Victor Davis Hanson comments on what appears to have happened within the Democratic Party nomination this season.
Clintonian Pathos
After a lopsided victory, Hillary seems a mute bystander to the Obama / McCain exchanges.
Of course, there is irony in Bill Clinton whining about media bias against his wife's candidacy, when to suggest the reverse in the 1990s was McCarthyesque. Ironic too is to see the viciousness of the hard left—in Clinton war-room style—eviscerate Hillary. And more still to see the identity politics of race trump Hillary's 2007 gender card of our would-be first female President. And even more still to see Bill out crooned by a younger, far slicker version of himself.
But all that said, Hillary, the far more experienced and knowledgeable candidate and the better debater, does have a point—under any other rules than the byzantine system of her own party, she would be the nominee. She won all the key in-play states. And her recent margins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, (and Kentucky to come) prove the momentum is still with her, despite a lack of cash and coverage. If she doesn't quite win the popular vote, her victories still more derive from plebiscites than Obama's caucus wins.
In the past other less successful Democratic candidates have stayed in the race far longer than she. Surely all that should equate to a tight race rather than a media stampede to have her get out in shame and defeat. Either one of two things—or both—is going on. Either the Democratic establishment and media, nursing hidden slights and pent-up grievances over nearly two-decades of Clintonian selfishness and hard-ball and now smelling blood, have finally and collectively yelled "No mas. " Or at this point, it matters not at all what Obama or his various embarrassments say any more. He is a new messianic piper, part old Adlai and JFK, and the Democrats are swarming to his tune.
It's now a question of pure emotion, not reason, and any poor soul like Hillary who stands in their way—well, suffers the fate of all disbelievers...
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Steyn Weighs In
Obama's childishness was on display again this week. I have been waiting for Mark Steyn's response. Here it is. And, as usual, it is good.
Mark Steyn on Barack Obama on National Review Online
Mark Steyn on Barack Obama on National Review Online
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
More Pessimism
This time from our columnist in Canada:
Israel at 60
Will Israel last another 60 years? Will Canada? Will the West? I believe the questions are closely related, and will begin by giving two quick answers.The first is, “I don’t know.”
Attempts to predict the future from the historical past have a track record around zero, and while it is true that history is constantly repeating itself, it is able to repeat itself in many different ways. On the present leadership performance of Israel’s complacent, incompetent, and probably corrupt prime minister -- and in view of the assembling forces dedicated to the country’s annihilation -- one might reasonably say that Israel will be lucky to reach three score and ten.
But as I’ve myself frequently argued, all trends are reversible.The second is, “It depends what you mean by survive.” If the world is still here -- and let’s not take anything for granted -- there is likely to be a little patch of land corresponding to that upon which Israel now sits. And if there are still Jews, it will still belong in their hearts, as it has done for millennia. It is not inconceivable to me that Israel might be annihilated, or nearly annihilated, and then restored. Such events are compatible with very large, planetary wars. They hardly bear thinking about.
But I insist, that Israel’s survival is tied to that of the West. She is our front line, an embodiment of unambiguously Western values. The enemies we have are common enemies -- Left-fascist ideology (formerly expressed as Communism, but now reorganizing around the “scientific materialism” of the environmentalist cause), and Islamo-fascist ideology (now called “Islamism,” to distinguish political from religious Islam, on the assumption that this can be done).
These are the two great contemporary Sirens, and each calls upon constituencies lodged deep in the West itself. The appeal of simplistic ideological movements spreads in the spiritual vacuum left by the recession of Christianity. But whatever dark forces answer to the command of these two great Sirens, there is agreement between the Left and the Islamists that Israel is the front line of the West, and that she is sufficiently isolated to be worth destroying first. There is moreover agreement between them that the ultimate target is “Amerika” and the whole “bourgeois, Judeo-Christian” order that has sustained our freedom and prosperity.
What happens if our enemies succeed? I would guess it is then Green versus Green, and the Islamist monster eats the Environmentalist monster, for the former is more wilful and ruthless.I risk being misunderstood at this point, for I am not exactly equating Osama bin Laden with Al Gore. Environmentalism, and the current “global warming” hysteria, is only a flag of convenience, just as the “class war” served the Left in a previous generation, and there are many alternative flags. Its root cause is a Gnostic, religious atheism: it forms and disperses and reforms like the mist. Whereas, Islamism is a unified and cogent force, with an instinctive recourse to violence.
To understand what I mean, the reader must consider almost any contemporary university campus, in which the radical political causes are quite various, but there is general agreement among radicals on each other’s agendas. That one must attack Zionist Israel, and conversely champion Oppressed Palestinians, is something every little half-educated campus ideologue knows he can take for granted.What has this got to do with the future of Israel? Everything.
For while Israel’s proximate enemies are Hamas and Hezbollah, and the unspeakable regimes in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere that control and supply these frontline terrorists, and are themselves pledged to Israel’s physical annihilation, and are assiduously building missile stockpiles for the task -- they have no chance of prevailing so long as the West remains united behind Israel. But for various reasons, the will to defend Israel is crumbling, and Israel’s enemies know this. She resides in a region where she is outnumbered 60-to-1 in population, and by a much greater ratio in land area or elbow room (with accompanying natural resources). Israel has no prospects on her own.
And this is where I feel least hopeful about the future. The desire to defend Israel is being sapped, across the West, by causes ranging from exhaustion with endless trouble in the Middle East, to the thirst for oil, to the rapid growth of Muslim immigration, and thus of an electoral constituency that tends to be extremely unsympathetic to Israel.But more profoundly, the Left-Islamist alliance -- forged in common opposition to everything the West stands for -- has made the abandonment of Israel a common priority across the spectrum of people who take their politics from fashion.
Alas, most of the West’s internal enemies, demanding the abandonment of Israel as first step, do not even know what they are doing. They are like parasites upon a host organism, and do not understand that when the host organism dies, they too will die.
David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
Israel at 60
Will Israel last another 60 years? Will Canada? Will the West? I believe the questions are closely related, and will begin by giving two quick answers.The first is, “I don’t know.”
Attempts to predict the future from the historical past have a track record around zero, and while it is true that history is constantly repeating itself, it is able to repeat itself in many different ways. On the present leadership performance of Israel’s complacent, incompetent, and probably corrupt prime minister -- and in view of the assembling forces dedicated to the country’s annihilation -- one might reasonably say that Israel will be lucky to reach three score and ten.
But as I’ve myself frequently argued, all trends are reversible.The second is, “It depends what you mean by survive.” If the world is still here -- and let’s not take anything for granted -- there is likely to be a little patch of land corresponding to that upon which Israel now sits. And if there are still Jews, it will still belong in their hearts, as it has done for millennia. It is not inconceivable to me that Israel might be annihilated, or nearly annihilated, and then restored. Such events are compatible with very large, planetary wars. They hardly bear thinking about.
But I insist, that Israel’s survival is tied to that of the West. She is our front line, an embodiment of unambiguously Western values. The enemies we have are common enemies -- Left-fascist ideology (formerly expressed as Communism, but now reorganizing around the “scientific materialism” of the environmentalist cause), and Islamo-fascist ideology (now called “Islamism,” to distinguish political from religious Islam, on the assumption that this can be done).
These are the two great contemporary Sirens, and each calls upon constituencies lodged deep in the West itself. The appeal of simplistic ideological movements spreads in the spiritual vacuum left by the recession of Christianity. But whatever dark forces answer to the command of these two great Sirens, there is agreement between the Left and the Islamists that Israel is the front line of the West, and that she is sufficiently isolated to be worth destroying first. There is moreover agreement between them that the ultimate target is “Amerika” and the whole “bourgeois, Judeo-Christian” order that has sustained our freedom and prosperity.
What happens if our enemies succeed? I would guess it is then Green versus Green, and the Islamist monster eats the Environmentalist monster, for the former is more wilful and ruthless.I risk being misunderstood at this point, for I am not exactly equating Osama bin Laden with Al Gore. Environmentalism, and the current “global warming” hysteria, is only a flag of convenience, just as the “class war” served the Left in a previous generation, and there are many alternative flags. Its root cause is a Gnostic, religious atheism: it forms and disperses and reforms like the mist. Whereas, Islamism is a unified and cogent force, with an instinctive recourse to violence.
To understand what I mean, the reader must consider almost any contemporary university campus, in which the radical political causes are quite various, but there is general agreement among radicals on each other’s agendas. That one must attack Zionist Israel, and conversely champion Oppressed Palestinians, is something every little half-educated campus ideologue knows he can take for granted.What has this got to do with the future of Israel? Everything.
For while Israel’s proximate enemies are Hamas and Hezbollah, and the unspeakable regimes in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere that control and supply these frontline terrorists, and are themselves pledged to Israel’s physical annihilation, and are assiduously building missile stockpiles for the task -- they have no chance of prevailing so long as the West remains united behind Israel. But for various reasons, the will to defend Israel is crumbling, and Israel’s enemies know this. She resides in a region where she is outnumbered 60-to-1 in population, and by a much greater ratio in land area or elbow room (with accompanying natural resources). Israel has no prospects on her own.
And this is where I feel least hopeful about the future. The desire to defend Israel is being sapped, across the West, by causes ranging from exhaustion with endless trouble in the Middle East, to the thirst for oil, to the rapid growth of Muslim immigration, and thus of an electoral constituency that tends to be extremely unsympathetic to Israel.But more profoundly, the Left-Islamist alliance -- forged in common opposition to everything the West stands for -- has made the abandonment of Israel a common priority across the spectrum of people who take their politics from fashion.
Alas, most of the West’s internal enemies, demanding the abandonment of Israel as first step, do not even know what they are doing. They are like parasites upon a host organism, and do not understand that when the host organism dies, they too will die.
David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
Real Downer of a Day
Jerry Pournelle writes pessimistically this morning about what could easily be the near future in the coming current events. I'm afraid his chrystal ball is prescient. Last night, another easy Republican District in Mississippi was lost to the Democrats.
I have a number of letters about McCain and why we ought to vote Libertarian and "Send a message." I understand the argument.
The fact is that the Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. In opposition the Republicans rediscover their principles; it's power they haven't been able to handle since Newt Gingrich was Speaker.
The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline.
The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect regimes. We haven't seen much in the way of reforms in Europe. The Democrats will create new bureaucracies that can never be dismantled: an example is the Department of Education. Reagan came into office determined to abolish it. Now it owns US education, and No Child Left Behind is entrenched. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy is inexorable.
The country was reasonably well managed when we had a Republican Congress and a Democrat President.
As to the war: if we give the Democrats full control of the government, we won't get a sensible foreign policy: see Kosovo if you doubt that. We may get a disengagement from Iraq: the price will be high, in blood of those in Iraq who trusted us, and in honor. We may not. Disengaging from Iraq will not be a simple matter. A gradual withdrawal won't work well: as we pull out, the insurgents will be heartened. The result won't be pretty.
Sure, we can retreat. We have the military power to cut and run, get out and get out fast. The results of that will be with us for a long time. Recall the last helicopter out of Saigon?
I conclude that McCain as president is a far lesser evil than Obama would be. But there are those in whom hope springs eternal: who hold the view that Obama is not what all the evidence says he is, a left wing liberal intellectual with Chicago political connections and all the ethical implications that implies. Hope springs eternal.
Thus we have the choice: a Chicago machine politician with Harvard liberal beliefs vs. a country club Republican who feels entitled.
The post-Gingrich Republicans who invented "big government conservatism" have much to answer for.
=================
Nuclear Weapons and Iran, with
I have a number of letters about McCain and why we ought to vote Libertarian and "Send a message." I understand the argument.
The fact is that the Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. In opposition the Republicans rediscover their principles; it's power they haven't been able to handle since Newt Gingrich was Speaker.
The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline.
The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect regimes. We haven't seen much in the way of reforms in Europe. The Democrats will create new bureaucracies that can never be dismantled: an example is the Department of Education. Reagan came into office determined to abolish it. Now it owns US education, and No Child Left Behind is entrenched. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy is inexorable.
