- By Selwyn Duke
For you religio-centric clods who haven't yet expanded your celebratory horizons -- and you know who you are -- I bring a message of tolerance and inclusiveness: December 26 marked the start of Kwanzaa.
As some know, this High Holy Week saw its birth 482 moons in the distant past, which means about forty years ago. It was founded by the Great Prophet, Maulana Karenga, who was born in the cradle of religion itself, Maryland.
Like many deeply spiritual men, Karenga came from humble origins, christened Ron N. Everett and raised on a poultry farm. Perhaps it was the desire to distance himself from his fowl upbringing, but young Everett took the African name "Karenga" and then later adopted "maulana," a Swahili title that means "master teacher."
Like all great spiritualistic teachers, Karenga never felt constrained by the ways and strictures of this material fold, like, for instance, laws prohibiting, assault, robbery and the torture of young women, the last of these being a highly spiritual act for which he was imprisoned, no doubt in violation of his constitutional right to freedom of religious expression............................................
Click HERE To Read On
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Iraq Policy and Public Opinion
- By Thomas E. Brewton
With mounting stridency, news media demand to know why President Bush fails to bow to public opinion expressed in the recent Congressional elections and pull our troops out of Iraq.
The underlying assumption is that public opinion, expressed in elections or opinion polls, in all cases represents truth and wisdom. As I wrote in The Limitations of Public Opinion, such is seldom the case when complex policy matters are the subject of those opinions.
he stock market, for example, gives us a daily, broad spectrum opinion poll reflecting the outlook for business. Obviously, however, very few people have the knowledge and resources to become rich and to keep their wealth over time simply through knowing what composite market opinion is at any given time.......................
Click HERE To Read On
With mounting stridency, news media demand to know why President Bush fails to bow to public opinion expressed in the recent Congressional elections and pull our troops out of Iraq.
The underlying assumption is that public opinion, expressed in elections or opinion polls, in all cases represents truth and wisdom. As I wrote in The Limitations of Public Opinion, such is seldom the case when complex policy matters are the subject of those opinions.
he stock market, for example, gives us a daily, broad spectrum opinion poll reflecting the outlook for business. Obviously, however, very few people have the knowledge and resources to become rich and to keep their wealth over time simply through knowing what composite market opinion is at any given time.......................
Click HERE To Read On
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Saddam the Merciless EXECUTED - AP Misusing Words to Report it!
-By Warner Todd Huston
Just deserts were dished out to one Saddam Hussein last night. Few deserved it more than he.
There is no reason for me to recount his many crimes against humanity here, but it is a good thing he has paid for his evil -- and paid with his life.
That is all need be said about that...
But, in reading the AP's story by Abdul-Zahra, something else comes to the fore that is vexing to anyone looking for truth in the media. Of course, truth is always in short supply from our friends at alAP, but with Abdul-Zahra's report we see a constant misuse of the English language.
There is no need to reproduce the entire report here, but I'd like to focus on the misuse of certain words that seems to offer exculpatory sentiment for the murderer Saddam and shows how the AP seems not to know what words mean.
The report starts out with this sentence:
Vengeful? Is Abdul-Zahra trying to lead us to feel that this execution isn't justice, but is mere vengence?
"Grim" end? Is that the sort of sorrowful terms we use to describe the execution of such a murderous dictator: grim? And, naturally, we cannot talk about the execution of Saddam for his crimes without making it seem all a wasted effort because his actions still "vex" U.S. presidents! Even in execution, this AP writer is trying to hand a triumph to Saddam.
Next our intrepid AP reporter got a sly dig against the death penalty by placing Saddam's use of political murder and torture next to a legitimate death penalty.
Obviously, to writer Abdul-Zahra, there is not much difference between a measured and legitimate usage of the death penalty and Saddam's obscene murders.
Lastly, Abdul-Zahra showed complete ignorance of what the word "honor" means:
A grateful people honor a well-known person for his life's work by naming schools after him or displaying his portrait. But a dictator places them about the country by HIS OWN ORDER. Those "thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals" were decidedly NOT erected in his honor all over Iraq. They were forced there by his thugs to aggrandize a tyrant by his own order.
"In his honor" is not the right verbiage to use in that case at all, Mr. Abdul-Zahra. Do you even know the difference?
Does the AP's editors?
Just deserts were dished out to one Saddam Hussein last night. Few deserved it more than he.There is no reason for me to recount his many crimes against humanity here, but it is a good thing he has paid for his evil -- and paid with his life.
That is all need be said about that...
But, in reading the AP's story by Abdul-Zahra, something else comes to the fore that is vexing to anyone looking for truth in the media. Of course, truth is always in short supply from our friends at alAP, but with Abdul-Zahra's report we see a constant misuse of the English language.
There is no need to reproduce the entire report here, but I'd like to focus on the misuse of certain words that seems to offer exculpatory sentiment for the murderer Saddam and shows how the AP seems not to know what words mean.
The report starts out with this sentence:
Clutching a Quran and refusing a hood, Saddam Hussein went to the gallows before sunrise Saturday, executed by vengeful countrymen after a quarter-century of remorseless brutality that killed countless thousands and led Iraq into disastrous wars against the United States and Iran.
Vengeful? Is Abdul-Zahra trying to lead us to feel that this execution isn't justice, but is mere vengence?
It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.
"Grim" end? Is that the sort of sorrowful terms we use to describe the execution of such a murderous dictator: grim? And, naturally, we cannot talk about the execution of Saddam for his crimes without making it seem all a wasted effort because his actions still "vex" U.S. presidents! Even in execution, this AP writer is trying to hand a triumph to Saddam.
Next our intrepid AP reporter got a sly dig against the death penalty by placing Saddam's use of political murder and torture next to a legitimate death penalty.
Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.
Saddam's own regime used executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror.
Obviously, to writer Abdul-Zahra, there is not much difference between a measured and legitimate usage of the death penalty and Saddam's obscene murders.
Lastly, Abdul-Zahra showed complete ignorance of what the word "honor" means:
While he wielded a heavy hand to maintain control, Saddam also sought to win public support with a personality cult that pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq.
A grateful people honor a well-known person for his life's work by naming schools after him or displaying his portrait. But a dictator places them about the country by HIS OWN ORDER. Those "thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals" were decidedly NOT erected in his honor all over Iraq. They were forced there by his thugs to aggrandize a tyrant by his own order.
"In his honor" is not the right verbiage to use in that case at all, Mr. Abdul-Zahra. Do you even know the difference?
Does the AP's editors?
Amherst College: Should Marxism be Given Another Look?
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Young America's Foundation has come out with their 2006 list of the most bizarre and Politically Correct college courses of the year and it shows, once again, the foolishness being called an "education" that is foisted upon our children in our colleges and universities.
The number one most ridiculous is Occidental College's "The Phallus", supposedly a study on the relation "between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."
What palpable nonsense!
The U. of Pennsylvania's "Adultery Novel", where students learn about infidelity -- I suppose to make Bill Clinton more acceptable -- also made the list.
Additionally, we see the U. of California-Los Angeles's "Queer Musicology", where our youngsters are taught about gay music -- as if it were somehow a "different" kind of music, apparently. Now, is separating them out from the rest of our music supposed to make them accepted just like "everyone else"? I thought gays wanted to be thought of as "normal people" instead of separated and segregated?
The list seems mostly to chastise overindulgences in "women's studies" in the average American University. Occidental College, for example, has quite an extensive "women's studies" department with all sorts of facile and unnecessary courses stuffed into this area of "study". Imagine the bloated budget this department must waste on a yearly basis!
There were a myriad of other "courses" that our highly priced and woefully inadequate universities have wasted time and effort upon, many of which attack America, the male of the species, white people and western culture. Of course, they all assault the sensibilities of any student who wants to actually learn something useful.
But, to my mind, the worst one on the list was Amherst College's "Taking Marx Seriously: Should Marx be Given Another Chance? Let me answer that query with a word even the pointy heads at University might understand: NO. A resounding no!
Here is Amherst's course description:
In light of the 100 million human beings murdered over the last 100 years or so by people inspired by Marx, it is a continual amazement to me that certain types of people still wonder if the failed theorist's ideas could still work "if only it were tried right".
Marx's ideas have nearly all proven chimerical at best and murderous at worst, yet we get one person after another traipsing about our college campuses claiming the mantle of thoughtful, professor positing the absurdities of Marx and his many murderous acolytes and ruefully pontificating upon their unrealized potential.
These are the same sorts of people who point to things like the Spanish Inquisition and the many wars launched under the name of Christ in previous centuries as reasons to de-legitimize Christianity. They proclaim Christianity's hypocrisy because of the many that have died in Christ's name. Yet, far more people have died as a result of Marx's religion than any other ever created. And not a word about the millions upon millions of Marx's victims is ever acknowledged by the ivory tower set.
So, according to such people, religion should be cast out because of such depredations, religion should be banished from the mind of man and excised from the university because of such historical excess, yet the excess caused by Marx? Well, let's not bring that up shall we?
After all, they plaintively claim that Marx's ideas were never "really" implemented right as this fetid course description seems to allude, so his ideas must deserve a second look. Marx's followers just didn't get it because of how "poorly they understood it". Regardless of what Marxism has led to, let's give it another shot... no pun intended.
So, why can't we use the same argument for religion? Why can't we say religion has never been tried right, too? Not that I am equating Christ to Marx, far from it. But the pointy heads don't see their dichotomy. In fact, they don't even acknowledge it as a legitimate query.
Marx has proven an utter failure through every manner of implementation of his ideas on both large and small scale and does not behoove the time spent on him as a legitimate course of study unless it is as an adjunct to political science or history, and then only as a negative example therein.
Marx deserves nothing but the contempt of everyone. And our universities don't deserve much better for their slavish love for this murderous, beast at this rate.
Yes, he should be taught. But he deserves to be placed as the worst human being in human history. Worse than Hitler, worse then Stalin, even worse then Torquemada.
The Young America's Foundation has come out with their 2006 list of the most bizarre and Politically Correct college courses of the year and it shows, once again, the foolishness being called an "education" that is foisted upon our children in our colleges and universities.
The number one most ridiculous is Occidental College's "The Phallus", supposedly a study on the relation "between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."
What palpable nonsense!
The U. of Pennsylvania's "Adultery Novel", where students learn about infidelity -- I suppose to make Bill Clinton more acceptable -- also made the list.
Additionally, we see the U. of California-Los Angeles's "Queer Musicology", where our youngsters are taught about gay music -- as if it were somehow a "different" kind of music, apparently. Now, is separating them out from the rest of our music supposed to make them accepted just like "everyone else"? I thought gays wanted to be thought of as "normal people" instead of separated and segregated?
The list seems mostly to chastise overindulgences in "women's studies" in the average American University. Occidental College, for example, has quite an extensive "women's studies" department with all sorts of facile and unnecessary courses stuffed into this area of "study". Imagine the bloated budget this department must waste on a yearly basis!
There were a myriad of other "courses" that our highly priced and woefully inadequate universities have wasted time and effort upon, many of which attack America, the male of the species, white people and western culture. Of course, they all assault the sensibilities of any student who wants to actually learn something useful.
But, to my mind, the worst one on the list was Amherst College's "Taking Marx Seriously: Should Marx be Given Another Chance? Let me answer that query with a word even the pointy heads at University might understand: NO. A resounding no!
Here is Amherst's course description:
Should Marx be given yet another chance? Is there anything left to gain by returning to texts whose earnest exegesis has occupied countless interpreters, both friendly and hostile, for generations? Has Marx's credibility survived the global debacle of those regimes and movements that drew inspiration from his work, however poorly they understood it? Or, conversely, have we entered a new era in which post-Marxism has joined a host of other "post-" phenomena? This seminar will deal with these and related questions in the context of a close and critical reading of Marx's texts. The main themes we will discuss include Marx's conception of capitalist modernity, material and intellectual production, power, class conflicts and social consciousness, and his critique of alienation, bourgeois freedom and representative democracy. We will also examine Marx's theories of historical progress, capitalist exploitation, globalization and human emancipation.
In light of the 100 million human beings murdered over the last 100 years or so by people inspired by Marx, it is a continual amazement to me that certain types of people still wonder if the failed theorist's ideas could still work "if only it were tried right".
Marx's ideas have nearly all proven chimerical at best and murderous at worst, yet we get one person after another traipsing about our college campuses claiming the mantle of thoughtful, professor positing the absurdities of Marx and his many murderous acolytes and ruefully pontificating upon their unrealized potential.
These are the same sorts of people who point to things like the Spanish Inquisition and the many wars launched under the name of Christ in previous centuries as reasons to de-legitimize Christianity. They proclaim Christianity's hypocrisy because of the many that have died in Christ's name. Yet, far more people have died as a result of Marx's religion than any other ever created. And not a word about the millions upon millions of Marx's victims is ever acknowledged by the ivory tower set.
So, according to such people, religion should be cast out because of such depredations, religion should be banished from the mind of man and excised from the university because of such historical excess, yet the excess caused by Marx? Well, let's not bring that up shall we?
After all, they plaintively claim that Marx's ideas were never "really" implemented right as this fetid course description seems to allude, so his ideas must deserve a second look. Marx's followers just didn't get it because of how "poorly they understood it". Regardless of what Marxism has led to, let's give it another shot... no pun intended.
So, why can't we use the same argument for religion? Why can't we say religion has never been tried right, too? Not that I am equating Christ to Marx, far from it. But the pointy heads don't see their dichotomy. In fact, they don't even acknowledge it as a legitimate query.
Marx has proven an utter failure through every manner of implementation of his ideas on both large and small scale and does not behoove the time spent on him as a legitimate course of study unless it is as an adjunct to political science or history, and then only as a negative example therein.
Marx deserves nothing but the contempt of everyone. And our universities don't deserve much better for their slavish love for this murderous, beast at this rate.
Yes, he should be taught. But he deserves to be placed as the worst human being in human history. Worse than Hitler, worse then Stalin, even worse then Torquemada.
A Few U.S. Muslims Who Stood Up!
-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, since 9/11 I have had a few negative things to say about Muslims and Islam... OK, more than a "few".
I have complained that the so-called moderates in the world of Islam don't stand up to the terrorists, for instance. As the old adage goes "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing", and Muslims the world over have seemed to be more than willing to let the evil happen.
Well, since I have reported the "evil" that Muslims do, I feel it only proper to report when I see them doing something right.
On Dec. 21st, the Washington Post featured a story titled Muslims Mark Solidarity With Jews,
Event Held Days After Iranian Meeting That Denied Genocide. And in it we meet a few American Muslims who stood publicly against the re-writing of history sponsored by the Iranians a few weeks ago.
Good show, Imam Magid.
Now if only more of his creed were as vocal.
OK, since 9/11 I have had a few negative things to say about Muslims and Islam... OK, more than a "few".
I have complained that the so-called moderates in the world of Islam don't stand up to the terrorists, for instance. As the old adage goes "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing", and Muslims the world over have seemed to be more than willing to let the evil happen.
Well, since I have reported the "evil" that Muslims do, I feel it only proper to report when I see them doing something right.
On Dec. 21st, the Washington Post featured a story titled Muslims Mark Solidarity With Jews,
Event Held Days After Iranian Meeting That Denied Genocide. And in it we meet a few American Muslims who stood publicly against the re-writing of history sponsored by the Iranians a few weeks ago.
Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.
American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.
Good show, Imam Magid.
Now if only more of his creed were as vocal.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Advent Fourth Sunday
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Mary and Joseph were confronted by the Immaculate Conception, Mary's impregnation before the marriage ceremony, with what would have appeared to the outside world as a serious breach of Judaic righteousness that potentially could have ostracized them from their community. Yet both of them heeded God's Word: "Do not be afraid."
The Reverend Jason Pankau preached today's sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut). The message was "do not be afraid." When you hear God's call, trust in Him and follow where he leads......................
Click HERE To Read On
Mary and Joseph were confronted by the Immaculate Conception, Mary's impregnation before the marriage ceremony, with what would have appeared to the outside world as a serious breach of Judaic righteousness that potentially could have ostracized them from their community. Yet both of them heeded God's Word: "Do not be afraid."
The Reverend Jason Pankau preached today's sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut). The message was "do not be afraid." When you hear God's call, trust in Him and follow where he leads......................
Click HERE To Read On
AP: Turning Gov't Letter Into Excuse for America Bashing
-By Warner Todd Huston
As the AP reports (Strip-Searched Muslim Woman Gets Apology), the Dept. of Homeland Security sent an apology letter to a Muslim woman who was strip searched on April 11th, 2006. Naturally, the AP uses the report as an excuse to bash the US government.
AP reports the letter was dated December 8th and sent in response to a complaint by Jawad.
Then the AP takes this woman's complaint to the next level, as it were, by allowing her to wag a finger in the face of the USA.
Where is the AP wagging a finger in the face of Muslims everywhere for allowing the smallest percentage of them to make everyone else suspect Muslims as terrorists in the first place?
As it ends up, though, this appears to be a non-story. This apology letter isn't odd at all, apparently.
Seems like the Dept. of Homeland Security does this all the time! (Though maybe a better story is why they bother wasting so much time with these letters?)
Nothing out of the ordinary at all, really.
But, it DID give the AP a chance to say how mean the USA is to those nice Muslims, though.
So, I guess the non-story DID serve SOME purpose: AP bashing the USA again.
As the AP reports (Strip-Searched Muslim Woman Gets Apology), the Dept. of Homeland Security sent an apology letter to a Muslim woman who was strip searched on April 11th, 2006. Naturally, the AP uses the report as an excuse to bash the US government.
The Department of Homeland Security has sent a letter apologizing to a Muslim woman who was detained at the Tampa airport and strip-searched at a county jail.
Safana Jawad, 45, a Spanish citizen who was born in Iraq, was detained on April 11 because of a suspected tie to a suspicious person, authorities said. She was held for two days before being deported to England.
AP reports the letter was dated December 8th and sent in response to a complaint by Jawad.
"On behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, I offer you my sincere apology for having to undergo a strip search," wrote Timothy J. Keefer, acting chief counsel for the department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Then the AP takes this woman's complaint to the next level, as it were, by allowing her to wag a finger in the face of the USA.
Jawad was traveling to Clearwater to visit her 16-year-old son, who lived with her ex-husband, Ahmad Maki Kubba. Kubba, an Iraqi exile and American citizen for 27 years, was praised last year by Gov. Jeb. Bush for organizing a group to vote in Iraq's election.
Kubba said his ex-wife's detention prompted his son to move to Spain.
"I lost my son because of what happened," Kubba said. "My son wanted to be in the U.S. Navy, and he speaks both English and Arabic. He would have been just what they are looking for. What they did to Jawad was unfair and is hurting America."
Where is the AP wagging a finger in the face of Muslims everywhere for allowing the smallest percentage of them to make everyone else suspect Muslims as terrorists in the first place?
As it ends up, though, this appears to be a non-story. This apology letter isn't odd at all, apparently.
Department spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez said it is standard practice to send a response letter to someone who complains. She said the agency does not track the number of apologies it issues.
Seems like the Dept. of Homeland Security does this all the time! (Though maybe a better story is why they bother wasting so much time with these letters?)
Nothing out of the ordinary at all, really.
But, it DID give the AP a chance to say how mean the USA is to those nice Muslims, though.
So, I guess the non-story DID serve SOME purpose: AP bashing the USA again.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
A Perfect Example of Global Warming Hysteria
-By Warner Todd Huston
Chicken Little yelled, "Help! Help! The sky is falling!" Our frightened Chicken could well be a "journalist" writing about Global warming, or a former Vice-President that can't find anything else to do with his time.
The hysteria that is global warming is perfectly evinced in a recent story by the Independent newspaper from England.
Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island is so fraught with fear mongering and hyperventilation that it is no wonder that skeptics look to the Globaloney movement and laugh at their claims of "scientific" seriousness.
For some sidesplitting, hilarity, this particular story is as ridiculous as they come, replete with overly emotional rhetoric, ill chosen verbiage, and scientific boobery.
(I will bold some of the funniest stuff for emphasis)
"Obliteration"? This obliteration took many years. But using the word obliteration seems a choice to invoke a sudden cataclysm and a way to cause alarm and fear in the reader. Certainly, obliteration does mean to "erase from existence", granted, but the word has a certain emotional carriage to it that is sure to cause alarm
And the Independent is somewhat misleading on the time line as well. Lochachara Island, for instance, has been gone for 20 or so years but here we have the Independent making it seem as if it just happened! As if Global Warming suddenly swamped the island.
Another word used to scare: "inundated". Inundation is generally a word to describe a sudden flood, not a slow, inexorable rising of water. We also use it to describe being overwhelmed, such as being "inundated" with email -- again an emotional reaction results. But, these islands have taken many years to go away. The fact that they are disappearing is certainly nothing to scoff about, and, while the hyperbolic rhetoric adds a novelist's flair, little scientific weight is brought to the story with such fear mongering.
Another sentence calculated to cause mere fear. It is interesting that, in the rush to sound all dramatic, the Independent is ignoring the fact that 8 years or more should be plenty of time for inhabitants of these low lying islands to MOVE to a place where it ISN'T slowly flooding! It would also be plenty of time to save the tigers worried about above.
Again, 8 years or more... they have at least 8 YEARS to move. Such advanced notice does NOT cause people to become "homeless"! This word is again used as if this is a sudden conflagration causing catastrophic loss. It is not. It is something that people have all sorts of time in which to solve their housing problems.
A forest fire, an earthquake, even a real flash flood, those are sudden catastrophes that could cause people to become "homeless". 8 years should be plenty of time to find somewhere else to live!
This grandiose flourish cries for some perspective to be called for here.
Nearly this entire sentence is filled with teary eyed, scaremongering! "Refuges", "fled", both are words usually used to denote suddenness. There is nothing sudden about the decades it is taking to submerge these islands, especially since Lohachara island has already been gone for 20 years.
Of course, these people are losing real estate and, yes, it will not be easy to move and start over. It never is easy to move and start over no matter what is causing the move. But, they will move and they will carry on. And they have many years to figure out how to do it.
And the last bit about being "in danger of being submerged". More emotionalism that. There is no "danger"; there is just plain fact. And it is a fact that must be dealt with by leaving the area affected. "In danger of" implies that something can be done to stop it and there is not one much humans can economically do to stop these islands from being submerged or even global warming, if it is happening, from happening.
Now, whether global warming is, indeed happening or not is immaterial to the fate of these islands. They are absolutely submerging beneath the waves and will soon be but a memory. This kind of erosion is happening all the time all across the world and always has. Many islands have come and gone in man's recorded history alone.
Worse, these scaremongers also fail to inform their acolytes that, if it is global warming, it is something that has happened many other times in Earth's past -- and in all those other times there WAS no man around to cause it. Man has not caused global warming. Man can do nothing to stop it.
Still, there is plenty of doubt that Global Warming is the cause. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner has written to me recently giving good reason to doubt that water levels have risen due to man's interference in the environment. "Averaged over century-long periods, sea level has been rising on Earth ever since the end of the last Ice Age, and according to the International Union for Quaternary Research's Sea Level Commission--the world's most authoritative body of scientific work on the subject--there is no significant change in the rate of rise through the period when, according to global warming theory, human activity is supposed to have contributed significantly to the warming."
But, in the end, I'd say that if people don't have the sense God gave a rock to move off an island that has been slowly submerging for 8 years or more, then global warming is the least of their worries.
Globaloney hysteria strikes again.
Chicken Little yelled, "Help! Help! The sky is falling!" Our frightened Chicken could well be a "journalist" writing about Global warming, or a former Vice-President that can't find anything else to do with his time.
The hysteria that is global warming is perfectly evinced in a recent story by the Independent newspaper from England.
Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island is so fraught with fear mongering and hyperventilation that it is no wonder that skeptics look to the Globaloney movement and laugh at their claims of "scientific" seriousness.
For some sidesplitting, hilarity, this particular story is as ridiculous as they come, replete with overly emotional rhetoric, ill chosen verbiage, and scientific boobery.
(I will bold some of the funniest stuff for emphasis)
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.
"Obliteration"? This obliteration took many years. But using the word obliteration seems a choice to invoke a sudden cataclysm and a way to cause alarm and fear in the reader. Certainly, obliteration does mean to "erase from existence", granted, but the word has a certain emotional carriage to it that is sure to cause alarm
And the Independent is somewhat misleading on the time line as well. Lochachara Island, for instance, has been gone for 20 or so years but here we have the Independent making it seem as if it just happened! As if Global Warming suddenly swamped the island.
Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.
Another word used to scare: "inundated". Inundation is generally a word to describe a sudden flood, not a slow, inexorable rising of water. We also use it to describe being overwhelmed, such as being "inundated" with email -- again an emotional reaction results. But, these islands have taken many years to go away. The fact that they are disappearing is certainly nothing to scoff about, and, while the hyperbolic rhetoric adds a novelist's flair, little scientific weight is brought to the story with such fear mongering.
Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.
