Chavez, the Communist dictator in all but name of Venezuela, the anti-American, terrorism supporting, empire building tyrant who is aggressively threatening his neighbors and supports Castro with free oil....

I agree with him on this issue entirely. I applaud him.

h/t LGF

Keep him

2005-09-15T16:58:00.000-05:00

Australia Deports American Peace 'Hippy'

"An American "peace activist" was kicked out of Australia Thursday after Prime Minister John Howard's government declared him a threat to national security and revoked a six-month tourist visa.

"Scott Parkin, a 36-year-old teacher based in Texas, was escorted onto a flight to Los Angeles, four days after being arrested on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO)."

"Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told Australian radio Parkin was arrested because his visa was canceled. And it was canceled, he said, because ASIO had given an "adverse security assessment" relating to concerns about "politically motivated violence, including violent protest activity."

Personally, I would be dismissive of a foreignor coming to my country to protest my governments policies.... Isn't this a form of Imperialism? Imposing our moral values? Being a dick?

Amusing to hear some people say that this was done because the US was embarrassed. Got news for conspiracy theorists: guys like Parkin are a dime a dozen, his arrest and deportation made his career. He will write a book and do paid lecture tours now.

In the interest of fairness, here is one of his articles.

Taking Direct Action Against Hallliburton

UNashamed

2005-09-15T16:46:00.000-05:00

Annan launches tirade at world's leaders for abandoning disarmament and development

"World leaders were greeted with a scolding as they arrived for the opening of the United Nations summit in New York after Kofi Annan lamented the watering-down of the meeting's conclusions on reform and branded as a "real disgrace" the absence of all mention of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation."

Damn, this is funny. Annan presuming to lecture. "Watering down" the meeting's conclusions? As I recall those conclusions were that the UN needs more money and no systemic changes. Convenient. "Yes, we need to change! I suggest you give us more money and power."

My President

2005-09-15T16:40:00.000-05:00

The Storm Before the Balm

"What about reports the President's leadership style has grown detached and self-indulgent? This criticism is a standard one liberals have used about Republican presidents since Eisenhower. What they really mean in this case is that he's grown more peckish and irritable. This, from this week's Time magazine is, to old White House hands at least, not good news. " 'The first time I told him he was wrong, he started yelling at me,' the aide recalled about a session during the first term. 'Then I showed him where he was wrong, and he said, "All right, I understand. Good job." He patted me on the shoulder. I went and had dry heaves in the bathroom.' " One hopes this is hyperbole. If not, it's a bad sign. No president should have that effect on his aides, and no president should be surrounded by dry heavers."

Seems to me that he was willing to admit his error.

"Mr. Bush is famously flinty. I sometimes think of what a friend said of him years ago: There are two misconceptions about Mr. Bush; one is that he's dumb, and the other is that he's sweet. He puts great emphasis on personal loyalty, and personal loyalty is important. But when that preference becomes a governing ethos, you wind up surrounded only by loyalists. His father wound up surrounded by tennis players. This doesn't help you govern."

GOOD! You need a backbone as President, not a noodle.

Spreading the word

2005-09-15T16:31:00.000-05:00

Jehovah's Witnesses sue to stop some guy from quoting the Watchtower. Correct me if I am wrong, but don't the JWs believe that 144,000 people will be saved during the Second Coming, and if so, haven't they overfilled their quota? will they have to draw straws or something?JWs canvas my neighborhood 4 or 5 times a year for some reason.

Usually the dog keeps them away.

One morning I was frying up bacon for brunch, and I happened to have only one sheet of paper towel to soak up the grease. Hmmmm, I thought, searching for some newspaper to put under the tower... just then the doorbell rang. It was the JWs! I shushed the dog and went to greet them. They were so pleased at how happy I was to receive their Watchtower. I thanked them very kindly, and rushed back to the kitchen, opened the Watchtower, put the single paper towel over it and took a spatula to my now crispy bacon. The watchtower soaked up that bacon grease well.

I have nothing against JWs. I have little use for religious proselytizing, that includes athiests.

News of the Weird

2005-09-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

Clearing out some Weird News in my bookmarks:

Burglar smears naked victim with frosting

"A malfunctioning light bulb in a school gym exposed more than 100 people to short-wave radiation for an hour, sending 18 to the hospital with severe sunburns and swollen eyes."

Girl blows up home with body spray

Followups

2005-09-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

New Orleans Gun Seizures Allegedly 'Creating More Victims'

Canada abandons plans to introduce sharia law

"The premier of Ontario nixed plans to make Canada's largest province the first in the West to introduce sharia law to settle family disputes, after widespread protests locally and abroad. "

Good. Now the concern will be that the government imposes Sharia anyway, hoping no one notices. Canada and Europe have a bad habit of ignoring the wishes of the populace and doing what ever they want anyway.