The country was reasonably well managed when we had a Republican Congress and a Democrat President.
As to the war: if we give the Democrats full control of the government, we won't get a sensible foreign policy: see Kosovo if you doubt that. We may get a disengagement from Iraq: the price will be high, in blood of those in Iraq who trusted us, and in honor. We may not. Disengaging from Iraq will not be a simple matter. A gradual withdrawal won't work well: as we pull out, the insurgents will be heartened. The result won't be pretty.
Sure, we can retreat. We have the military power to cut and run, get out and get out fast. The results of that will be with us for a long time. Recall the last helicopter out of Saigon?
I conclude that McCain as president is a far lesser evil than Obama would be. But there are those in whom hope springs eternal: who hold the view that Obama is not what all the evidence says he is, a left wing liberal intellectual with Chicago political connections and all the ethical implications that implies. Hope springs eternal.
Thus we have the choice: a Chicago machine politician with Harvard liberal beliefs vs. a country club Republican who feels entitled.
The post-Gingrich Republicans who invented "big government conservatism" have much to answer for.
=================
Nuclear Weapons and Iran, with
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Wonderful Satire from David Kahane
Kahane believes that we should rescue Hillary from the Party of Slavery,Segregation, Secularism, and Sedition. Pretty neat stuff!
David Kahane on Hillary Clinton & The Right on National Review Online
David Kahane on Hillary Clinton & The Right on National Review Online
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Who are we to Judge?
My blood always boils when I read articles like this, and remember that at our very expensive universites where multiculturalism and tolerance run amuck, that this is certainly not worthy of us to judge.
William Katz into today's blog at "Urgent Agenda" writes:
IN THE REAL WORLD
Our election campaign is mild compared to other campaigns we may have to wage in the future. London's Guardian, a leftist paper I rarely quote, has a remarkable story about a man whose distorted view of Islam led him to murder his own daughter. It is this kind of mentality that we might have to fight all over the world, and it puts our election campaign in perspective. Who is best to lead us in this struggle?
For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.
Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.
Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.
Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.
She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.
It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
Please notice the silence of the "feminist" groups. Please notice the lack of protest in our universities. After all, who are we to judge another culture?
We're thoughtful, intelligent human beings. That's who we are. And we have a perfect right to describe the above actions in whatever terms we wish to use, obscene or not.
William Katz into today's blog at "Urgent Agenda" writes:
IN THE REAL WORLD
Our election campaign is mild compared to other campaigns we may have to wage in the future. London's Guardian, a leftist paper I rarely quote, has a remarkable story about a man whose distorted view of Islam led him to murder his own daughter. It is this kind of mentality that we might have to fight all over the world, and it puts our election campaign in perspective. Who is best to lead us in this struggle?
For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.
Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.
Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.
Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.
She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.
It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
Please notice the silence of the "feminist" groups. Please notice the lack of protest in our universities. After all, who are we to judge another culture?
We're thoughtful, intelligent human beings. That's who we are. And we have a perfect right to describe the above actions in whatever terms we wish to use, obscene or not.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
An Eloquent Speech
John Mc Cain gave a speech this week and the following is a wonderful excerpt from it. To this old dog, this is what it is all about. Our schools and modern culture just don't allow us to think about the importance of these words any more:
There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man’s inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree.
There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture.
It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident — that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.
Confronting evil has never been easy — in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights.
Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity.
America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.
There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man’s inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree.
There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture.
It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident — that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.
Confronting evil has never been easy — in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights.
Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity.
America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Best Statement of the Week
Daniel Henninger wrote earlier this week:
"The superdelegates are faced with choosing between the Clinton machine's brutal demographic math and thinking well of themselves. No contest."
"The superdelegates are faced with choosing between the Clinton machine's brutal demographic math and thinking well of themselves. No contest."
Thursday, May 8, 2008
A Prescription for the GOP?
Victor Davis Hanson posted this on NRO's Corner yesterday:
What's Wrong with Republicans?
On this great debate, I tend to agree with Mark Levin and others that conservatives should reach out with conservative principles better framed and presented, rather than change the message for the perceived advantage of the hour.
What the Republicans need is not an abandonment of conservative principles, but a smarter, more articulate defense of even more conservativism, not less.
E.g., Gas Prices? More nuclear power, hydro-, refineries, clean coal, drilling off coasts and in ANWR. And why? As a necessary bridge to next-generation cleaner and non-petroleum energy so that in the time lag, we don't empower our enemies, demand that others abroad who are less environmentally sound produce the oil we consume, and watch our hard-won way of life decline.
Taxes? Not hikes, since revenues went up, not down with past cuts, but more fiscal discipline to end the deficits. The problem was not tax-cutting, but wild-eyed spending that ran up debt and discredited tax cuts.
The border? Close it, not out nativism or racism, but out of respect for the rule of law, the tradition of national sovereignty, the need to promote integration and assimilation, the need to be more concerned with American entry-level low-paid workers, and a desire to help Mexico wean itself off remittances and make the tough-love decisions to modernize its archaic government and economy.
Judges? We need constitutionalists, because they alone follow the rules of the legislative branch and what is written in the Constitution, do not turn rarified, laboratory theory into the law that millions must suffer under, and bring respect to the judiciary sorely damaged by aristocratic elitists on the bench.
National Security? Not more U.N.ism, but careful explanations that both Iraq and Afghanistan have hurt jihadism, taken out odious regimes, and with patience will make the region safer.We need more reasoned and inspired explanation of just how the U.S. military allows the present globalized system of commerce and communications to survive, rather than asleep at the wheel reaction to cheap attacks on our foreign policy.
Ethics? Republicans by consensus in Washington need to be less tolerant of sleeze than Democrats, since conservatism and traditionalism are moral precepts. When they engage in tawdry sex, bribery, and influence peddling, they suffer the double wage of hypocrisy — in the manner supposedly men-of-the-people liberals like Kerry, Gore, Edwards, and the Clintons talk one way and live like 18th-century French kings.
In short, low taxes, secure borders, moral governance, sober government spending, ethical leadership, exploration and conservation of petroleum, and strong defense is what the American public wants — but those core principles have to be articulated hourly and can't be compromised. In an honest debate, Obama's alternatives to the above would be to turn toward more government, higher taxes, more bureacracies, more dependence of the individual upon the state, etc.
And I can't believe the public wants a prescription that historically simply doesn't work.
I think in their depression, the Republicans fail to see that their problems were not in their principles, but rather in the sometimes sleezy and sloppy way they advanced them — and even more often in the manner that they abandoned them — and as a result, they are apparently eager to compromise on them.
To the degree McCain can articulate the above, he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster.
No one can out-Obama Obama.
What's Wrong with Republicans?
On this great debate, I tend to agree with Mark Levin and others that conservatives should reach out with conservative principles better framed and presented, rather than change the message for the perceived advantage of the hour.
What the Republicans need is not an abandonment of conservative principles, but a smarter, more articulate defense of even more conservativism, not less.
E.g., Gas Prices? More nuclear power, hydro-, refineries, clean coal, drilling off coasts and in ANWR. And why? As a necessary bridge to next-generation cleaner and non-petroleum energy so that in the time lag, we don't empower our enemies, demand that others abroad who are less environmentally sound produce the oil we consume, and watch our hard-won way of life decline.
Taxes? Not hikes, since revenues went up, not down with past cuts, but more fiscal discipline to end the deficits. The problem was not tax-cutting, but wild-eyed spending that ran up debt and discredited tax cuts.
The border? Close it, not out nativism or racism, but out of respect for the rule of law, the tradition of national sovereignty, the need to promote integration and assimilation, the need to be more concerned with American entry-level low-paid workers, and a desire to help Mexico wean itself off remittances and make the tough-love decisions to modernize its archaic government and economy.
Judges? We need constitutionalists, because they alone follow the rules of the legislative branch and what is written in the Constitution, do not turn rarified, laboratory theory into the law that millions must suffer under, and bring respect to the judiciary sorely damaged by aristocratic elitists on the bench.
National Security? Not more U.N.ism, but careful explanations that both Iraq and Afghanistan have hurt jihadism, taken out odious regimes, and with patience will make the region safer.We need more reasoned and inspired explanation of just how the U.S. military allows the present globalized system of commerce and communications to survive, rather than asleep at the wheel reaction to cheap attacks on our foreign policy.
Ethics? Republicans by consensus in Washington need to be less tolerant of sleeze than Democrats, since conservatism and traditionalism are moral precepts. When they engage in tawdry sex, bribery, and influence peddling, they suffer the double wage of hypocrisy — in the manner supposedly men-of-the-people liberals like Kerry, Gore, Edwards, and the Clintons talk one way and live like 18th-century French kings.
In short, low taxes, secure borders, moral governance, sober government spending, ethical leadership, exploration and conservation of petroleum, and strong defense is what the American public wants — but those core principles have to be articulated hourly and can't be compromised. In an honest debate, Obama's alternatives to the above would be to turn toward more government, higher taxes, more bureacracies, more dependence of the individual upon the state, etc.
And I can't believe the public wants a prescription that historically simply doesn't work.
I think in their depression, the Republicans fail to see that their problems were not in their principles, but rather in the sometimes sleezy and sloppy way they advanced them — and even more often in the manner that they abandoned them — and as a result, they are apparently eager to compromise on them.
To the degree McCain can articulate the above, he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster.
No one can out-Obama Obama.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Newspapers
David Warren's new column in the Ottawa ( Canada) newspaper. I like this guy!
It wasn’t the dinosaurs’ fault the asteroid hit them.
Okay, let’s back up a bit. I am alluding to an hypothesis, first advanced by Luis Alvarez and son, that a large asteroid hit the earth, causing the mass die-off of dinosaur and many other species, at what we used to call “the K-T boundary” (the end of the Cretaceous geological period) about 65 million years ago. This was proposed in 1980, and given apparent confirmation by the discovery of traces of a huge impact crater in the Yucatan around 1990.
It then quickly became al-gorey “settled science” -- before being challenged with increasing confidence from many different angles.I have no axe to grind on that one. Really. I’m just using it as a metaphor.It wasn’t the newspaper’s fault that it was hit first by radio, then by television, then by the massive and continuing sub-literacy engendered by “progressive” education reforms, and finally by the Internet. I doubt even cockroaches could survive being successively hit by four asteroids.
Back to the dinosaurs. While it might easily be imagined that they were helped to extinction, it might also be imagined, even surmised, that various dinosaur species contributed materially to their own eclipse, if, as the Darwinists suggest, they were too big and stupid to compete. I don’t buy this, myself, but my reader is always welcome to accept any hypothesis that is superficially plausible, even if I think it is, like Darwinism itself, unnecessarily big and stupid.
Like many other things, evolution happens, and the fact that it has happened is beyond human remedy. There is (for better or worse) no magic wand that will restore the age of the dinosaurs, or turn back the clock to the heyday of newspapers a century ago.
Over the weekend, reports began to appear (in the deadtree New York Post, but mostly on the Internet) about the impending bankruptcy of one of North America’s major metropolitan dailies, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, known affectionately as the “Strib.” And in my postal mailbox this morning, the parrot-sheet of the union of which I am involuntarily a member, informs me in its headline that, “Newspaper biz, like icebergs, is cracking up.”
This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the evidence that daily print journalism (and most other forms of print journalism), are on deathwatch. I have been noticing the industry-wide relaxation of paid circulation and advertising revenues with morbid fascination for some time.
Verily, it is more than 15 years since I was myself first invited to speak to an audience about “the decline of the daily newspaper,” and asked to predict its future.Big newspapers have gone bust before; but the interesting thing about the Strib is that it’s the last big newspaper in a big town. It has been sold twice in the last decade, the second sale for half the price of the first, and now its principle creditors are hovering. The idea of a major city without even one major newspaper (of course, Minneapolis still has little papers) remains so unthinkable, that people assume Credit Suisse will find a way to keep the thing afloat.