Another sentence calculated to cause mere fear. It is interesting that, in the rush to sound all dramatic, the Independent is ignoring the fact that 8 years or more should be plenty of time for inhabitants of these low lying islands to MOVE to a place where it ISN'T slowly flooding! It would also be plenty of time to save the tigers worried about above.
Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless.
Again, 8 years or more... they have at least 8 YEARS to move. Such advanced notice does NOT cause people to become "homeless"! This word is again used as if this is a sudden conflagration causing catastrophic loss. It is not. It is something that people have all sorts of time in which to solve their housing problems.
A forest fire, an earthquake, even a real flash flood, those are sudden catastrophes that could cause people to become "homeless". 8 years should be plenty of time to find somewhere else to live!
This grandiose flourish cries for some perspective to be called for here.
Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.
Nearly this entire sentence is filled with teary eyed, scaremongering! "Refuges", "fled", both are words usually used to denote suddenness. There is nothing sudden about the decades it is taking to submerge these islands, especially since Lohachara island has already been gone for 20 years.
Of course, these people are losing real estate and, yes, it will not be easy to move and start over. It never is easy to move and start over no matter what is causing the move. But, they will move and they will carry on. And they have many years to figure out how to do it.
And the last bit about being "in danger of being submerged". More emotionalism that. There is no "danger"; there is just plain fact. And it is a fact that must be dealt with by leaving the area affected. "In danger of" implies that something can be done to stop it and there is not one much humans can economically do to stop these islands from being submerged or even global warming, if it is happening, from happening.
Now, whether global warming is, indeed happening or not is immaterial to the fate of these islands. They are absolutely submerging beneath the waves and will soon be but a memory. This kind of erosion is happening all the time all across the world and always has. Many islands have come and gone in man's recorded history alone.
Worse, these scaremongers also fail to inform their acolytes that, if it is global warming, it is something that has happened many other times in Earth's past -- and in all those other times there WAS no man around to cause it. Man has not caused global warming. Man can do nothing to stop it.
Still, there is plenty of doubt that Global Warming is the cause. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner has written to me recently giving good reason to doubt that water levels have risen due to man's interference in the environment. "Averaged over century-long periods, sea level has been rising on Earth ever since the end of the last Ice Age, and according to the International Union for Quaternary Research's Sea Level Commission--the world's most authoritative body of scientific work on the subject--there is no significant change in the rate of rise through the period when, according to global warming theory, human activity is supposed to have contributed significantly to the warming."
But, in the end, I'd say that if people don't have the sense God gave a rock to move off an island that has been slowly submerging for 8 years or more, then global warming is the least of their worries.
Globaloney hysteria strikes again.
Planning to Fail
- By Chuck Busch
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has submitted its recommendations for altering US policy in Iraq that would also affect the entire Middle East. President Bush will present modifications to current operations in January. Nancy Pelosi recently announced her new legislative agenda for the 110th Congress but never mentioned Iraq (or border security) even once. When is the majority Democratic leadership in Congress going to unveil their new strategy for Iraq or for that matter the larger war with terrorism?
Democrats declare Iraq a failure
The Democrats have decided that President Bush's Iraq policy is a failure and have demanded a "change of course" without being very specific about their meaning.
National Democrat Committee Chairman, Howard Dean, called Iraq a "mess" blaming President Bush for "failed political leadership and lack of foresight and planning." "Staying the course is not a plan," he said................
Click HERE To Read On
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has submitted its recommendations for altering US policy in Iraq that would also affect the entire Middle East. President Bush will present modifications to current operations in January. Nancy Pelosi recently announced her new legislative agenda for the 110th Congress but never mentioned Iraq (or border security) even once. When is the majority Democratic leadership in Congress going to unveil their new strategy for Iraq or for that matter the larger war with terrorism?
Democrats declare Iraq a failure
The Democrats have decided that President Bush's Iraq policy is a failure and have demanded a "change of course" without being very specific about their meaning.
National Democrat Committee Chairman, Howard Dean, called Iraq a "mess" blaming President Bush for "failed political leadership and lack of foresight and planning." "Staying the course is not a plan," he said................
Click HERE To Read On
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Should We Honor Kwanzaa Creator, A Rapist and Torturer?
-By Warner Todd Huston
It amazes me that this Kwanzaa business has been washed of the real life criminal activity of its creator. The man was a race monger, a violent thug, a rapist, a torturer... just a horrible human being.
Yet never a word of this man's evil is ever uttered when his pseudo holiday is discussed in the MSM.
And the Cox News Service did it again on Christmas in theirs titled Kwanzaa glows even brighter after 40 years.
Yes, kindly professor Ron Karenga. What a great guy.
Of course, his name wasn't really Ron Karenga originally. It was Ronald McKinley Everett.
In 1969 the organization called US (as is "us"--blacks--against "them" --whites), a black power militant group Everett founded, frequently clashed in violence with police and even other black power groups. Members of his group even killed two Black Panthers in 1969.
Nice and peaceful, eh?
In 1971 Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act a native African.
It wasn't mere assault he was convicted of, either. It was sexual assault and torture perpetrated against some of his female followers. The L.A. Times then reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman's mouth and used a vise to crush another's toe.
As writer Lynn Woolley wrote of Professor "Karenga":
And the Cox News Service just helped a criminal and sexual pervert skate by again, hidden behind his false holiday, and has allowed him to continue to dupe millions of black Americans. A man who has never denounced his past criminal activity and extremist ideas.
Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!
It amazes me that this Kwanzaa business has been washed of the real life criminal activity of its creator. The man was a race monger, a violent thug, a rapist, a torturer... just a horrible human being.
Yet never a word of this man's evil is ever uttered when his pseudo holiday is discussed in the MSM.
And the Cox News Service did it again on Christmas in theirs titled Kwanzaa glows even brighter after 40 years.
Kwanzaa turns 40 today. The colorful holiday, invented by California professor Maulana Ron Karenga in 1966, is like a jazz musician who fuses bits and pieces of music into a vibrant mosaic of sound. Kwanzaa, "first fruit" in Swahili, is a fluent, nonreligious holiday that borrows liberally from a patchwork of cultures and traditions.
Karenga originally created the seven-day observance to empower black communities and uplift black culture and identity.
Yes, kindly professor Ron Karenga. What a great guy.
Of course, his name wasn't really Ron Karenga originally. It was Ronald McKinley Everett.
In 1969 the organization called US (as is "us"--blacks--against "them" --whites), a black power militant group Everett founded, frequently clashed in violence with police and even other black power groups. Members of his group even killed two Black Panthers in 1969.
Nice and peaceful, eh?
In 1971 Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act a native African.
It wasn't mere assault he was convicted of, either. It was sexual assault and torture perpetrated against some of his female followers. The L.A. Times then reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman's mouth and used a vise to crush another's toe.
As writer Lynn Woolley wrote of Professor "Karenga":
And so this is Kwanzaa. The militant past of the creator is now ignored in favor of the so-called seven principles of Nguza Saba – principles such as unity, family and self-determination that could have come from Bill Bennett's "Book of Virtues." The word "Kwanzaa" is Swahili, meaning something like "fresh fruits of harvest."
No one remembers the part about "re-Africanization" or the sevenfold path of blackness that Dr. Karenga once espoused. Hardly anyone remembers the shootings, the beatings,the tortures and the prison terms that were once the center of his life. It's just not PC to bring that sort of stuff up now that Kwanzaa is commercialized and making big bucks.
And the Cox News Service just helped a criminal and sexual pervert skate by again, hidden behind his false holiday, and has allowed him to continue to dupe millions of black Americans. A man who has never denounced his past criminal activity and extremist ideas.
Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!
Charity vs the Welfare State
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Religion and morality command every individual to do the right thing by helping people who have fallen upon hard times. But charity is not the same thing as decreeing that such people are entitled to an equal share of everyone's wealth.
Liberal-socialist-progressive critics charge that questioning the welfare state amounts to a mean-spirited policy of dumping the needy into the streets to provide funds for tax-cuts that benefit only the wealthy.
Such questioning, however, is mean-spirited only if one assumes that the Federal government is the sole source of charity.
In fact, from 1620 to 1933, all public welfare activity was at the state and local levels, primarily through churches, local charity groups, immigrant societies, and fraternal organizations like the Elks and Shriners. Those groups operated hospitals and schools for the disabled and the sick. For a few cents in weekly dues per household, they provided social insurance to support widows, orphans, and the disabled. Members in good standing with their fraternal and sisterly organizations would be cared for and supported by them in times of difficulty.....................
Click HERE To Read On
Religion and morality command every individual to do the right thing by helping people who have fallen upon hard times. But charity is not the same thing as decreeing that such people are entitled to an equal share of everyone's wealth.
Liberal-socialist-progressive critics charge that questioning the welfare state amounts to a mean-spirited policy of dumping the needy into the streets to provide funds for tax-cuts that benefit only the wealthy.
Such questioning, however, is mean-spirited only if one assumes that the Federal government is the sole source of charity.
In fact, from 1620 to 1933, all public welfare activity was at the state and local levels, primarily through churches, local charity groups, immigrant societies, and fraternal organizations like the Elks and Shriners. Those groups operated hospitals and schools for the disabled and the sick. For a few cents in weekly dues per household, they provided social insurance to support widows, orphans, and the disabled. Members in good standing with their fraternal and sisterly organizations would be cared for and supported by them in times of difficulty.....................
Click HERE To Read On
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Gay Activism Used to Stop Blood Drives!
-By Warner Todd Huston
More proof that our schools are failing our students.
Santa Cruz schools rethink blood drives after gay student barred
AIDS is plenty enough reason to prevent gays, the single most at risk segment of society, from donating blood to a blood bank. A policy to keep AIDS out from our blood supply is sensible and far from "bigotry".
Here is the stupidity from a school official to explain their decision:
If the issue is being "politicized" it would be by you and gay activists putting us all at risk over your social activism, Mz. Hawthorne.
It is logical and proper to stop gays from introducing AIDS into our blood supply and putting each of us at risk. But, in San Francisco, the activism for gay "rights" is far more important than the safety of our blood supplies.
But, it really shouldn't surprise anyone, should it?
More proof that our schools are failing our students.
Santa Cruz schools rethink blood drives after gay student barred
A gay student prevented from donating blood because of his sexual history has stirred debate among Santa Cruz school officials over whether to continue hosting campus blood drives.
"I was turned away because of my sexual contacts," Childers said. "The reasoning behind me not being able to give blood is ridiculous. ... It made me feel like an outcast."
According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, a man who has had a sexual encounter with another man since 1977 is ineligible to donate.
Santa Cruz city schools officials said they were reconsidering whether to have blood drives on campus if students were required to divulge information about their sexual activities.
AIDS is plenty enough reason to prevent gays, the single most at risk segment of society, from donating blood to a blood bank. A policy to keep AIDS out from our blood supply is sensible and far from "bigotry".
Here is the stupidity from a school official to explain their decision:
"As the blood supply has become so politicized over time we need to check our policies," Santa Cruz City Schools Trustee Cynthia Hawthorne said.
If the issue is being "politicized" it would be by you and gay activists putting us all at risk over your social activism, Mz. Hawthorne.
It is logical and proper to stop gays from introducing AIDS into our blood supply and putting each of us at risk. But, in San Francisco, the activism for gay "rights" is far more important than the safety of our blood supplies.
But, it really shouldn't surprise anyone, should it?
Muslim Woman Like the Veil?
-By Warner Todd Huston
From BBC Channel 4 comes a Christmas message that could do with a little more analysis and less taking the thing at face value.
Veiled British Muslim woman delivers alternative Xmas message
OK, so we have a purported "Muslim" women claiming she loves to be covered in the black tent she walks around in. She claims it's "liberating".
At first blush (not that you could see her blush, mind you) one would see this as an affirmation of religious choice. Why, those Muslim women love their traditional dress, you'd think. We should ease off this hateful, western bias against the veil or the hajib. It must be that all our assumptions of the oppressiveness of Muslim female coverings is wrong.
But wait. One small section of the AFP story makes the entire thing a lie...
This is no "Muslim" woman, but a white woman who willingly converted. And what we have here is a person who is striving to out Muslim the REAL Muslims. A nuevo Muslim attempting at zealotry trying to be accepted by people who will never accept her. A white person "gone native", as the saying used to go.
One can never take the word of an activist convert for much of anything because all too often they are extremists. They usually have certain mental problems and emotional voids that they fill with a new thing, something that becomes their entire life, something that is often even more than a passion. Usually more an obsession than a conviction or belief.
So, this claim of Muslims loving the veil is not from a woman who has spent her life covered from head to foot. This is not a woman who's mother was beaten by her Muslim Father. This is not a woman who was raped by her Muslim Uncle and warned to never tell anyone. This is not a woman who has lived with all the women around her beaten, mistreated and oppressed her whole life. This is a woman who only recently became a Muslim and is suddenly enamored with her interesting, new world.
This is not a woman who's voice comes from the experience of the Muslim world, but an outsider trying to convince herself that she is a "true" Muslim.
This woman's "message" is misleading and should be ignored. She does NOT represent the average Muslim woman and should not be treated as if she does.
From BBC Channel 4 comes a Christmas message that could do with a little more analysis and less taking the thing at face value.
Veiled British Muslim woman delivers alternative Xmas message
At the same time the 80-year-old monarch's Christmas message to Britain and the Commonwealth was broadcast, a woman known only as Khadijah spoke on Channel 4 television Monday about why she wore the niqab in public and called for tolerance.
"We are seen as oppressed. Since I've started covering I feel much more liberated, which I know a lot of people possibly won't be able to understand," she said.
"I don't wear the niqab to separate myself from society. I want to be part of this society -- this is where I choose to live. I hope that society is more accepting of my personal choice. It's not about separation."
OK, so we have a purported "Muslim" women claiming she loves to be covered in the black tent she walks around in. She claims it's "liberating".
At first blush (not that you could see her blush, mind you) one would see this as an affirmation of religious choice. Why, those Muslim women love their traditional dress, you'd think. We should ease off this hateful, western bias against the veil or the hajib. It must be that all our assumptions of the oppressiveness of Muslim female coverings is wrong.
But wait. One small section of the AFP story makes the entire thing a lie...
Khadijah -- who converted to Islam a decade ago and said she is the great-granddaughter of a suffragette who fought for women's right to vote -- said Straw's comments were not helpful.
This is no "Muslim" woman, but a white woman who willingly converted. And what we have here is a person who is striving to out Muslim the REAL Muslims. A nuevo Muslim attempting at zealotry trying to be accepted by people who will never accept her. A white person "gone native", as the saying used to go.
One can never take the word of an activist convert for much of anything because all too often they are extremists. They usually have certain mental problems and emotional voids that they fill with a new thing, something that becomes their entire life, something that is often even more than a passion. Usually more an obsession than a conviction or belief.
So, this claim of Muslims loving the veil is not from a woman who has spent her life covered from head to foot. This is not a woman who's mother was beaten by her Muslim Father. This is not a woman who was raped by her Muslim Uncle and warned to never tell anyone. This is not a woman who has lived with all the women around her beaten, mistreated and oppressed her whole life. This is a woman who only recently became a Muslim and is suddenly enamored with her interesting, new world.
This is not a woman who's voice comes from the experience of the Muslim world, but an outsider trying to convince herself that she is a "true" Muslim.
This woman's "message" is misleading and should be ignored. She does NOT represent the average Muslim woman and should not be treated as if she does.
Jim Webb Parrots the Party Iraq Line
- By Chuck Busch
Even though the Democrat Party has seized the majority in both houses in Congress, no clear approach to the administration's current Iraq policy emerged from the campaign. Former Republican turned Democrat Jim Webb, who edged out incumbent and potential presidential candidate Republican George Allen for a Virginia US senate seat, however did gave us an explicit forewarning of many of the Democrat's attitudes and intentions just prior to the midterm elections. He said the only solution to Iraq’s dilemma was a Democrat takeover of Congress on November 7 along with a number of other easily refuted statements.
"Since 2003, President Bush has laid out nine different plans for victory in Iraq, none of them serious and none of them workable. That statement alone would suggest that the Bush administration has not rigidly stuck to one course of action, but has been adapting to the evolving situation in Baghdad.
"Most seriously, this incompetence has hindered our ability to fight international terror." If fighting international terrorism doesn't include winning the battle for Baghdad, I don't know what is. Our enemies have already declared Iraq to be the central front in the war for the Middle East...............
Click HERE To Read On
Even though the Democrat Party has seized the majority in both houses in Congress, no clear approach to the administration's current Iraq policy emerged from the campaign. Former Republican turned Democrat Jim Webb, who edged out incumbent and potential presidential candidate Republican George Allen for a Virginia US senate seat, however did gave us an explicit forewarning of many of the Democrat's attitudes and intentions just prior to the midterm elections. He said the only solution to Iraq’s dilemma was a Democrat takeover of Congress on November 7 along with a number of other easily refuted statements.
"Since 2003, President Bush has laid out nine different plans for victory in Iraq, none of them serious and none of them workable. That statement alone would suggest that the Bush administration has not rigidly stuck to one course of action, but has been adapting to the evolving situation in Baghdad.
"Most seriously, this incompetence has hindered our ability to fight international terror." If fighting international terrorism doesn't include winning the battle for Baghdad, I don't know what is. Our enemies have already declared Iraq to be the central front in the war for the Middle East...............
Click HERE To Read On
Sunday, December 24, 2006
And no Crib for a bed...
As Publius' Forum takes a day off for friends and family, we wish you all a Merry Christmas.If you would like, please take some time to roam about our contributors' archives for many wonderful postings, essays and news and commentary.
And, thanks for being a loyal reader of Publius' Forum.
From the gang at Publius' Forum
Christmas at War
-By Warner Todd Huston
Christmas, of course, has not always been celebrated the same way we do today. Not in the U.S.A., not in the world. One thing Christmases throughout history have had in common, though, is that it’s been a day for family gatherings. Of course, there is another thing that Christmases of all eras share and that is the simple fact that humans don’t always pause for any mere holiday. At least one thing never stops, even during Christmas: war.
And, now we face yet another Christmas with our country involved in strife. I won't lament the causes of such then or now, but we all can feel sorrow for the many friends and family who celebrate their Christmas, once again, with an empty chair at the holiday feast.
As Christmas 2006 draws near we find ourselves again facing a force that wishes to destroy us. And, also again, we have sent our soldiers -- those young men and women we hold so dear -- into the breach to stem the tide of our enemies.
It has always been thus. Even on Christmas.
On Christmas night in the year 1776, George Washington made his famous cross of the Delaware River and captured some 900 Hessian troops in the employ of the British army. If this particularly daring act didn't form the turning point in the War for Independence, it most certainly brought a much needed victory to the beleaguered Continental forces and the celebration afterward brought hope and a new resolve to the Revolutionary generation. A Christmas present that eventually brought success at arms to our nascent nation was General George Washington’s gift to his people.
During another trial by fire, Christmas came to the minds of Americans who fought in blue and gray. But, the solemnity and death they faced did not cloud their memories of home and holidays. Corporal J. C. Williams, Co. B, 14th Vermont Infantry, wrote on December 25, 1862:
"This is Christmas, and my mind wanders back to that home made lonesome by my absence, while far away from the peace and quietude of civil life to undergo the hardships of the camp, and may be the battle field. I think of the many lives that are endangered, and hope that the time will soon come when peace, with its innumerable blessings, shall once more restore our country to happiness and prosperity."
The boys of ‘62 pressed on through two more Christmas holidays until the War Between our States came to an end in 1865.
American troops always face poignant thoughts as they trudge on with their duties during this time of year. As World War One came and faded, as American troops once again flooded Europe in service to the world only 20 some years later, and now when we face a shadowy threat from a world-wide terrorism that is hard to define, American soldiers stand stoic in the face of danger with nothing but their comrades at arms beside them and the thoughts of family back home keeping them warm.
It was said that during the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two our soldiers had faced so much of war, that war had filled every second of their waking life, that many of them had completely forgotten that it even was Christmas. But Patton's lightning strike at the Nazi breakthrough was the best present for those who would celebrate that and many more Christmas days to come free of Nazi tyranny.
It all had to be done. And our soldiers marched on even during Christmas.
So, as you sit to your Christmas dinner or as you enjoy your own family's holiday traditions and festivities, remember our soldiers. Remember those who stand between the breach and us. Remember that some will be lost to that breach so that we might enjoy our holiday. Even if you don't have a family member in the service, remember.
The men and women in uniform are family to us all, especially in times of strife. So, please take just a moment at any time during your holiday celebrations for a moment of silent thanks for their service -- past, present and future. Perhaps you might make this your own family tradition?
Merry Christmas and God bless America and her people.
Christmas, of course, has not always been celebrated the same way we do today. Not in the U.S.A., not in the world. One thing Christmases throughout history have had in common, though, is that it’s been a day for family gatherings. Of course, there is another thing that Christmases of all eras share and that is the simple fact that humans don’t always pause for any mere holiday. At least one thing never stops, even during Christmas: war.
And, now we face yet another Christmas with our country involved in strife. I won't lament the causes of such then or now, but we all can feel sorrow for the many friends and family who celebrate their Christmas, once again, with an empty chair at the holiday feast.
As Christmas 2006 draws near we find ourselves again facing a force that wishes to destroy us. And, also again, we have sent our soldiers -- those young men and women we hold so dear -- into the breach to stem the tide of our enemies.
It has always been thus. Even on Christmas.
On Christmas night in the year 1776, George Washington made his famous cross of the Delaware River and captured some 900 Hessian troops in the employ of the British army. If this particularly daring act didn't form the turning point in the War for Independence, it most certainly brought a much needed victory to the beleaguered Continental forces and the celebration afterward brought hope and a new resolve to the Revolutionary generation. A Christmas present that eventually brought success at arms to our nascent nation was General George Washington’s gift to his people.
During another trial by fire, Christmas came to the minds of Americans who fought in blue and gray. But, the solemnity and death they faced did not cloud their memories of home and holidays. Corporal J. C. Williams, Co. B, 14th Vermont Infantry, wrote on December 25, 1862:
"This is Christmas, and my mind wanders back to that home made lonesome by my absence, while far away from the peace and quietude of civil life to undergo the hardships of the camp, and may be the battle field. I think of the many lives that are endangered, and hope that the time will soon come when peace, with its innumerable blessings, shall once more restore our country to happiness and prosperity."
The boys of ‘62 pressed on through two more Christmas holidays until the War Between our States came to an end in 1865.
American troops always face poignant thoughts as they trudge on with their duties during this time of year. As World War One came and faded, as American troops once again flooded Europe in service to the world only 20 some years later, and now when we face a shadowy threat from a world-wide terrorism that is hard to define, American soldiers stand stoic in the face of danger with nothing but their comrades at arms beside them and the thoughts of family back home keeping them warm.
It was said that during the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two our soldiers had faced so much of war, that war had filled every second of their waking life, that many of them had completely forgotten that it even was Christmas. But Patton's lightning strike at the Nazi breakthrough was the best present for those who would celebrate that and many more Christmas days to come free of Nazi tyranny.
It all had to be done. And our soldiers marched on even during Christmas.
So, as you sit to your Christmas dinner or as you enjoy your own family's holiday traditions and festivities, remember our soldiers. Remember those who stand between the breach and us. Remember that some will be lost to that breach so that we might enjoy our holiday. Even if you don't have a family member in the service, remember.
The men and women in uniform are family to us all, especially in times of strife. So, please take just a moment at any time during your holiday celebrations for a moment of silent thanks for their service -- past, present and future. Perhaps you might make this your own family tradition?
Merry Christmas and God bless America and her people.
Stolen Baby Jesus 'Annual Phenomenon'
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is unfortunate that Nativity scene figures are the target of theft and vandals across this country each year during the Christmas holiday. As this ignorant crime increases from year to year, it shows the lack of respect that too many Americans have developed for their neighbors as well as a failed respect for private property.
Let's face it. The people who do such things are jerks. It's just that simple.
But, on a lighter note, The Hartford Courant employed an interesting choice of words in their story on the recent several thefts of Nativity Scene figures across Southington, Conn.
After giving space to Church goers reacting with outrage over these mean-spirited, and pointless thefts, Courant staff writer, Ken Byron pulls this sentence out from his "professional journalism" bag 'o tricks:
(Bold mine)
Do they now, Kenny? An "annual phenomenon", ya say?
Are ya saying, Kenny my friend, that they don't steal the baby Jesus year round? That they are only doing it on an "annual" basis? And only during the Christmas season, at that? Is the Baby Jesus safe on Halloween or Thanksgiving, do ya think?
Astounding! You have informed us so well, Kenny. We are grateful for your insight.
But, here is a little news flash for ya, Kenny. Of course it would be an "annual phenomenon". Christmas only comes ONCE a YEAR!
"Annual phenomenon", indeed.
See, folks? This is the kind of professionalism that our friend at the Opinion Journal, Joseph Rago, was talkin' about when he was pontificating on how bloggers just aren't of high enough caliber to be a real, honest to goodness journalist working for the MSM!
