All your body are belong to us...

Serving as I am as an embedded journalist in Pelosiville, I have never had the slightest doubt that Obama intends to destroy private health care. Obama is just a golem. He doesn't exist except as a physical projection of the collective psyche of the far left.

And they want a "single-payer" system so badly they are drooling. Not because it would help the poor or provide better medicine, but for the power it will give them. Government bureaucrats are overwhelmingly leftish, and they are going to be in charge of us at our weakest and most vulnerable moments. Think about it.

This video is great! You want to know what they are thinking? Watch...

Think about a future where you scrape the Palin bumper-sticker off your car before you go beg for a CAT scan or MRI...

Recommended

Charlene recommends Cultural Kleptos: How the Left Hijacks Art (and Everything Else) for the Good of Mankind, by Charles Winecoff...

...At the forefront of this morphing social tyranny: blacklist survivor Lillian Hellman. Again, she knew just how to make it work - for her. According to author Paul Johnson, after the release of the movie Julia, based on Hellman's fake memoir, the aged playwright enjoyed a renaissance as "the queen of radical chic and the most important single power-broker among the progressive intelligentsia and the society people who seethed around them.... She compiled her own blacklists and had them enforced by scores of servile intellectual flunkies."

Similarly, Karl Marx - the man - extolled the virtues of the working class, agitating for violent revolution, yet "so far as we know," wrote Johnson, "never set foot in a mill, factory, mine or other industrial workplace in the whole of his life. What is even more striking is Marx's hostility to fellow revolutionaries who had such experience - that is, working men who had become politically conscious... Marx made sure that working-class socialists were eliminated from any positions of influence."

Today, in America, we have a President who, rather than level with the trusting, hard-working voters who put him in office, plays mind games with them - asking them to believe that increasing the national debt is decreasing it, that less choice in health care is more choice, that standing up to violent savages makes us the savages, that reverse racism is post-racial. He seems to suck the meaning right out of words as he speaks them, always sure to distract with a mechanical smile.

But maybe he's just stupid....

"It's nice to be popular"

CURL: Global Obama fans outpace local ones - Washington Times:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright on Thursday delivered some spectacular news to all Americans ashamed of their homeland: With President Obama now in office, you no longer have to pretend you're not from the States when you summer in Europe.

"It is nice to be popular, and I think that people feel better if we are liked, if, you know - Americans now don't have to say they're from Canada when they travel around," the Clinton-era diplomat said to laughter from a roomful of reporters at the National Press Club...

Animals. Worms. "Pretend you're Canadian." Yeah, right. But of course all those slime-animals continue to tuck into all the good things this great country provides, even as they spit upon her.

Hey, creeps, why don't you voluntarily reduce your standard of living to Canadian levels? Hmm? And when you get a rare and deadly disease, how about flying to Toronto? Eh? Or if you are traveling around, pretending not to be a scurvy American, and there's a revolution...and you're about to be lynched... How's about calling the Canadian Army? Hmm? You wouldn't want to get cooties from the US Marines, would you?

"It's nice to be popular." Yeah, like hippie teenagers trashing their middle-brow parents to their cool friends, while continuing to be supported by them. And running to them if they get into trouble.

Roll over the rotting log...

Michelle Malkin, investigating what it might mean when administration officials say, "We'll just let the science decide."

....Well, I did indeed read one of [Obama Administration "science czar"] Holdren's recent works that reveals his clingy reverence for, and allegiance to, the gurus of population control authoritarianism. He's just gotten smarter about cloaking it behind global warming hysteria. In 2007, he addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Holdren served as AAAS president; the organization posted his full slide presentation on its website.

In the opening slide, Holdren admitted that his "preoccupation" with apocalyptic matters such as "the rates at which people breed" was a lifelong obsession spurred by scientist Harrison Brown's work. Holdren heaped praise on Brown's half-century-old book, "The Challenge to Man's Future," then proceeded to paint doom-and-gloom scenarios requiring drastic government interventions to control climate change.

Who is Holdren's intellectual mentor, Harrison Brown? He was a "distinguished member" of the International Eugenics Society whom Holdren later worked with on a book about — you guessed it — world population and fertility. Brown advocated the same population control-freak measures Holdren put forth in Ecoscience. In "The Challenge to Man's Future," Brown envisioned a regime in which the "number of abortions and artificial inseminations permitted in a given year would be determined completely by the difference between the number of deaths and the number of births in the year previous."