The age of the great sailing ships was also prolonged by such optimism.Well-managed newspapers -- and there are a few, contrary to popular belief -- have been in the “adapt or die” mode for years. Many have moved audaciously and cleverly into the Internet, trading on their infrastructural strengths while shedding as much as possible of the overheads associated with a huge printing plant and distribution network -- “reducing their carbon footprint,” as it were. The physical paper itself gets thinner, and harder to find, but the enterprise becomes increasingly visible on laptops.
In my view (the view that always prevails in this column), our future need not be so grim. The idea of the news sheet remains essentially sound, judging by the success of the nasty little rags with which commuters are now scattershot in urban transit systems across the Western world. People still want something to read, that is portable and companionable and requires no technological savvy whatever.But those who can read want something to read, i.e. something intrinsically lively, informative, interesting, and even reliable and trustworthy and aesthetically satisfying.
This is where the decline in journalism itself is most felt, not only in newspapers but throughout big media. The content has become diffuse, predictable, boring. In particular, with the triumph of “professional” journalism schools, and the credentialism that followed, “mainstream” journalists have come to represent a single, tedious class.
Newspapers are now editorially staffed, overwhelmingly, by members of this one class, who think and sound like sociology majors, and express themselves in a jargon stream of pompous, preachy, preening, vaguely leftist and reptilian drivel.My suspicion is that an asteroid has now hit this class, and we await the emergence of something more lean, clean, warm-blooded, and mammalian.
It wasn’t the dinosaurs’ fault the asteroid hit them.
Okay, let’s back up a bit. I am alluding to an hypothesis, first advanced by Luis Alvarez and son, that a large asteroid hit the earth, causing the mass die-off of dinosaur and many other species, at what we used to call “the K-T boundary” (the end of the Cretaceous geological period) about 65 million years ago. This was proposed in 1980, and given apparent confirmation by the discovery of traces of a huge impact crater in the Yucatan around 1990.
It then quickly became al-gorey “settled science” -- before being challenged with increasing confidence from many different angles.I have no axe to grind on that one. Really. I’m just using it as a metaphor.It wasn’t the newspaper’s fault that it was hit first by radio, then by television, then by the massive and continuing sub-literacy engendered by “progressive” education reforms, and finally by the Internet. I doubt even cockroaches could survive being successively hit by four asteroids.
Back to the dinosaurs. While it might easily be imagined that they were helped to extinction, it might also be imagined, even surmised, that various dinosaur species contributed materially to their own eclipse, if, as the Darwinists suggest, they were too big and stupid to compete. I don’t buy this, myself, but my reader is always welcome to accept any hypothesis that is superficially plausible, even if I think it is, like Darwinism itself, unnecessarily big and stupid.
Like many other things, evolution happens, and the fact that it has happened is beyond human remedy. There is (for better or worse) no magic wand that will restore the age of the dinosaurs, or turn back the clock to the heyday of newspapers a century ago.
Over the weekend, reports began to appear (in the deadtree New York Post, but mostly on the Internet) about the impending bankruptcy of one of North America’s major metropolitan dailies, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, known affectionately as the “Strib.” And in my postal mailbox this morning, the parrot-sheet of the union of which I am involuntarily a member, informs me in its headline that, “Newspaper biz, like icebergs, is cracking up.”
This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the evidence that daily print journalism (and most other forms of print journalism), are on deathwatch. I have been noticing the industry-wide relaxation of paid circulation and advertising revenues with morbid fascination for some time.
Verily, it is more than 15 years since I was myself first invited to speak to an audience about “the decline of the daily newspaper,” and asked to predict its future.Big newspapers have gone bust before; but the interesting thing about the Strib is that it’s the last big newspaper in a big town. It has been sold twice in the last decade, the second sale for half the price of the first, and now its principle creditors are hovering. The idea of a major city without even one major newspaper (of course, Minneapolis still has little papers) remains so unthinkable, that people assume Credit Suisse will find a way to keep the thing afloat.
The age of the great sailing ships was also prolonged by such optimism.Well-managed newspapers -- and there are a few, contrary to popular belief -- have been in the “adapt or die” mode for years. Many have moved audaciously and cleverly into the Internet, trading on their infrastructural strengths while shedding as much as possible of the overheads associated with a huge printing plant and distribution network -- “reducing their carbon footprint,” as it were. The physical paper itself gets thinner, and harder to find, but the enterprise becomes increasingly visible on laptops.
In my view (the view that always prevails in this column), our future need not be so grim. The idea of the news sheet remains essentially sound, judging by the success of the nasty little rags with which commuters are now scattershot in urban transit systems across the Western world. People still want something to read, that is portable and companionable and requires no technological savvy whatever.But those who can read want something to read, i.e. something intrinsically lively, informative, interesting, and even reliable and trustworthy and aesthetically satisfying.
This is where the decline in journalism itself is most felt, not only in newspapers but throughout big media. The content has become diffuse, predictable, boring. In particular, with the triumph of “professional” journalism schools, and the credentialism that followed, “mainstream” journalists have come to represent a single, tedious class.
Newspapers are now editorially staffed, overwhelmingly, by members of this one class, who think and sound like sociology majors, and express themselves in a jargon stream of pompous, preachy, preening, vaguely leftist and reptilian drivel.My suspicion is that an asteroid has now hit this class, and we await the emergence of something more lean, clean, warm-blooded, and mammalian.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Gaia Declares a Hudna
Alan Nadel on "The American Thinker" blog writes:
A desire to understand the universe seems to be hard-wired into our brains. However we need a worldview (from the German Weltanschauung which means, literally, "world view"). Continuing with the computer metaphor, a worldview corresponds to a disc operating system, a framework for receiving and processing data.
Worldviews have changed over the course of history.
The ancient Greeks thought that otherwise inexplicable events such as thunderstorms and falling in love were the results of whimsical actions of Zeus and Cupid, respectively. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed in a heavenly harmony that was replicated here on earth. Thus the sun ruled the sky just as kings ruled on earth; events such as comets or regicide, upsetting the proper harmony, were greatly feared
These ideas were replaced in turn by historical inevitability:
What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Despite the demise of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, Marxism is still held in reverence by academics in many countries, while the rest of us wait in vain for the intelligentsia to provide us with a new Weltanschauung.
Actually, the idea of historical inevitability preceded Marx by several hundred years. In the autumn of 2001, I developed a sudden interest in Islamic theology, and learned about the divinely ordained conflict between Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam:
[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection....
[9.33] He it is Who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He might cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists may be averse.
However, it's permissible to declare a hudna
"If Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).
Still on the topic of historical inevitability: it is now settled science that anthropogenic global warming is imminent. So I was surprised to read, in the May 1, 2008 edition of the highly respected scientific journal Nature:
Antarctica's deep ocean waters are getting colder after years of warming (page 15)
and in the very same issue
Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken... global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming. (page 84)
Also we may be seeing the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years, and a possible reversal of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation into its cool phase.
What does it all mean? I need to develop a Weltanschauung. Let's see....a hudna is 10 years; the meridional overturning circulation (whatever that is) will weaken over the next 10 years; a sunspot cycle is just over 10 years; the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ...anyone see a pattern here?
Has Gaia declared a hudna?
As Yogi Berra said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." This is especially true when one states categorically that a certain outcome is inevitable.
Marx was almost certainly wrong about the collapse of the bourgeoisie; we can only hope that Mohammed was wrong about the universal Caliphate, and there is some recent suggestion that Al Gore was wrong about an imminent global warming catastrophe.
A desire to understand the universe seems to be hard-wired into our brains. However we need a worldview (from the German Weltanschauung which means, literally, "world view"). Continuing with the computer metaphor, a worldview corresponds to a disc operating system, a framework for receiving and processing data.
Worldviews have changed over the course of history.
The ancient Greeks thought that otherwise inexplicable events such as thunderstorms and falling in love were the results of whimsical actions of Zeus and Cupid, respectively. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed in a heavenly harmony that was replicated here on earth. Thus the sun ruled the sky just as kings ruled on earth; events such as comets or regicide, upsetting the proper harmony, were greatly feared
These ideas were replaced in turn by historical inevitability:
What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Despite the demise of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, Marxism is still held in reverence by academics in many countries, while the rest of us wait in vain for the intelligentsia to provide us with a new Weltanschauung.
Actually, the idea of historical inevitability preceded Marx by several hundred years. In the autumn of 2001, I developed a sudden interest in Islamic theology, and learned about the divinely ordained conflict between Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam:
[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection....
[9.33] He it is Who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He might cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists may be averse.
However, it's permissible to declare a hudna
"If Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).
Still on the topic of historical inevitability: it is now settled science that anthropogenic global warming is imminent. So I was surprised to read, in the May 1, 2008 edition of the highly respected scientific journal Nature:
Antarctica's deep ocean waters are getting colder after years of warming (page 15)
and in the very same issue
Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken... global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming. (page 84)
Also we may be seeing the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years, and a possible reversal of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation into its cool phase.
What does it all mean? I need to develop a Weltanschauung. Let's see....a hudna is 10 years; the meridional overturning circulation (whatever that is) will weaken over the next 10 years; a sunspot cycle is just over 10 years; the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ...anyone see a pattern here?
Has Gaia declared a hudna?
As Yogi Berra said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." This is especially true when one states categorically that a certain outcome is inevitable.
Marx was almost certainly wrong about the collapse of the bourgeoisie; we can only hope that Mohammed was wrong about the universal Caliphate, and there is some recent suggestion that Al Gore was wrong about an imminent global warming catastrophe.
This Caught My Fancy This Morning
The easy way is too hard:
The easy way to make ethanol is to import sugar from Brazil and use that. Of course we don't and won't do that.
The easy way to bring oil prices is to drill offshore and on the North Slope. Of course we don't do that.
The easy way to bring electricity prices down (you can make fertilizer with electricity) is to build nuclear power plants, expensive but cheap compared to wars. Of course we won't do that. --
Jerry Pournelle Chaos Manor
The easy way to make ethanol is to import sugar from Brazil and use that. Of course we don't and won't do that.
The easy way to bring oil prices is to drill offshore and on the North Slope. Of course we don't do that.
The easy way to bring electricity prices down (you can make fertilizer with electricity) is to build nuclear power plants, expensive but cheap compared to wars. Of course we won't do that. --
Jerry Pournelle Chaos Manor
Monday, May 5, 2008
Our Demise is Written
Pat Buchanan in "The Way Our World Ends" points out the sad demographic evidence that Western Civilization is the truly endangered species.
It appears that Western Man will not even outlive the cause d'jour polar bear!
In 1950, whites were 28 percent of world population and Africans 9 percent, a ratio of three-to-one. In 2060, the ratio will remain the same. But the colors will be reversed. People of African ancestry will be 25 percent of the world’s population. People of European descent will have fallen to 9.8 percent.
More arresting is that the white population is shrinking not only in relative but in real terms. Two hundred million white people, one in every six on earth — a number equal to the entire population of France, Britain, Holland and Germany — will vanish by 2060.
The Caucasian race is going the way of the Mohicans...
By 2050, a fourth of all the people of Eastern Europe will have vanished. Ukraine will lose one-third of its population. Russia, 150 million at the breakup of the Soviet Union, 142 million today, will be down to 108 million. Such losses dwarf what Hitler and Stalin together did to these countries...
Pakistan will add 84 million to reach almost 300 million, the U.S. population today. Afghanistan’s population will triple from 27 million to 79 million. Iraq’s will go from 29 million to 62 million.
The destinies of these nations will be beyond the capacity of an aging, dwindling, dying West to dictate. (emphasis my own)
It appears that Western Man will not even outlive the cause d'jour polar bear!
In 1950, whites were 28 percent of world population and Africans 9 percent, a ratio of three-to-one. In 2060, the ratio will remain the same. But the colors will be reversed. People of African ancestry will be 25 percent of the world’s population. People of European descent will have fallen to 9.8 percent.