Right Now

2005-09-15T12:12:00.000-05:00

Eating: fresh bread, chicken breast with rosemary, lime juice

Listening: Staind

Still Reading: American Soldier by General Tommy Franks. Interesting read, going to take awhile.

Now Reading: Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson

Just watched - Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy - This movie is really bad. The original low-budget BBC series was better. The plot does not follow the book much. Vogons are promoted to a ongoing nemesis, the funniest references in the books are simply left out. Lame.

European Bigotry

2005-09-12T23:14:00.000-05:00

Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons

"Unlike some forms of bigotry, anti-Americanism is most virulent among Europe's elites. Everyday Germans and Brits and Italians tend to be more appreciative of American culture, economic achievement, and government than their political lords. But ordinary Europeans have relatively little influence on the direction of their societies. The thing about European governance most striking to American eyes today is its comparatively undemocratic nature. In much of the continent, elections mean little, unaccountable bureaucracies and elites commandeer the most important decisions, the same people hang onto power endlessly, and policies that would not survive the test of popular opinion are simply instituted by administrative fiat. To cite just one example, direct election of mayors has been blocked in many localities, with national authorities insisting on appointing local leaders themselves."

"Because of this unrepresentative politics, lots of ideas supported by a majority of the European public--like the death penalty--have no chance of becoming law. The tradition of a peasantry ruled by its "betters" endures in numerous ways. Many of these habits are actually being deepened by the European Union, where decision making is dominated by unrecallable mandarins serving appointments in Brussels, who regularly ram through laws that could never pass by popular referendum. "

Anti-Americanism is nothing new, today its exacerbated by european feelings on inferiority. In most objective measures, Europe comes up second or even third or fourth, behind the USA, so they puff themselves up with denial, lies about the US, and dubious claims of moral superiority.

Rights and Ramifications

2005-09-12T17:01:00.000-05:00

Rights:
Gun Show Owner, Patrons May File Civil Rights Suit

Feds are harrassing legal gunowners. Don't they have anything useful to do, like putting criminals in jail?

Defenseless On the Bayou

"In the nearly two weeks since Hurricane Katrina, the government of New Orleans has devolved from its traditional status as an elective kleptocracy into something far more dangerous: an anarcho-tyranny that refuses to protect the public from criminals while preventing people from protecting themselves."

Ramifications:

Pentagon to decide on new generation of land mines

"The Pentagon is close to deciding whether to produce a new generation of land mines, but the system is drawing fire from critics who say the military is ignoring international sentiment against such weapons."

Land mines are cheap and easy to make, which makes them popular weapons with poor combatants. the UN Land Mine Treaty has been a popular cause for various activists. Land Mines, like the Kyoto Treaty, guns, depleted uranium, the death penalty, and the ICC, is one of the fuzzy-logic morally-superior ideological stances that anti-Americans use to condemn America.

America is not a problem when it comes to land mines. We clean up our mines when we are done, in addtion, the US cleans up the land mine others leave. So why is the US cast as a bad guy for not signing this land mine treaty. The arguements in favor are poor, but that is not the point. Supporters know that signing the treaty will have no effect on the real problems engendered by irresponsible land mine use. Its simply a convenient tool to bash the US. If they can actually convince the US to sign on, its a convenient way to tie the US down with legalistic restrictions. It wont stop there, a Land Mine treaty will act as a precedent for further restrictive treaties.

Talking Their Way Out of the Scandal

The UN desperately needs Bolton's Boot

Free food for the homeless lures people who are too lazy to cook

What do you expect?

"Aid" from Self-Serving Autocrats

Summary: Ordinary Cubans have no say over the tens of thousands of medics, teachers, and intelligence officers Castro has dispatched to Venezuela and other countries for political purposes, to the point that they no longer have access to basic healthcare. As for tons of medicine, it is curious that pharmacies open to most Cubans don't even stock aspirin.

Good luck with that!

2005-09-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

Iran military says Katrina showed U.S. could be turned into “war zone”

"Tehran, Iran, Sep. 11 – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been following closely the way the United States government has been handling Hurricane Katrina, and drawing strategic conclusions from it."

The US handles hurricanes and disasters regularly. Louisiana is the only US state whose laws are derived from the Code Napolean. Both the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana are noted for corruption and ineptitude. Katrina didn't even impact NOLA directly, but compare the efficiency of Louisiana to Missisippi and Alabama. Alabama, also hit by Katrina, ended up sending their national guard to rescue Louisiana. New Orleans is the exception, a bad example of how America reacts to disaster.