Brown exhorted readers to accept that "we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that artifical means must be applied to limit birth rates." If we don't, Brown warned, we faced a planet "with a writhing mass of human beings." He likened the global population to a "pulsating mass of maggots."...

One of the promises of the "Enlightenment" was that if people threw off the shackles of "superstition," the result would be happiness and progress. This assumed that the "real person" inside us was born good, and any badness we manifest was learned. But various peculiar things happened when those hoary old superstitions were discraded. One of them was the rise of a considerable number of people who think that "happiness and progress" depend not on enlightening people, but in simply eliminating them!

Guys like Stalin and Mao and Hitler and Pol Pot worked in round numbers of tens of millions. Today's "scientists" consider them pikers trying to nickle-and-dime it. Now we get the "big vision," expressing the numbers of people to be eliminated in nice tidy "billions!"

That's the "real us" that emerges without the "shackles" of traditional "superstition." The "real me" for that matter; I can easily look at the maggot-like masses swarming the city and think, "How much better things would be if the bottom 20% we eliminated." How much happier. How much cleaner!

Candle-light vigil postponed...

...Awaiting the inauguration of President Palin. Then the pacifists and fake-Quakers will come out of the woodwork and start blubbering about how un-Christian it is to believe in anything enough to fight for it...

From an Instapundit reader... (Thanks to AOG)

Notice how there was no "antiwar" movement during the '90's, even though we were at war the entire time in Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, a dab here and there in Afghanistan and Sudan. Then, after 9/11, it was the "Next Vietnam" with a passionate "antiwar" movement with the NYTs full treasonous participation, just like the good old days. And now, even though the daily death count has matched the highest daily rate we ever saw in Iraq, there is no "antiwar" movement or daily casualty count in all the newspapers. It's like the "antiwar" movement can be turned off and on like a switch, depending on which party is in the White House.

It's not war the pacifist dreads, it's when the President says that we are the good guys, undertaking a noble cause worth sacrificing for.

Good GOP commercial....

Just... letting you know...

Zelaya Computers had 'certified' results for referendum that was never held. (Thanks to Alan)

...Rick Moran
This has been all over the Honduran and Central American press for more than 24 hours but, as Alberto de la Cruz of Babalu Blog points out, no English speaking wire service or media has picked up on it yet.

Authorities seized several computers used by former president Zelaya that contained "official" results of the constitutional referendum that was never held showing his bid to change the law so that he could run for office again winning easily....

So, Mr Obama, you're planning to say you are sorry? Or are you looking into hiring Honduran computer consultants?

Go here, click on chart....

I caught a bit of Rush this morning. He mentioned this New York Post piece, DEMOCRATS HEALTH CARE PLAN FUNDING MAY TAX NEW YORK WEALTHY 57%. I'm sure you agree with all sensible people that the wealthy are parasites who should be relieved of the riches they have stolen from the little people, but, um, there IS the teensy little fact that NYC's economy is dependent, much more than most big cities, on........wealthy people. Get rid of them and the city dies.

...Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week....

The chart that accompanies this article makes things veddy clear. It's no wonder such a bill gets crafted behind closed doors, and that Dems are trying to rush it through.

Rush was also commenting on a poll that showed Sarah Palin with a 72% approval rating among Republicans. And on just how amazing that is, considering the year of non-stop trashing she has received from the media.

Not to mention attacks and sneers by what he called, charmingly, low-wattage looking-down-the-nose elitists on the Republican side.

"The logic of the Terror"

Ralph Hancock on Bastille Day...

...The disconcerting suggestion that arises from a comparative reflection on the theoretical cores of the two Revolutions is the idea of human rights that informs the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 cannot be altogether severed from the logic of the Terror. The potential for unlimited radicalization seems to exist from the moment the rights of man are extracted from a framework defined by the laws of nature and nature's God and made to stand on their own as assertions of human autonomy.