More arresting is that the white population is shrinking not only in relative but in real terms. Two hundred million white people, one in every six on earth — a number equal to the entire population of France, Britain, Holland and Germany — will vanish by 2060.
The Caucasian race is going the way of the Mohicans...
By 2050, a fourth of all the people of Eastern Europe will have vanished. Ukraine will lose one-third of its population. Russia, 150 million at the breakup of the Soviet Union, 142 million today, will be down to 108 million. Such losses dwarf what Hitler and Stalin together did to these countries...
Pakistan will add 84 million to reach almost 300 million, the U.S. population today. Afghanistan’s population will triple from 27 million to 79 million. Iraq’s will go from 29 million to 62 million.
The destinies of these nations will be beyond the capacity of an aging, dwindling, dying West to dictate. (emphasis my own)
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Orwellian View
Today, in Slate online, Jeff Greenfield ties together a strain of political thought that had been around in much the same guise back in the 1930's as it is today. A very thoughtful piece:
What Orwell can teach Obama. - By Jeff Greenfield - Slate Magazine
What Orwell can teach Obama. - By Jeff Greenfield - Slate Magazine
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A Solution to our Problems
Today's bright idea from the same twisted financial mind of one Johnny Debacle: Prop up the price of housing by making our mortgages out of corn. "Corngages!"
When America had (the desire to prop up corn prices) a need for cheap sugar, what did it do? Make sugar out of corn.
When America had (the desire to prop up corn prices) a need for an alternative source for cheap liquid gasoline? Turn corn (and pigs via piganol) into oil.
Now America has a floundering real estate market and the need for cheap domestic financing to prop it up. What should she do? Make mortgages out of corn. Turn what is plentiful into what is scarce. Simple...a green friendly and renewable source of mortgages...
When America had (the desire to prop up corn prices) a need for cheap sugar, what did it do? Make sugar out of corn.
When America had (the desire to prop up corn prices) a need for an alternative source for cheap liquid gasoline? Turn corn (and pigs via piganol) into oil.
Now America has a floundering real estate market and the need for cheap domestic financing to prop it up. What should she do? Make mortgages out of corn. Turn what is plentiful into what is scarce. Simple...a green friendly and renewable source of mortgages...
The McCain Story
From William Katz at his blog site "Urgent Agenda" we get this short summation from an article that Karl Rove recently wrote.
Karl Rove, one of the best political minds in the business, has a remarkable column in today's Wall Street Journal. It may seem familiar to some, but much of it was new to me. Rove argues that John McCain must open up, become less private, this year if he is to win in November. He tells some of McCain's stories, stories McCain is reluctant to tell himself. What strikes me is the difference in lives lived between McCain and Obama. It is Obama who is the child of privilege, yet we're told he has a "great story." No he doesn't. It's McCain who has the great story, and has lived real hardship. Rove writes:
When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.
And...
For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.
Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.
I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.
"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.
Rove concludes:
Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential decency.
These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44th president.
That's good advice, especially as Mr. McCain's likely opponent will be presented to the American people by the mainstream media as a gift from Providence, and maybe Providence itself.
Karl Rove, one of the best political minds in the business, has a remarkable column in today's Wall Street Journal. It may seem familiar to some, but much of it was new to me. Rove argues that John McCain must open up, become less private, this year if he is to win in November. He tells some of McCain's stories, stories McCain is reluctant to tell himself. What strikes me is the difference in lives lived between McCain and Obama. It is Obama who is the child of privilege, yet we're told he has a "great story." No he doesn't. It's McCain who has the great story, and has lived real hardship. Rove writes:
When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.
And...
For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.
Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.
I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.
"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.
Rove concludes:
Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential decency.
These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44th president.
That's good advice, especially as Mr. McCain's likely opponent will be presented to the American people by the mainstream media as a gift from Providence, and maybe Providence itself.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Dear Barry
The best satirist on the web is most likely "Iowahawk." Today he has a feature in which Barack Obama gives advice to the lovelorn. Hope you enjoy.
iowahawk: Advice for the Lovelorn
iowahawk: Advice for the Lovelorn
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Figure This One Out
From Gateway Pundit a few days ago:
Senator Barack Obama says that General Petraeus did a good job in Iraq and that he will back Petraeus for his new command post.
Senator Barack Obama also says he will withdraw troops from Iraq immediately if he becomes president even if his generals in the field believe it is a bad idea.
Reuters reported:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has called for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, said on Sunday he will vote to confirm the top commander there for a new job as head of the military's Central Command.President George W. Bush has nominated Gen. David Petraeus, who led the buildup of troops in Iraq, to be in charge of operations across the Middle East and Central Asia.If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus will still be in that job when the next president replaces Bush at the White House in January 2009.
Obama hopes that person is him.
"Yes," Obama told "Fox News Sunday" when asked if, as a senator from Illinois, he would approve Petraeus. "I think Petraeus has done a good tactical job in Iraq."
Obama has said he would start pulling out more troops as soon as he became president.Obama believes Petraeus has done a good job in Iraq but wants to surrender anyway.
Go figure
Senator Barack Obama says that General Petraeus did a good job in Iraq and that he will back Petraeus for his new command post.
Senator Barack Obama also says he will withdraw troops from Iraq immediately if he becomes president even if his generals in the field believe it is a bad idea.
Reuters reported:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has called for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, said on Sunday he will vote to confirm the top commander there for a new job as head of the military's Central Command.President George W. Bush has nominated Gen. David Petraeus, who led the buildup of troops in Iraq, to be in charge of operations across the Middle East and Central Asia.If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus will still be in that job when the next president replaces Bush at the White House in January 2009.
Obama hopes that person is him.
"Yes," Obama told "Fox News Sunday" when asked if, as a senator from Illinois, he would approve Petraeus. "I think Petraeus has done a good tactical job in Iraq."
Obama has said he would start pulling out more troops as soon as he became president.Obama believes Petraeus has done a good job in Iraq but wants to surrender anyway.
Go figure
A Vote Against Voter Fraud
The big news on elections came yesterday when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that voter ID requirements can be lawful in all states. There is quite a lot of comment on all of this, and plenty of news outlets have stories on it.
Here is one short blurb from Byron York on NRO today:
Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on voter ID will hopefully put an end to the argument that it is overly burdensome to require a voter to identify himself before voting. (Of course, it probably won't; Hillary Clinton, among others, has long pushed a bill, the Count Every Vote Act, that would allow anyone to show up at a polling place on Election Day and register to vote, and vote, with no ID, no proof of residency, no proof of citizenship, no nothing.)
But one thing the Supreme Court decision surely does is blow the Democrats' case against Hans von Spakovsky out of the water. Senate Democrats have been blocking von Spakovsky's permanent apppointment to the FEC on the grounds that, while in the Justice Department, he argued that states should be allowed to require voters to identify themselves when they show up at the polls. That was an outrage to Senate Democrats, but it now has rather strong Supreme Court approval. Read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Wooten on the issue
Here is one short blurb from Byron York on NRO today:
Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on voter ID will hopefully put an end to the argument that it is overly burdensome to require a voter to identify himself before voting. (Of course, it probably won't; Hillary Clinton, among others, has long pushed a bill, the Count Every Vote Act, that would allow anyone to show up at a polling place on Election Day and register to vote, and vote, with no ID, no proof of residency, no proof of citizenship, no nothing.)
But one thing the Supreme Court decision surely does is blow the Democrats' case against Hans von Spakovsky out of the water. Senate Democrats have been blocking von Spakovsky's permanent apppointment to the FEC on the grounds that, while in the Justice Department, he argued that states should be allowed to require voters to identify themselves when they show up at the polls. That was an outrage to Senate Democrats, but it now has rather strong Supreme Court approval. Read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Wooten on the issue
Monday, April 28, 2008
Eulogy for a Changing Leftist
Mark Steyn writes on NRO about a left wing columnist in Australia who finally began to see the problem with our modern western culture. It captures perfectly why this old dog has this blog.
Leaving the Left
The Australian columnist Pamela Bone died of cancer this weekend. She was a feminist, an atheist and most of the other -ists you might expect from a western woman of her general disposition (she was a recipient, among many other awards, of something called the "UN media peace prize"). But in her final years she came to see that the Islamization of the west represented a profound challenge to everything she believed in. It began fairly tentatively. She seems almost to be thinking aloud in this piece for the Melbourne Age on the British subjects born and bred who self-detonated on the London Tube:
In Melbourne the day after September 11, Muslim students at a state high school danced on the desks with glee. What are these young people being taught by their decent and law-abiding parents? Literature being sold at a store attached to a Brunswick mosque tells Muslims they should "hate and take as enemies" Jews, Christians, atheists and secularists, and that they should "learn to hate in order to properly love Allah". How many Muslims complain when they see this kind of hate literature? Did the large Sydney audience complain when Sheikh Feiz Muhammad charged recently that because of the way they dressed, women had only themselves to blame if they were raped? No, they applauded him.
The column ends as follows:
Perhaps it is time to say, it's been wonderful, but a few things need to be made clear. Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here.
"This is the way it is": That kind of talk is anathema to the multiculti elites in Oz, Canada, America, Britain and Europe. But Ms Bone saw no good in tolerant multiculturalists colluding with the avowedly unicultural and intolerant. She was especially tough on the two-tier sisterhood:
LET it be recorded that in the last decade of the 20th century the brave and great movement of Western feminism ended, not with a bang but with a whimper... I don't hold much hope on this International Women's Day of seeing big protests in Australian cities against female genital mutilation; or against honour killings, stonings, child marriages, forced seclusion or any of the other persecutions to which women are still subjected. The fire of Western feminism has quietly died away, first as a victim of its success, lately as a victim of cultural relativism, of anti-Americanism and reluctance to be seen to be condemning the enemies of the enemy.
She summed up the strange alliance between western progressives and a theocratic tyranny that stones women and executes homosexuals in this piece:
Why, in short, have Left and Right changed places?
I didn't agree with Pamela Bone on most things, even at the end. But she understood in a way that too few of the left do that her culture and her civilization need defending and that the relativist mush of the age (not to mention The Age) is insufficient to the task. I shall miss her, and I wish there were more like her
Leaving the Left
The Australian columnist Pamela Bone died of cancer this weekend. She was a feminist, an atheist and most of the other -ists you might expect from a western woman of her general disposition (she was a recipient, among many other awards, of something called the "UN media peace prize"). But in her final years she came to see that the Islamization of the west represented a profound challenge to everything she believed in. It began fairly tentatively. She seems almost to be thinking aloud in this piece for the Melbourne Age on the British subjects born and bred who self-detonated on the London Tube:
In Melbourne the day after September 11, Muslim students at a state high school danced on the desks with glee. What are these young people being taught by their decent and law-abiding parents? Literature being sold at a store attached to a Brunswick mosque tells Muslims they should "hate and take as enemies" Jews, Christians, atheists and secularists, and that they should "learn to hate in order to properly love Allah". How many Muslims complain when they see this kind of hate literature? Did the large Sydney audience complain when Sheikh Feiz Muhammad charged recently that because of the way they dressed, women had only themselves to blame if they were raped? No, they applauded him.
The column ends as follows:
Perhaps it is time to say, it's been wonderful, but a few things need to be made clear. Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here.
"This is the way it is": That kind of talk is anathema to the multiculti elites in Oz, Canada, America, Britain and Europe. But Ms Bone saw no good in tolerant multiculturalists colluding with the avowedly unicultural and intolerant. She was especially tough on the two-tier sisterhood:
LET it be recorded that in the last decade of the 20th century the brave and great movement of Western feminism ended, not with a bang but with a whimper... I don't hold much hope on this International Women's Day of seeing big protests in Australian cities against female genital mutilation; or against honour killings, stonings, child marriages, forced seclusion or any of the other persecutions to which women are still subjected. The fire of Western feminism has quietly died away, first as a victim of its success, lately as a victim of cultural relativism, of anti-Americanism and reluctance to be seen to be condemning the enemies of the enemy.