Why, no stupid blogger sitting in his pajamas and banging away at his keyboard like a monkey at play could have come up with the "news" that stolen Nativity figures might be an "annual phenomenon".
Halp uz, Josiph Ragoo, we r stuck hear on r blogs
And, unfortunately, thanks, to Ken Byron for making this story of America's declining respect for private property and for our neighbors just a bit ridiculous with your remarks.
Merry Christmas, to all Publius' Forum readers from me, Warner Todd Huston.
It is unfortunate that Nativity scene figures are the target of theft and vandals across this country each year during the Christmas holiday. As this ignorant crime increases from year to year, it shows the lack of respect that too many Americans have developed for their neighbors as well as a failed respect for private property.
Let's face it. The people who do such things are jerks. It's just that simple.
But, on a lighter note, The Hartford Courant employed an interesting choice of words in their story on the recent several thefts of Nativity Scene figures across Southington, Conn.
After giving space to Church goers reacting with outrage over these mean-spirited, and pointless thefts, Courant staff writer, Ken Byron pulls this sentence out from his "professional journalism" bag 'o tricks:
The theft of baby Jesus from Nativity scenes is something police around the state and the nation have seen, and some say it is an annual phenomenon.
(Bold mine)
Do they now, Kenny? An "annual phenomenon", ya say?
Are ya saying, Kenny my friend, that they don't steal the baby Jesus year round? That they are only doing it on an "annual" basis? And only during the Christmas season, at that? Is the Baby Jesus safe on Halloween or Thanksgiving, do ya think?
Astounding! You have informed us so well, Kenny. We are grateful for your insight.
But, here is a little news flash for ya, Kenny. Of course it would be an "annual phenomenon". Christmas only comes ONCE a YEAR!
"Annual phenomenon", indeed.
See, folks? This is the kind of professionalism that our friend at the Opinion Journal, Joseph Rago, was talkin' about when he was pontificating on how bloggers just aren't of high enough caliber to be a real, honest to goodness journalist working for the MSM!
Why, no stupid blogger sitting in his pajamas and banging away at his keyboard like a monkey at play could have come up with the "news" that stolen Nativity figures might be an "annual phenomenon".
Halp uz, Josiph Ragoo, we r stuck hear on r blogs
And, unfortunately, thanks, to Ken Byron for making this story of America's declining respect for private property and for our neighbors just a bit ridiculous with your remarks.
Merry Christmas, to all Publius' Forum readers from me, Warner Todd Huston.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Merry Bizaromas
- By Frederick Meekins
In the Superman comics, Bizarro is a twisted clone of Superman that perceives things backwards such as bad being good, up being down, and left being right. As intense as the annual Christmas conflagrations have become over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before those wishing to stand for decency and common sense found themselves in an unsettling situation where the usual roles were reversed.
In a number of short stories I have written such as "The Schauungtown Chronicles" and "An U.N.I.Q.U.E. Individual", an organization known as the Toleration Fellowship set in a world governed by an elaborate system of homeowner associations suppresses traditional religious expression on behalf of secularists and New Age mystics in the name of inclusion and diversity. The Toleration Fellowship uses as its insignia the upside-down broken-cross peace symbol.
In a case in Colorado, it seems these roles have been reversed. A woman in a homeowner association there was being threatened with a fine of $25 a day for hanging on her home on private property a wreath in the shape of the peace sign. A number of residents took offense because the peace sign can also be interpreted as a Satanic symbol celebrating the defeat of Christ......................................
Click HERE To Read On
In the Superman comics, Bizarro is a twisted clone of Superman that perceives things backwards such as bad being good, up being down, and left being right. As intense as the annual Christmas conflagrations have become over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before those wishing to stand for decency and common sense found themselves in an unsettling situation where the usual roles were reversed.
In a number of short stories I have written such as "The Schauungtown Chronicles" and "An U.N.I.Q.U.E. Individual", an organization known as the Toleration Fellowship set in a world governed by an elaborate system of homeowner associations suppresses traditional religious expression on behalf of secularists and New Age mystics in the name of inclusion and diversity. The Toleration Fellowship uses as its insignia the upside-down broken-cross peace symbol.
In a case in Colorado, it seems these roles have been reversed. A woman in a homeowner association there was being threatened with a fine of $25 a day for hanging on her home on private property a wreath in the shape of the peace sign. A number of residents took offense because the peace sign can also be interpreted as a Satanic symbol celebrating the defeat of Christ......................................
Click HERE To Read On
Politics and the Spirit of Christmas
- By Thomas E. Brewton
The socialistic welfare state is extolled by liberal-socialistic-progressives as more Christian then Christianity, because the welfare state purports to help the needy. So did Hitler's National Socialism.
Traditional Christmas spirit, depicted in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, was the warmth of family gatherings, friendship, and loving kindness to everyone.
Today, however, many people insist that socialism IS Christianity. It's certainly true that the early churches established by the Apostle Paul grew rapidly, because people found there the Christian love and fellowship, as well as support for the poor, sick, elderly, and disabled, that was available nowhere else....................
Click HERE To Read On
The socialistic welfare state is extolled by liberal-socialistic-progressives as more Christian then Christianity, because the welfare state purports to help the needy. So did Hitler's National Socialism.
Traditional Christmas spirit, depicted in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, was the warmth of family gatherings, friendship, and loving kindness to everyone.
Today, however, many people insist that socialism IS Christianity. It's certainly true that the early churches established by the Apostle Paul grew rapidly, because people found there the Christian love and fellowship, as well as support for the poor, sick, elderly, and disabled, that was available nowhere else....................
Click HERE To Read On
Scrooge a man for our times
- By Michael M. Bates
Christmastime is inevitably accompanied by allusions to Ebenezer Scrooge. As portrayed in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Ebenezer is a thoroughly disagreeable, curmudgeonly, miserly misanthrope. I sympathize. And not just because similar contentions are routinely made about me.
Enough is enough. It's time to move on, as they say, from the conventional view of the man as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster."
We as a society have come a long way in the 160 years since Dickens wrote his story. We're kinder and gentler and infinitely more accepting. Ebenezer would be perceived much differently today..........................................
Click HERE To Read On
Christmastime is inevitably accompanied by allusions to Ebenezer Scrooge. As portrayed in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Ebenezer is a thoroughly disagreeable, curmudgeonly, miserly misanthrope. I sympathize. And not just because similar contentions are routinely made about me.
Enough is enough. It's time to move on, as they say, from the conventional view of the man as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster."
We as a society have come a long way in the 160 years since Dickens wrote his story. We're kinder and gentler and infinitely more accepting. Ebenezer would be perceived much differently today..........................................
Click HERE To Read On
Friday, December 22, 2006
Do we Love the Famous... or the Infamous?
-By Warner Todd Huston
Recently, a poll of school children in England sparked a question over role models and what children there think should be the most desirable goals in life to strive for. In the poll, children under 10 viewed being a celebrity as the "very best thing in the world", though they seem not to think as highly about God.
In the 2006 top ten list such figures as Madonna and TV stars Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne appear. In the past, sports stars David Beckham and Wayne Rooney made it into the top ten, as well. But, many of these "celebrities" are famous as much for their ill-tempered comportment and the many offhanded remarks uttered in public and reported by a fawning tabloid media as they are for the extraordinary abilities that brought them to the top of their professions.
This raises an intriguing question: What has become of "fame"?
America's Founding Fathers are so revered today, for instance, because they didn't imagine they were striving to achieve mere fame as we define it today. To the Founder’s contemporaries celebrity status meant little but what was important to them was fame as defined by the ancients. Being well known for their deeds of import, moral gravity and worth bestowed true fame, as fame is properly defined.
England's great conservative, Edmund Burke, once said of someone, "He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls". By equating "fame" to "greatness" and "a noble cause" he equates fame to actions of a good and positive nature.
Founding Father and second President, John Adams, once quoted a few lines from Alexander Pope’s "Essay on Man" in his diary while pondering the sort of fame that he and his fellows hoped to win from the verdict of history and their countrymen:
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov’d, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race
Pope here explained the effects of fame in the allegory of ripples in the lake, ripples that one's actions will cause for community, country, and, ultimately, humanity. And that is the reason that fame was thought to connote positive moral stature because positive "ripples" are the only ripples worth celebrating.
On the other hand, being known for bad behavior, ill temper and venality wins infamy, not fame in the proper definition of such actions. Unfortunately, today we confuse and conflate fame with the lesser category of infamy.
People who make a name for themselves by over the top behavior, immorality and general surliness, like Madonna and Sharon Osbourne, have more correctly achieved infamy, not fame or celebrity. Yet it is the Madonnas and Sharon Osbournes of the world that kids think of as famous.
This cannot be a good thing and shows that we have lost reverence for respectability and cast aside the positive, proper definition for fame. We have degraded the word to simply mean well known and gutted the moral meaning. This does not raise up the well known to heights of fame, but lowers the well meaning to the depths of infamy.
Worse than the results of who the children thought were "famous", the top ten things that these kids thought were "very best things" reveals almost a complete lack of substantive goals in the ghastly choices given by the youngsters.
1. Being a Celebrity
2. Good Looks
3. Being Rich
4. Being Healthy
5. Pop Music
6. Families
7. Friends
8. Nice Food
9. Watching Films
10. Heaven/God
Granted this is a list of the interests of 10-year-olds, but can anyone doubt that the outcome of a poll of kids into their early teens would be much different? For that matter, could the list be much different than the responses of the general public at any age?
Still, that speculation aside, it is obvious that western society is not teaching its children what is good and right in society if Britain’s tykes grant admiration for such characters as Madonna. It is a sad commentary on our society that fame has been degraded to the same low status as infamy. (And I have to admit here, that my country, the U.S.A., is certainly no better and has contributed far too much to the degradation of fame.)
Recently, a poll of school children in England sparked a question over role models and what children there think should be the most desirable goals in life to strive for. In the poll, children under 10 viewed being a celebrity as the "very best thing in the world", though they seem not to think as highly about God.
In the 2006 top ten list such figures as Madonna and TV stars Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne appear. In the past, sports stars David Beckham and Wayne Rooney made it into the top ten, as well. But, many of these "celebrities" are famous as much for their ill-tempered comportment and the many offhanded remarks uttered in public and reported by a fawning tabloid media as they are for the extraordinary abilities that brought them to the top of their professions.
This raises an intriguing question: What has become of "fame"?
America's Founding Fathers are so revered today, for instance, because they didn't imagine they were striving to achieve mere fame as we define it today. To the Founder’s contemporaries celebrity status meant little but what was important to them was fame as defined by the ancients. Being well known for their deeds of import, moral gravity and worth bestowed true fame, as fame is properly defined.
England's great conservative, Edmund Burke, once said of someone, "He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls". By equating "fame" to "greatness" and "a noble cause" he equates fame to actions of a good and positive nature.
Founding Father and second President, John Adams, once quoted a few lines from Alexander Pope’s "Essay on Man" in his diary while pondering the sort of fame that he and his fellows hoped to win from the verdict of history and their countrymen:
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov’d, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race
Pope here explained the effects of fame in the allegory of ripples in the lake, ripples that one's actions will cause for community, country, and, ultimately, humanity. And that is the reason that fame was thought to connote positive moral stature because positive "ripples" are the only ripples worth celebrating.
On the other hand, being known for bad behavior, ill temper and venality wins infamy, not fame in the proper definition of such actions. Unfortunately, today we confuse and conflate fame with the lesser category of infamy.
People who make a name for themselves by over the top behavior, immorality and general surliness, like Madonna and Sharon Osbourne, have more correctly achieved infamy, not fame or celebrity. Yet it is the Madonnas and Sharon Osbournes of the world that kids think of as famous.
This cannot be a good thing and shows that we have lost reverence for respectability and cast aside the positive, proper definition for fame. We have degraded the word to simply mean well known and gutted the moral meaning. This does not raise up the well known to heights of fame, but lowers the well meaning to the depths of infamy.
Worse than the results of who the children thought were "famous", the top ten things that these kids thought were "very best things" reveals almost a complete lack of substantive goals in the ghastly choices given by the youngsters.
1. Being a Celebrity
2. Good Looks
3. Being Rich
4. Being Healthy
5. Pop Music
6. Families
7. Friends
8. Nice Food
9. Watching Films
10. Heaven/God
Granted this is a list of the interests of 10-year-olds, but can anyone doubt that the outcome of a poll of kids into their early teens would be much different? For that matter, could the list be much different than the responses of the general public at any age?
Still, that speculation aside, it is obvious that western society is not teaching its children what is good and right in society if Britain’s tykes grant admiration for such characters as Madonna. It is a sad commentary on our society that fame has been degraded to the same low status as infamy. (And I have to admit here, that my country, the U.S.A., is certainly no better and has contributed far too much to the degradation of fame.)
Advent Third Sunday December 17, 2006
- By Thomas E. Brewton
The coming of Jesus Christ can be thought of in two respects: we look to Christmas celebrating His birth, and thank God for His ministry that came afterward.
The texts today at Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) focused upon the beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry, at age thirty, the traditional time of maturity for the priestly order...................
Click HERE To Read On
The coming of Jesus Christ can be thought of in two respects: we look to Christmas celebrating His birth, and thank God for His ministry that came afterward.
The texts today at Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) focused upon the beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry, at age thirty, the traditional time of maturity for the priestly order...................
Click HERE To Read On
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Troubled Childhood Increases Risk of Homosexuality
-By Warner Todd Huston
Out of Denmark comes a study that will be sure to put a crimp in the we-are-born-that-way theory of the origins of homosexuality. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, provides interesting and tantalizing evidence that the less stable or traditional a child's home is, the more likely that the child will turn to homosexuality as an adult.
The study used 2,000,355 native-born Danes between the ages of 18 and 49, virtually "the entire Danish population". With such a large base it can hardly be claimed that the sampling was problematic. Many studies in the past have been discounted because of their sampling sizes -- generally being claimed too small.
Denmark was the first country to legalize gay marriage and has a large variety of recognized modes of cohabitation and lifestyles, so this study is of particular interest in that the stats cover the longest range of time available from which to establish the most reliable statistics.
Effects of Upbringing on Sexual Orientation
As quoted on the NARTH website, the study's authors conclude: "Our study provides population-based, prospective evidence that childhood family experiences are important determinants of heterosexual and homosexual marriage decisions in adulthood."
The authors go on to say, "Whatever ingredients determine a person's sexual preferences and marital choices, our population-based study shows that parental interactions are important."
A further observation is made by Linda Ames Nicolosi of NARTH.
The findings show that children who have unstable or abusive homes are more likely to have homosexual relationships later on. This rings true to many studies that show homosexual males were often sexually abused as children.
This would also tend to prove that homosexuality is more a pathology, than a mere "natural" predilection. It would make the claims of being born gay problematic and, rather, a result of the mind's reaction to a troubled childhood. It would also tend to make the removal of homosexuality from the rolls of mental health problems a mistake.
Here are some of the findings from the Danish report:
1. Men who marry homosexually are more likely to have been raised in a family with unstable parental relationships -- particularly, absent or unknown fathers and divorced parents.
2. Findings on women who marry homosexually were less pronounced, but were still associated with a childhood marked by a broken family. The rates of same-sex marriage "were elevated among women who experienced maternal death during adolescence, women with short duration of parental marriage, and women with long duration of mother-absent cohabitation with father."
3. Men and women with "unknown fathers" were significantly less likely to marry a person of the opposite sex than were their peers with known fathers.
4. Men who experienced parental death during childhood or adolescence "had significantly lower heterosexual marriage rates than peers whose parents were both alive on their 18th birthday. The younger the age of the father's death, the lower was the likelihood of heterosexual marriage."
5. "The shorter the duration of parental marriage, the higher was the likelihood of homosexual marriage...homosexual marriage rates were 36% and 26% higher among men and women, respectively, who experienced parental divorce after less than six years of marriage, than among peers whose parents remained married for all 18 years of childhood and adolescence."
6. "Men whose parents divorced before their 6th birthday were 39% more likely to marry homosexually than peers from intact parental marriages."
7. "Men whose cohabitation with both parents ended before age 18 years had significantly (55% -76%) higher rates of homosexual marriage than men who cohabited with both parents until 18 years."
8. The mother's age was directly linked to the likelihood of homosexual marriage among men -- the older the mother, the more likely her son was to marry another man. Also, "only children" were more likely to be homosexual.
9. Persons born in large cities were significantly more likely to marry a same-sex partner -- suggesting that cultural factors might also affect the development of sexual orientation.
In any case, this is a large sampling culled from among what is purportedly the most "tolerant" nation toward homosexuality and alternate lifestyles and it shows that, far from being benign, homosexuality is a result of abuse and instability in the home, as opposed to being some natural proclivity, for a large percentage of the population.
Out of Denmark comes a study that will be sure to put a crimp in the we-are-born-that-way theory of the origins of homosexuality. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, provides interesting and tantalizing evidence that the less stable or traditional a child's home is, the more likely that the child will turn to homosexuality as an adult.
The study used 2,000,355 native-born Danes between the ages of 18 and 49, virtually "the entire Danish population". With such a large base it can hardly be claimed that the sampling was problematic. Many studies in the past have been discounted because of their sampling sizes -- generally being claimed too small.
Denmark was the first country to legalize gay marriage and has a large variety of recognized modes of cohabitation and lifestyles, so this study is of particular interest in that the stats cover the longest range of time available from which to establish the most reliable statistics.
Effects of Upbringing on Sexual Orientation
As quoted on the NARTH website, the study's authors conclude: "Our study provides population-based, prospective evidence that childhood family experiences are important determinants of heterosexual and homosexual marriage decisions in adulthood."
The authors go on to say, "Whatever ingredients determine a person's sexual preferences and marital choices, our population-based study shows that parental interactions are important."
A further observation is made by Linda Ames Nicolosi of NARTH.
Assuming that people who marry heterosexually are almost always heterosexual -- especially in a country where homosexuality carries little stigma, and gay marriage is legal -- and people who marry homosexually can be presumed to be homosexual, the study's findings offer intriguing evidence about family factors separating homosexual from heterosexual persons.
The findings show that children who have unstable or abusive homes are more likely to have homosexual relationships later on. This rings true to many studies that show homosexual males were often sexually abused as children.
This would also tend to prove that homosexuality is more a pathology, than a mere "natural" predilection. It would make the claims of being born gay problematic and, rather, a result of the mind's reaction to a troubled childhood. It would also tend to make the removal of homosexuality from the rolls of mental health problems a mistake.
Here are some of the findings from the Danish report:
1. Men who marry homosexually are more likely to have been raised in a family with unstable parental relationships -- particularly, absent or unknown fathers and divorced parents.
2. Findings on women who marry homosexually were less pronounced, but were still associated with a childhood marked by a broken family. The rates of same-sex marriage "were elevated among women who experienced maternal death during adolescence, women with short duration of parental marriage, and women with long duration of mother-absent cohabitation with father."
3. Men and women with "unknown fathers" were significantly less likely to marry a person of the opposite sex than were their peers with known fathers.
4. Men who experienced parental death during childhood or adolescence "had significantly lower heterosexual marriage rates than peers whose parents were both alive on their 18th birthday. The younger the age of the father's death, the lower was the likelihood of heterosexual marriage."
5. "The shorter the duration of parental marriage, the higher was the likelihood of homosexual marriage...homosexual marriage rates were 36% and 26% higher among men and women, respectively, who experienced parental divorce after less than six years of marriage, than among peers whose parents remained married for all 18 years of childhood and adolescence."
6. "Men whose parents divorced before their 6th birthday were 39% more likely to marry homosexually than peers from intact parental marriages."
7. "Men whose cohabitation with both parents ended before age 18 years had significantly (55% -76%) higher rates of homosexual marriage than men who cohabited with both parents until 18 years."
8. The mother's age was directly linked to the likelihood of homosexual marriage among men -- the older the mother, the more likely her son was to marry another man. Also, "only children" were more likely to be homosexual.
9. Persons born in large cities were significantly more likely to marry a same-sex partner -- suggesting that cultural factors might also affect the development of sexual orientation.
In any case, this is a large sampling culled from among what is purportedly the most "tolerant" nation toward homosexuality and alternate lifestyles and it shows that, far from being benign, homosexuality is a result of abuse and instability in the home, as opposed to being some natural proclivity, for a large percentage of the population.
The 'Times' of our Lives are Ticking Away
- By Vince Johnson
We seldom think about it, but our lives are divided into brief periods we refer to as some sort of "time." It all starts when it is "time" to go to bed. Then it is soon "time" to get up and "time" to get to work, or school, etc.
Some of our "times" are so mundane we never think much about them. I am thinking of those "times" we set aside so we can eat. Like "Breakfast time." "Lunch time." "Dinner time." It goes on and on. Live theatres have curtain "time." Flights are On "Time" some of the "time." Some "times" we kill "time" and other "times" we save "time." Then, of course, there are certain "times" during the year when many folks schedule their "meal time" around "game time," which of course refers to games like football and basketball......
Click HERE To Read On
We seldom think about it, but our lives are divided into brief periods we refer to as some sort of "time." It all starts when it is "time" to go to bed. Then it is soon "time" to get up and "time" to get to work, or school, etc.
Some of our "times" are so mundane we never think much about them. I am thinking of those "times" we set aside so we can eat. Like "Breakfast time." "Lunch time." "Dinner time." It goes on and on. Live theatres have curtain "time." Flights are On "Time" some of the "time." Some "times" we kill "time" and other "times" we save "time." Then, of course, there are certain "times" during the year when many folks schedule their "meal time" around "game time," which of course refers to games like football and basketball......
Click HERE To Read On
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Opinion Journal: Bloggers are a Mob -- 'Written by fools to be read by imbeciles'
-By Warner Todd Huston
WSJ's Opinion Journal has indulged in another round of the MSM's upturned nose to the lowly blogger, another cornucopia of contumelies, a mountain of maligning. We are all fools and imbeciles according to assistant editorial features editor, Joseph Rago in today's Op Ed, The Blog Mob.
Here's the wind up...
I feel a "but" coming!
And the pitch...
A swing and a miss, Mr. Rago.
Few bloggers, Mr. assistant editorial features editor, imagine themselves to be anything like investigative journalists... few even consider themselves journalists at all. A small number may have taken steps into that field, but most bloggers who blog on culture, the news and politics are in it for opinion making. And, I'd lay odds that few would dispute such a claim.
On Publius' Forum, for instance, we are reacting to the MSM and it's bias. We are delineating the misreporting, lies, distortions and misspeak that occurs among the many assistant editorial features editors and their cohorts out there. But, none of us lay claim to original reporting.
So, Mr. Rago is complaining that we bloggers aren't doing something we aren't even attempting to do in the first place! Would Rago be mad that a dog doesn't meow… only if he wasn't aware that a dog instead barked? And it appears that Rago is completely innocent of the kind of barking that bloggers do.
Additionally, he seems to imagine that political blogging is all that the blog is for. He seems not to be taking into account that the blog was, indeed, originally designed to be an electronic, public diary, a mode of communication not designed specifically for "reporting", newsmaking or politics and that the great preponderance of blogs out there are just that; someone's little diary.
I'd further suspect that Mr. Rago is not very informed of American Newspaper history. Most American papers were filled with columns copied from other papers (without attribution on top of it), hackneyed writing, partisan mudslinging, and rumormongering. In fact, it has only been since the 1950s that newspapers were imagined to be straight "reporting" with commentary and opinions ostensibly relegated only to the editorial sections as opposed to running throughout every story in the paper.
In fact, before radio and TV became so prevalent, newspapers were expected to pick a political side and fight like wildcats for that choice. Political candidates even openly supported, and were in turn supported by, newspapers both on a national as well as local level.
In one complaint, though, Mr. Rago is closer to a legitimate concern.
Point taken. Let's face it; writing styles vary wildly, most being not of a very high caliber (perhaps myself included). And, yes, too many preach to the choir making little effort to convince or argue effectively.
It is also unfortunate that the blog, at times, lends itself to "panics and manias". We have all seen a story ripple through the blogging community that later turned out to be a humbug. I admit to having fallen for a few myself.
However, as I alluded to above, this is no departure from historical newspaper practice. This is, in fact, a complete and accurate reflection of newspaper history. It is little different even than the days of the Founding Fathers who wrote tracts and commandeered newspapers to disseminate their ideas. Thomas Jefferson didn't fund a printing of ideas of his enemies in some attempt at "moderation" or "bipartisan" reporting!
We only remember the best writing of that era because the worst was quickly forgotten and relegated to the scrap heap of memory. There were hundreds of newspapers in the old 13 colonies and not all produced the best writing, to be sure. Rago seems blinded by a narrow historical perspective.
After all, today we have the New York Times an organization that seems to have made it a practice to hire plagiarists and writers of fiction!
No, what we have here is a man who imagines his profession is far nobler than it really is -- now OR in the past -- as he turns up his nose at the new kids on the block.