The germ of the Terror, the dream of the regeneration of humanity by political means, may already be present in the radically modern idea of sovereignty that informs the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The political denial of an authoritative realm of meaning beyond politics appears barely separable from the absorption of all meaning into the political realm. Hobbes' radical materialism, which accompanies his rejection of the priority of natural law to human rights, invites Rousseau's idealism, or his craving for a comprehensive moral order not grounded in nature but created by human beings. If politics is all there is, then politics must be everything, it must hold the key to fulfilling not only the ordinary needs but even the deepest longings of humanity.

Those who propose to liberate human beings by reducing them to their naked individuality and destroying the bonds that connect them with principles understood to reside beyond human power risk arrogating to themselves the right to forge new and tighter chains. If there is no Truth above the People, then the People are led to create their own truth — in effect, of course, some revolutionary elite must create it in the name of the People, whatever the human cost. The violence of the Terror appears thus to spring from a theoretical violence to human nature...

Palin Derangement Syndrome goes on...

Jim Geraghty, on the absurd Vanity Fair hit piece on Sarah Palin: Why They Hate Her, The Angelina Jolie of Politics:

...Liberals believe their ideas, philosophy, worldview and policies liberate its believers and contend the conservative equivalents limit people. Liberals see themselves are rejecting outdated beliefs and obsolete ideas, overturning established orders and discarding traditions established by superstitious and ignorant forebears who weren't as enlightened as we are. Conservatives, in their minds, are runaway cultural super-egos, always wagging their fingers about individual responsibility, dismissing excuses, reminding people that they always can't do what they want because of the consequences to themselves and to others.

Conservatism, they suspect, will leave you in a marriage that doesn't satisfy you, burden you with children you don't want, repress your passions and trap you in a empty, boring and unfulfilled life, with no hand of government able to help....

...In her opponents' minds, Palin's made all the wrong choices, and cannot, they insist, be very bright. Yet she's happy and successful. She is an anomaly that invalidates their worldview, and for that, they attempt to immiserate her — regardless of whether she wishes to run for national office again....

"An anomaly that invalidates their worldview." That's for sure. And few things have validated my suspicions that most of what's happening in our world are battles over symbols more than the lefty reaction to Sarah Palin. The crazy thing was that Sarah has never been a "values conservative" in her practical political life. Her issues have always been good government and economic development, especially energy policy. She's never fought in the culture war, she's never mounted any attacks on liberalism or secularism!

But that didn't make any difference. Symbolically, she proclaims that the way to happiness and fulfilment is exactly the opposite of what liberal theory says it is.

"..Liberals believe their ideas, philosophy, worldview and policies liberate its believers..." That stuff is not "liberating," it's slavery.

A little quote for you...

Roger L. Simon:

All of a sudden... well, not quite all of a sudden, but recently...I have noticed my liberal friends (except for the most extreme and knee-jerk) are not very interested in discussing man-made global warming. The subject rarely comes up and, when it does, it is passed over quickly, given only a nod. It's as if that was last year's — or last decade's — fad, at the very moment the House of Representatives has been browbeaten by LaPelosita into voting for a cap-and-trade bill no known person has read, let alone understood....

It often happens that ideas are defended most furiously just before they collapse. My guess is that AGW is pretty close to the point where a loud noise can start the avalanche.

But what interests me, as always, is the larger question of whether people can or will re-think. My guess is that most leftish types will be able to flip effortlessly to supporting the Kyoto Global-Cooling Treaty, without a moment of self-doubt. They don't dare think or probe.

(Tangentially, I was bothered as a child when my Dad told me that if you throw a ball up, and then it falls down, there is a brief moment when it is stationary. I still find that hard to swallow. I think it's either going up, or going down.)

"Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure?"

This is kind of belaboring the obvious, but my little blog is the only means I have to express the vast disgust I feel about all our lefty "pacifists" and Quakers-so-called and all the other "activist" frauds...

And observations of this sort are why I'm totally NOT impressed by declarations that Obama has been doing exactly the right thing by not "meddling" in Iran, and how DARE you suggest he is not eager to see the Iranians gain freedom, you horrid neo-con! Piffle. He is doing exactly what most of the world's leftists are doing. Being not happy to see the little people rebelling against their elite masters.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Where Are All the Demonstrators?:

...Ma'ariv (Monday, June 22, 09) by Ben Caspit and Ben-Dror Yemini (opinion) –

Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel's brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States.

Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world—could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren't they connected to the Internet? Don't they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computer? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)? How can it be that when a Jew kills a Muslim, the entire world boils, and when extremist Islam slaughters its citizens, whose sole sin is the aspiration to freedom, the world is silent?

Imagine that this were not happening now in Tehran, but rather here. Let's say in Nablus. Spontaneous demonstrations of Palestinians turning into an ongoing bloodbath. Border Policemen armed with knives, on motorcycles, butchering demonstrators. A young woman downed by a sniper in midday, dying before the cameras. Actually, why imagine? We can just recall what happened with the child Mohammed a-Dura. How the affair (which was very harsh, admittedly) swept the world from one end to another. The fact that a later independent investigative report raised tough questions as to the identity of the weapon from which a-Dura was shot, did not make a difference to anyone. The Zionists were to blame, and that was that....

Doggie diplomacy...

Hoy. Funny, but kinda misses the point...

Another bit that came out of today's press conference was President Obama's refusal to rescind invitations to Iran's diplomats across the globe to July 4 celebrations at U.S. embassies — aptly described as "weenie diplomacy."

All of this, of course, raises a major issue: Are the hot dogs real, American-style hot dogs which are typically made with — pork!? If the embassies are serving all-beef hot dogs, are they Oscar Meyer or are they Hebrew National? Would an Iranian theocrat diplomat eat a Hebrew National hot dog?

Has the White House thought through this very important issue?...

We could be roasting babies in our various embassy gardens, and everybody would understand that that's what leaders need to do to appease the swining masses so they can get on with the real business of running the world.

[Link]

I think this is about right..

Andy McCarthy Understanding Obama on Iran:

...The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chàvez. Indeed, he is the product of a hard-Left tradition that apologized for Stalin and was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists (and that, in Soros parlance, saw George Bush as a bigger terrorist than bin Laden).

Because of obvious divergences (inequality for women and non-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals) radical Islam and radical Leftism are commonly mistaken to be incompatible. In fact, they have much more in common than not, especially when it comes to suppression of freedom, intrusiveness in all aspects of life, notions of "social justice," and their economic programs. (On this, as in so many other things, Anthony Daniels should be required reading — see his incisive New English Review essay, "There Is No God but Politics", comparing Marx and Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb.) The divergences between radical Islam and radical Leftism are much overrated — "equal rights" and "social justice" are always more rally-cry propaganda than real goals for totalitarians, and hatred of certain groups is always a feature of their societies.

The key to understanding Obama, on Iran as on other matters, is that he is a power-politician of the hard Left : He is steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history, but a "pragmatist" in the sense that where ideology and power collide (as they are apt to do when your ideology becomes less popular the more people understand it), Obama will always give ground on ideology (as little as circumstances allow) in order to maintain his grip on power....

Test case: Becoming liberal damages the cognitive functions...

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

Will The Neocons Never Learn? Here's Wehner:

How President Obama deals with this matter — whether he takes actions that show tangible support for the forces of liberation or whether he sits passively by as events unfold, nervous to offend cruel regimes — will tell us a lot about him and his core commitments.

Oh, yes, obviously Obama wants the uprising to fail. Jesus, these people are shameless....

That's not even remotely an argument. Just a sneer. Wehner's point is just common sense: what Obama does will tell us a lot about him. Well, duh! Sullivan twists this into a straw-man in a way that is pathetic.

And my memory is that Sullivan never argued poorly when he was a conservative. [link, link, link, link (on neo-cons)]

I've seen this before. Someone moves to the liberal side of the aisle, and becomes stupid. And slippery and imprecise. It is very interesting, or would be if one could study the phenomenon dispassionately, instead of wondering when the self-induced lobotomies will let enough water into the Titanic called Western Civilization to send her to the bottom...

How we miss W.

Jennifer Rubin: Don't Iranians Deserve "Hope and Change" Too?:

The Iranian election has given the world a jolt of reality. For those confused about the nature of the Iranian regime, its true colors are now revealed. But it has also been a clarifying event in America.

It has been obvious for some time that the American Left has given up on democracy and human rights as fundamental tenets of American foreign policy. But never before has it been so clear just how ruthless and indifferent they are to the aspirations of those who would be crushed by the boot of despotic regimes. And never before have we seen how Herculean a task it is to deny and obfuscate the nature of these sorts of regimes in order to pursue a policy devoted to stability, engagement, and process as goals in and of themselves (rather than as means to some greater ends).