She summed up the strange alliance between western progressives and a theocratic tyranny that stones women and executes homosexuals in this piece:
Why, in short, have Left and Right changed places?
I didn't agree with Pamela Bone on most things, even at the end. But she understood in a way that too few of the left do that her culture and her civilization need defending and that the relativist mush of the age (not to mention The Age) is insufficient to the task. I shall miss her, and I wish there were more like her
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Doomsday
Powerline's John Hindraker lifts these quotations from 1970:
•“...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
• By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
• The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.
• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
• “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
It may well be that the long winter of 2007-2008 came just in time to avert the disaster that would ensue if the general public ever took environmental hysteria seriously.
•“...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
• By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
• The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.
• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
• “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
It may well be that the long winter of 2007-2008 came just in time to avert the disaster that would ensue if the general public ever took environmental hysteria seriously.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Mencken Quote
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. If these villains could be put down, he holds, he would at once become rich, powerful and eminent. Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever party, live and have their being by promising to perform this putting down. In brief, they are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits.
– H. L. Mencken, _Baltimore Evening Sun_, June 15, 1936
– H. L. Mencken, _Baltimore Evening Sun_, June 15, 1936
Cute Limerick
There once was a man named Gore,
who thought he had a climate change cure,
then things like grain and rice,went far up in price,
now he's to blame for starving the poor!
who thought he had a climate change cure,
then things like grain and rice,went far up in price,
now he's to blame for starving the poor!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Populism at its Most Dangerous
Today on NRO, Victor Hanson Davis takes on "they."
Populism and the inherent demagoguery that goes with it are examined in light of Obama's campaign this year. Populism, in one form or another, has always been with us throughout history. The idea that people look to a mysterious, generic "they" to heal their unhappiness and their woes, has always been a tool that political speakers have used to move their audience's emotion. Please read this serious article:
Victor Davis Hanson on Barack Obama on National Review Online
Populism and the inherent demagoguery that goes with it are examined in light of Obama's campaign this year. Populism, in one form or another, has always been with us throughout history. The idea that people look to a mysterious, generic "they" to heal their unhappiness and their woes, has always been a tool that political speakers have used to move their audience's emotion. Please read this serious article:
Victor Davis Hanson on Barack Obama on National Review Online
Thursday, April 24, 2008
A Tiny Story ...
...slated to disappear very soon.
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings. ...
“You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We’ve had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten,” Kinshasa’s police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
“I’m tempted to say it’s one huge joke,” Oleko said. “But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
“It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings. ...
“You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We’ve had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten,” Kinshasa’s police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
“I’m tempted to say it’s one huge joke,” Oleko said. “But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
“It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
NUTS
The following is the first half of an article written today in National review:
Peanut-Farmer PartyDemocrats have a Jimmy Carter problem
.By Michelle Malkin
So much for Jimmy Carter’s triumphal peace mission in the Middle East. Like everything else he has done on foreign policy, the world’s biggest tool for jihad propaganda created yet another bloody mess. Quick review: After proclaiming that Hamas terrorists were willing to accept Israel as a “neighbor next door,” Carter’s Hamas hug buddies flipped him the bird.
They gladly accepted the diplomatic legitimacy Carter’s visit conferred upon them, while clinging bitterly to their insistence on the destruction of the Jewish state.After laying a wreath in honor of the murderous Yasser Arafat, Carter dutifully agreed to deliver a letter from kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to his parents on behalf of the terrorists who are holding him hostage. Shalit’s father rightly jeered Carter as nothing more than a postman for Hamas.
After Carter asserted that the State Department never clearly opposed his trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointed out that she had explicitly warned him against meeting with Hamas. Not to mention all those bold-faced, unequivocal headlines before the trip announcing that “State Department opposes Carter meeting with Hamas chief” (USA Today) and “Rice Criticizes Carter for Reported Meeting Planned With Hamas” (Fox News).What part of “Don’t meet with the Jew-hating killers, you idiot!” didn’t Carter understand?
Article 13 of the Hamas charter is also as clear as day: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Jimmy Carter’s thick skull and moral myopia are an American embarrassment and an American problem. But more precisely: Jimmy Carter is a Democratic problem. He casts a long, feckless shadow over the party — and it will haunt the party through the Democratic National Convention in August and beyond.
Carter is a Democratic-party superdelegate who will undoubtedly seek a prominent role at the convention this August. But the party can ill afford a diarrhea-of-the-mouth moment from their elder terror apologist. The world is watching and listening.
Peanut-Farmer PartyDemocrats have a Jimmy Carter problem
.By Michelle Malkin
So much for Jimmy Carter’s triumphal peace mission in the Middle East. Like everything else he has done on foreign policy, the world’s biggest tool for jihad propaganda created yet another bloody mess. Quick review: After proclaiming that Hamas terrorists were willing to accept Israel as a “neighbor next door,” Carter’s Hamas hug buddies flipped him the bird.
They gladly accepted the diplomatic legitimacy Carter’s visit conferred upon them, while clinging bitterly to their insistence on the destruction of the Jewish state.After laying a wreath in honor of the murderous Yasser Arafat, Carter dutifully agreed to deliver a letter from kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to his parents on behalf of the terrorists who are holding him hostage. Shalit’s father rightly jeered Carter as nothing more than a postman for Hamas.
After Carter asserted that the State Department never clearly opposed his trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointed out that she had explicitly warned him against meeting with Hamas. Not to mention all those bold-faced, unequivocal headlines before the trip announcing that “State Department opposes Carter meeting with Hamas chief” (USA Today) and “Rice Criticizes Carter for Reported Meeting Planned With Hamas” (Fox News).What part of “Don’t meet with the Jew-hating killers, you idiot!” didn’t Carter understand?
Article 13 of the Hamas charter is also as clear as day: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Jimmy Carter’s thick skull and moral myopia are an American embarrassment and an American problem. But more precisely: Jimmy Carter is a Democratic problem. He casts a long, feckless shadow over the party — and it will haunt the party through the Democratic National Convention in August and beyond.
Carter is a Democratic-party superdelegate who will undoubtedly seek a prominent role at the convention this August. But the party can ill afford a diarrhea-of-the-mouth moment from their elder terror apologist. The world is watching and listening.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Must Watch!
This is an absolutely amazing video. The human mind never fails to astonish.
Sorry that I was away for a week.
StumbleVideo - Beautiful Minds: Stephen Wiltshire#p=0k4lsi1dql
Sorry that I was away for a week.
StumbleVideo - Beautiful Minds: Stephen Wiltshire#p=0k4lsi1dql
Thursday, April 17, 2008
What's Going On?
From The Corner:
Then and Now
Britain's The Independent is, in many ways, Britain's most irritating broadsheet, not least because of its relentless, and catastrophe-laden, enviropreachiness. That unkind Mr. Eugenides has now posted this gem from an editorial that ran in the paper back in November 2005:
At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a "biofuel obligation" on oil companies. This would require major firms such as BP and Shell to blend a fixed proportion of biofuels with the petrol and diesel they sell on Britain's garage forecourts. This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol a decade and a half ago. The beauty of biofuels - petrol made from sugar beet and diesel made from oilseed rape - is that they are "carbon neutral". The quantity of C02 they produce when burnt has already been absorbed by the crops used to make them. There is no reason why a biofuel quota should not work.
And here is what that same newspaper was asking on April 15th, 2008, less than three years later:
The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world's environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?
The article continued as follows:
From today, all petrol and diesel sold on forecourts must contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The Government insists its flagship environmental policy will make Britain's 33 million vehicles greener. But a formidable coalition of campaigners is warning that, far from helping to reverse climate change, the UK's biofuel revolution will speed up global warming and the loss of vital habitat worldwide.Amid growing evidence that massive investment in biofuels by developed countries is helping to cause a food crisis for the world's poor, the ecological cost of the push to produce billions of litres of petrol and diesel from plant sources will be highlighted today with protests across the country and growing political pressure to impose guarantees that the new technology reduces carbon emissions.
Amazing!
Then and Now
Britain's The Independent is, in many ways, Britain's most irritating broadsheet, not least because of its relentless, and catastrophe-laden, enviropreachiness. That unkind Mr. Eugenides has now posted this gem from an editorial that ran in the paper back in November 2005:
At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a "biofuel obligation" on oil companies. This would require major firms such as BP and Shell to blend a fixed proportion of biofuels with the petrol and diesel they sell on Britain's garage forecourts. This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol a decade and a half ago. The beauty of biofuels - petrol made from sugar beet and diesel made from oilseed rape - is that they are "carbon neutral". The quantity of C02 they produce when burnt has already been absorbed by the crops used to make them. There is no reason why a biofuel quota should not work.
And here is what that same newspaper was asking on April 15th, 2008, less than three years later:
The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world's environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?
The article continued as follows:
From today, all petrol and diesel sold on forecourts must contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The Government insists its flagship environmental policy will make Britain's 33 million vehicles greener. But a formidable coalition of campaigners is warning that, far from helping to reverse climate change, the UK's biofuel revolution will speed up global warming and the loss of vital habitat worldwide.Amid growing evidence that massive investment in biofuels by developed countries is helping to cause a food crisis for the world's poor, the ecological cost of the push to produce billions of litres of petrol and diesel from plant sources will be highlighted today with protests across the country and growing political pressure to impose guarantees that the new technology reduces carbon emissions.
Amazing!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Jimmy Carter Regurgitated
Ed Koch, a former mayor of new York City recollects a scene from the Carter campaign. To read the whole article, go to this site. RealClearPolitics Below is an excerpt:
I came to know Carter well.
When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 -- I was by then Mayor of New York City -- and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, "You have done me more damage than any man in America." I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.
I came to know Carter well.
When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 -- I was by then Mayor of New York City -- and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, "You have done me more damage than any man in America." I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.
No Free Speech in France
It continues to amaze this old dog how Western Civilization gives up so easily. While this may be France, these kinds of "crime" are being prosecuted in many of the advanced democracies of the world.
We will be the last to fold, thanks to the foresight of our Founding Fathers.
PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers.
Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts".
Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.
She has been fined four times for inciting racial hatred since 1997, at first 1,500 euros and most recently 5,000.
Prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court she was seeking a tougher sentence than usual, adding: "I am a little tired of prosecuting Mrs Bardot."
Bardot did not attend the trial because she said she was physically unable to. The verdict is expected in several weeks.
French anti-racist groups complained last year about comments Bardot made about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy that was later published by her foundation.
Muslims traditionally mark Eid al-Adha by slaughtering a sheep or another animal to commemorate the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders.
France is home to 5 million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim community, making up 8 percent of France's population.
"I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," the star of 'And God created woman' and 'Contempt' said.
Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed, in which she also lamented the "Islamisation of France".
We will be the last to fold, thanks to the foresight of our Founding Fathers.
PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers.
Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts".
Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.
She has been fined four times for inciting racial hatred since 1997, at first 1,500 euros and most recently 5,000.
Prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court she was seeking a tougher sentence than usual, adding: "I am a little tired of prosecuting Mrs Bardot."
Bardot did not attend the trial because she said she was physically unable to. The verdict is expected in several weeks.
French anti-racist groups complained last year about comments Bardot made about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy that was later published by her foundation.
Muslims traditionally mark Eid al-Adha by slaughtering a sheep or another animal to commemorate the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders.
France is home to 5 million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim community, making up 8 percent of France's population.
"I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," the star of 'And God created woman' and 'Contempt' said.
Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed, in which she also lamented the "Islamisation of France".
Monday, April 14, 2008
Barbie and Ken Dolls
Available now in all participating Arkansas stores!!
Fayetteville Barbie 'Comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, along-haired foreign dog named Honey and a cookie-cutter house.Available with or without tummy tuck, boob job, and face lift.Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.'
Fort Smith Barbie'The modern day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford Wind starMinivan and matching gym outfit. She gets lost easily and has nofull-time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately.'