As bloggers we can take note of assistant editorial features editor, Joseph Rago's bemoaning the oft times low level of literary acumen and erudition endemic throughout our work, we can take note of his admonitions and make a better effort to improve our product and enrich our content. But, on the other hand, the MSM might want to clean up its own yard before it complains about the neighbor's.
... and I'll have you note that I used a lot of fifty cent words to sound more learned, Joe. Did I pass the audition? Am I the fool or the imbecile?
WSJ's Opinion Journal has indulged in another round of the MSM's upturned nose to the lowly blogger, another cornucopia of contumelies, a mountain of maligning. We are all fools and imbeciles according to assistant editorial features editor, Joseph Rago in today's Op Ed, The Blog Mob.
Here's the wind up...
Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.
I feel a "but" coming!
And the pitch...
The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.
A swing and a miss, Mr. Rago.
Few bloggers, Mr. assistant editorial features editor, imagine themselves to be anything like investigative journalists... few even consider themselves journalists at all. A small number may have taken steps into that field, but most bloggers who blog on culture, the news and politics are in it for opinion making. And, I'd lay odds that few would dispute such a claim.
On Publius' Forum, for instance, we are reacting to the MSM and it's bias. We are delineating the misreporting, lies, distortions and misspeak that occurs among the many assistant editorial features editors and their cohorts out there. But, none of us lay claim to original reporting.
So, Mr. Rago is complaining that we bloggers aren't doing something we aren't even attempting to do in the first place! Would Rago be mad that a dog doesn't meow… only if he wasn't aware that a dog instead barked? And it appears that Rago is completely innocent of the kind of barking that bloggers do.
Additionally, he seems to imagine that political blogging is all that the blog is for. He seems not to be taking into account that the blog was, indeed, originally designed to be an electronic, public diary, a mode of communication not designed specifically for "reporting", newsmaking or politics and that the great preponderance of blogs out there are just that; someone's little diary.
The way we write affects both style and substance. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope--though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.
I'd further suspect that Mr. Rago is not very informed of American Newspaper history. Most American papers were filled with columns copied from other papers (without attribution on top of it), hackneyed writing, partisan mudslinging, and rumormongering. In fact, it has only been since the 1950s that newspapers were imagined to be straight "reporting" with commentary and opinions ostensibly relegated only to the editorial sections as opposed to running throughout every story in the paper.
In fact, before radio and TV became so prevalent, newspapers were expected to pick a political side and fight like wildcats for that choice. Political candidates even openly supported, and were in turn supported by, newspapers both on a national as well as local level.
In one complaint, though, Mr. Rago is closer to a legitimate concern.
...Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought--instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.
Because political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring. More acutely, they promote intellectual disingenuousness, with every constituency hostage to its assumptions and the party line
Point taken. Let's face it; writing styles vary wildly, most being not of a very high caliber (perhaps myself included). And, yes, too many preach to the choir making little effort to convince or argue effectively.
It is also unfortunate that the blog, at times, lends itself to "panics and manias". We have all seen a story ripple through the blogging community that later turned out to be a humbug. I admit to having fallen for a few myself.
However, as I alluded to above, this is no departure from historical newspaper practice. This is, in fact, a complete and accurate reflection of newspaper history. It is little different even than the days of the Founding Fathers who wrote tracts and commandeered newspapers to disseminate their ideas. Thomas Jefferson didn't fund a printing of ideas of his enemies in some attempt at "moderation" or "bipartisan" reporting!
We only remember the best writing of that era because the worst was quickly forgotten and relegated to the scrap heap of memory. There were hundreds of newspapers in the old 13 colonies and not all produced the best writing, to be sure. Rago seems blinded by a narrow historical perspective.
After all, today we have the New York Times an organization that seems to have made it a practice to hire plagiarists and writers of fiction!
No, what we have here is a man who imagines his profession is far nobler than it really is -- now OR in the past -- as he turns up his nose at the new kids on the block.
As bloggers we can take note of assistant editorial features editor, Joseph Rago's bemoaning the oft times low level of literary acumen and erudition endemic throughout our work, we can take note of his admonitions and make a better effort to improve our product and enrich our content. But, on the other hand, the MSM might want to clean up its own yard before it complains about the neighbor's.
... and I'll have you note that I used a lot of fifty cent words to sound more learned, Joe. Did I pass the audition? Am I the fool or the imbecile?
JOHNNY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE - - Getting this John the Beloved To Linger
- Resa LaRu Kirkland
While attending Highland High School in the early 80's, I would often see a book in our library entitled, Johnny, we hardly knew ye. It had a youthful and smiling JFK on its cover, and was a memoir written by two of the future-President's aides regarding his first run for Congress in 1946.
I assumed the title had come from the fact that this particular Johnny died prematurely, but it actually turned out to be an old Irish war protest song. Oddly appropriate considering that the sixties ushered in the reign of this particular old Irish man, who brought in Vietnam, thereby creating that most useless of species, the Hippy. And oh! What that hath wrought.
OK, so he wasn't very old. But to a teenager, he was ancient. And to a proud Reaganite, he stood for everything nauseating, selfish, and cowardly that his decade came to be. The book was drivel, which meant the Hippy Press loved it, the critics worshipped it, and at least one teenager wasn't buying it. Heck, I wouldn't even check it out after reading the jacket. I was, after all, in an American school. I'd already had all the Political Castration I could stand. I certainly wasn't going to suffer through anymore on my own time.....................
Click HERE To Read On
While attending Highland High School in the early 80's, I would often see a book in our library entitled, Johnny, we hardly knew ye. It had a youthful and smiling JFK on its cover, and was a memoir written by two of the future-President's aides regarding his first run for Congress in 1946.
I assumed the title had come from the fact that this particular Johnny died prematurely, but it actually turned out to be an old Irish war protest song. Oddly appropriate considering that the sixties ushered in the reign of this particular old Irish man, who brought in Vietnam, thereby creating that most useless of species, the Hippy. And oh! What that hath wrought.
OK, so he wasn't very old. But to a teenager, he was ancient. And to a proud Reaganite, he stood for everything nauseating, selfish, and cowardly that his decade came to be. The book was drivel, which meant the Hippy Press loved it, the critics worshipped it, and at least one teenager wasn't buying it. Heck, I wouldn't even check it out after reading the jacket. I was, after all, in an American school. I'd already had all the Political Castration I could stand. I certainly wasn't going to suffer through anymore on my own time.....................
Click HERE To Read On
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Arabic Signs Panic Virginians
-By Warner Todd Huston
The AP is reporting that a program operating near Richmond sponsored by the Virginia Interfaith Center is raising eyebrows and causing some members of the citizenry to worry that secret Terrorist messages are being left across the city.
Of course, the signs are not a secret terrorist message, but an attempt to soften the image of Islam. The idea is to get Virginians more at ease with seeing Arabic script and not to automatically associate it with terrorism.
This campaign is, however, a most disingenuous and, ultimately, insidious one.
Insidious in that, should this campaign truly work to make Americans cease to be alarmed at signs of Islam, we will surely be giving Islamofascists succor and freedom. It can do nothing but assist Islamist extremists to tear down American defenses and allow them to more freely roam about our country to commit their murder and mayhem at will given cover by all lack of alarm at Islamic activities.
The AP story gave us a perfect example of its disingenuousness, as well.
Sure it's "fun, it's hip" and "cool" to become fond of Japanese symbols now because Japan is an ally and has gone from a militaristic, monarchy to a democracy. THAT is why it is now "cool" and "hip", not because Americans have successfully "challenged" themselves about Japan, but because Japan has itself changed to be more deserving of interest and respect. The Japanese people have given us a reason to become at ease with their culture. The Japanese have gone out of their way to become a respected, benevolent people and have joined the civilized nations in commerce, entertainment and culture.
Islam has most certainly not given Americans any reason whatsoever to trust it or become at ease with it and the Virginia Interfaith Center knows this full well, hence the disingenuousness.
This program acts as if it is we Americans that must somehow change, to accept Islam better, to be more "tolerant" of it, instead of Islam's to show us why we should be more tolerant of it. Islam has not done a single thing even to meet us half way to convince us that it is, in truth, a benevolent -- or even benign -- ideology.
Americans have absolutely no reason whatever to become at ease with signs of Islam.
Not one single reason.
This obsequious campaign by the Virginia Interfaith Center should be opposed until Islam gives us a reason not to be biased against it and displays of its symbols.
The AP is reporting that a program operating near Richmond sponsored by the Virginia Interfaith Center is raising eyebrows and causing some members of the citizenry to worry that secret Terrorist messages are being left across the city.
The small beige signs bearing black Arabic script have been appearing all over town on buses and at colleges.
The signs, which below the Arabic script carry English translations and comments that indirectly caution against jumping to conclusions, are part of a campaign by A More Perfect Union, a program of the Virginia Interfaith Center, and are aimed at dispelling some of the public's fears toward the Muslim community. Organizers hope to eventually expand the program statewide.
Of course, the signs are not a secret terrorist message, but an attempt to soften the image of Islam. The idea is to get Virginians more at ease with seeing Arabic script and not to automatically associate it with terrorism.
"As people see Arabic, they immediately make an association with terrorism," said the Rev. C. Douglas Smith, executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center, a nonpartisan coalition of faith communities that work for change through education and advocacy. "That's probably because since Nine-Eleven, not only is fear overwhelming us, but that's how we're being trained to think."
This campaign is, however, a most disingenuous and, ultimately, insidious one.
Insidious in that, should this campaign truly work to make Americans cease to be alarmed at signs of Islam, we will surely be giving Islamofascists succor and freedom. It can do nothing but assist Islamist extremists to tear down American defenses and allow them to more freely roam about our country to commit their murder and mayhem at will given cover by all lack of alarm at Islamic activities.
The AP story gave us a perfect example of its disingenuousness, as well.
Bias toward the Muslim community is a continuing problem across the country and in Virginia, said Imad Damaj, president of the Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs.
"There's so many lazy, unexamined assumptions about all of us and how we react to people," Damaj said. "We need to challenge ourselves."
Schoel said history has proven that Americans can learn to let go of irrational fears toward other cultures.
"After World War II, when people saw Japanese script it was scary," she said. "But now we see it and it's fun, it's hip, it signifies a cool culture."
"That's a huge turnaround."
Sure it's "fun, it's hip" and "cool" to become fond of Japanese symbols now because Japan is an ally and has gone from a militaristic, monarchy to a democracy. THAT is why it is now "cool" and "hip", not because Americans have successfully "challenged" themselves about Japan, but because Japan has itself changed to be more deserving of interest and respect. The Japanese people have given us a reason to become at ease with their culture. The Japanese have gone out of their way to become a respected, benevolent people and have joined the civilized nations in commerce, entertainment and culture.
Islam has most certainly not given Americans any reason whatsoever to trust it or become at ease with it and the Virginia Interfaith Center knows this full well, hence the disingenuousness.
This program acts as if it is we Americans that must somehow change, to accept Islam better, to be more "tolerant" of it, instead of Islam's to show us why we should be more tolerant of it. Islam has not done a single thing even to meet us half way to convince us that it is, in truth, a benevolent -- or even benign -- ideology.
Americans have absolutely no reason whatever to become at ease with signs of Islam.
Not one single reason.
This obsequious campaign by the Virginia Interfaith Center should be opposed until Islam gives us a reason not to be biased against it and displays of its symbols.
Extolling the Female Tongue
- By Selwyn Duke
A long time ago I read a short online piece about how women could get their men to put the toilet seat down. Inherent in it was the idea that this was an example of men's lack of consideration and that the task at hand was one of disciplining these bad boys. I don't know, my attitude is that if women can leave a toilet seat down, men can leave it up.
Of course, this is just a silly, pebble-in-the-shoe issue, but I see it as a metaphor for a modern phenomenon: The casting of women's characteristic behaviors as the norm and men's as dysfunctional deviations.
This is strikingly obvious with the topic of communication. Man has long known that women were the more loquacious sex, and you've probably heard of studies to this effect. A recent book states that women have about 20,000 "communication events" (I love these terms the psycho-babblers conjure up) a day, versus about 7,000 for men. But this is nothing new; who didn't know a bevy of garrulous girls in school? ............
Click HERE To Read On
A long time ago I read a short online piece about how women could get their men to put the toilet seat down. Inherent in it was the idea that this was an example of men's lack of consideration and that the task at hand was one of disciplining these bad boys. I don't know, my attitude is that if women can leave a toilet seat down, men can leave it up.
Of course, this is just a silly, pebble-in-the-shoe issue, but I see it as a metaphor for a modern phenomenon: The casting of women's characteristic behaviors as the norm and men's as dysfunctional deviations.
This is strikingly obvious with the topic of communication. Man has long known that women were the more loquacious sex, and you've probably heard of studies to this effect. A recent book states that women have about 20,000 "communication events" (I love these terms the psycho-babblers conjure up) a day, versus about 7,000 for men. But this is nothing new; who didn't know a bevy of garrulous girls in school? ............
Click HERE To Read On
Monday, December 18, 2006
What the Heck is a Paleoconservative and Why You Should Care
-By Dan E. Phillips
Have you ever noticed how enthusiasts of all sorts frequently speak a language that is completely unintelligible to the rest of us? For example, computer geeks . . . err . . . enthusiasts have their own language as do gear heads . . . err . . . hot rod enthusiasts. Wonkish political obsessives like me are guilty of the same thing, I am afraid. I don't know a gigabyte from RAM or a header from a flathead, but I can rattle off the various shades of conservatism in Rainman-like fashion.
I was reminded of this tendency recently when I published anarticle on paleoconservatism and abortion. The article was originally published at Intellectual Conservative, and later published at several mainstream, GOP-oriented conservative websites. It made some very controversial assertions so I expected to get feedback. Well I did. Most of it was positive. Some of it was not. But what surprised me was that most people weren't taking issue with my controversial assertions. Instead, many seemed to be unfamiliar with the term paleoconservative. I was surprised because my article appeared on conservative oriented political websites. I assumed paleoconservative would be a term familiar to those who frequent such websites. Well you know what they say about assuming. I was also disappointed. That many conservative internet surfers didn't know what a paleoconservative is is an indication that my side seriously needs a marketing campaign.............
Click HERE To Read On
Have you ever noticed how enthusiasts of all sorts frequently speak a language that is completely unintelligible to the rest of us? For example, computer geeks . . . err . . . enthusiasts have their own language as do gear heads . . . err . . . hot rod enthusiasts. Wonkish political obsessives like me are guilty of the same thing, I am afraid. I don't know a gigabyte from RAM or a header from a flathead, but I can rattle off the various shades of conservatism in Rainman-like fashion.
I was reminded of this tendency recently when I published anarticle on paleoconservatism and abortion. The article was originally published at Intellectual Conservative, and later published at several mainstream, GOP-oriented conservative websites. It made some very controversial assertions so I expected to get feedback. Well I did. Most of it was positive. Some of it was not. But what surprised me was that most people weren't taking issue with my controversial assertions. Instead, many seemed to be unfamiliar with the term paleoconservative. I was surprised because my article appeared on conservative oriented political websites. I assumed paleoconservative would be a term familiar to those who frequent such websites. Well you know what they say about assuming. I was also disappointed. That many conservative internet surfers didn't know what a paleoconservative is is an indication that my side seriously needs a marketing campaign.............
Click HERE To Read On
Editor & Publisher Hails Find of AP's 'Capt. Jamil' of '6 Burning Iraqis' Fame, Taunts Bloggers
-By Warner Todd Huston
Editor and Publisher seems hardly able to hold back their excitement over the possibility that someone has found proof of the existence of the mysterious "Captain Jamil Hussein" who the Associated Press claimed as a source for the supposed burning of 6 Sunni Iraqis in retaliation for the depredations of that sect on their Shi'ite neighbors.
In a Sunday posting on their site, E&P is crowing about "Conservative Bloggers in the U.S." eating crow.
It was a story that had no proof whatsoever except this "captain of Iraqi police" the AP quoted. There is no confirmation by any reliable second source, nor any proof by Iraqi government sources or US Army sources. No physical evidence, or photographs. In fact the US Army disputed the story openly. But the story made a great splash and was widely cited by news services all across the western media as if it was totally verified.
USA Today reported back on November 28th that "The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who "is not who he claimed he was," an Iraqi police captain."
Now,Marc Danziger of Winds of Change Blog posted the following on the 17th:
Editor & Publisher seems to be relishing that Michelle Malkin and others will have to "eat crow" if it is proven that this captain does, indeed, exist.
However, E&P seems to be missing the real story... as usual.
The fact is, whether this Captain Hussein exists or not, there is still no corroboration for the story of six burned Iraqis.
And, it has always been a staple of journalism that more than one source should be required to publish a story reported as "fact". After all, if only ONE source is ever needed for a story, then anyone can publish anything as "fact" merely upon any single person's say so.
I slept with Marilyn Monroe, ya know? Print that as fact, AP... just because I say so. Even though I was but a child when she was found dead. But this one source says it's true, so the AP MUST assume it could be fact!
It is also interesting how E&P has jumped on a story that is reported as one being reported from "...some friends who have been doing a smidgen of looking, and it appears - appears, but is not certain..." How is this a story? With a may and a might and a could have been?
Isn't this just what they are chiding the "Conservative Bloggers" and Michelle Malkin for? Not having proof in hand of the truth of their claims that Captain Hussein didn't exist before writing their posts? Isn't that exactly what E&P just did with a report that "appears - appears, but is not certain"?
Further, did they not think that there could be more than a few Hussein's in Iraq, or any OTHER Muslim country for that matter, that could be a policeman?
If E&P wanted to stick a finger in Malkin's and those "Conservative Blogger's" eyes, they might have wanted to be sure themselves of the truth of the matter!
In the long run, E&P's "report" did nothing to clarify the situation and amounts to nothing but schoolyard finger pointing and an exercise of their own in mocking -- a thing they seem to be decrying in Malkin -- and they have opened themselves up to being slapped right back with claims of hypocrisy if this story of the found Captain Hussein turns out to be a false lead.
Looks like Editor & Publisher was in need of an editor for their report!
(See more at Michelle Malkin's HotAir blog)
Editor and Publisher seems hardly able to hold back their excitement over the possibility that someone has found proof of the existence of the mysterious "Captain Jamil Hussein" who the Associated Press claimed as a source for the supposed burning of 6 Sunni Iraqis in retaliation for the depredations of that sect on their Shi'ite neighbors.
In a Sunday posting on their site, E&P is crowing about "Conservative Bloggers in the U.S." eating crow.
Though far from definitive proof, it was strong enough to cause at least one conservative blogger to wonder if those who had mocked the AP might have to eat "a huge shinola sandwich."
The tag for the story on the Hot Air home page currently reads, "Anyone got any good recipes for crow?"
It was a story that had no proof whatsoever except this "captain of Iraqi police" the AP quoted. There is no confirmation by any reliable second source, nor any proof by Iraqi government sources or US Army sources. No physical evidence, or photographs. In fact the US Army disputed the story openly. But the story made a great splash and was widely cited by news services all across the western media as if it was totally verified.
USA Today reported back on November 28th that "The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who "is not who he claimed he was," an Iraqi police captain."
Now,Marc Danziger of Winds of Change Blog posted the following on the 17th:
With the help of some friends who have been doing a smidgen of looking, and it appears - appears, but is not certain - that there is in fact a Jamail Hussein in the Yarmouk police station in Baghdad. We'll know more tomorrow.
Editor & Publisher seems to be relishing that Michelle Malkin and others will have to "eat crow" if it is proven that this captain does, indeed, exist.
However, E&P seems to be missing the real story... as usual.
The fact is, whether this Captain Hussein exists or not, there is still no corroboration for the story of six burned Iraqis.
And, it has always been a staple of journalism that more than one source should be required to publish a story reported as "fact". After all, if only ONE source is ever needed for a story, then anyone can publish anything as "fact" merely upon any single person's say so.
I slept with Marilyn Monroe, ya know? Print that as fact, AP... just because I say so. Even though I was but a child when she was found dead. But this one source says it's true, so the AP MUST assume it could be fact!
It is also interesting how E&P has jumped on a story that is reported as one being reported from "...some friends who have been doing a smidgen of looking, and it appears - appears, but is not certain..." How is this a story? With a may and a might and a could have been?
Isn't this just what they are chiding the "Conservative Bloggers" and Michelle Malkin for? Not having proof in hand of the truth of their claims that Captain Hussein didn't exist before writing their posts? Isn't that exactly what E&P just did with a report that "appears - appears, but is not certain"?
Further, did they not think that there could be more than a few Hussein's in Iraq, or any OTHER Muslim country for that matter, that could be a policeman?
If E&P wanted to stick a finger in Malkin's and those "Conservative Blogger's" eyes, they might have wanted to be sure themselves of the truth of the matter!
In the long run, E&P's "report" did nothing to clarify the situation and amounts to nothing but schoolyard finger pointing and an exercise of their own in mocking -- a thing they seem to be decrying in Malkin -- and they have opened themselves up to being slapped right back with claims of hypocrisy if this story of the found Captain Hussein turns out to be a false lead.
Looks like Editor & Publisher was in need of an editor for their report!
(See more at Michelle Malkin's HotAir blog)
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Apparently Not The Thought That Counts
- By Frederick Meekins
In a land as prosperous as that of the United States, from time to time parents must remind their offspring that the Christmas season is not suppose to be as much about the gift as about the sentiment behind the present. However, as charities themselves degenerate into bloated bureaucracies more concerned about perpetuating themselves than about assisting the downtrodden, those administering these organizations no longer view the giving public as the real heroes behind what use to be considered grassroots eleemosynary but rather as dimwitted cogs to be lectured as to how the acts once perceived as selfless are actually reactionary gestures undermining the progressive vision of their enlightened betters.
Even within my own short life thus far, at one time Toys for Tots was grateful to receive any new toy or even a good used one in reasonable condition (as from my own experience I can tell you that a second-hand Millennium Falcon is as nearly as much a delight as one fresh out of the box). However, like a spoiled child getting too much at Christmas, now not only aren't second-hand toys not good enough for these philanthropic agencies, but now they also dictate what kinds of new ones may be donated as well.....................................
Click HERE To Read On
In a land as prosperous as that of the United States, from time to time parents must remind their offspring that the Christmas season is not suppose to be as much about the gift as about the sentiment behind the present. However, as charities themselves degenerate into bloated bureaucracies more concerned about perpetuating themselves than about assisting the downtrodden, those administering these organizations no longer view the giving public as the real heroes behind what use to be considered grassroots eleemosynary but rather as dimwitted cogs to be lectured as to how the acts once perceived as selfless are actually reactionary gestures undermining the progressive vision of their enlightened betters.
Even within my own short life thus far, at one time Toys for Tots was grateful to receive any new toy or even a good used one in reasonable condition (as from my own experience I can tell you that a second-hand Millennium Falcon is as nearly as much a delight as one fresh out of the box). However, like a spoiled child getting too much at Christmas, now not only aren't second-hand toys not good enough for these philanthropic agencies, but now they also dictate what kinds of new ones may be donated as well.....................................
Click HERE To Read On
Iraq Study Group... Unbiased? Hardly
-By Warner Todd Huston
It amazes me that the Iraq Study Group was so hailed as a milestone in Iraq Policy. Worse, it has been claimed to be an unbiased deliberation of the situation in Iraq loaded with people with "gravitas" who have no political stake in the outcome.
But, any look at the people on the commission shows a group of people who came into this group with an agenda beforehand and none of them intended to address this task without preconceived notions that they were bound to prove out in their recommendations.
The putative leader of the group, James Baker, had well-known reservations about the entire Iraq enterprise so certainly couldn't approach the situation in an unbiased way. His most immediate cohort, Lee Hamilton, is a long time Democrat Party operative, so he was certain to be against the Bush Administration, as well.
Not only that but some of the supporting organizations are hardly those that might be considered "unbiased". Both the United States Institute of Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies are filled to overflowing with people who stood foursquare against Bush and his policies in Iraq since the day the president announced his plans.
And now, to further prove how members of this group can in no way be considered unbiased observers, another member of the ISG delivered the Democratic Party's weekly radio address following the president's.
Clinton's defense chief warns of Iraq 'quagmire'
It's no wonder when there was no one placed in the ISG or its support organizations that weren't publicly against the Bush team at the start.
And now one of the ISG is giving radio addresses for the Democratic Party?
Yeah.
VERY unbiased, that.
It amazes me that the Iraq Study Group was so hailed as a milestone in Iraq Policy. Worse, it has been claimed to be an unbiased deliberation of the situation in Iraq loaded with people with "gravitas" who have no political stake in the outcome.
But, any look at the people on the commission shows a group of people who came into this group with an agenda beforehand and none of them intended to address this task without preconceived notions that they were bound to prove out in their recommendations.
The putative leader of the group, James Baker, had well-known reservations about the entire Iraq enterprise so certainly couldn't approach the situation in an unbiased way. His most immediate cohort, Lee Hamilton, is a long time Democrat Party operative, so he was certain to be against the Bush Administration, as well.