The Iranian election and its aftermath demonstrate just how vast is the difference in approach between the Obama administration, which has embodied the Left's total embrace of realpolitik, and its conservative critics....

"Realpolitic." "Realism." "stability, engagement, and process as goals in and of themselves." I spit upon such leftist depravities with the utmost contempt.

Hello? "Democrats?"

Any Dems reading this?

Right this moment hundreds of thousands of people are battling a brutal terror-supporting regime. They are fighting and dying in Iran for freedom and democracy.

And your fearless leaders have said nothing. Fake-liberal Mr Obama has said nothing. Fake-liberal Hillary has said nothing. They have given them not the slightest shred of encouragement or moral support.

How can you live with this? How can you look at yourselves in the mirror in the morning?

How can you all be such worms?

Update: In fairness, lots of liberals really are liberal, and their hearts are in the right place right now. Especially, kudos to Andrew Sullivan, who I normally loath, for covering Iran non-stop...

Worth reading:

Dr. Sanity: The Left Legitimizes Anti-Semitism Every Day:

Anthony Watts: Suggestions of "strong negative cloud feedbacks" in a warmer climate

Edgelings.com---The Obama Surprise:

...Be careful what you wish for. No segment of American industry did more than high tech to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States....

...The first surprise to many Valleyites is how innately anti-entrepreneurial the new Administration has turned out to be....

All those who harshly criticized Bush for issuing "signing statements..."

You are, are you not, going to criticize Obama now that he's doing the same thing?

Hmmm? I'm waiting..........

(And Clinton too, of course. Somehow people never got around to that one.)

"Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader."

From a don't-miss piece by Jonah Goldberg, You want a more 'progressive' America? Careful what you wish for: (Thanks to Rand)

....Wilson, like the bulk of progressive intellectuals in fin-de-siécle America, was deeply influenced by three strands of thought: philosophical Pragmatism, Hegelianism, and Darwinism. This heady intellectual cocktail produced a drunken arrogance and the conviction that the old rules no longer applied.

The classical liberalism of the Founders — free markets, individualism, property rights, etc. — had been eclipsed by a new "experimental" age. Horace Kallen, a protégé of Pragmatism exponent William James, denounced fixed philosophical dogmas as mere rationalizations of the status quo. Sounding much like today's critical theorists, Mr. Kallen lamented that "Men have invented philosophy precisely because they find change, chance, and process too much for them, and desire infallible security and certainty."

The old conception of absolute truths and immutable laws had been replaced by a "Darwinian" vision of organic change.

Hence Wilson argued that the old "Newtonian" vision — fixed rules enshrined in the Constitution and laws — had to give way to the "Darwinian" view of "living constitutions" and the like.

"Government," Wilson wrote approvingly in his magnum opus, "The State," "does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." "No doubt," he wrote elsewhere, taking dead aim at the Declaration of Independence, "a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle."

In his 1890 essay, "Leaders of Men," Wilson explained that a "true leader" uses the masses like "tools." He must inflame their passions with little heed for the facts. "Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader."

Wilson once told a black delegation, that "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." But his racism wasn't just a product of his Southern roots; it was often of a piece with the reigning progressive obsession with eugenics, the pseudoscience that strove to perfect society through better breeding.....

You can slot-in to the above Lenin or Hillary or Hitler or Obama or Alinsky. Or any random sociology prof at your local community college...

What is the intellectual problem with this statement: "The old conception of absolute truths and immutable laws had been replaced by a "Darwinian" vision of organic change..."   What's wrong is that there isn't any "solid ground." No truth that can be used to measure or define anything else.

A "Pragmatist" would say that "what works" is the measure, but there is in his philosophy no absolute standard of "what works." "What works" means whatever you want it to mean. If Wilson had had the power, he probably would have done to inferior races exactly what Hitler did. (He did have the power to introduce Jim Crow laws into the District of Columbia, and proceeded to do so.) And if you accept his philosophy, he would have been perfectly justified in a Final Solution to the negro problem. Eugenics seemed to be "what works" at that moment in time, and Progressives had abandoned any absolute standard that Eugenics might be measured against.