West Memphis Barbie'This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewisknife, a Chevy with dark tinted windows. This model is only availableafter dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceablebills) ...unless you are a cop, then we don't know what you aretalking about.'
Bentonville Barbie 'This yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW or Hummer H2.Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country clubmembership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and PrivateSchool Skipper. You won't be able to afford any of them.'
Harrison Barbie'This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans two sizes toosmall, a NASCAR t-shirt and tweety bird tattoo on her shoulder. Shehas a six-pack of Bud light and a Hank Williams Jr. CD set. She canspit over 5 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken's butt when she's drunk.Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumpersticker absolutely free.'
Eureka Springs Barbie'This doll is made of actual tofu. She has long straight brown hair,arch-less feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with whitesocks. She prefers that you call her Willow She does not want or needa Ken doll, but if you purchase two Eureka Springs Barbie's and theoptional Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag bumper sticker for free.'
SW Little Rock Barbie'This Barbie now comes with a stroller and two infant dolls. Optionalaccessories include a GED and bus pass. Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddywere available, but are now very difficult to find since the additionof the infant.'
Eureka Springs II Barbie 'This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken bysimply adding or subtracting the multiple snap-on parts.'
Pine Bluff Barbie'This Barbie is no longer available... she was shot before she made itto the list.
Fayetteville Barbie 'Comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, along-haired foreign dog named Honey and a cookie-cutter house.Available with or without tummy tuck, boob job, and face lift.Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.'
Fort Smith Barbie'The modern day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford Wind starMinivan and matching gym outfit. She gets lost easily and has nofull-time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately.'
West Memphis Barbie'This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewisknife, a Chevy with dark tinted windows. This model is only availableafter dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceablebills) ...unless you are a cop, then we don't know what you aretalking about.'
Bentonville Barbie 'This yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW or Hummer H2.Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country clubmembership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and PrivateSchool Skipper. You won't be able to afford any of them.'
Harrison Barbie'This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans two sizes toosmall, a NASCAR t-shirt and tweety bird tattoo on her shoulder. Shehas a six-pack of Bud light and a Hank Williams Jr. CD set. She canspit over 5 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken's butt when she's drunk.Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumpersticker absolutely free.'
Eureka Springs Barbie'This doll is made of actual tofu. She has long straight brown hair,arch-less feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with whitesocks. She prefers that you call her Willow She does not want or needa Ken doll, but if you purchase two Eureka Springs Barbie's and theoptional Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag bumper sticker for free.'
SW Little Rock Barbie'This Barbie now comes with a stroller and two infant dolls. Optionalaccessories include a GED and bus pass. Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddywere available, but are now very difficult to find since the additionof the infant.'
Eureka Springs II Barbie 'This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken bysimply adding or subtracting the multiple snap-on parts.'
Pine Bluff Barbie'This Barbie is no longer available... she was shot before she made itto the list.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Thoughts on our "Culture War"
The following thoughts by Ken Connor occupy my mind this morning. I thought it might interest you, as well.
Popular culture is blindly embracing science and ignoring legitimate moral concerns. Human dignity is steadily being eroded in the pursuit of the "advancement of science" and the quest for "cures." Increasingly, we are losing our common understanding of what it means to be a human being, and the idea that human beings are something "special" is rapidly becoming an antiquated notion.
Science is unquestionably a worthwhile pursuit, but many have come to view science as an end unto itself. The unbridled pursuit of science and technology is glorified, and any who suggest constraining science within limits of morality or propriety are condemned. Raising the simple question of whether something should be done is considered taboo. Radical science advocates are only interested in whether something can be done.
Popular culture is blindly embracing science and ignoring legitimate moral concerns. Human dignity is steadily being eroded in the pursuit of the "advancement of science" and the quest for "cures." Increasingly, we are losing our common understanding of what it means to be a human being, and the idea that human beings are something "special" is rapidly becoming an antiquated notion.
Science is unquestionably a worthwhile pursuit, but many have come to view science as an end unto itself. The unbridled pursuit of science and technology is glorified, and any who suggest constraining science within limits of morality or propriety are condemned. Raising the simple question of whether something should be done is considered taboo. Radical science advocates are only interested in whether something can be done.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Pennsylvanians get a Taste
We in Arkansas are used to the condescending tripe which emanates from self -professed "elitists." However, Barack Obama stirred up a hornet's nest in Pennsylvania by stating the following to an upscale, elitist group of supporters in Marin County California the other evening:
[T]he truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
This is not the kind of populist rhetoric Democratic voters actually want to hear. When they do hear it, it sounds to them more like this satirical article from August, 2000.
Funny stuff!
Visiting Gore Calls Pennsylvania 'A Hellhole' The Onion - America's Finest N
[T]he truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
This is not the kind of populist rhetoric Democratic voters actually want to hear. When they do hear it, it sounds to them more like this satirical article from August, 2000.
Funny stuff!
Visiting Gore Calls Pennsylvania 'A Hellhole' The Onion - America's Finest N
Friday, April 11, 2008
Clever Thought for the Day
From an e-mail at The Corner:
It occurs to me more and more that Obama is actually a political stem cell. He has the promise to become anything you want him to become and cure everything.
It occurs to me more and more that Obama is actually a political stem cell. He has the promise to become anything you want him to become and cure everything.
On Our Way Back to the Dark Ages
The comments from a former teacher which follow is in regard to the increasing censorship that is happening in Canada at the kangaroo court which is called the " Canadian Human Rights Commission." We see it happening at colleges across the U S on almost a daily basis, but somehow all of this remains hidden from the American public! Very sadly, it will remain so.
People wonder why I quit university teaching. Imagine an office - all your colleagues and all your supervisors and anyone with a say in your tenure prospects, your research funding and your publications - where everyone organizes their careers in such a way that a "human rights" commission would have no reason to object. Their teaching practices, their research, their political views; everything they think and do including and especially their "private" lives from the television they (do not) watch to the fast food they (do not) eat to the sex lives they (do not) allow themselves to have. Even the concept of a "private" life dismissed as reactionary and/or illusory and in any event subject to the scrutiny of any undergraduate with internet access and a grudge. That is the life I escaped. Even a couple years after the fact I find it a surprise when my internal censor warns me against writing something for fear of losing my livelihood and my career and I realize I have already crossed that bridge, burned it and done a little dance some time ago. It is a small price for freedom compared to the price so many have already paid for me. But it is something.
People wonder why I quit university teaching. Imagine an office - all your colleagues and all your supervisors and anyone with a say in your tenure prospects, your research funding and your publications - where everyone organizes their careers in such a way that a "human rights" commission would have no reason to object. Their teaching practices, their research, their political views; everything they think and do including and especially their "private" lives from the television they (do not) watch to the fast food they (do not) eat to the sex lives they (do not) allow themselves to have. Even the concept of a "private" life dismissed as reactionary and/or illusory and in any event subject to the scrutiny of any undergraduate with internet access and a grudge. That is the life I escaped. Even a couple years after the fact I find it a surprise when my internal censor warns me against writing something for fear of losing my livelihood and my career and I realize I have already crossed that bridge, burned it and done a little dance some time ago. It is a small price for freedom compared to the price so many have already paid for me. But it is something.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Elton John Endorsement
What's a good dog to think when Elton John endorses Hillary and has bad words for my breed?
Elton John laments American misogyny - New Zealand's source for entertainment
An e-mail to the Corner at NRO asks a pertinent question:
Now that Sir Elton thinks I'm a mysogonist for not supporting Hllary, and far too many people think I'm a racist for not supporting Obama, what would I be called if I could support Condi for president?
Elton John laments American misogyny - New Zealand's source for entertainment
An e-mail to the Corner at NRO asks a pertinent question:
Now that Sir Elton thinks I'm a mysogonist for not supporting Hllary, and far too many people think I'm a racist for not supporting Obama, what would I be called if I could support Condi for president?
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
From Ann Althouse's Blog
"A year ago, the president said we couldn't withdraw because there was too much violence."
"Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down."
Ted Kennedy to General Petraeus.
Me to Ted Kennedy: A year ago, you wanted to give up because we were losing, and now, you want to give up because we're winning.
"Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down."
Ted Kennedy to General Petraeus.
Me to Ted Kennedy: A year ago, you wanted to give up because we were losing, and now, you want to give up because we're winning.
Public Schooling!
From NRO's Corner and Powerline comes this major news story that you will most likely never see or hear about!
Public Madrassa in Minnesota?
Looks like a charter school in Minnesota may actually be taking public funds and operating as a madrassa:
Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.
Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.
TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota."
The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.
School officials declined to arrange a visit for the reporter, and a substitute teacher at the school claims she saw students compelled to perform religious activities.
Outrageous!!!
Public Madrassa in Minnesota?
Looks like a charter school in Minnesota may actually be taking public funds and operating as a madrassa:
Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.
Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.
TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota."
The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.
School officials declined to arrange a visit for the reporter, and a substitute teacher at the school claims she saw students compelled to perform religious activities.
Outrageous!!!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
It's almost enough to make you proud of America
After two years as the successful head basketball coach at Brown University, Craig Robinson, the brother of Michelle Obama, has landed a big-time job as head coach at Oregon State.
Straight From the Horses Mouth
A left wing blogger attended the 43rd District Democratic Caucus in Seattle and wrote a report describing the gathering. There is one item he mentioned that this old dog just had to cut out and send along. (Note that the blogger knew he was giving us on the right some dandy fodder.)
There was some time to kill as multiple tallies of the delegates and alternates were done, and when the time-killer of taking audience questions had run its course and the idea of teling jokes had been nixed, someone suggested doing the Pledge of Allegiance to pass the time. (Are you listening, right-wing bloggers? This is going to get good.)
At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.
There were to be 67 delegates to the state convention apportioned at this legislative district caucus: 14 for Clinton and 53 for Obama.
There was some time to kill as multiple tallies of the delegates and alternates were done, and when the time-killer of taking audience questions had run its course and the idea of teling jokes had been nixed, someone suggested doing the Pledge of Allegiance to pass the time. (Are you listening, right-wing bloggers? This is going to get good.)
At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.
There were to be 67 delegates to the state convention apportioned at this legislative district caucus: 14 for Clinton and 53 for Obama.
Monday, April 7, 2008
If Only
They Could Do Math, They Wouldn't Have Been Journalism Majors
Further proof that no one in the media is capable of even the simplest reality-checks when it comes to publishing numbers they get from activist press releases. This whole concept below is a howler (the idea is that global warming causes volcanoes) but it is the last paragraph that really caught my eye:
So much ice in Iceland has melted in the past century that the pressure on the land beneath has lessened, which allows more of the rock deep in the ground to turn to magma. Until the ice melted, the pressure was so intense that the rock remained solid.
Carolina Pagli, of the University of Leeds, led research which calculated that over the past century the production of magma had increased by 10 per cent.
The research team, reporting their findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said an extra 1.4 cu km of magma has been created under the Vatnajökull ice-cap in the past 100 years.
Since 1890 the ice-cap has lost 10 per cent of its mass, which has allowed the land to rise by up to 25m (82ft) a year. The volume lost between 1890 and 2003 is estimated at 435 cu km.
Leaving aside cause and effect (e.g. does ice cap melting cause more hot stuff in the ground or does more hot stuff in the ground melt ice), consider the statement that the ground has risen under the ice cap by 82 feet per year for 118 years. This gives us a rise in the land of 9,676 feet after just 10% of the ice mass has supposedly melted. Note that this is an enormous, totally non-sensical value. It implies that a full melting of the ice might increase the land height by 10x this amount, or nearly 100,000 feet (airplanes stay away!!) As another check, 9,676 is more than the entire depth of the Iceland ice sheet (it is about the same as what scientists think the Greenland ice sheet depth is). Another way of looking at this is this is about 1/8-inch land surface rise PER HOUR for the last century.