Not only that but some of the supporting organizations are hardly those that might be considered "unbiased". Both the United States Institute of Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies are filled to overflowing with people who stood foursquare against Bush and his policies in Iraq since the day the president announced his plans.
And now, to further prove how members of this group can in no way be considered unbiased observers, another member of the ISG delivered the Democratic Party's weekly radio address following the president's.
Clinton's defense chief warns of Iraq 'quagmire'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Defense Secretary William Perry, a member of the Iraq Study Group, said Saturday that Iraq could turn into a "quagmire" if the Bush administration fails to change strategy.
Perry, who led the Pentagon under President Clinton, delivered the Democratic Party's weekly radio address.
Referring to the Vietnam War, Perry said: "The term 'quagmire' recalls one of the saddest periods in American history, which we do not want to relive. But I believe that is likely to happen if we 'stay the course' in Iraq."
Here was the amusing part of the CNN report above...
The Iraq Study Group report was critical of just about every aspect of the administration's war policies.
It's no wonder when there was no one placed in the ISG or its support organizations that weren't publicly against the Bush team at the start.
And now one of the ISG is giving radio addresses for the Democratic Party?
Yeah.
VERY unbiased, that.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Anti-Assimilation Movement
- By Frank Salvato
Assimilation -- defined as the act of becoming part of or more like something greater -- is a hot-button issue these days. Whether alluding to the calls for a return of the American Southwest to
Mexico by the Reconquista movement or the encroachment of radical Islam on the streets of Paris, the fact remains that members of immigrating minority groups are increasingly refusing to assimilate into the cultures of their resident countries. The lack of assimilation by immigrants to the United States -- both legal and illegal -- is culminating in an American identity crisis and poses a serious problem for the future of our country.
This movement toward anti-assimilation stands in stark contrast to the very concept of our nation.E pluribus unum , "out of many, one," is the motto of the United States. This motto, this dedication, was originally selected by the Great Seal Committee in 1776. It acknowledged that the thirteen separately governed British Colonies had banded together to form one inclusive nation, a country that stood independent from the British Crown, the United States......................
Click HERE To Read On
Assimilation -- defined as the act of becoming part of or more like something greater -- is a hot-button issue these days. Whether alluding to the calls for a return of the American Southwest to
Mexico by the Reconquista movement or the encroachment of radical Islam on the streets of Paris, the fact remains that members of immigrating minority groups are increasingly refusing to assimilate into the cultures of their resident countries. The lack of assimilation by immigrants to the United States -- both legal and illegal -- is culminating in an American identity crisis and poses a serious problem for the future of our country.
This movement toward anti-assimilation stands in stark contrast to the very concept of our nation.E pluribus unum , "out of many, one," is the motto of the United States. This motto, this dedication, was originally selected by the Great Seal Committee in 1776. It acknowledged that the thirteen separately governed British Colonies had banded together to form one inclusive nation, a country that stood independent from the British Crown, the United States......................
Click HERE To Read On
Murdering Babies for Stem Cell 'Research'
-By Warner Todd Huston
Well, here is the nightmare scenario that every right to life, Conservative has warned about when a society so disrespects life that it begins harvesting human cells and parts for "science" and medicine.
Ukraine babies in stem cell probe
There is heated debate about the ethics of using stem cells
Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.
But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.
The BBC has spoken to mothers from the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies, only to have them taken by maternity staff.
In its report, the Council describes a general culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth, and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate.
Couple this report with the constant reports that China is harvesting the organs from live prisoners of the state and the poor to sell to the rich in need of organ donors and you will see perfect examples of a lack of respect for human life.
These are the warning signs of a misuse of science, the kind of misuse featured in the "medical experiments" carried out by Nazis and Japanese "doctors" during WWII that so shocked the world. When a culture is so cavalier with life these sorts of trafficking situations are absolutely bound to occur.
If you life is not rated as special, as sacrosanct, then there is no mental or cultural barrier to harvesting organs from living people to benefit those who can pay to steal their organs. There is nothing to stop unethical medical practitioners from killing babies and adults to sell the parts they harvest from those warm bodies.
If a human life is to be considered an "unviable tissue mass" even in vitro, then there is no way to stop the practice of making human cells, human organs... life itself... a commodity to buy and sell.
In fact, if this practice stays in operation underground long enough, it will surely go above ground and become legal in the long run. After all, why not just legitimize it if it has been going on for years anyway?
Now that medical science has advanced to this level, now that human cells and organs can be used to extend other's lives, this kind of buying and selling of human body parts will naturally follow. And, without a healthy respect for life embedded deep in a culture's psyche making trafficking and stealing of those parts anathema, this kind of outrage will grow apace with science and the medical arts.
And scientists will continue to and in ever growing numbers cast aside ethical considerations for that next great breakthrough, or merely to make a living off the deaths of the less protected, those "worth less" to society.
But, then, the question must always be asked in Orwellian overtones: WHO is to determine which citizen is "worth less" and which is not?
Because, let's face it, the rich are who will benefit the most from such trafficking. After all, it is they who can pay for these black market body parts. And do we really want to develop the concept in the west that the "poor" are worth so little to the world except what cells and organs can be stolen from their still breathing bodies?
I hope not.
It must be a goal of any advanced society to foster a respect for life lest life become so unimportant that such abuses become commonplace. And, if such harvesting becomes commonplace, we would live in a society so separated by class that the rich would literally be able to live off the organs of the underclass.
We must have a serious discussion of these ethical considerations before the practice of harvesting organs from people becomes widespread. We must not wait until it is so pervasive in our societies that it becomes a crisis. Let us now resolve to sanctify life before many millions die in the name of science.
The murder of people for their cells, organs and appendages has already begun, but let us undertake a cultural shift away from such mistreatment.
Let us do it before it is too late.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Schoolboy Turns in Found 'Weapon', Gets Suspended For Effort
-By Warner Todd Huston
In school we tell our children that guns are bad. We tell them to be good little children and turn in those bad, evil guns to a parent, a policeman or a teacher. We tell them to do the supposed responsible thing. Be an upstanding citizen and take that evil gun out of circulation so that someone else won't kill half the city, runs the logic.
So, a young boy at Troy Middle School near Joliet, Illinois follows this sage advice and what is his reward?
He is kicked out of school for following his indoctrination.
On November 15th, 13-year-old student Ryan Morgan was expelled from school in supposed compliance with the idiotic "zero tolerance" policy against weapons with the school district claiming that young Ryan had "possession of a gun".
Sounds menacing, doesn't it? A gun! Imagine that?
Well, maybe it isn't so ominous after all because this "gun" turned out to be a mere toy pellet gun that Ryan and a friend found hidden in the boy's bathroom. It seems that Ryan had heard a rumor that this "gun" had been hidden there so he and his little friend went there to do the "right" thing and retrieve it to hand it in to the office.
As a reward for his diligent efforts to be a good, responsible citizen the school recommended that Ryan be expelled for a year. A slap in the face for performing what he has been told is his civic duty.
Later, this supposed policy that the district's lawyer, John M. Izzo, said held the district "bound by state law to bring an expulsion recommendation" against this poor, dutiful child was upheld by the school board. Consequently, honest little Ryan is to be thrown out of school for his offense.
Superintendent Larry Wiers said that "purposeful possession of weapons is one of the most serious offenses a student can commit and requires close consideration by the administration."
Yes, little Ryan, even if you are trying to do the "right" thing, turning in a gun found laying about the place, you are to be punished.
Wait, it gets worse.
As mentioned, this penalty is supposed to leave young Ryan expelled for a full year. Of course, the school board really does "care" about education, you know? We know this because they say so, you see. So, instead of leaving him expelled and sans educational opportunity they are going to pay for a year of home schooling.
Not only is Ryan being punished for trying to fulfill what he is told is his duty, but now so are the taxpayers who will have to pay double for this young man to be educated. With property taxes already paying for his education once at the school, it will now be doubled for his home schooling.
Lawyer Izzo earnestly announced that "it would be in the best interest of the student and the school to continue provide this student with educational opportunities through home bound study." But, what is "in the best interest" of the taxpayers who are being forced to pay double for this kid who was only trying to be helpful, Mr. Izzo?
So, what is it, school administrators? Are we teaching our children to do the "right" thing and turn in found weapons to the school administration to take them off the street, or are we teaching children that to get involved in any way is tantamount to pulling that trigger on themselves? Are we teaching our children that taking a gun out of circulation is important or are we teaching our children that school administrators cannot be trusted?
It would seem the later in both cases.
The lessons here are disheartening. The Troy Elementary School District just taught young Ryan Morgan that if he sees something wrong going on that he'd darn well better turn and walk away, stay out of it, don't get involved. Because if he does, we have taught him that HE will be the one in trouble. See a kid waving a weapon? Pretend you see nothing. Hear a kid getting beaten? Close your ears lest it be imagined you were involved. Happen to come across a rape in progress. He sees nothing. A break in? What break in? And, what would happen if Ryan someday hears two terrorists talking about their next target? Heck, it isn't any of Ryan's business. Move along nothing to see here, little Ryan.
So much for civic mindedness.
So much for doing the "right" thing.
So much for good administration of our schools.
As Heard on WBAL
-Warner Todd Huston was a guest on the Bruce Elliot show, WBAL Boston, on January 4th, 2007 discussing this topic.
In school we tell our children that guns are bad. We tell them to be good little children and turn in those bad, evil guns to a parent, a policeman or a teacher. We tell them to do the supposed responsible thing. Be an upstanding citizen and take that evil gun out of circulation so that someone else won't kill half the city, runs the logic.
So, a young boy at Troy Middle School near Joliet, Illinois follows this sage advice and what is his reward?
He is kicked out of school for following his indoctrination.
On November 15th, 13-year-old student Ryan Morgan was expelled from school in supposed compliance with the idiotic "zero tolerance" policy against weapons with the school district claiming that young Ryan had "possession of a gun".
Sounds menacing, doesn't it? A gun! Imagine that?
Well, maybe it isn't so ominous after all because this "gun" turned out to be a mere toy pellet gun that Ryan and a friend found hidden in the boy's bathroom. It seems that Ryan had heard a rumor that this "gun" had been hidden there so he and his little friend went there to do the "right" thing and retrieve it to hand it in to the office.
As a reward for his diligent efforts to be a good, responsible citizen the school recommended that Ryan be expelled for a year. A slap in the face for performing what he has been told is his civic duty.
Later, this supposed policy that the district's lawyer, John M. Izzo, said held the district "bound by state law to bring an expulsion recommendation" against this poor, dutiful child was upheld by the school board. Consequently, honest little Ryan is to be thrown out of school for his offense.
Superintendent Larry Wiers said that "purposeful possession of weapons is one of the most serious offenses a student can commit and requires close consideration by the administration."
Yes, little Ryan, even if you are trying to do the "right" thing, turning in a gun found laying about the place, you are to be punished.
Wait, it gets worse.
As mentioned, this penalty is supposed to leave young Ryan expelled for a full year. Of course, the school board really does "care" about education, you know? We know this because they say so, you see. So, instead of leaving him expelled and sans educational opportunity they are going to pay for a year of home schooling.
Not only is Ryan being punished for trying to fulfill what he is told is his duty, but now so are the taxpayers who will have to pay double for this young man to be educated. With property taxes already paying for his education once at the school, it will now be doubled for his home schooling.
Lawyer Izzo earnestly announced that "it would be in the best interest of the student and the school to continue provide this student with educational opportunities through home bound study." But, what is "in the best interest" of the taxpayers who are being forced to pay double for this kid who was only trying to be helpful, Mr. Izzo?
So, what is it, school administrators? Are we teaching our children to do the "right" thing and turn in found weapons to the school administration to take them off the street, or are we teaching children that to get involved in any way is tantamount to pulling that trigger on themselves? Are we teaching our children that taking a gun out of circulation is important or are we teaching our children that school administrators cannot be trusted?
It would seem the later in both cases.
The lessons here are disheartening. The Troy Elementary School District just taught young Ryan Morgan that if he sees something wrong going on that he'd darn well better turn and walk away, stay out of it, don't get involved. Because if he does, we have taught him that HE will be the one in trouble. See a kid waving a weapon? Pretend you see nothing. Hear a kid getting beaten? Close your ears lest it be imagined you were involved. Happen to come across a rape in progress. He sees nothing. A break in? What break in? And, what would happen if Ryan someday hears two terrorists talking about their next target? Heck, it isn't any of Ryan's business. Move along nothing to see here, little Ryan.
So much for civic mindedness.
So much for doing the "right" thing.
So much for good administration of our schools.
As Heard on WBAL
-Warner Todd Huston was a guest on the Bruce Elliot show, WBAL Boston, on January 4th, 2007 discussing this topic.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Cupid can strike at any age
- By Michael M. Bates
In the waning days of the 109th Congress, there was little joy on the GOP side of the aisle. The Republicans, tossed out of the majority last month, must give way to Democrats impatient to restore the highest ethical standards to government. You know, Democrats like Dollar Bill Jefferson of Louisiana, who won a landslide re-election race despite the FBI finding $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer.
Even in the midst of the GOP angst came some good news. According to the Congressional Record, Indiana Republican Mike Pence took to the House floor last Friday and told colleagues:
"On behalf of an extraordinary career, but what we know will be an extraordinary future, I am pleased to announce Henry Hyde's recent marriage on the day after Thanksgiving. We wish you all the best, our friend, for many, many years."
Illinois' Henry Hyde wasn't beaten in the Democratic sweep. He had announced early last year that he'd retire after 32 years in Congress. Mr. Hyde was a rarity: a Republican first sent to Congress in the wake of Watergate, a year that Democrats won over four dozen seats.........................................
Click HERE To Read On
In the waning days of the 109th Congress, there was little joy on the GOP side of the aisle. The Republicans, tossed out of the majority last month, must give way to Democrats impatient to restore the highest ethical standards to government. You know, Democrats like Dollar Bill Jefferson of Louisiana, who won a landslide re-election race despite the FBI finding $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer.
Even in the midst of the GOP angst came some good news. According to the Congressional Record, Indiana Republican Mike Pence took to the House floor last Friday and told colleagues:
"On behalf of an extraordinary career, but what we know will be an extraordinary future, I am pleased to announce Henry Hyde's recent marriage on the day after Thanksgiving. We wish you all the best, our friend, for many, many years."
Illinois' Henry Hyde wasn't beaten in the Democratic sweep. He had announced early last year that he'd retire after 32 years in Congress. Mr. Hyde was a rarity: a Republican first sent to Congress in the wake of Watergate, a year that Democrats won over four dozen seats.........................................
Click HERE To Read On
CNN: Americans all Racists Says Poll
-By Warner Todd Huston
For creating a story out of nothing and then finger pointing at US society and saying how evil it is, this Dec. 12th CNN story takes the cake. In "Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism -- in others", not only is a somewhat leading poll cited as evidence that America is still rife with racism, but CNN uses comments emailed to them by their viewers as some sort of follow up proof for it!
Very scientific, I know. After all, CNN used science via the Internet and phone lines to conduct this farcical poll, I suppose.
How convenient that those "experts" can see racism where no one else can. So, racism is everywhere, but we can't see it, don't understand it as racism, nor do we see any examples of it, but only "feel" it in others. The perfect "proof" to shore up Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for decades to come.
The "experts" that CNN dredged up really went to town on this "poll", too.
Curiously enough, "researchers" once thought that gold could be created from lead via alchemy, too! These "racism" experts are little different than the sooth-sayers and shamans who pranced around countless primitive campfires with their rattles shaking as they talk in tongues. All "saw" things no one else could and found gullible benefactors to pay them for their visions. The "social sciences" are barely better than cave paintings.
But, more amusing than these supposed experts telling us how we are all secret racists -- so secret we don't even realize it ourselves -- is the interesting reliance on viewer's emails that CNN used to add further "proof" to their shaman's tale.
The scintillating expertise is overwhelming there.
Mr. Boyle of Muncie, Indiana is no doubt a learned and well-known observer of American society.
And, not to be outdone by the common folk, CNN pulled in the trenchant commentary from New York Times writer Calvn Sims who, we are told, "recently wrote about his experiences in the city".
I hope not too many Americans fall for this tripe as serious commentary or scientific study of American society. I also hope that this kind of negative nonsense doesn't turn too many away from the fact that ours is one of the most inclusive societies in the world and that people of every nationality and race can find more opportunity here in the USA than in any other nation.
... and I can find a LOT of emailers to back THAT up!
For creating a story out of nothing and then finger pointing at US society and saying how evil it is, this Dec. 12th CNN story takes the cake. In "Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism -- in others", not only is a somewhat leading poll cited as evidence that America is still rife with racism, but CNN uses comments emailed to them by their viewers as some sort of follow up proof for it!
Very scientific, I know. After all, CNN used science via the Internet and phone lines to conduct this farcical poll, I suppose.
(CNN) -- Most Americans, white and black, see racism as a lingering problem in the United States, and many say they know people who are racist, according to a new poll.
But few Americans of either race -- about one out of eight -- consider themselves racist.
And experts say racism has evolved from the days of Jim Crow to the point that people may not even recognize it in themselves.
How convenient that those "experts" can see racism where no one else can. So, racism is everywhere, but we can't see it, don't understand it as racism, nor do we see any examples of it, but only "feel" it in others. The perfect "proof" to shore up Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for decades to come.
The "experts" that CNN dredged up really went to town on this "poll", too.
University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize.
"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said.
He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past.
"Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said.
That "stealth" discrimination reveals itself in many different situations.
Curiously enough, "researchers" once thought that gold could be created from lead via alchemy, too! These "racism" experts are little different than the sooth-sayers and shamans who pranced around countless primitive campfires with their rattles shaking as they talk in tongues. All "saw" things no one else could and found gullible benefactors to pay them for their visions. The "social sciences" are barely better than cave paintings.
But, more amusing than these supposed experts telling us how we are all secret racists -- so secret we don't even realize it ourselves -- is the interesting reliance on viewer's emails that CNN used to add further "proof" to their shaman's tale.
"Racism here is quite subtle," e-mailed CNN.com reader Blair William, originally from Trinidad, who now lives in Lexington, South Carolina.
The scintillating expertise is overwhelming there.
"I am a firm believer that racism is rampant in the United States," wrote another CNN.com reader, Mark Boyle, of Muncie, Indiana.
Mr. Boyle of Muncie, Indiana is no doubt a learned and well-known observer of American society.
And, not to be outdone by the common folk, CNN pulled in the trenchant commentary from New York Times writer Calvn Sims who, we are told, "recently wrote about his experiences in the city".
"If a cab passes you by, obviously it is frustrating, it's degrading and it's just really confusing, because this is akin to being in the South and being refused service at a lunch counter, which is what happened in the '60s and '70s," he said.
I hope not too many Americans fall for this tripe as serious commentary or scientific study of American society. I also hope that this kind of negative nonsense doesn't turn too many away from the fact that ours is one of the most inclusive societies in the world and that people of every nationality and race can find more opportunity here in the USA than in any other nation.
... and I can find a LOT of emailers to back THAT up!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Time Mag: Setting to Tear Down McCain... Their Own Creation
-By Warner Todd Huston
Proving that Time Magazine never understood a single thing about John McCain, Time writer, Karen Tumulty, is all worried about the "cost" of McCain's purported run for the 2008 GOP nomination for the presidency.
The head and sub-head lines alone are so filled with misconstructions, assumptions and laments that one doesn't have to read the rest of the story to know how far off they are in analysis.
First of all, the "maverick" label is one the press created and drove McCain ever more toward with their fawning attention. This assumption of "front runner" now is also a figment of their imagination.
Then, they belie their supposed objectivity and reveal how much they loved the claimed maverick status of their hero, McCain, by claiming there now is a "cost" to be incurred with his attempt to get the '08 nomination. Tumulty's article reveals her bad feelings that he will have to try harder this time to court the base as opposed to imagining that the independent and moderate vote will catapult him past all comers in a GOP primary -- a woefully mistaken belief from the 2000 run that the press seems to have encouraged for McCain, an encouragement that doomed his candidacy.
They inflate his appeal from the 2000 campaign to a ridiculous extent with their "upstart" claims, too. McCain never had much of a chance amongst the base in 2000 with his entire campaign being a creation of the media. The last time the media tried to create a Republican candidate out of whole cloth it was Wendell Wilkie who faced Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.
Wilkie lost, too, just like McCain.
Now, Time is lambasting McCain's new slogan as one that doesn't "have quite the ring" of his earlier one. They also seem sad that a candidate running to get a Republican nomination will have to seem more like a Republican.
I wonder if they ever lamented that a Democrat had to seem like a Democrat to get the nomination of the Democratic Party?
The article goes on and on about his "bad" views -- you know the ones, those conservative ones -- even quoting him as saying he is "more conservative than many of his fans believe him to be". No, he is more conservative than the media wanted him to be. If one looks at McCain's voting record, there could be little doubt that he stacks up as a pretty conservative Senator. It has always been such but the media turned away from this truth in favor of playing up his anti-Bush stances.
But, now without Bush around for the 2008 run, they are at long last setting out to bash McCain over HIS conservatism... yes, after they spent 8 years building him up as a "maverick". McCain will now see the fawning media turn hostile when they FINALLY start discussing his voting record, for sure.
But Time's report does help us see the hypocrisy in McCain's media stance and his voting record. His claims of "maverick" are at odds with many of his actual votes. Making his "straight talk" perfectly muddy, indistinct and filled with dissembling.
Still, McCain has no better chance of getting the 2008 nomination than he did the 2000 one. Even though his voting record is pretty good for the most part, he has spent the last 7 years hampering the Republican efforts in Congress, harming our national security, worsening our campaign finance laws, proving he hasn't a clue what the US Constitution means, putting the breaks on our judicial nominations and generally playing to the leftist media to get their slobbering approval. All things that will make him damaged goods to a Republican voter.
McCain will probably do worse than he did in 2000 because of his road blocking of the GOP agenda over the last 7 years, I'd bet.
Most amusingly, this article tied the supposed "racist" ad against Representative Bob Ford of Tennessee to McCain because McCain hired Terry Nelson as his campaign manager. "Nelson oversaw the Republican National Committee's independent expenditure operation, which produced the most notorious ad of the 2006 campaign. In it, a bare-shouldered white actress claimed that she had met the black Senate candidate Harold Ford at a Playboy party", Time informs us.
So, perhaps McCain might begin to see his beloved leftist media turn against him now that he is no longer a thorn in Bush's side. The Times, for their part, is ready to treat him as just another evil Republican. Watch for this to begin happening more.
Like Victor Frankenstein, the MSM stand ready to destroy their own creation.
Proving that Time Magazine never understood a single thing about John McCain, Time writer, Karen Tumulty, is all worried about the "cost" of McCain's purported run for the 2008 GOP nomination for the presidency.The head and sub-head lines alone are so filled with misconstructions, assumptions and laments that one doesn't have to read the rest of the story to know how far off they are in analysis.
Why It's Dangerous For the Maverick To Be the...Front Runner
John McCain was a straight-talking upstart in the 2000 presidential election. Now he's poised to be the G.O.P. favorite for 2008, but at what cost?
First of all, the "maverick" label is one the press created and drove McCain ever more toward with their fawning attention. This assumption of "front runner" now is also a figment of their imagination.
Then, they belie their supposed objectivity and reveal how much they loved the claimed maverick status of their hero, McCain, by claiming there now is a "cost" to be incurred with his attempt to get the '08 nomination. Tumulty's article reveals her bad feelings that he will have to try harder this time to court the base as opposed to imagining that the independent and moderate vote will catapult him past all comers in a GOP primary -- a woefully mistaken belief from the 2000 run that the press seems to have encouraged for McCain, an encouragement that doomed his candidacy.
They inflate his appeal from the 2000 campaign to a ridiculous extent with their "upstart" claims, too. McCain never had much of a chance amongst the base in 2000 with his entire campaign being a creation of the media. The last time the media tried to create a Republican candidate out of whole cloth it was Wendell Wilkie who faced Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.
Wilkie lost, too, just like McCain.
Now, Time is lambasting McCain's new slogan as one that doesn't "have quite the ring" of his earlier one. They also seem sad that a candidate running to get a Republican nomination will have to seem more like a Republican.
As a rallying cry. "Common sense conservatism" doesn't have quite the ring of "Straight Talk Express." But the new slogan on the website of John McCain's presidential exploratory committee--a slogan he manages to repeat at least three times in every speech he gives these days--tells you all you need to know about how different this presidential campaign will be from his last one. McCain '08 will be a bigger, more conventional operation--a tank, not a slingshot. The prevailing wisdom about McCain used to be that his bipartisan appeal would make him a sure bet in a presidential race--if only he could get past the Republican primary. But as more and more of the party establishment climb aboard a campaign that McCain has not yet even formally launched, it's starting to look as if the opposite may be true. By trying to become the perfect candidate for the primaries, McCain could be creating difficulties for himself in a general election.