Go ahead and draw strategic conclusions. Iran is the next target.

Orleans on my mind.

2005-09-09T20:38:00.000-05:00

The Beeb Easy

I had difficulty finding an excerpt from this article that summed up the main point or emphasized a point I want to make, so here are a couple more amusing ones.

"Hard on the heels of the two Matts came another prat, Gavin
Hewitt, togged out in tropical gear and possessed of an outboard skiff which he
guided along the flooded streets. The drama was diminished, though, by people
walking by in the background in water just up to their knees. He stopped outside
one home where there were children guarding their dead mother's body. Worried
neighbors, clearly mistaking the crew for an official rescue boat, said the
children ought to be taken away. Well, never let it be said that the BBC
declined a chance to interfere in a foreign country, and minutes later, Hewitt
was helping the eldest girl out and onto the boat for the killer shot: a
close-up that filled the screen of the BBC bwana's hand grasping the black hand.
Take that, you prejudiced Americans! Not knowing what to do with them
once they'd got them on board, they dropped the five children off on a freeway
flyover."

Let me get this straight. They masqueraded as rescue workers, took children from their homes, and then abandoned them on a freeway? Is that child endangerment for which they could be prosecuted?

"Back to the flooded streets and Hewitt speaking from his boat to a camera that was presumably held by a BBC man walking backward through the shallow water. It was unbelievable, he said angrily, how long it was taking the authorities to come to these poorest neighborhoods to rescue people, although he had to raise his voice as he spoke as there were three or four helicopters hovering overhead winching people up. Needless to say, help was "too little, too late". Why no large wheeled vehicles, he demanded? Instead, "it's pickup trucks and guns. More guns than doctors." Well obviously, to have equal numbers of both, military personnel would have to carry a doctor as well as a gun."

Standard issue Doc-in-a-Ruck. A physician is every pocket, right next to MREs and flashbangs.

Speaking of guns:

Corpses, Guns Found in New Orleans Homes

"Soldiers and police confiscated guns from homeowners as they went house to house, trying to clear the shattered city of holdouts because of the danger of disease and fire. Police on Friday also marked homes with corpses inside, with plans to return later."

Is that a good idea? Leaving people, even obstinate yahoos who won't get the hell out, defenseless?

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" -- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

UN-surprising

2005-09-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Oil for Food as Usual

"As for the U.N., it proved its worth to Saddam as the one hall of mirrors in which such shenanigans could take place. Yet even now we are told that "at least" Oil for Food fed the Iraqi people when they were on the edge of starvation, and this is accounted a U.N. success. That is false. Oil for Food offered a lifeline of cash and influence to a regime that was starving its people. The program did not corrupt the U.N. so much as exploit its essential nature. Now Mr. Annan wants to use this report as an endorsement of his "reform" proposals. Only at the U.N. could he dare to think he could get away with this."

Politics is not corrupted by money, politics is corrupted by politicians.

Update:

Oil-for-Food Probe: U.N. Incapable of Running Large Programs

Friday Quote

2005-09-09T11:09:00.000-05:00

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." - Ronald Reagan

Odds and Sods

2005-09-08T15:13:00.000-05:00

Sharia move in Canada draws anger

Sharia is far more than just marital arbitration. People should be angry that a primitive, arbitrary and fundamentally bigoted system is even considered in a supposedly Western nation.

---------
Using chili peppers to burn drug abusers

What a hoot!

---------
A Bad Analogy

"It is inevitable that every war leads to historical
comparisons. Much as some of us would prefer to see the current Iraq war through
the lens of our own Revolutionary War and the framing of our Constitution that
followed it, it cannot be surprising that the antiwar--or perhaps just
anti-Bush--Left chooses to latch on to a more recent and more painful
comparison. What is surprising, however, is how poorly considered that
comparison is. There are innumerable differences between the Iraq and Vietnam
experiences. But there also are valid similarities--they just aren't the ones
the critics cite."

---------
How to Make War

August 31: "The new Iraqi army is going through a
generational shift, with a new package of tactics and techniques being taught to
a new generation of recruits. Previously, the Iraqis had used what they learned
from Russian advisors. The Russian techniques, derived from Russian traditions,
and experience during World War II, were based on tight control from the top,
and troops going through simple, and well rehearsed, drills and maneuvers.
Improvisation and initiative were not encouraged. Naturally, Saddam, and many
other Middle Easter despots, liked this Russian approach. However, these tactics
proved ineffective, time after time, when they went up against troops, usually
the Israelis, who were trained in the more flexible Western style. Arabs did not
like to dwell on this string of defeats at the hands of the hated Israelis. But
then the Americans did it to the Iraqis in 1991, and 2003, beliefs began to
change. Russian military techniques are out, American techniques are in."