Once you abandon the Truths handed down from our ancestors, then the only "truth" is the intellectual fashion of the moment. Now, kind hearted reader, you may imagine that today's progressives are "nice" people who would not do the horrid things done by Twentieth Century tyrants. Yes? You may believe they would never kill millions of people for the sake of an idea, right? Kill for an intellectual fad? No no no. Impossible.

Well, if you think that, you are wrong. Millions are dying at this moment because a "Progressive" intellectual fad was imposed on hapless people. Read about it in my post here. If you are a leftist, read. Think!

"Equidistant Position"

David Frum is very good Obama's speech... (Thanks to Hugh Hewitt.)

...The president's Cairo speech: worse than feared. Let's itemize the ways.

President Obama likes to position himself as an intermediary, explaining two conflicting parties each to the other. He did so in his race speech in Philadelphia, he did so when he spoke about abortion at Notre Dame

In Cairo, he took a similar position between the United States and the Islamic world. He urged Americans to take a positive view of Islam, and urged Muslims to take a positive view of the United States.

But whereas in Philadelphia and Notre Dame Obama was explaining two groups of Americans to each other, in Cairo he exhibited the amazing spectacle of an American president taking an equidistant position between the country he leads and its detractors and enemies. It is as if he saw himself as a judge in some legal dispute, People of the Islamic World v. United States. But the job to which he was elected was not that of impartial judge, but that of leader and champion of the American nation...

There's plenty more worth reading.

Of course that "equidistant position" is exactly how leftists like Obama talk. I hear it here in San Francisco. "Americans are... militaristic/racist/crude/Walmart/greedy...whatever" Said as if the speaker is not part of that horrid crowd.

Once the poison is in the system...

Wall Street Journal: Islamists Lose Ground in the Middle East:

...The results of Kuwait's elections last month -- in which Islamists were rebuffed and four women were elected to parliament -- will likely reinvigorate the movement for greater democracy in the region that has stalled since the hopeful "Arab spring" of 2005...

Well, it didn't just "stall." When our "Democrats" undermined their own country in war-time, they were also undermining all the good things that were flowing from our efforts.

...It also puts pressure on the Obama administration to end its deafening silence on democracy promotion....

Yeah, like they care...

...Although ruled by a hereditary monarch, Kuwait is the most democratic of the Arab countries. The press is relatively free, parliament has real power, and politicians are chosen in legitimate elections. However, Kuwait is a part of the Persian Gulf, where the subordination of women is traditionally most severe. Historically, Kuwait's political process was for males only. But in 2005 parliament yielded to female activists and approved a bill giving women the right to vote and hold office.

In 2006 and 2008, several women ran for parliament, though none won. The women that captured four of the 50 seats last month weren't aided by quotas; they won on their own merits. Their success will undoubtedly inspire a new wave of women's activism in nearby countries.

So, "feminist" organizations and leaders. You're going to support this, right? Ha ha.

...Almost as significant as the women's gains were the Islamist losses. The archconservative Salafist Movement's campaign for a boycott of female candidates obviously fell flat, and the number of seats held by Sunni Islamists fell sharply.

Thus continues a string of defeats for Islamists over the last year and a half from west to east...

President George W. Bush knew exactly what he was doing when he injected his democracy juice right into the arteries of Islamic despotism. And our "Democrats" and "pacifists" and "feminists" and all the other fake-leftists knew exactly what they were doing when they fought him every inch of the way. Their aim is tyranny.

(I have no good reason to put this picture in, save to remind us of happier times, and perhaps irritate some prune-faced fake-liberals...)

John Ashcroft we hardly knew ye....

Dafydd: The Double-Standard Gauntlet Is Thrown:

...So far as I've heard, every single pro-life organization and a great many pro-life individuals denounced and condemned this murder as despicable, cowardly, and a violation of the entire thrust of the pro-life community. And they did so the very day it happened, Sunday, May 31st, 2009.

But I have yet to hear or read a single radical leftist anti-war organization, politician, or blogger condemning the assassination of Private William Long, United States Army, and the attempted assassination of Private Quinton Ezeagwula, United States Army. As of the timestamp of this post, not a word on the website of International ANSWER; nary a peep from the chicks at Code Pink....

'cause they're on the other side...

U kan take it from de Tocqueville...