I wonder if they ever lamented that a Democrat had to seem like a Democrat to get the nomination of the Democratic Party?
The article goes on and on about his "bad" views -- you know the ones, those conservative ones -- even quoting him as saying he is "more conservative than many of his fans believe him to be". No, he is more conservative than the media wanted him to be. If one looks at McCain's voting record, there could be little doubt that he stacks up as a pretty conservative Senator. It has always been such but the media turned away from this truth in favor of playing up his anti-Bush stances.
But, now without Bush around for the 2008 run, they are at long last setting out to bash McCain over HIS conservatism... yes, after they spent 8 years building him up as a "maverick". McCain will now see the fawning media turn hostile when they FINALLY start discussing his voting record, for sure.
But Time's report does help us see the hypocrisy in McCain's media stance and his voting record. His claims of "maverick" are at odds with many of his actual votes. Making his "straight talk" perfectly muddy, indistinct and filled with dissembling.
Still, McCain has no better chance of getting the 2008 nomination than he did the 2000 one. Even though his voting record is pretty good for the most part, he has spent the last 7 years hampering the Republican efforts in Congress, harming our national security, worsening our campaign finance laws, proving he hasn't a clue what the US Constitution means, putting the breaks on our judicial nominations and generally playing to the leftist media to get their slobbering approval. All things that will make him damaged goods to a Republican voter.
McCain will probably do worse than he did in 2000 because of his road blocking of the GOP agenda over the last 7 years, I'd bet.
Most amusingly, this article tied the supposed "racist" ad against Representative Bob Ford of Tennessee to McCain because McCain hired Terry Nelson as his campaign manager. "Nelson oversaw the Republican National Committee's independent expenditure operation, which produced the most notorious ad of the 2006 campaign. In it, a bare-shouldered white actress claimed that she had met the black Senate candidate Harold Ford at a Playboy party", Time informs us.
So, perhaps McCain might begin to see his beloved leftist media turn against him now that he is no longer a thorn in Bush's side. The Times, for their part, is ready to treat him as just another evil Republican. Watch for this to begin happening more.
Like Victor Frankenstein, the MSM stand ready to destroy their own creation.
Pelosi/Democrats ARE Bad for Security
Proving, once again, that Democrats just don't understand our security, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (Dem. Cal.), has chosen a guy that has no clue about what is going on to be the chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence over someone who at least is familiar with the subject.
House intelligence chair calls al Qaeda Shi'ite
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Is al Qaeda a Sunni organization, or Shi'ite?
The question proved nettlesome for Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, incoming Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
"Predominantly -- probably Shi'ite," he said in a recent interview with Congressional Quarterly, a periodical that covers political and legislative issues in Congress.
Unfortunately for Reyes, the al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden is comprehensively Sunni and subscribes to a form of Sunni Islam known for not tolerating theological deviation.
This fool hasn't the first idea of what is going on in the war on terror in general or Iraq specifically and HE is tapped to be the chair of the committee on intelligence? Where is he going to keep HIS intelligence, in a box? Because it SURE as heck ain't in his head!
We can also see that Pelosi will lead by indulging her petty hard feelings and feuds as opposed to striving for the best. That she will slight qualified people of her own party to spite them because she is in a snit over something.
A former border patrol agent and a congressional opponent of the Iraq war, the Texas congressman was chosen for the chief intelligence job by House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi.
She rejected the panel's top-ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of California, who has had strained relations Pelosi. Next in line in terms of seniority was Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, a former federal judge ousted from that post amid allegations of corruption.
What is the common refrain among leftists; that women are LESS prone to fighting and mean-spiritedness because of their softer, nurturing sides? Pelosi sure is doing a great job of disproving that leftist axiom.
One axiom she is NOT disproving is that Democrats are dangerous when it comes to national security. And picking a guy who doesn't know the first thing about current events is proof enough.
Advent Second Sunday
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Christians must strive to live a life of Christ-like humility, while living in the world.
Sunday's sermon at the North Stamford, Connecticut, Long Ridge Congregational Church was preached by the Rev. Dennis Reiter. His texts were Philippians 1:27 - 2:11; 4:2-3 and Acts 16:12.
Rev. Reiter noted that, as described in the passage from Acts, Philippi was the leading city of that district in Macedonia and, equally important, was a Roman colony. The latter made the Apostle Paul's preaching more dangerous than otherwise, as the citizens of Philippi were more than usually sensitive to any doctrine that Roman authorities might construe as subversive to Roman rule..................
Click HERE To Read On
Christians must strive to live a life of Christ-like humility, while living in the world.
Sunday's sermon at the North Stamford, Connecticut, Long Ridge Congregational Church was preached by the Rev. Dennis Reiter. His texts were Philippians 1:27 - 2:11; 4:2-3 and Acts 16:12.
Rev. Reiter noted that, as described in the passage from Acts, Philippi was the leading city of that district in Macedonia and, equally important, was a Roman colony. The latter made the Apostle Paul's preaching more dangerous than otherwise, as the citizens of Philippi were more than usually sensitive to any doctrine that Roman authorities might construe as subversive to Roman rule..................
Click HERE To Read On
Monday, December 11, 2006
An ACLU Nativity Scene - No Jesus, But a 'Gary and Joseph' With Communist 'Wise men'
-By Warner Todd Huston
I am sending out a salute for the creativity and wry sense of humor displayed by the Young Conservatives at the University of Texas for their spoof of the ACLU's war on Christmas.
As the ACLU has donned their crusader's dunce caps, the Young Conservatives have set to skewer them on a lance of parody revealing the ACLU's absurdity with absurdity in reply.
Dubbing the ACLU the Anti-Christmas Lawyers Unit, the YC of the U of Texas have created a nativity scene replete with the favored symbols of the left to replace the traditional figures of Biblical fare.
As the YC's press release explains:
Classic! AND funny.
To get serious, the YC also discussed the more meaningful message in their parody of the ACLU's attack on American tradition, values and religion.
Spot on, Mr. Wyly and good on ya.
This is a great protest of the ACLU's anti-Americanism and I hope to see this a tradition down at the U of Texas, displayed for as long as the communist inspired ACLU attacks our morals and traditions and as long as the ACLU continues their attempts to destroy the culture of the United States.
I am sending out a salute for the creativity and wry sense of humor displayed by the Young Conservatives at the University of Texas for their spoof of the ACLU's war on Christmas.As the ACLU has donned their crusader's dunce caps, the Young Conservatives have set to skewer them on a lance of parody revealing the ACLU's absurdity with absurdity in reply.
Dubbing the ACLU the Anti-Christmas Lawyers Unit, the YC of the U of Texas have created a nativity scene replete with the favored symbols of the left to replace the traditional figures of Biblical fare.
As the YC's press release explains:
“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage, and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” said Chairman Tony McDonald. “The three Wise Men are Lenin, Marx, and Stalin because the founders of the ACLU were strident supporters of Soviet style Communism. The whole scene is a tongue-in-cheek way of showing the many ways that the ACLU and the far left are out of touch with the values of mainstream America.”...The scene will also display a terrorist shepherd and an angel in the form of Nancy Pelosi.
Classic! AND funny.
To get serious, the YC also discussed the more meaningful message in their parody of the ACLU's attack on American tradition, values and religion.
“The ACLU and other left-wing extremist groups are working diligently to destroy American’s rights to the free expression of religion,” said Executive Director Joseph Wyly. “We’ve already seen in Chicago an attempt to censor the nativity by a city government this week. It’s just more evidence that there is a War on Christmas being waged by the far-left in this country.”
Spot on, Mr. Wyly and good on ya.
This is a great protest of the ACLU's anti-Americanism and I hope to see this a tradition down at the U of Texas, displayed for as long as the communist inspired ACLU attacks our morals and traditions and as long as the ACLU continues their attempts to destroy the culture of the United States.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Senator Durbin, Giving Welfare to Lawyers
-By Warner Todd Huston
It was news for one day in Chicago, the biggest city in Senator Dick Durbin’s home state. Since then, no one seems to have noticed this absurd bill being pushed by Senator Dick Durbin that would give away Federal welfare money to young lawyers.
Of course, Durbin isn’t calling it welfare. He is calling it "debt relief". It sounds helpful and innocuous doesn’t it? Relief is a nice thing, right?
On November 27th, the Chicago Sun-Times tried to soft sell the proposal as a way to help "people with over $100,000 debt" get "relief".
Gosh that is an awful lot of money to be saddled with, eh?
Yes, it is “amazing”, all right.
The bill, called the Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act, intends to give away $10,000 (capped at $60,000) of Federal money a year to people who will promise to commit to three years of service in the ranks of a state’s public defender’s offices.
The Sun-Time’s story is filled with pity-party stories about how all these young lawyers seem to be somehow unfairly burdened with such high tuition debt for so many years after they finish their schooling.
I am heart broken for people who, in Durbin’s home state, make an average salary of $80,000 a year at the law.
Let’s contrast that with the average yearly salaries of some other members of the Durbin’s state.
School Bus Driver : $25,000 a year
School Teacher: $38,000 a year
Preacher or Minister: $40,000 a year.
Printer: $45,000 a year
Police Officer: $55,000 a year
Registered Nurse: $55,000 a year
Plumber: $79,000 a year
Tell me Senator Durbin, is the debt that these people incur training themselves for their careers any less worthy of your so-called debt relief than that of a lawyer? Are the people who undertake these other necessary and noble careers less deserving of your “help”?
And, it must be pointed out that a lawyer is far more able to pay their tuition loans than the people who struggle to succeed in the professions I noted above.
Obviously a young, would-be lawyer knows full well what the debt that they incur will be, just as everyone else does. They elect to purse their career choice voluntarily, fully understanding the road they must travel to get there.
So, why all this feeling sorry for people who are on a life track to make more money than most people ever will? Why should we fall all over ourselves to give away our tax dollars to these strata of people?
Talk about welfare to the rich! I thought Democrats pretended to care about the "little people" and were the bulwark against the depredations of the evil rich?
Yet, now we have one of the most partisan, mud slingers in Congress, a man who is supposed to represent the best the more caring Democrats have to offer, giving away Federal money to the rich?
How can this be described most fittingly?
One word…
Hypocrisy.
Certainly this supposed relief is welcome news to certain people.
I am sure.
Right now the bill is stalled but it had passed the judiciary committee with the loving help of committee Chair, Arlen Spector. And, Democrats are hopeful that the new Congress will be more receptive to their welfare for the rich.
It amazes me that anyone should propose to steal the People’s tax money to enrich those who will become richer than most of their fellow citizens.
I hope Durbin’s sop to the richest Americans is stopped in it’s tracks.
Contact your Senator and say NO to welfare for rich lawyers.
It was news for one day in Chicago, the biggest city in Senator Dick Durbin’s home state. Since then, no one seems to have noticed this absurd bill being pushed by Senator Dick Durbin that would give away Federal welfare money to young lawyers.
Of course, Durbin isn’t calling it welfare. He is calling it "debt relief". It sounds helpful and innocuous doesn’t it? Relief is a nice thing, right?
On November 27th, the Chicago Sun-Times tried to soft sell the proposal as a way to help "people with over $100,000 debt" get "relief".
Gosh that is an awful lot of money to be saddled with, eh?
Debt relief may be in sight for lawyers
For prosecutors and public defenders drowning in debt, help might soon be on the way.
Since 2003, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has been pushing legislation that would grant student loan relief to public sector lawyers in the criminal justice system. With the Democrats in control of Congress, Durbin plans to reintroduce his bill early next year. Some hope it finally has a chance of passing.
"It's the defining issue of this era" for prosecutors, said Bernie Murray, chief of criminal prosecutions for the Cook County state's attorney's office. "The number of people with over $100,000 in debt is amazing."
Yes, it is “amazing”, all right.
The bill, called the Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act, intends to give away $10,000 (capped at $60,000) of Federal money a year to people who will promise to commit to three years of service in the ranks of a state’s public defender’s offices.
The Sun-Time’s story is filled with pity-party stories about how all these young lawyers seem to be somehow unfairly burdened with such high tuition debt for so many years after they finish their schooling.
I am heart broken for people who, in Durbin’s home state, make an average salary of $80,000 a year at the law.
Let’s contrast that with the average yearly salaries of some other members of the Durbin’s state.
School Bus Driver : $25,000 a year
School Teacher: $38,000 a year
Preacher or Minister: $40,000 a year.
Printer: $45,000 a year
Police Officer: $55,000 a year
Registered Nurse: $55,000 a year
Plumber: $79,000 a year
Tell me Senator Durbin, is the debt that these people incur training themselves for their careers any less worthy of your so-called debt relief than that of a lawyer? Are the people who undertake these other necessary and noble careers less deserving of your “help”?
And, it must be pointed out that a lawyer is far more able to pay their tuition loans than the people who struggle to succeed in the professions I noted above.
Obviously a young, would-be lawyer knows full well what the debt that they incur will be, just as everyone else does. They elect to purse their career choice voluntarily, fully understanding the road they must travel to get there.
So, why all this feeling sorry for people who are on a life track to make more money than most people ever will? Why should we fall all over ourselves to give away our tax dollars to these strata of people?
Talk about welfare to the rich! I thought Democrats pretended to care about the "little people" and were the bulwark against the depredations of the evil rich?
Yet, now we have one of the most partisan, mud slingers in Congress, a man who is supposed to represent the best the more caring Democrats have to offer, giving away Federal money to the rich?
How can this be described most fittingly?
One word…
Hypocrisy.
Certainly this supposed relief is welcome news to certain people.
Durbin, Murray said, "is a liberal guy, so a lot of prosecutors don't like him. But he's my hero. "
I am sure.
Right now the bill is stalled but it had passed the judiciary committee with the loving help of committee Chair, Arlen Spector. And, Democrats are hopeful that the new Congress will be more receptive to their welfare for the rich.
"We're hoping now with the change of leadership in the Senate, we can get this enacted, " said Durbin, who will be the assistant majority leader come January. "It's the highest priority. "
It amazes me that anyone should propose to steal the People’s tax money to enrich those who will become richer than most of their fellow citizens.
I hope Durbin’s sop to the richest Americans is stopped in it’s tracks.
Contact your Senator and say NO to welfare for rich lawyers.
Pie-in-the-Sky Recommendations
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Two of the basic recommendations in the Iraqi Study Group Report are utterly unrealistic. In each case the Study Group, in typical liberal-socialist fashion, bases its proposals upon the theoretical assumption that everyone sees the world as they do.
First, stating that the war in Iraq cannot be won without unified support here in the United States, the Study Group recommends that appropriate steps be taken to gain support from those opposed to the war.
One might as well have called for Hitler's support of the Allies' D-Day invasion in World War II. We are engaged in a cultural civil war in the United States in which fundamental compromise is impossible. Liberal Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a jihad against our founding Judeo-Christian principles, a jihad in which there is no middle ground.................
Click HERE To Read On
Two of the basic recommendations in the Iraqi Study Group Report are utterly unrealistic. In each case the Study Group, in typical liberal-socialist fashion, bases its proposals upon the theoretical assumption that everyone sees the world as they do.
First, stating that the war in Iraq cannot be won without unified support here in the United States, the Study Group recommends that appropriate steps be taken to gain support from those opposed to the war.
One might as well have called for Hitler's support of the Allies' D-Day invasion in World War II. We are engaged in a cultural civil war in the United States in which fundamental compromise is impossible. Liberal Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a jihad against our founding Judeo-Christian principles, a jihad in which there is no middle ground.................
Click HERE To Read On
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Wash.Post: 'Reporting' Through Emotions With Bush's Iraq Policy
-By Warner Todd Huston
How is it journalism is supposed to go: "Who, What, Where, When"?
Isn't that the purported standard for "reporting" on a story? So, should that be true, the just-the-facts-ma'am style of reporting, informing the reader so that he may decide, is obviously as rare as a white Unicorn appearing every 13th month on a blue moon in the newsroom of the Washington Post -- or the Washington comPost as it is lovingly referred to by so many.
Today's ridiculously biased and overly emotive "report" took two people to pen, apparently. Robin Wright and Peter Baker held each other's hands and cried their way through their latest Bush slapping they titled "Bush gropes for new Iraq plan".
Even the headline screams girly "feelings" as opposed to just the facts. Who likes to be groaped, anyway, Robin? Kicking off the report we are treated to overly emotive phrases fit only for an editorial page as opposed to a reporting of facts that one should expect in the news section... and need we say that all the emotions are negative? Since the report is talking about Bush's Iraq policy, could it be any other way for good little robotic denizens of the MSM enclave in Washington?
Wright and Baker did yeoman's work making Bush seem harried, pushed, unsure and unable. George Sorros must be cutting the pair a nice fat check.
Let us review some of their novelist's flourish. (I will helpfully place the fun in bold type)
So far, a lot of suppositions and this is just the first few paragraphs. Surely no "report" of the facts could contain "groping", "rushing", and "brushing off"? These are not "facts" but emotions, not real occurrences but the writer's guess on how Administration officials are approaching their work on the policies to be unveiled.
Next we get those old fashioned "unnamed sources" to assure us that everything is falling apart inside the White House.
"Too sensitive", eh? Not so "sensitive" that they couldn't run to a hostile press to leak it, I see. Hence why we shouldn't believe it.
Anyway, after the first half of the story poisoned with the "reporter's" feelings, they finally get to a few of the facts. But, they end with a sly, but telling tidbit...
The "stature of the commission"? Who has more stature than a president when setting a president's policy? The Iraq Surrender Group has no more "stature" than the president except in the minds of the MSM who NEVER considered him "legitimate" in the beginning.
So, I have decided to adopt the Wright/Baker style to "report" on their "report". Let's see if we can be as professional as our journalistic dynamic duo? Who knows, maybe we might find ourselves hired by a Pulitzer winning Paper someday… or the Washington Post might have an opening, too.
Hmmm.
Maybe Robin Wright and Peter Baker of the Washington Post are right? It's so rewarding to be a "reporter".
Very, very rewarding.
How is it journalism is supposed to go: "Who, What, Where, When"?
Isn't that the purported standard for "reporting" on a story? So, should that be true, the just-the-facts-ma'am style of reporting, informing the reader so that he may decide, is obviously as rare as a white Unicorn appearing every 13th month on a blue moon in the newsroom of the Washington Post -- or the Washington comPost as it is lovingly referred to by so many.
Today's ridiculously biased and overly emotive "report" took two people to pen, apparently. Robin Wright and Peter Baker held each other's hands and cried their way through their latest Bush slapping they titled "Bush gropes for new Iraq plan".
Even the headline screams girly "feelings" as opposed to just the facts. Who likes to be groaped, anyway, Robin? Kicking off the report we are treated to overly emotive phrases fit only for an editorial page as opposed to a reporting of facts that one should expect in the news section... and need we say that all the emotions are negative? Since the report is talking about Bush's Iraq policy, could it be any other way for good little robotic denizens of the MSM enclave in Washington?
Wright and Baker did yeoman's work making Bush seem harried, pushed, unsure and unable. George Sorros must be cutting the pair a nice fat check.
Let us review some of their novelist's flourish. (I will helpfully place the fun in bold type)
-As pressure mounts for a change of course in Iraq, the Bush administration is groping for a viable new strategy for the president to unveil by Christmas...
-As President Bush and his advisers rush to complete their crash review and craft a new formula in the next two weeks...
-The White House denied trying to brush off the study group's report and said those recommendations are being considered alongside internal reviews.
So far, a lot of suppositions and this is just the first few paragraphs. Surely no "report" of the facts could contain "groping", "rushing", and "brushing off"? These are not "facts" but emotions, not real occurrences but the writer's guess on how Administration officials are approaching their work on the policies to be unveiled.
Next we get those old fashioned "unnamed sources" to assure us that everything is falling apart inside the White House.
Sources familiar with the deliberations describe fatigue, frustration and a growing desire to disengage from Iraq. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the deliberations.
"Too sensitive", eh? Not so "sensitive" that they couldn't run to a hostile press to leak it, I see. Hence why we shouldn't believe it.
Anyway, after the first half of the story poisoned with the "reporter's" feelings, they finally get to a few of the facts. But, they end with a sly, but telling tidbit...
But the stature of commission members means that the White House will have to justify any deviations from their plan. "The onus will be on us to explain why we are doing something they recommended or why not," the official said. "They can't just be jettisoned. They have to be dealt with."
The "stature of the commission"? Who has more stature than a president when setting a president's policy? The Iraq Surrender Group has no more "stature" than the president except in the minds of the MSM who NEVER considered him "legitimate" in the beginning.
So, I have decided to adopt the Wright/Baker style to "report" on their "report". Let's see if we can be as professional as our journalistic dynamic duo? Who knows, maybe we might find ourselves hired by a Pulitzer winning Paper someday… or the Washington Post might have an opening, too.
Wright, Baker Struggle to Understand Iraq
By Warner Todd Huston
Washington Prost
Washington Post reporters Robin Wright and Peter Baker struggled to understand president Bush's deliberations on his new policies in Iraq today. Sources say that, as the two rushed to confer on their report to meet their deadline, that they were found groping for a way to sound informed while also edgy and relevant.
While they underwent a crash study of the situation in Iraq, learning all sorts of hard to pronounce Muslim names, the two found it easier to ignore Iraq entirely and report only on what the ISG report says. The Washington Post reporters denied trying to brush off any deeper understanding of what is really happening in Iraq to focus only on the domestic concerns of getting rid of president Bush.
The stature of the Washington Post, however, means that readers will have a harder time justifying any criticism of their reporting. "They can't just scoff at us", an unnamed reporter said. "We go to important cocktail parties, after all."
Hmmm.
Maybe Robin Wright and Peter Baker of the Washington Post are right? It's so rewarding to be a "reporter".
Very, very rewarding.
THE RISE OF THE 'ANTI-JIHADISTS'
- By Dave Huntwork
The Internet has become a favored propaganda tool for Islamists, terrorists and al-Qaeda types the world over. It is used to distribute their videos, release their fatwa's, troll for recruits, shore up their base, coordinate their activities and influence the mainstream media. It has also given birth to a whole class of 'anti-jihadists' who now wage their own propaganda war of commentary, analysis, and occasional mockery using websites and blogs as their personal weapons in the Terror Wars. The internet jihadist has now been matched by the keyboard crusader.
Some present themselves as scholarly, analytical, 'think tank' type websites. Others are more confrontational with jihad-mocking movies and Mohammed cartoon contests. But what they all share in common is a mission to expose fundamentalist Islam, and the terror it inspires, as an enemy of the West that must be faced and fought without mercy or hesitation. The Anti-Jihadists have emerged on the web with a vengeance and have joined the blogosphere wars in defense of Western Civilization.................
Click HERE To Read On
The Internet has become a favored propaganda tool for Islamists, terrorists and al-Qaeda types the world over. It is used to distribute their videos, release their fatwa's, troll for recruits, shore up their base, coordinate their activities and influence the mainstream media. It has also given birth to a whole class of 'anti-jihadists' who now wage their own propaganda war of commentary, analysis, and occasional mockery using websites and blogs as their personal weapons in the Terror Wars. The internet jihadist has now been matched by the keyboard crusader.
Some present themselves as scholarly, analytical, 'think tank' type websites. Others are more confrontational with jihad-mocking movies and Mohammed cartoon contests. But what they all share in common is a mission to expose fundamentalist Islam, and the terror it inspires, as an enemy of the West that must be faced and fought without mercy or hesitation. The Anti-Jihadists have emerged on the web with a vengeance and have joined the blogosphere wars in defense of Western Civilization.................
Click HERE To Read On
Friday, December 08, 2006
Why I Just Left the Illinois Republican Party
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Illinois Republican Party has finally lost me as an "official" member. One final act has pushed me out the door. As of this month, the Illinois GOP has decided, in its benevolent omnipotence, that Party honchos … and only they … may decide who may use the appellation "Republican" in this great state of ours.
On their official state website, the Illinois GOP has issued an edict with all the flavor of "the law" and as much haughtiness as they can muster. It lacks only a link to the official Party title request form and phone numbers to call in case you spot a person calling themselves "Republican" who are not "real" or "authorized" Party members.
I can see it now: children will be encouraged to call Party officials in case they feel their parents aren’t "authorized" Republicans. Neighbors will make discreet phone calls to their local precinct officer to let them know that an "unofficial" Republican lurks nearby and that official, in turn, will send his goon squad to cart off the evildoer.
It all sounds rather nefarious.
The first paragraph of this new edict reads as follows:
Of course, in this country of free speech and exchange of ideas, any individual can define himself as he sees himself. Organizations can do the same. However, a difference exists between official and unofficial definitions. And, in Illinois, the use of "Republican" in the name of an organization and in the official statements attributed to the organization, its officers, and its members is allowed with the approval of the officially elected Republican committee of responsibility in the political district the organization operates.
"Of course, in this country", they say, "… any individual can define himself as he sees himself"? Well, awfully kind of ya, friends. I mean, allowing us to our consciences like that is quite mature and civilized, doncha know? But, what follows seems to make the lie to that allowance of conscience.