I am not sure how any writer or editor on the planet could look at "82 feet a year for 118 years" and not smell a rat.
Further proof that no one in the media is capable of even the simplest reality-checks when it comes to publishing numbers they get from activist press releases. This whole concept below is a howler (the idea is that global warming causes volcanoes) but it is the last paragraph that really caught my eye:
So much ice in Iceland has melted in the past century that the pressure on the land beneath has lessened, which allows more of the rock deep in the ground to turn to magma. Until the ice melted, the pressure was so intense that the rock remained solid.
Carolina Pagli, of the University of Leeds, led research which calculated that over the past century the production of magma had increased by 10 per cent.
The research team, reporting their findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said an extra 1.4 cu km of magma has been created under the Vatnajökull ice-cap in the past 100 years.
Since 1890 the ice-cap has lost 10 per cent of its mass, which has allowed the land to rise by up to 25m (82ft) a year. The volume lost between 1890 and 2003 is estimated at 435 cu km.
Leaving aside cause and effect (e.g. does ice cap melting cause more hot stuff in the ground or does more hot stuff in the ground melt ice), consider the statement that the ground has risen under the ice cap by 82 feet per year for 118 years. This gives us a rise in the land of 9,676 feet after just 10% of the ice mass has supposedly melted. Note that this is an enormous, totally non-sensical value. It implies that a full melting of the ice might increase the land height by 10x this amount, or nearly 100,000 feet (airplanes stay away!!) As another check, 9,676 is more than the entire depth of the Iceland ice sheet (it is about the same as what scientists think the Greenland ice sheet depth is). Another way of looking at this is this is about 1/8-inch land surface rise PER HOUR for the last century.
I am not sure how any writer or editor on the planet could look at "82 feet a year for 118 years" and not smell a rat.
Starbucks and 'Laissez Faire'
By DAVID BOAZApril 7, 2008; Page A12
Laissez-faire. It's a policy that made Starbucks vastly successful. But don't try to put that phrase on a customized Starbucks Card.
The cards are supposed be personalized to reflect customers' tastes and uniqueness. They are available in a range of colors, often given as gifts and used by regular customers who prefer to prepay for their java.
But when my friend Roger Ream, president of the Fund for American Studies, received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, he found there was a limit to how personalized a card could be. His card required him to customize it on the company's Web site. So he went to the site and requested that the phrase "Laissez Faire" be printed on his card. A few days later he was informed that the company couldn't issue such a card because the wording violated company policy.
Starbucks's company policy is this: "We review each Card before printing it to make sure it meets our personalization policy. We accept most personalization requests, but we can't honor every one. Some requests may contain trademarks that we don't have the right to use. Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate (such as threatening remarks, derogatory terms, or overtly political commentary) or wouldn't want to see on Starbucks-branded products."
Is the phrase "laissez-faire" threatening? Only to officious bureaucracy, I would think. So, it must be that the phrase is considered to be "inappropriate" by corporate Starbucks.
But why should it be considered inappropriate? The phrase itself is an imperative. It's French for "leave us alone," more or less. And it comes to us through history as advice offered to Jean Baptiste Colbert, finance minister under the French King Louis XIV in the 17th century. Colbert is best known for his statement: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing." When Colbert asked a group of merchants, "What do you want from us?," the answer was, "laisser nous faire." "Laissez-faire" is, then, an old piece of economic advice with an impeccable French heritage.
Maybe Starbucks considers the phrase inappropriate because it's "overtly political commentary"? Certainly my friend regards it as a firm statement of political philosophy.
And so, at my suggestion, my friend went back to the Web site and asked that his card be issued with the phrase "People Not Profits." Bingo! Starbucks had no problem with that phrase, and the card arrived in a few days.
I wondered just what the company's standards were. If "laissez-faire" is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan "people not profits" be acceptable?
My assistant and I tried to get the company to explain its policy. We started by trying to purchase a card with the phrase "Laissez Faire," and were rejected as my friend had been. We then asked a company spokesperson why. He suggested that it might be because "laissez-faire" is a foreign phrase. That seemed possible and a reasonable precaution.
So we tried another foreign phrase – "Si Se Puede," or "Yes we can." It's the United Farm Workers slogan, now adopted by Barack Obama's presidential campaign. That sailed right through. The senator's political campaign slogan was acceptable.
We called again. Several spokespeople at Starbucks and at Arroweye, the company that actually creates personalized cards for Starbucks and other retailers, said that they couldn't be sure, but that the phrase was probably rejected because it is political. They explained that they would not allow a customer to print "McCain for President" or "Support the Democratic Party" on a Starbucks card. And they noted that they had rejected a request for "My coffee is a weapon." But fewer than 1% of card requests are rejected.
They had no explanation as to how "People Not Profits" and "Si Se Puede" could be regarded as less political than "Laissez Faire."
I'm still hoping that it was all a computer glitch, and that some day my latte-drinking, non-tax-hiking friends will be able to get their very own customized Starbucks gift card with "Laissez Faire" emblazoned on it – even if it does risk a sneer from the barista.
Starbucks has prospered mightily in a free economy. For the most recent fiscal year, the company earned $672.6 million on revenue of $9.4 billion, a very healthy profit. And these days, in the wake of a California Superior Court judge's order that the company repay $100 million in back tips that were shared by shift supervisors, Starbucks honchos just might like a little less government intervention in their affairs and a little more laissez-faire
By DAVID BOAZApril 7, 2008; Page A12
Laissez-faire. It's a policy that made Starbucks vastly successful. But don't try to put that phrase on a customized Starbucks Card.
The cards are supposed be personalized to reflect customers' tastes and uniqueness. They are available in a range of colors, often given as gifts and used by regular customers who prefer to prepay for their java.
But when my friend Roger Ream, president of the Fund for American Studies, received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, he found there was a limit to how personalized a card could be. His card required him to customize it on the company's Web site. So he went to the site and requested that the phrase "Laissez Faire" be printed on his card. A few days later he was informed that the company couldn't issue such a card because the wording violated company policy.
Starbucks's company policy is this: "We review each Card before printing it to make sure it meets our personalization policy. We accept most personalization requests, but we can't honor every one. Some requests may contain trademarks that we don't have the right to use. Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate (such as threatening remarks, derogatory terms, or overtly political commentary) or wouldn't want to see on Starbucks-branded products."
Is the phrase "laissez-faire" threatening? Only to officious bureaucracy, I would think. So, it must be that the phrase is considered to be "inappropriate" by corporate Starbucks.
But why should it be considered inappropriate? The phrase itself is an imperative. It's French for "leave us alone," more or less. And it comes to us through history as advice offered to Jean Baptiste Colbert, finance minister under the French King Louis XIV in the 17th century. Colbert is best known for his statement: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing." When Colbert asked a group of merchants, "What do you want from us?," the answer was, "laisser nous faire." "Laissez-faire" is, then, an old piece of economic advice with an impeccable French heritage.
Maybe Starbucks considers the phrase inappropriate because it's "overtly political commentary"? Certainly my friend regards it as a firm statement of political philosophy.
And so, at my suggestion, my friend went back to the Web site and asked that his card be issued with the phrase "People Not Profits." Bingo! Starbucks had no problem with that phrase, and the card arrived in a few days.
I wondered just what the company's standards were. If "laissez-faire" is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan "people not profits" be acceptable?
My assistant and I tried to get the company to explain its policy. We started by trying to purchase a card with the phrase "Laissez Faire," and were rejected as my friend had been. We then asked a company spokesperson why. He suggested that it might be because "laissez-faire" is a foreign phrase. That seemed possible and a reasonable precaution.
So we tried another foreign phrase – "Si Se Puede," or "Yes we can." It's the United Farm Workers slogan, now adopted by Barack Obama's presidential campaign. That sailed right through. The senator's political campaign slogan was acceptable.
We called again. Several spokespeople at Starbucks and at Arroweye, the company that actually creates personalized cards for Starbucks and other retailers, said that they couldn't be sure, but that the phrase was probably rejected because it is political. They explained that they would not allow a customer to print "McCain for President" or "Support the Democratic Party" on a Starbucks card. And they noted that they had rejected a request for "My coffee is a weapon." But fewer than 1% of card requests are rejected.
They had no explanation as to how "People Not Profits" and "Si Se Puede" could be regarded as less political than "Laissez Faire."
I'm still hoping that it was all a computer glitch, and that some day my latte-drinking, non-tax-hiking friends will be able to get their very own customized Starbucks gift card with "Laissez Faire" emblazoned on it – even if it does risk a sneer from the barista.
Starbucks has prospered mightily in a free economy. For the most recent fiscal year, the company earned $672.6 million on revenue of $9.4 billion, a very healthy profit. And these days, in the wake of a California Superior Court judge's order that the company repay $100 million in back tips that were shared by shift supervisors, Starbucks honchos just might like a little less government intervention in their affairs and a little more laissez-faire
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Derangement Syndrome
Over at The Corner, Jim Geraghty asks, and Mark Steyn answers:
How did we reach the point where Air America calls Hillary a 'whore'?
Indeed. Randi Rhodes agrees with Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro on everything - abortion, health care, climate change, you name. Yet the first is "a f***ing whore" and the second is "David Duke in drag" merely because they disagree which Democratic senator would make the best president. The people applying these deranged epithets to the Clintons are in large part the very same people who spent the Nineties applying equally deranged epithets to anyone who disagreed with the Clintons.
There's something rather heartening about this for those of us on the right who've been on the receiving end of the left's vehemence: Apparently there really is nothing personal about it. You can be a chickenhawk warmonger racist homophobe mysogynist Bush shill or a pro-feminist pro-gay pro-black icon of progressive politics for a generation, but, if you cross the likes of Randi Rhodes, you're all the same and you merit the same four-letter words and KKK slurs.
The left's Discoursometer is like one of those shower units where the slightest nudge turns it to scalding.
How did we reach the point where Air America calls Hillary a 'whore'?
Indeed. Randi Rhodes agrees with Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro on everything - abortion, health care, climate change, you name. Yet the first is "a f***ing whore" and the second is "David Duke in drag" merely because they disagree which Democratic senator would make the best president. The people applying these deranged epithets to the Clintons are in large part the very same people who spent the Nineties applying equally deranged epithets to anyone who disagreed with the Clintons.
There's something rather heartening about this for those of us on the right who've been on the receiving end of the left's vehemence: Apparently there really is nothing personal about it. You can be a chickenhawk warmonger racist homophobe mysogynist Bush shill or a pro-feminist pro-gay pro-black icon of progressive politics for a generation, but, if you cross the likes of Randi Rhodes, you're all the same and you merit the same four-letter words and KKK slurs.
The left's Discoursometer is like one of those shower units where the slightest nudge turns it to scalding.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
James Bond Speaks
Sean Connery penned a really nice editorial for the Los Angeles Times today. I had no idea this movement still had such strength.
The Scots show their true colors
Sean Connery says that Scotland's independence day may be closer than ever.
By Sean Connery April 5, 2008
There are few more cherished American ideals than independence. As we prepare to celebrate Tartan Day, established as April 6 by a U.S. Senate resolution in 1998 to commemorate one of the inspirations for the Declaration of Independence -- Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath -- it is as good a time as any to tell the uniquely Scottish story of independence.In 1320, Scots penned the Declaration of Arbroath.
In lines that would echo through the ages, they wrote, "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
Many Americans are familiar with that part of the story -- of the patriot William Wallace and the Scots who stood up for independence. What is understandably less familiar is that in 1707, a group of Scottish noblemen sold Scotland's independence and joined with England to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain.It wasn't a popular move. In fact, Daniel Defoe wrote that "for every Scot in favor, 99 is against."
So it is not surprising that some people have been working ever since to change it. More interesting than the past, though, is the national conversation going on in Scotland now. What is so special about it is that the world has an example of a completely democratic process in which the people are considering their future, and in which their voice will be the final word.In 1997, Scots spoke loudly when they voted to reinstate their Parliament.