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Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun:
What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life

---------

Random Dog Pic

2005-09-08T15:02:00.000-05:00

Oooops

2005-09-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork
Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game
Money Flowed to Questionable Projects
Mayor slams Blanco for stalling
Greens vs. Levees
Breaks in the Levee Logic

Blogfishing

2005-09-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

ProteinWisdom spotlights overwrought emotional ninnyism (is that a word?):

More, from the IMAGE IS EVERTHING files

---------
DhimmiWatch tracks the denigration of free speech in the Western world.

Rubenstein: Encounter with an Angry Muslim Academic

---------
From the Whacky Academic Left:

Katrina response meeting centers on political issues

"“What the media didn’t tell you is that some people were looting to set up kitchens for others and some of those people with guns were looking to chorale and protect.”"

"Chorale"? They were singing? Nevermind academic ignorance. No one has an issue with folks looting food and water and needed supplies, nor does any sensible person have an issue with people using guns to protect themselves from criminals. The issue with widespread lawlesness was murder, rape, wholesale theft, and shooting at rescuers. Some people were behaving badly. Behavior at odds with how folks have acted in the pastin other places during disasters.

---------
Citizen Smash is on the front lines of cultural dissonance:

CodePink Pickets Balboa

---------
Say Anything brings us a warning:

Democrat Response To Katrina: Raise Taxes

---------
The vivacious Atlas Shrugs brings us a well researched and undeniable truth:

Clash of Civilizations: Women under the boot of Radical Islam

---------
Buffalo's Path has a way with words:

Cicadas, Screams and Coffee

----------
Powerline probes the left's mind:

The claiming of Allan Bloom's mind

----------
The Jawa Report bars no holds:

An Idiot of the Highest Caliber

.... Or hurricanes

2005-09-07T12:09:00.000-05:00

When civil society breaks down, individuals must defend themselves, those they love and their neighbors. Civil order starts at the bottom, with individual civil behavior.

Pic thanks: A Basic Human Right

Tribes and Tribulations

2005-09-07T11:36:00.000-05:00

Eject!Eject!Eject! says it much better than I could. This excerpt is the introductory section, and I recommend reading the entire article. Without further commentary:

TRIBES

"

Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful
opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white,
middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been
herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see how much we like it. Absent,
of course, was the fundamental truth of what he plainly does not have the eyes
or the imagination to see, namely, that if the Superdome had been filled with
white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not
have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and
restraint and compassion. "

"That has nothing to do with me being white. If the
blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were
there with me, it would have been that much better. That’s because the people I
associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and
Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My
Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that
these are an opportunity to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go
into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud
and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My
Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous. My Tribe
is honorable, and decent, and kind, and inventive. My Tribe knows how to give
orders, and how to follow them. My Tribe knows enough about how the world works
to figure out ways to boil water, ration food, repair structures, build and
maintain makeshift latrines, and care for the wounded and the dead with respect
and compassion. "

"There are some things my Tribe is not good at at
all. My Tribe doesn’t make excuses. My Tribe will analyze failure and assign
blame, but that is to make sure that we do better next time, and we never, ever
waste valuable energy and time doing so while people are still in danger. My
Tribe says, and in their heart completely believes that it’s the other guy
that’s the hero. My Tribe does not believe that a single Man can cause, prevent
or steer Hurricanes, and my Tribe does not and has never made someone else
responsible for their own safety, and that of their loved ones."

"My Tribe doesn’t fire on people risking their
lives, coming to help us. My Tribe doesn’t curse such people because they
arrived on Day Four, when we felt they should have been here before breakfast on
Day One. We are grateful, not to say indebted, that they have come at all. My
Tribe can’t eat Nike’s and we don’t know how to feed seven by boiling a
wide-screen TV. My Tribe doesn’t give a sweet God Damn about what color the
looters are, or what color the rescuers are, because we can plainly see before
our very eyes that both those Tribes have colors enough to cover everyone in
glory or in shame. My Tribe doesn’t see black and white skins. My Tribe only
sees black and white hats, and the hat we choose to wear is the most personal
decision we can make."

"That’s the other thing, too – the most important
thing. My Tribe thinks that while you are born into a Tribe, you do not have to
stay there. Good people can join bad Tribes, and bad people can choose good
ones. My Tribe thinks you choose your Tribe. That, more than anything, is what
makes my Tribe unique."

FEMA Fools

2005-09-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

Right city, wrong state

A South Carolina health official said his colleagues
scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the
arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.

But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West
Virginia, 400 miles away.