Of course, it is without question and perfectly reasonable that the Party may determine who officially represents said Party at the polls. That is, after all, why they are in the positions of Party direction and leadership. But, to say that they and only they have the power to dispense the tag "Republican" and may determine who is allowed to use the name is nothing short of Stalinist.
As they say in the movies, here is the money shot; The last sentence of this royal proclamation says you are not allowed to be an "authorized" Republican unless you announce "public support for all elected Republican committee members".
This is no mere arrogance on their part, though. The reason that this warning has been made is because Chairman Andy McKenna and his cadre of soulless Party officials are doing their best to secure their slipping grasp on Party power. Not because they have a viable agenda, but because power is simply all they have. The GOP natives are restless in the face of the emptiness they perceive in their leaders, but apparently those leaders won’t go down without a fight. The old guard is circling the wagons to prevent insurgents with new ideas from nosing in. They are feeling threatened.
And as the rank and file begin to look to others to take the banner forward, the cowardly generals who have lead us to so many defeats attempt to keep control of the troops even as the junior officers fall in battle by the fistfuls. Like the incompetent French General Staff of WWI, these ostensible Party leaders are willing to destroy everyone around them just to keep their own positions assured as they walk whistling past the graveyard self-satisfied that they are still in charge.
The result is that Illinois GOP lies dyeing. No wonder the National Party has pretty much ignored them for the last 7 years.
Now, unless Chairman McKenna and people like Bob Kjellander step down and make room for people with ideas, I can no longer support them. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I have not left the Illinois GOP, the Illinois GOP has left me. (I have, by the way, worked for some candidates, briefly belonged to a GOP precinct organization and pounded the pavement for Senator Steve Rauschenberger, so I am no mere bystander here.)
Now, this isn’t a lone gaffe by the Illinois GOP or a knee jerk reaction from me, by any means. This is the culmination, rather, of decades of misdirection, failed leadership and outright corruption by this Party. So, it is no sudden decision by me, to be sure. I have been struggling with this Party for several years, at least since the nomination of George Ryan for Governor in 1999.
Ordinarily, I think of myself as a Party loyalist, preferring to work from within than without. I usually say to conservatives, that the only way to get conservative ideas into action is to stay seated firmly at the table where our ideas can have some impact. Standing on the outside looking in does not help get anything done. Half a loaf, as they say, is better than none.
However, the time has long since passed where I can sit idly by and support this state’s Republican Party. The graft, corruption, fiscal irresponsibility, ignorance of the law, inability to prevent liberal Democrats from steamrolling across the state, and laxity in creating a dynamic Party platform has become intolerable. Further, the Party’s constant inability to pick sensible candidates and work together on reform and a legislative agenda for this state is unfathomable. And, worse, their complete lack of any ideological position other than seeking power just for power’s sake makes them a soulless entity.
Even in the face of the most corrupt crop of Illinois Democrats to come to power in decades under Blagojevich and Kid Daley, this party cannot pull out a win because they truly offer no reason for voters to chose them over Democrats.
And now they have decided to hand out the name "Republican" as if they are handing out royal titles? Are we to bow before Party Chairman McKenna so that he may tap our shoulders delicately with his official GOP scepter to bestow upon us our title as "Republican"?
Do I have to buy a new suit for this ceremony?
Of course, I realize that I am just one man. So what if I re-register as an independent? Why should big powerful guys like Kjellander and McKenna care if little old me leaves their graft ridden organization? The only reason is, that if a Party loyalist like me is finally fed up, there must be millions just like me who left already -- whether actually or by their indifference. I believe I am no harbinger of the future, but am firmly in the middle of the on coming wave.
The Illinois GOP is a sick organization that is being confined to its deathbed by incompetent physicians who are applying leeches and bleeding it out, while claiming to have only its best interests at heart.
So, I am going to re-register as an independent, dropping my "unauthorized" tag of Republican. This commoner is not rich enough to buy his way into this State Republican Party and is not suitable for royalty. Of course, I cannot become a Democrat, to be sure. I do have principles, after all, and that is what this is all about.
I'd like to say it's been great knowing you, Illinois GOP, but I am at a loss to know exactly what it is you ever did for me.
A History of Corruption
I am not a native Illinoisan having been born in the Buckeye State in the Queen City, Cincinnati, Ohio, so I cannot lay claim that the Land of Lincoln is my land of birth. But, it is my home and has been since 1978, so I can lay claim to a long time relationship with the state and with its leading city, Chicago to who’s southern suburb I moved during Carter’s disastrous presidency.
When I got here, it was a Republican stronghold for the most part. Not Chicago, of course, King Daley and his mob bosses having successful sewn that up for the Democrats since the 1950s, but the state itself had a strong Republican Party.
As I learned about this organization, though, I began to lose my satisfaction with how the Illinois GOP operated here. As Reagan came to office and went and as Newt Gingrich revived the Republican Party in 1994 I realized that the Illinois GOP was not a Party of ideas, but one of mere power. It just exists because it does run entirely on an insider's network and often interchangeable with the state's Democratic Party operatives.
There were a few bright spots like the legislature's “fab five”. This was a group of five conservative Illinois state senators first elected in 1992 that tried hard to interject some Conservatives principles into the Illinois GOP. The group included Sen. Patrick O'Malley of Palos Park, Sen. Steve Rauschenberger of Elgin, Sen. Dave Syverson of Rockford, Sen. Chris Lauzen of Aurora, and Peter Fitzgerald of Inverness, who later became a U.S. Senator. (only Syverson and Lauzen still serve in Ill. Government)
But, such men of principle are far and few between in the Illinois GOP, I came to discover. No, this party was merely a power based good-old boy’s network, the proof of which was the 1999 nomination of George Ryan for the office of Governor. Ryan, then the Secretary of State, was one of the most corrupt officials in the Party and was nominated not because he was a good candidate, but just because it was "his turn" and he had greased enough palms to get it.
Ryan, it turned out, would be the first (and so far only) Republican I could not vote for when it came time to pull that lever. I ended up voting for the Democrat that year (former state Senator Glenn Poshard) who seemed far more like a Republican than the state Party’s candidate, Ryan.
Since then the Party has gotten worse. The continuing Federal probes show that Republican officials and operatives have worked their sweetheart deals with corrupt Democratic party officials to the point where they are utterly indistinguishable one from the other.
And, on top of that, the Party has steadily lost offices state wide since 1999 to Democrats who are often times ether under indictment or surrounded by friends who are.
Now that the GOP has taken a stumble nation wide, this is the perfect opportunity to revitalize the Illinois Party with new blood, new ideas. Instead of doing that, Party officials are doing their level best to stifle new ideas and keep new people from receiving the blessing of Party officials.
This Party is moribund. And I have become despondent to its renewed health unless drastic measures are taken.
Mr. Claus goes to Washington
- By Michael M. Bates
Prancer could tell there was trouble. Santa had been downing hot cocoas all afternoon. Straight.
The reindeer asked the jolly elf if there were a problem. Santa looked down at the huge pile of letters on his desk. That was clearly the trouble.
"When Britney wrote me asking for underwear, I thought I'd seen everything. Not that she intended to use it, she just wanted it handy in case she has to go to a hospital. But look at the rest of these," Santa said.
Prancer glanced at the top one, from Teddy Kennedy. "Dear Santa, I already have enough toys. So all I want for Christmas is for you to not fly your polluting sleigh over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of my pet interests. You know how much I value the wild life."
"Well, at least he's not asking for another case of Chivas Regal and an 18-year-old Korean orphan to adopt like he usually does," said Santa........................................
Click HERE To Read On
Prancer could tell there was trouble. Santa had been downing hot cocoas all afternoon. Straight.
The reindeer asked the jolly elf if there were a problem. Santa looked down at the huge pile of letters on his desk. That was clearly the trouble.
"When Britney wrote me asking for underwear, I thought I'd seen everything. Not that she intended to use it, she just wanted it handy in case she has to go to a hospital. But look at the rest of these," Santa said.
Prancer glanced at the top one, from Teddy Kennedy. "Dear Santa, I already have enough toys. So all I want for Christmas is for you to not fly your polluting sleigh over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of my pet interests. You know how much I value the wild life."
"Well, at least he's not asking for another case of Chivas Regal and an 18-year-old Korean orphan to adopt like he usually does," said Santa........................................
Click HERE To Read On
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wash.Post: More South Bashing - Racist and Pining for Slavery
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is amusing to me that the South was always considered by Democrats as "the people", the salt of the Earth, and the so-called rank and file in the "solid South" when the they had a lock on their votes from 1820 all the way until 1980. The South was the all-American region and the Democrats loved them dearly. Yes, for over 160 years the Democrats counted the Southern states as stalwarts and they loved them like brothers. But, now that the Southern states more often vote GOP they are a "problem" and are filled with Bible brainwashed, racists who pine for a return to slavery as far as the left is concerned.
At least, so says Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post today in a screed titled "The GOP's Southern Exposure".
First he begins with a ham-handed attempt to intimate that the GOP sounding "tolerant" is obviously just a ploy and is really a lie at heart.
Of course, the GOP "blew" it all by running "racist ads against Harold Ford", as far as Meyerson is concerned... even though neither he nor anyone else can REALLY say exactly what was racist about the ad to which he refers.
After that little jab, Meyerson helpfully explains to us what the "southern problem" is and goes on from there with a laundry list of harangues and slanders against every voter south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Here is a nice compilation of the name calling...
Southerners are:
-knee-jerk militaristic
-anti-scientific
-dogmatically religious
-culturally, sexually and racially phobic
That they are so stupid as to have:
-blocked stem cell research
-disparaged nonmilitary statecraft
-exalted executive wartime power over constitutional niceties
-campaigned repeatedly against gay rights
-thrown public money at conservative churches and investigated the tax status of liberal ones
No, this is not my paraphrasing of what Meyerson wrote. These are DIRECT quotes.
Naturally, Meyerson imagines his leftist policies are but facts of a civilized life and these Southerners are just too much the knuckle-draggaing, troglodyte to "get it".
And, just as naturally for this more civilized and tolerant Washington Post polemicist, it's all Wal-Mart's fault!
Meyerson is against free enterprise, obviously.
And now the capper... Southerners (because of Wal-Mart) want slavery back.
What a creep this guy is! And a complete IDIOT where it concerns reading history, too. The South did not seek to "expand" slavery outside its region -- except to expect to take what they considered their Constitutionally legal property into the western territories. The South did not try to push slavery on Northern states the way Meyerson imagines Wal-Mart is doing now. Perhaps Meyerson would pick up a book or two he'd come to find that Northern business interests had little problem with profiting from Southern slavery even while it was going away in THEIR backyards. Nor did they have a problem with child labor, slum tenements, and sweat shops filled with workers who were chained to their machines for 16 hour days in their OWN areas of the country?
These poor, Northern wage-slaves -- as they came to be known -- was one of the things that Southerners pointed to insisting that Northerners were hypocrites over. At least Southern slave owners, as their argument went, clothed, fed, gave medical attention to and housed their slaves whereas the Northern manufactories worked their "slaves" to death and kicked them out the door of the work-shop to feebly fend for themselves.
Did the South somehow force wage-slavery upon the North in the 1840s and later?
Hardly. The North was perfectly capable of handling their own region, thank you very much.
It is amusing to me that the South was always considered by Democrats as "the people", the salt of the Earth, and the so-called rank and file in the "solid South" when the they had a lock on their votes from 1820 all the way until 1980. The South was the all-American region and the Democrats loved them dearly. Yes, for over 160 years the Democrats counted the Southern states as stalwarts and they loved them like brothers. But, now that the Southern states more often vote GOP they are a "problem" and are filled with Bible brainwashed, racists who pine for a return to slavery as far as the left is concerned.At least, so says Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post today in a screed titled "The GOP's Southern Exposure".
First he begins with a ham-handed attempt to intimate that the GOP sounding "tolerant" is obviously just a ploy and is really a lie at heart.
You've seen the numbers and understand that America is growing steadily less white. You try to push your party, the Grand Old Party, ahead of this curve by taking a tolerant stance on immigration and making common cause with some black churches.
Of course, the GOP "blew" it all by running "racist ads against Harold Ford", as far as Meyerson is concerned... even though neither he nor anyone else can REALLY say exactly what was racist about the ad to which he refers.
After that little jab, Meyerson helpfully explains to us what the "southern problem" is and goes on from there with a laundry list of harangues and slanders against every voter south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Here is a nice compilation of the name calling...
Southerners are:
-knee-jerk militaristic
-anti-scientific
-dogmatically religious
-culturally, sexually and racially phobic
That they are so stupid as to have:
-blocked stem cell research
-disparaged nonmilitary statecraft
-exalted executive wartime power over constitutional niceties
-campaigned repeatedly against gay rights
-thrown public money at conservative churches and investigated the tax status of liberal ones
No, this is not my paraphrasing of what Meyerson wrote. These are DIRECT quotes.
Naturally, Meyerson imagines his leftist policies are but facts of a civilized life and these Southerners are just too much the knuckle-draggaing, troglodyte to "get it".
And, just as naturally for this more civilized and tolerant Washington Post polemicist, it's all Wal-Mart's fault!
Wal-Mart's practice, for instance, of offering low wages and no benefits to its employees begins in the rural South, where it's no deviation from the norm. Only when Wal-Mart expands this practice to the metropolises of the North and West, threatening the living standards of unionized retail workers, does it encounter roadblocks, usually statutory, to its entry into new markets.
Meyerson is against free enterprise, obviously.
And now the capper... Southerners (because of Wal-Mart) want slavery back.
So: A Southern low-wage labor system is cruising along until it seeks to expand outside its region and meets fierce opposition from higher-paid workers in the North. Does that suggest any earlier episode in American history?
What a creep this guy is! And a complete IDIOT where it concerns reading history, too. The South did not seek to "expand" slavery outside its region -- except to expect to take what they considered their Constitutionally legal property into the western territories. The South did not try to push slavery on Northern states the way Meyerson imagines Wal-Mart is doing now. Perhaps Meyerson would pick up a book or two he'd come to find that Northern business interests had little problem with profiting from Southern slavery even while it was going away in THEIR backyards. Nor did they have a problem with child labor, slum tenements, and sweat shops filled with workers who were chained to their machines for 16 hour days in their OWN areas of the country?
These poor, Northern wage-slaves -- as they came to be known -- was one of the things that Southerners pointed to insisting that Northerners were hypocrites over. At least Southern slave owners, as their argument went, clothed, fed, gave medical attention to and housed their slaves whereas the Northern manufactories worked their "slaves" to death and kicked them out the door of the work-shop to feebly fend for themselves.
Did the South somehow force wage-slavery upon the North in the 1840s and later?
Hardly. The North was perfectly capable of handling their own region, thank you very much.
Apparently John Kerry's "nuance" never made it to the Washington Post where cheap shot polemics is all that is required to rank as high-minded political commentary, eh?
Still, I'd accept his proclamations of how the South wanted slavery back if he could but substantiate this claim with a quote or two from any Republican Southern politician -- either state OR Federal -- or any conservative thinker or writer in the South?
He might, though, want to check in with his new Senator from Virginia on this subject. Senator Jim "backturner" Webb is all about re-empowering his "cracker" culture and has written extensively about how the Southern white should take his country back.
In fact, Webb is about the only high profile guy that stands for the purportedly "racist" things that Meyerson seems to hate so much and Webb claims to be a Democrat!
Ah, but there is that "southern problem", again, I suppose.
Chalk Myerson up as a provincial with a penchant for wild-eyed theorizing and a complete lack of historical education. Of course, THAT is what makes him a good leftist.
Carter Aide Calls Jimmah’s Book ‘Filled With Errors’
-By Warner Todd Huston
All is not well in peanut land…
Aide: Jimmy Carter 'Invented Segments' for Book
Finally, someone with guts that is close to this anti-Semite, self-loathing, anti-American who lamentably once sat at the head of our government.
But, wait. The humor is not over yet…
Jimmah… so what? What does his absence from your service have to do with the accusation that your book is CRAP?
So far, only members of Hezbullah seem to think that Jimmah’s book is a good one, though. So, Jimmah is not in good company.
But, is he ever?
All is not well in peanut land…
Aide: Jimmy Carter 'Invented Segments' for Book
A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors.
Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others.
Finally, someone with guts that is close to this anti-Semite, self-loathing, anti-American who lamentably once sat at the head of our government.
But, wait. The humor is not over yet…
Carter issued a brief statement saying that Stein had not been actively involved with the center for more than 12 years and was not involved with the new book. Carter did not directly address Stein's allegations.
Jimmah… so what? What does his absence from your service have to do with the accusation that your book is CRAP?
So far, only members of Hezbullah seem to think that Jimmah’s book is a good one, though. So, Jimmah is not in good company.
But, is he ever?
Foreign Policy Realism
- By Thomas E. Brewton
It is said that diplomats must be prepared to negotiate with the Devil, which raises the question whether anything can be gained by negotiating with pure evil. Is it realism to assume that the Devil can be made less than evil?
Release of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report puts the doctrine of foreign policy realism in the middle of the table. One implication of that doctrine is that values should play no role in foreign policy; only material national interests deserve consideration.
Yet liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats have been touting the forthcoming report (predictably leaked and already widely discussed by the New York Times) as a counter to the administration's policy. How does diplomatic realism square with the endless barrages of criticism from liberals that the Bush doctrine of preemptive action has squandered the United States's moral capital with the rest of the world?................
Click HERE To Read On
It is said that diplomats must be prepared to negotiate with the Devil, which raises the question whether anything can be gained by negotiating with pure evil. Is it realism to assume that the Devil can be made less than evil?
Release of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report puts the doctrine of foreign policy realism in the middle of the table. One implication of that doctrine is that values should play no role in foreign policy; only material national interests deserve consideration.
Yet liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats have been touting the forthcoming report (predictably leaked and already widely discussed by the New York Times) as a counter to the administration's policy. How does diplomatic realism square with the endless barrages of criticism from liberals that the Bush doctrine of preemptive action has squandered the United States's moral capital with the rest of the world?................
Click HERE To Read On
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Liberalism Just Might REALLY be a Mental Disorder
-by Warner Todd Huston
A new book is arriving at booksellers that attempts to clinically explain how Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is a devastating filleting of the liberal mind.
The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness
Ouch! Is Teddy Kennedy feeling a bit self-conscious after that jab?
In any case, it seems the perfect way to peg the way the left thinks about people as mere cogs in the big government machine that they so love. Leftists, while claiming to love "the people" do not in any way love people. They want a single mind and a single body, not a world of individuals.
In other words, the left is merely about slogans all geared to destroy any ability of "the people" to get ahead via any means but THEIR approved government avenues.
Looks like a good book.
Here is the writer's web page
A new book is arriving at booksellers that attempts to clinically explain how Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is a devastating filleting of the liberal mind.
The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness
Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.
Ouch! Is Teddy Kennedy feeling a bit self-conscious after that jab?
In any case, it seems the perfect way to peg the way the left thinks about people as mere cogs in the big government machine that they so love. Leftists, while claiming to love "the people" do not in any way love people. They want a single mind and a single body, not a world of individuals.
What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”
In other words, the left is merely about slogans all geared to destroy any ability of "the people" to get ahead via any means but THEIR approved government avenues.
Looks like a good book.
Here is the writer's web page
Content to Lose
- By Chuck Busch
(The purpose of this article is to shame the Republican and Independent voters who generally espouse traditional values yet ceded power to the liberal Democrats by not voting for the more conservative party in this year's midterm elections. It is highly judgmental.)
On the Sunday before the elections, Elizabeth Dole expressed confidence in a Republican triumph because she believed that Americans want the US intervention in Iraq to prevail. The Democrats, she said, ""appear to be content with losing." Judging by the lack of support for perfectly fine Republican incumbent candidates, it would appear that many Republican and other traditional value voters were content to lose also. So what does that make America now, a country of losers?
Iraq Policy
The Islamofacist needs no further convincing. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, leader of al-Qaida forces in Iraq, boasted, "We will not rest our Jihad until we are under the olive trees of Rumieh and we have destroyed the dirty black house, which is called the white house." He said his fighters are winning in Iraq and achieving their goal of fighting Americans. He issued a further challenge to President Bush not to leave saying, "Remain steadfast in the battlefield you coward." .............
Click HERE To Read On
(The purpose of this article is to shame the Republican and Independent voters who generally espouse traditional values yet ceded power to the liberal Democrats by not voting for the more conservative party in this year's midterm elections. It is highly judgmental.)
On the Sunday before the elections, Elizabeth Dole expressed confidence in a Republican triumph because she believed that Americans want the US intervention in Iraq to prevail. The Democrats, she said, ""appear to be content with losing." Judging by the lack of support for perfectly fine Republican incumbent candidates, it would appear that many Republican and other traditional value voters were content to lose also. So what does that make America now, a country of losers?
Iraq Policy
The Islamofacist needs no further convincing. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, leader of al-Qaida forces in Iraq, boasted, "We will not rest our Jihad until we are under the olive trees of Rumieh and we have destroyed the dirty black house, which is called the white house." He said his fighters are winning in Iraq and achieving their goal of fighting Americans. He issued a further challenge to President Bush not to leave saying, "Remain steadfast in the battlefield you coward." .............
Click HERE To Read On
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Hateful, Intemperate French
-By Warner Todd Huston
Naturally this socialist blamed her remarks as "accidents" because her interpreter "mistranslated" the comments. Like most Europeans, she won't take responsibility for her actions.
Imagine if you will the scenario where a seriously considered candidate for president of the United States were to call a European country, one we are ostensibly allied with, insane Nazis. Contemplate how that person would naturally be excoriated by everyone... but also question if it is even possible for such a thing to happen in the first place?
What purported mainstream, serious presidential candidate would ever utter such a thing about an ally? Enemies, perhaps but not friends and certainly such harsh language wouldn't be used on a campaign trail ... even for enemies.
Neither the News media nor the American people would stand for such intemperate language.
Remember the firestorm that Bush's unusual usage of "axis of evil" and Reagan's "evil empire" rhetoric -- both memorable for being unusual in American political rhetoric of late against foreign nations.. And that was mild compared to European rhetoric that is used nearly every campaign, even for dogcatcher, in Europe.
But, then, Americans are not the hate-mongers the French are, I guess.
Royal stumbles in row over attack on Israel as 'Nazi'
Adam Sage, Paris
Segolene Royal, the French presidential candidate, was embroiled in a damaging row on a visit to the Middle East yesterday after appearing to condone a Hezbollah MP who denounced US "insanity" and compared Israel to the Nazis.In a 20-minute tirade Mr Ammar (of Hezbollah) attacked "unlimited American insanity" for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. He then said that Israeli “Nazism” was no better than Hitler’s Third Reich.
Ms Royal, who is on her first overseas trip since winning the Socialist Party primary, replied: "Thank you for being so frank. I agree with a lot of the things you have said, notably your analysis of the US."
Naturally this socialist blamed her remarks as "accidents" because her interpreter "mistranslated" the comments. Like most Europeans, she won't take responsibility for her actions.
But, this kind of rhetoric goes on against the USA all the time in Europe at all levels of government as well as on the campaign trail. In fact, it always has.For instance, recent German leader, Gerhard Schroder, made his whole campaign one of being against everything the USA stood for.
It just shows that, for all their claims of being more "civilized" and more "tolerant". It is a self-deception as powerful as any ever conceived, obviously.
Clintons' Cathartes Aura (A Buzzards Eye View)
- By R.A. Hawkins
I just finished reading Dick Morris' commentary on Presidential candidates for the GOP. He has been a mystery to me for years. He is one of those people that is more of a switch hitter than James McGreevey, the former hetero and then gay governor of New Jersey. I wonder if McGreevey will also become a Republican now. That's what Dick Morris did. Dick Morris has been one of those people that the media likes to call a maverick. I guess that's supposed to make him a political gunslinger or something. After watching him switch to helping the Republicans again, I began to wonder why he did it, other than to make certain he had a job. I have never been able to take someone like him seriously because he has no specific ties.
He wrote an article about Hillary having a good chance of winning in 2008 and discussed the importance of beating that with a Condoleezza Rice candidacy. Although I'd prefer her over Hillary because she understands the importance of many things, including the Second Amendment, it sounds like he thinks we should make this move just because of Hillary. Actually Ms. Rice is one of the smartest people we have in DC right now. But Dick Morris drives me nuts because I always wonder what kind of a party switch he's going to try to pull off next. He used to be Trent Lott's advisor then he switched to the Clintons and now he's a Republican? Why are we listening to this rudderless individual?.............................................
Click HERE To Read On
I just finished reading Dick Morris' commentary on Presidential candidates for the GOP. He has been a mystery to me for years. He is one of those people that is more of a switch hitter than James McGreevey, the former hetero and then gay governor of New Jersey. I wonder if McGreevey will also become a Republican now. That's what Dick Morris did. Dick Morris has been one of those people that the media likes to call a maverick. I guess that's supposed to make him a political gunslinger or something. After watching him switch to helping the Republicans again, I began to wonder why he did it, other than to make certain he had a job. I have never been able to take someone like him seriously because he has no specific ties.