When Scottish National Party President Winifred Ewing was able to say, "The Scots Parliament, adjourned on 25th March 1707, is hereby reconvened," she touched hearts across the country. The Scottish Parliament has authority for health, education, courts and the environment.
The British Parliament retains control over most taxes and foreign affairs.The question now is, what next? The current Scottish government is the first one in modern times that wants to see Scotland reclaim its independence.The best part of this debate is that it is based on ideas, not ethnicity. Conversations about the best future for the country are happening in the Scottish Parliament and in homes and workplaces across the country.
The Scottish government wants Scotland and England to become independent and equal nations, with the queen and her successors continuing as the common head of state of both -- similar to what happened in Canada and Australia in the 20th century. In other words, we would move toward becoming united kingdoms, rather than the United Kingdom.
Debating their constitutional future does not stop Scots from contributing to today's important international issues. This week, the Scottish government, with the support of the National Geographic Society, announced the Saltire Prize -- a $20-million award for innovation in renewable energy -- as a challenge to the world's scientists. The message that Scotland is open for business came across clearly this week as Scotland dropped its business taxes to be even more internationally competitive.
And you might not think Scotland when you think football, but today, the New York Giants' own Greenock-born Lawrence Tynes will be leading the Tartan Day parade down 6th Avenue.
Independence is something Americans inherently understand. My whole adult life, I have waited and worked for the day that Scots are able to decide democratically if they wish to rejoin the community of nations as an independent and equal member. A recent poll showed that two-thirds of Scots would welcome that opportunity under certain circumstances.I believe that day -- Scotland's independence day -- is closer than ever.
Sean Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 and is an Academy Award winner who has appeared in more than 60 films
The Scots show their true colors
Sean Connery says that Scotland's independence day may be closer than ever.
By Sean Connery April 5, 2008
There are few more cherished American ideals than independence. As we prepare to celebrate Tartan Day, established as April 6 by a U.S. Senate resolution in 1998 to commemorate one of the inspirations for the Declaration of Independence -- Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath -- it is as good a time as any to tell the uniquely Scottish story of independence.In 1320, Scots penned the Declaration of Arbroath.
In lines that would echo through the ages, they wrote, "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
Many Americans are familiar with that part of the story -- of the patriot William Wallace and the Scots who stood up for independence. What is understandably less familiar is that in 1707, a group of Scottish noblemen sold Scotland's independence and joined with England to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain.It wasn't a popular move. In fact, Daniel Defoe wrote that "for every Scot in favor, 99 is against."
So it is not surprising that some people have been working ever since to change it. More interesting than the past, though, is the national conversation going on in Scotland now. What is so special about it is that the world has an example of a completely democratic process in which the people are considering their future, and in which their voice will be the final word.In 1997, Scots spoke loudly when they voted to reinstate their Parliament.
When Scottish National Party President Winifred Ewing was able to say, "The Scots Parliament, adjourned on 25th March 1707, is hereby reconvened," she touched hearts across the country. The Scottish Parliament has authority for health, education, courts and the environment.
The British Parliament retains control over most taxes and foreign affairs.The question now is, what next? The current Scottish government is the first one in modern times that wants to see Scotland reclaim its independence.The best part of this debate is that it is based on ideas, not ethnicity. Conversations about the best future for the country are happening in the Scottish Parliament and in homes and workplaces across the country.
The Scottish government wants Scotland and England to become independent and equal nations, with the queen and her successors continuing as the common head of state of both -- similar to what happened in Canada and Australia in the 20th century. In other words, we would move toward becoming united kingdoms, rather than the United Kingdom.
Debating their constitutional future does not stop Scots from contributing to today's important international issues. This week, the Scottish government, with the support of the National Geographic Society, announced the Saltire Prize -- a $20-million award for innovation in renewable energy -- as a challenge to the world's scientists. The message that Scotland is open for business came across clearly this week as Scotland dropped its business taxes to be even more internationally competitive.
And you might not think Scotland when you think football, but today, the New York Giants' own Greenock-born Lawrence Tynes will be leading the Tartan Day parade down 6th Avenue.
Independence is something Americans inherently understand. My whole adult life, I have waited and worked for the day that Scots are able to decide democratically if they wish to rejoin the community of nations as an independent and equal member. A recent poll showed that two-thirds of Scots would welcome that opportunity under certain circumstances.I believe that day -- Scotland's independence day -- is closer than ever.
Sean Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 and is an Academy Award winner who has appeared in more than 60 films
Weekly Steyn
In my book, he is absolutely the best satirist around! Enjoy.
Opinion: Mark Steyn: Looks like last call for Hillary - OCRegister.com
Opinion: Mark Steyn: Looks like last call for Hillary - OCRegister.com
Friday, April 4, 2008
Obama's bumper stickers tell it all!
Today Helen Smith wrote on her weblog Dr. Helen: I thought Obama was supposed to be the candidate that brought us all together, in spite of race. It seems to me that even his bumper stickers emphasize the differences between us--rather than just being Americans, suddenly, we're divided into whatever group we belong to. Is that really the message he wants to send?
I would posit that it is exactly the message Obama wants to send.
I would posit that it is exactly the message Obama wants to send.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Michelle, Michelle
2 MICHELLES, 2 AMERICAS & SHAME vs. PRIDE
By Michelle Malkin
Like Michelle Obama, I am a "woman of color." Like Michelle Obama, I am a working mother of two young children. Like Michelle Obama, I am a member of the 13th generation of Americans born since the founding of our great nation.
Unlike Michelle Obama, I can't keep track of the number of times I've been proud - really proud - of my country since I was born and privileged to live in it. At a recent speech in Milwaukee on behalf of her husband's Democratic presidential campaign, Mrs. Obama remarked, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."
Mrs. Obama's statement was met with warm applause from other Barack supporters who have also apparently been devoid of pride in their country during their adult lifetimes. Or maybe it was just a Pavlovian response to the word "change." What a sad, empty, narcissistic, ungrateful, unthinking lot.
I'm just seven years younger than Mrs. Obama. We've grown up and lived in the same era. And yet, her self-absorbed attitude is completely foreign to me. What planet is she living on? Since when was now the only time the American people have ever been "hungry for change"?
Michelle, ma belle, Barack is not the center of the universe. Newsflash: The Obamas did not invent "change" any more than Hillary invented "leadership" or John McCain invented "straight talk." We were both adults when the Berlin Wall fell, Michelle. That was earth-shattering change. We've lived through two decades' worth of peaceful, if contentious, election cycles under the rule of law, which have brought about "change" and upheaval, both good and bad. We were adults through several launches of the space shuttle, in case you were snoozing. And as adults, we've witnessed and benefited from dizzyingly rapid advances in technology, communications, science, and medicine pioneered by American entrepreneurs who yearned to change the world and succeeded. You want "change"? Go ask the patients whose lives have been improved and extended by American pharmaceutical companies that have flourished under the best economic system in the world.
If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic, and the fall of communism don't do it for you, hon, then how about American heroism and sacrifice? How about every Memorial Day? Every Veterans Day? Every Independence Day? Every Medal of Honor ceremony? Has she never attended a welcome-home ceremony for the troops? For me, there's the thrill of the Blue Angels roaring over cloudless skies. And the somber awe felt amid the hallowed waters that surround the sunken U.S.S. Arizona at the Pearl Harbor memorial.
Every naturalization ceremony I've attended, where hundreds of new Americans raised their hands to swear an oath of allegiance to this land of liberty, has been a moment of pride for me. So have the awesome displays of American compassion at home and around the world. When millions of Americans rallied to help victims of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia - including members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group that sped from Hong Kong to assist survivors - my heart filled with pride. It did again when the citizens of Houston opened their arms to Hurricane Katrina victims and folks across the country rushed to their churches and offices of the Salvation Army and Red Cross to volunteer.
How about American resilience? Does that not make you proud? Only a heart of stone could be unmoved by the strength, valor, and determination displayed in New York , Washington , D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. , on September 11, 2001.
I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In this case, it's what happens when an elite Democratic politician's wife says what a significant portion of the party's base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.
Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success, political influence, and personal acclaim in America . Ivy League educated, she's been lauded by Essence magazine as one of the 25 World's Most Inspiring Women; by Vanity Fair as one of the ten World's Best-Dressed Women; and named one of "The Harvard 100" most influential alumni. She has had an amazingly blessed life. But you wouldn't know it from her campaign rhetoric and her griping about her and her husband's student loans.
For years, we've heard liberals get offended at any challenge to their patriotism. And so they are again aggrieved and rising to explain away Mrs. Obama's remarks.
Lady Michelle and her defenders protest too much.
By Michelle Malkin
Like Michelle Obama, I am a "woman of color." Like Michelle Obama, I am a working mother of two young children. Like Michelle Obama, I am a member of the 13th generation of Americans born since the founding of our great nation.
Unlike Michelle Obama, I can't keep track of the number of times I've been proud - really proud - of my country since I was born and privileged to live in it. At a recent speech in Milwaukee on behalf of her husband's Democratic presidential campaign, Mrs. Obama remarked, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."
Mrs. Obama's statement was met with warm applause from other Barack supporters who have also apparently been devoid of pride in their country during their adult lifetimes. Or maybe it was just a Pavlovian response to the word "change." What a sad, empty, narcissistic, ungrateful, unthinking lot.
I'm just seven years younger than Mrs. Obama. We've grown up and lived in the same era. And yet, her self-absorbed attitude is completely foreign to me. What planet is she living on? Since when was now the only time the American people have ever been "hungry for change"?
Michelle, ma belle, Barack is not the center of the universe. Newsflash: The Obamas did not invent "change" any more than Hillary invented "leadership" or John McCain invented "straight talk." We were both adults when the Berlin Wall fell, Michelle. That was earth-shattering change. We've lived through two decades' worth of peaceful, if contentious, election cycles under the rule of law, which have brought about "change" and upheaval, both good and bad. We were adults through several launches of the space shuttle, in case you were snoozing. And as adults, we've witnessed and benefited from dizzyingly rapid advances in technology, communications, science, and medicine pioneered by American entrepreneurs who yearned to change the world and succeeded. You want "change"? Go ask the patients whose lives have been improved and extended by American pharmaceutical companies that have flourished under the best economic system in the world.
If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic, and the fall of communism don't do it for you, hon, then how about American heroism and sacrifice? How about every Memorial Day? Every Veterans Day? Every Independence Day? Every Medal of Honor ceremony? Has she never attended a welcome-home ceremony for the troops? For me, there's the thrill of the Blue Angels roaring over cloudless skies. And the somber awe felt amid the hallowed waters that surround the sunken U.S.S. Arizona at the Pearl Harbor memorial.
Every naturalization ceremony I've attended, where hundreds of new Americans raised their hands to swear an oath of allegiance to this land of liberty, has been a moment of pride for me. So have the awesome displays of American compassion at home and around the world. When millions of Americans rallied to help victims of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia - including members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group that sped from Hong Kong to assist survivors - my heart filled with pride. It did again when the citizens of Houston opened their arms to Hurricane Katrina victims and folks across the country rushed to their churches and offices of the Salvation Army and Red Cross to volunteer.
How about American resilience? Does that not make you proud? Only a heart of stone could be unmoved by the strength, valor, and determination displayed in New York , Washington , D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. , on September 11, 2001.
I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In this case, it's what happens when an elite Democratic politician's wife says what a significant portion of the party's base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.
Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success, political influence, and personal acclaim in America . Ivy League educated, she's been lauded by Essence magazine as one of the 25 World's Most Inspiring Women; by Vanity Fair as one of the ten World's Best-Dressed Women; and named one of "The Harvard 100" most influential alumni. She has had an amazingly blessed life. But you wouldn't know it from her campaign rhetoric and her griping about her and her husband's student loans.
For years, we've heard liberals get offended at any challenge to their patriotism. And so they are again aggrieved and rising to explain away Mrs. Obama's remarks.
Lady Michelle and her defenders protest too much.
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