He wrote an article about Hillary having a good chance of winning in 2008 and discussed the importance of beating that with a Condoleezza Rice candidacy. Although I'd prefer her over Hillary because she understands the importance of many things, including the Second Amendment, it sounds like he thinks we should make this move just because of Hillary. Actually Ms. Rice is one of the smartest people we have in DC right now. But Dick Morris drives me nuts because I always wonder what kind of a party switch he's going to try to pull off next. He used to be Trent Lott's advisor then he switched to the Clintons and now he's a Republican? Why are we listening to this rudderless individual?.............................................
Click HERE To Read On
Monday, December 04, 2006
Reuters: Americans Just 'Ignorant' About Muslims
-By Warner Todd Huston
Did you know that Americans don't want to "live next door to a Muslim", or that Americans want all Muslims to "carry special identification", or that it is but "Ignorance" that is seen as a "Key Problem" to these foolish American's "hatred" and misperceptions?
Reuters knew, if you didn't. And they are happy to let us all know about it, too.
It all stems from a Radio host misusing his audience to make a point that Americans are no different than the Germans who turned a blind eye to Hitler's "Final Solution" against Jews during WWII.
A DC radio host announced that he thought that Muslims should be forced to have a crescent moon tattooed on them to readily identify them akin to the way Nazi Germany forced Jews to wear the yellow "Juden" star.
He then took phone calls -- no doubt specially screened just to "prove" his point -- to find, lo and behold, everyone in his audience were racists who wanted Muslims marked in such a way.
Naturally, he was not seriously proposing to do what he presented and it was all a hoax to prove that America was filled with Muslim haters. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said", he went on to scold his listeners.
Neat little package he created there, eh?
But, Reuters didn't stop with just this story to "prove" that we are all Nazi-like, Muslim haters. They had "studies" and CAIR interviews, too.
And who carried out that poll? Why the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) did, naturally.
CAIR claims to have "found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as "war," "hatred" and "terrorist." The war in Iraq has contributed to such perceptions."
I wonder what the words "9/11" and "Suicide Bomber" triggers? I wonder why THOSE weren't included in the "study"? Is it because such words afford Americans a REASON to suspect Muslims? You know, the same Muslims responsible for such acts of terror?
But, I guess we wouldn't want to add that to the story. After all, it would tend to mitigate our obvious Goose Stepping tendency! So, we have a radio host who created a premise to get a predetermined end, and a CAIR "poll" to do the same, and we call that proof that we are all just Nazis in bluejeans?
Wunderbar!
Next Rueters brings up the self-manufactured "Clerics removal from a place" story to further prove we are all intolerant and helpfully informs us that the only reason we might be so evil as Americans is because "Ignorance Seen as Key Problem".
So, if we are all Goose-stepping, Nazi-like, Muslim haters, there MUST be an awful lot of Americans attacking and mistreating Muslims all across the nation, right? I mean, if there is so much hate around, we certainly couldn't expect nothing to be happening because of all that racism... right?
Well, not so much.
What? How can there be racism everywhere yet no racist actions taken against the target of that purported racism?
Seems rather hard to believe that racism is so prevalent if we can't even see a statistical example of the result of racism.
Anyway, the most amusing part of this story is its ending. There we see a sigh of relief in the fact that Keith Ellison (D, MN) won election to a Minnesota House Seat. Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress whose victory could "signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."
And Rueters highlights that Ellison "did not stress his religion during his campaign for a Minnesota seat". No wonder. He isn't a real Muslim, but a member of the racist "Nation of Islam" run by the "Reverend" Louie Farrakhan, a group few Muslims anywhere would claim as an Islamic organization. It's no wonder he ran away from that identification!
In any case, it is a good thing that Reuters is there to tell us how rotten we lowly Americans are and how innocent Muslims are.
What would we do without them?
Did you know that Americans don't want to "live next door to a Muslim", or that Americans want all Muslims to "carry special identification", or that it is but "Ignorance" that is seen as a "Key Problem" to these foolish American's "hatred" and misperceptions?Reuters knew, if you didn't. And they are happy to let us all know about it, too.
It all stems from a Radio host misusing his audience to make a point that Americans are no different than the Germans who turned a blind eye to Hitler's "Final Solution" against Jews during WWII.
A DC radio host announced that he thought that Muslims should be forced to have a crescent moon tattooed on them to readily identify them akin to the way Nazi Germany forced Jews to wear the yellow "Juden" star.
He then took phone calls -- no doubt specially screened just to "prove" his point -- to find, lo and behold, everyone in his audience were racists who wanted Muslims marked in such a way.
Naturally, he was not seriously proposing to do what he presented and it was all a hoax to prove that America was filled with Muslim haters. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said", he went on to scold his listeners.
"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."
Neat little package he created there, eh?
But, Reuters didn't stop with just this story to "prove" that we are all Nazi-like, Muslim haters. They had "studies" and CAIR interviews, too.
Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
And who carried out that poll? Why the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) did, naturally.
CAIR claims to have "found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as "war," "hatred" and "terrorist." The war in Iraq has contributed to such perceptions."
I wonder what the words "9/11" and "Suicide Bomber" triggers? I wonder why THOSE weren't included in the "study"? Is it because such words afford Americans a REASON to suspect Muslims? You know, the same Muslims responsible for such acts of terror?
But, I guess we wouldn't want to add that to the story. After all, it would tend to mitigate our obvious Goose Stepping tendency! So, we have a radio host who created a premise to get a predetermined end, and a CAIR "poll" to do the same, and we call that proof that we are all just Nazis in bluejeans?
Wunderbar!
Next Rueters brings up the self-manufactured "Clerics removal from a place" story to further prove we are all intolerant and helpfully informs us that the only reason we might be so evil as Americans is because "Ignorance Seen as Key Problem".
So, if we are all Goose-stepping, Nazi-like, Muslim haters, there MUST be an awful lot of Americans attacking and mistreating Muslims all across the nation, right? I mean, if there is so much hate around, we certainly couldn't expect nothing to be happening because of all that racism... right?
Well, not so much.
There are no hard figures on how many Muslims have been subject to harassment or prejudice...
What? How can there be racism everywhere yet no racist actions taken against the target of that purported racism?
Seems rather hard to believe that racism is so prevalent if we can't even see a statistical example of the result of racism.
Anyway, the most amusing part of this story is its ending. There we see a sigh of relief in the fact that Keith Ellison (D, MN) won election to a Minnesota House Seat. Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress whose victory could "signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."
And Rueters highlights that Ellison "did not stress his religion during his campaign for a Minnesota seat". No wonder. He isn't a real Muslim, but a member of the racist "Nation of Islam" run by the "Reverend" Louie Farrakhan, a group few Muslims anywhere would claim as an Islamic organization. It's no wonder he ran away from that identification!
In any case, it is a good thing that Reuters is there to tell us how rotten we lowly Americans are and how innocent Muslims are.
What would we do without them?
America's Failed Fascists
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Big-government attempts to manage the economy, not the stock market crash, caused the Depression of the 1930s.
I've touched upon the subject in a number of postings under the head of economics and Constitutional principles.
In brief, the money supply was greatly over-expanded in the 1920s by the newly created Federal Reserve System. Partly it was an accommodation to American manufacturers and farmers filling the rebuilding needs of war-torn Europe.
The result was similar to our dot.com boom of the 1990s. With the economy awash in excess credit, businessmen mistook those conditions for real consumer prosperity and over-expanded production facilities................
Click HERE To Read On
Big-government attempts to manage the economy, not the stock market crash, caused the Depression of the 1930s.
I've touched upon the subject in a number of postings under the head of economics and Constitutional principles.
In brief, the money supply was greatly over-expanded in the 1920s by the newly created Federal Reserve System. Partly it was an accommodation to American manufacturers and farmers filling the rebuilding needs of war-torn Europe.
The result was similar to our dot.com boom of the 1990s. With the economy awash in excess credit, businessmen mistook those conditions for real consumer prosperity and over-expanded production facilities................
Click HERE To Read On
Sunday, December 03, 2006
End for Union Dues Used for Politics Workers don't Support?
-By Warner Todd Huston
This is a good sign...
State workers can divert union dues to charity
One of the chief complaints against Unions is the fact that these organizations, ostensibly created to serve their membership, coerces the membership to pay dues which are then used to support politicians and causes whether or not the individual members agree with those politicians or causes.
It has always been a direct contravention to the principle of a union to do so and for years conservatives have wondered why a union member cannot specify that his dues not be used for causes in which he does not believe?
But, like the bullying Union thugs perpetrate on employers, they are no different on their membership. If a member doesn't slavishly accept all tenets of the union leadership, said member is targeted for harassment. But, that aside, their dues are used for whatever purpose the Union officials decide, the member having no say whatever.
In any case, we are beginning to see cracks in this hidebound practice and this case in ohio is one of several, though quote a successful one.
Granted this is a government union, but it shouldn't be too hard to carry this ruling over into other unions.
It's about time Unions had their oppressive powers taken from them. Let's hope this is but one of many.
This is a good sign...
State workers can divert union dues to charity
State employees should be able to donate their union dues to any charity, not just a church, when they have religious objections to how the money’s being spent, state and federal officials agreed yesterday in a settlement.
One of the chief complaints against Unions is the fact that these organizations, ostensibly created to serve their membership, coerces the membership to pay dues which are then used to support politicians and causes whether or not the individual members agree with those politicians or causes.
It has always been a direct contravention to the principle of a union to do so and for years conservatives have wondered why a union member cannot specify that his dues not be used for causes in which he does not believe?
But, like the bullying Union thugs perpetrate on employers, they are no different on their membership. If a member doesn't slavishly accept all tenets of the union leadership, said member is targeted for harassment. But, that aside, their dues are used for whatever purpose the Union officials decide, the member having no say whatever.
In any case, we are beginning to see cracks in this hidebound practice and this case in ohio is one of several, though quote a successful one.
The settlement came in a case involving Ohio Environmental Protection Agency employee Glen Greenwood, who objected to paying union dues because he believed the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association supported abortion and same-sex marriage causes. Greenwood did not belong to a church to which he could direct those dues.
While the union had a policy allowing employees with similar objections to donate their dues to churches, synagogues or other religious organizations, it had no provision for those without church affiliations to donate to a secular charity. The agreement concedes the policy violated equal-protection statutes.
Granted this is a government union, but it shouldn't be too hard to carry this ruling over into other unions.
It's about time Unions had their oppressive powers taken from them. Let's hope this is but one of many.
Contract Granted For American Concentration Camps
- By Frederick Meekins
For years, whispers have ebbed and flowed across the currents of cyberspace that the U.S. government had plans on the drawing board for the establishment of detention and relocation camps to heard massive swaths of the population into during times of declared national emergency.
Haughty sophisticates regularly dismissed such nuggets of information, claiming such warnings were the ravings of kooks and the paranoid. However, at last more mainstream news sources are willing to admit such holding pens of dubious constitutionality are in the works.
According to a FoxNews.com report titled "Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used For Immigration Round-Ups", a contract has been granted to a subsidiary of Halliburton no less for the establishment of emergency relocation centers for use during a national disaster or immigration crisis. Though marketed as a way to house illegals as they are processed back to their countries of origin, the American people need to be warned this might not be the only purpose for such facilities.
For starters, as Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi points out in the FoxNews.com story, "An emergency is basically anything DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) deems an emergency." Thus Americans could theoretically be herded into such facilities over reasons far less ominous than natural disasters and calamities....................................
Click HERE To Read On
For years, whispers have ebbed and flowed across the currents of cyberspace that the U.S. government had plans on the drawing board for the establishment of detention and relocation camps to heard massive swaths of the population into during times of declared national emergency.
Haughty sophisticates regularly dismissed such nuggets of information, claiming such warnings were the ravings of kooks and the paranoid. However, at last more mainstream news sources are willing to admit such holding pens of dubious constitutionality are in the works.
According to a FoxNews.com report titled "Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used For Immigration Round-Ups", a contract has been granted to a subsidiary of Halliburton no less for the establishment of emergency relocation centers for use during a national disaster or immigration crisis. Though marketed as a way to house illegals as they are processed back to their countries of origin, the American people need to be warned this might not be the only purpose for such facilities.
For starters, as Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi points out in the FoxNews.com story, "An emergency is basically anything DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) deems an emergency." Thus Americans could theoretically be herded into such facilities over reasons far less ominous than natural disasters and calamities....................................
Click HERE To Read On
Saturday, December 02, 2006
LA Judge's Ruling Allows for Terror Funding
-by Warner Todd Huston
In another attack on our security, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins declared unconstitutional two provisions of Executive Order 13224 (signed by Bush, Sept. 23, 2001). This will make it easier for money to be raised for foreign terror groups within the USA.
EO 13224 put a halt to fund transfers to groups known to be terrorists and known to have perpetrated violence in their cause. In particular, this case was brought by the self-immolating Humanitarian Law Project -- an imitation of the ACLU -- to protect the funding sources of the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam- Sri Lanka) and the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK- Turkey), both of which have perpetrated acts of terror for many years in their respective countries.
This fellow traveling LA judge is just part of the nation wide network of those domestic operatives ideologically opposed to our security and who have been doing their level best to knock down every measure taken to find and destroy terror networks both within and without the USA.
On this subject, that of funding outside terror networks, I have always been ashamed that we here in the USA never tried to stop the millions of dollars in donations that went to the NRA in Ireland during the "troubles" there. In fact, I don't ever recall a single voice being heard raising the subject at all.
US citizens who donated money to the IRA contributed to the murder of hundreds of British citizens and gave succor to terrorism for decades and I feel that the USA should have stopped such money transfers. Now we have a chance to do that with the support of the citizens of the USA, at least for other, contemporary terror networks.
But, not if these obstructionist judges have their way. If they have their way we will see Americans funding their own demise with donations sent to terrorist groups. And even if the money goes to terrorism for other causes, ones not turned against our own, does that make it any better to allow our financial support to assist terror against others?
These out of control judges need to be brought under some kind of review. Jefferson had it right...
"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body -- working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdication, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
In another attack on our security, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins declared unconstitutional two provisions of Executive Order 13224 (signed by Bush, Sept. 23, 2001). This will make it easier for money to be raised for foreign terror groups within the USA.
EO 13224 put a halt to fund transfers to groups known to be terrorists and known to have perpetrated violence in their cause. In particular, this case was brought by the self-immolating Humanitarian Law Project -- an imitation of the ACLU -- to protect the funding sources of the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam- Sri Lanka) and the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK- Turkey), both of which have perpetrated acts of terror for many years in their respective countries.
This fellow traveling LA judge is just part of the nation wide network of those domestic operatives ideologically opposed to our security and who have been doing their level best to knock down every measure taken to find and destroy terror networks both within and without the USA.
On this subject, that of funding outside terror networks, I have always been ashamed that we here in the USA never tried to stop the millions of dollars in donations that went to the NRA in Ireland during the "troubles" there. In fact, I don't ever recall a single voice being heard raising the subject at all.
US citizens who donated money to the IRA contributed to the murder of hundreds of British citizens and gave succor to terrorism for decades and I feel that the USA should have stopped such money transfers. Now we have a chance to do that with the support of the citizens of the USA, at least for other, contemporary terror networks.
But, not if these obstructionist judges have their way. If they have their way we will see Americans funding their own demise with donations sent to terrorist groups. And even if the money goes to terrorism for other causes, ones not turned against our own, does that make it any better to allow our financial support to assist terror against others?
These out of control judges need to be brought under some kind of review. Jefferson had it right...
"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body -- working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdication, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
Democrats Consider the Fascist Option
- By Thomas E. Brewton
Democrats, committed to the theory that only the political state can improve people's lives, explore ways to deliver on campaign promises.
Democrats, committed to the theory that only the political state can improve people's lives, explore ways to deliver on campaign promises.
David Wessel writes in the November 30 edition of the Wall Street journal (here, if you're an online subscriber):
In campaign rhetoric, Democrats raised expectations they would do more than Republicans to boost wages and living standards of ordinary Americans...Now Democrats have to deliver, or at least look like they're trying.
...Democrats, [Gene Sperling, a Democratic cabinet-secretary-in-waiting] says, must figure out what government can do to encourage business to create more middle-class jobs in the U.S................
Click HERE To Read On
Friday, December 01, 2006
Brits Have Given up on Western Values
-By Warner Todd Huston
In yet another example of Britain bending over backwards to prove that they can ... well, ben over backwards... for fetid "multiculturalism" and self-hatred, Tony Blair has "apologized" for England's part in the slave trade!
Blair to express "sorrow" over slave trade
Why should he?
His nation was the most active nation on the PLANET to try and rid the world of slavery, doing more than any other western nation in its day to eliminate the trade.
Mr. Prime Minister, DO pick up a history book so that you might discover that YOU GUYS are the ones that "fought for its abolition".
You have NOTHING to be ashamed of and NOTHING to apologize for.
In FACT, we should be focusing on Islam as a culprit of slavery because it is still going on in Muslim countries!
This groveling and bowing and scraping is a demeaning posture and no one should lower themselves to such cowardice.
In yet another example of Britain bending over backwards to prove that they can ... well, ben over backwards... for fetid "multiculturalism" and self-hatred, Tony Blair has "apologized" for England's part in the slave trade!
Blair to express "sorrow" over slave trade
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair will express "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade nearly 200 years after the legislation that led to its abolition, Sunday's Observer reported.
Why should he?
His nation was the most active nation on the PLANET to try and rid the world of slavery, doing more than any other western nation in its day to eliminate the trade.
"I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was -- how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition -- but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever could have happened,"
Mr. Prime Minister, DO pick up a history book so that you might discover that YOU GUYS are the ones that "fought for its abolition".
You have NOTHING to be ashamed of and NOTHING to apologize for.
In FACT, we should be focusing on Islam as a culprit of slavery because it is still going on in Muslim countries!
This groveling and bowing and scraping is a demeaning posture and no one should lower themselves to such cowardice.
Hugh Hewitt a Big Government Guy??
-By Warner Todd Huston
Well, we all love to jump on it when a lefty says something stupid, don't we? We should also point out when an ostensible Conservative news commentator says something ridiculous, too...
Now, I don't usually report what radio guys are doing or saying, not that I don't like them or that I find them somehow illegitimate, but because they have their own fora from which to make their waves and they can get their ideas out without my assistance. But, I do listen to several talkers and enjoy some of them, as well.
One of the talkers I like is Hugh Hewitt. He is the reason I have stepped up my blogging and why I started a Town-Hall blog, too. I find he is usually a Reagan styled conservative and I agree with him very often. So, when he says something I usually give it consideration.
However, he said something in the last hour of his show today that amazed me.
Hewitt had a very short, sort of throw away segment on the last hour of his show last night (Thursday the 30th) where he seemed to advocate one of the worst apostasies in Conservative thinking: a big government take over of a private sector industry.
Worse, it was a take over of an industry that makes Hugh Hewitt's world; Internet domain registration.
Currently, the ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) handles all domain registration, charging $6 a year for that internet domain name, Hewitt reported. These are brokered through hundreds of domain sellers, but the actual issuance of the domain name is handled through ICANN no matter from what service provider one originally purchases the domain. This Brings the ICANN service several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Yet, despite that ICANN registers and controls these domains, they are given that mandate by the US government. Congress periodically approves ICANN's authority to control all domain names basically issuing them a license to do so and has recently renewed ICANN's rights for another 6 years.
So, what did Hewitt say about ICANN? Well, he wondered aloud why the government has to "allow" ICANN to be the domain registration service and why all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that ICANN makes can't stay with some US government agency or another? He wondered why the government can't just register domains themselves and "keep all that money".
Just think of what Hewitt offhandedly posited! We are paying $6 a year for domain name registration with this privately held corporation. Does Hewitt think that this extremely reasonable fee would stay as low as it now is if domain registration fees were to be turned over to another bloated government agency?
Worse, doesn't Hewitt realize that control of these fees would give politicians just another avenue to continue raising more and more tax revenue, hiking them year after year until fees were so high NO ONE could afford to register a domain name at all?
And for a man who claims to be an internet guru, does he NOT realize that this would end up putting an end to the wonderful growth that the internet now enjoys? As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall is so famous for saying, the power to tax is the power to destroy!
I certainly hope that Hewitt was not advocating a government take over of yet another private industry! I sure hope he had not thought through his rash suggestion and is not serious that the government should take over the registration of domain names and the fee structures that comes with such! PLEASE tell us, Hugh, that this was just some half-cocked scheme that you did not fully consider before saying?
After all, we ALL say stupid things once in a while. Let's hope Hewitt just spoke out of hand without being truly serious about this ruinous idea.
On the other hand, if this was a serious suggestion by Hweitt, he needs a slap on the hand from EVERY conservative in the country.
Come on, Hugh. What do you say? Mea Culpa, I hope!
Well, we all love to jump on it when a lefty says something stupid, don't we? We should also point out when an ostensible Conservative news commentator says something ridiculous, too...Now, I don't usually report what radio guys are doing or saying, not that I don't like them or that I find them somehow illegitimate, but because they have their own fora from which to make their waves and they can get their ideas out without my assistance. But, I do listen to several talkers and enjoy some of them, as well.
One of the talkers I like is Hugh Hewitt. He is the reason I have stepped up my blogging and why I started a Town-Hall blog, too. I find he is usually a Reagan styled conservative and I agree with him very often. So, when he says something I usually give it consideration.
However, he said something in the last hour of his show today that amazed me.
Hewitt had a very short, sort of throw away segment on the last hour of his show last night (Thursday the 30th) where he seemed to advocate one of the worst apostasies in Conservative thinking: a big government take over of a private sector industry.
Worse, it was a take over of an industry that makes Hugh Hewitt's world; Internet domain registration.
Currently, the ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) handles all domain registration, charging $6 a year for that internet domain name, Hewitt reported. These are brokered through hundreds of domain sellers, but the actual issuance of the domain name is handled through ICANN no matter from what service provider one originally purchases the domain. This Brings the ICANN service several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Yet, despite that ICANN registers and controls these domains, they are given that mandate by the US government. Congress periodically approves ICANN's authority to control all domain names basically issuing them a license to do so and has recently renewed ICANN's rights for another 6 years.
So, what did Hewitt say about ICANN? Well, he wondered aloud why the government has to "allow" ICANN to be the domain registration service and why all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that ICANN makes can't stay with some US government agency or another? He wondered why the government can't just register domains themselves and "keep all that money".
Just think of what Hewitt offhandedly posited! We are paying $6 a year for domain name registration with this privately held corporation. Does Hewitt think that this extremely reasonable fee would stay as low as it now is if domain registration fees were to be turned over to another bloated government agency?
Worse, doesn't Hewitt realize that control of these fees would give politicians just another avenue to continue raising more and more tax revenue, hiking them year after year until fees were so high NO ONE could afford to register a domain name at all?
And for a man who claims to be an internet guru, does he NOT realize that this would end up putting an end to the wonderful growth that the internet now enjoys? As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall is so famous for saying, the power to tax is the power to destroy!
I certainly hope that Hewitt was not advocating a government take over of yet another private industry! I sure hope he had not thought through his rash suggestion and is not serious that the government should take over the registration of domain names and the fee structures that comes with such! PLEASE tell us, Hugh, that this was just some half-cocked scheme that you did not fully consider before saying?
After all, we ALL say stupid things once in a while. Let's hope Hewitt just spoke out of hand without being truly serious about this ruinous idea.
On the other hand, if this was a serious suggestion by Hweitt, he needs a slap on the hand from EVERY conservative in the country.
Come on, Hugh. What do you say? Mea Culpa, I hope!
Lights! Camera! Reverend Al!
- By Michael M. Bates
It was what we've come to expect. A fatal police shooting in New York and the Reverend Al Sharpton is on the case faster than you can say the television crews are here.
That concrete information wasn't available didn't dissuade Al from swiftly concluding that this "watershed case," as he described it, was a continuation of the systematic abuse of police power.
The deceased was shot at about 3:30 am after leaving the strip club at which his bachelor party was held. Sharpton somberly intoned that the victim "should be on his honeymoon with his wife this morning." No disrespect for the departed intended, but since the victim's fiance had already given birth to two of his children, it seems to me they had their honeymoon a while ago.......................................
Click HERE To Read On
It was what we've come to expect. A fatal police shooting in New York and the Reverend Al Sharpton is on the case faster than you can say the television crews are here.
That concrete information wasn't available didn't dissuade Al from swiftly concluding that this "watershed case," as he described it, was a continuation of the systematic abuse of police power.
The deceased was shot at about 3:30 am after leaving the strip club at which his bachelor party was held. Sharpton somberly intoned that the victim "should be on his honeymoon with his wife this morning." No disrespect for the departed intended, but since the victim's fiance had already given birth to two of his children, it seems to me they had their honeymoon a while ago.......................................
Click HERE To Read On
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