Charlene recommends this video by Andrew Klavan, aimed at kids graduating from college: Why Are Conservatives So Mean?

I can't embed it like a YouTube, but it's really good, and fun. Please take a look...

If three nice people are in love...

...Who could object to their marriage? ...except those insufferable theocrats...

Mr. and Mrs. and Mrs...or Whatever, by Chuck Colson:

...Earlier this month, Maine became the fifth state—and the fourth in New England—to legalize same-sex "marriage". Five thousand miles away in Hawaii, Sasha and Janet Lessin are hoping to build on New England's example.

If they are successful, no one can seriously claim to be surprised.

Writer Abby Ellin described how the Lessins gathered with friends and held what was dubbed a "commitment ceremony." The "commitment" being celebrated wasn't a renewal of their marriage vows—it was the incorporation of a third party, "Shivaya," into their so-called "triad."...

Triads. How could we possibly deny them their "constitutional rights?" It's like the Civil Rights Movement, right? We can't turn certain people into second class citizens, can we? We can't go back to the days of 'back-alley triads," can we?

Of course we won't get an honest debate about whatever the next innovation might be. Leftists and libertarians will ignore the possibility, and scoff at anyone who brings up the subject, until the moment when it becomes a fad, at which point they will consider it a fait accompli, and pretend that conservatives are unreasonably blocking what is "obviously" right and just.

And they will say that anyone who objects has "moved to the right!"

Another thought for Memorial Day...

Alan Sullivan:

At 3 PM, President Obama was playing golf very privately at Fort Belvoir, outside of Washington. So much for his ballyhooed "moment of national unity." That is for the God and guns crowd.

I want to dedicate this Memorial Day not only to those who have died in past conflicts, but to those who are going to die because the nation elected this supremely fatuous man to its highest office.

Well, it is probably true.

Think of how many have died because of the fatuousness and weakness of Jimmy Carter. Imagine if he had not ignored a year of warnings about the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Imagine if he had taken a strong stand in the Iranian hostage crisis? (We now know that the hostage-takers only planned to hold our people for a few days. It was purely Carter's criminal weakness that ended up pinning a "kick me" sign on the USA.) Carter deserves to be called one of history's great mass-murderers.

What I loath most of all is Carter's claiming to be a "Christian," (personally I think he's no Christian at all) with "Christian" meaning being weak in the face of evil, and letting monsters kill and enslave millions of people. Not real people, you understand, just niggers in countries nobody's ever heard of, like Afgnanistan. What could go wrong? (To our "liberals" and "pacifists" the world is similar to that famous New Yorker cover, with a huge Manhattan, and everything else small and obscure.)

...Calvin, too, looks at the soldier as an agent of God's love. As he argues: "Paul meant to refer the precept of respecting power of magistrates to the law of love." The soldier is thus as much an agent of God's love as he is of God's wrath, for the two characteristics are harmonious in God. Calvin argues in this way because he holds that to soldier justly—to restrain evil out of love for neighbor—is a God-like act. It is God-like because God restrains evil out of love for His creatures. None of this is to say that we fully imitate God or Christ when we use force justly, for the just soldier's acts can never be redemptive acts—acts that have a saving quality for those who are targets of the acts of force (except, of course, in the sense that the just soldier "saves" the unjust neighbor from more unjust acts). Yet the just soldier who cultivates the military virtues in such a way as to harness and direct them toward his final end—beatitude with God—may nevertheless be said to be one who, as the Reformers liked to say, follows Christ at a distance.

How can we follow Christ—even at a distance—while fighting and killing? Calvin gives us an indication by pointing out that Christ's pacific nature (his willingness to suffer violence at the hands of Jewish and Roman authorities) is grounded in the priestly office of reconciliation and intercession that is reserved for him alone. Christ's pacific nature is thus inextricably tied to his role as redeemer and cannot be intended as a model for Christian behavior. No Christian can or should try to act as a redeemer, but all can and should follow Christ in obeying the commands of the Father. And the Father commands the just use of force...

I notice that Cole has a book on this subject. I plan to read it soon...

I notice Glenn Reynolds writes:

"Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?" Actually, I'm beginning to think that's a best-case situation.

Update: The SF Public Library is part of a system called LinkPlus, that gives us access to the books of scores of libraries in this region. It is really rare that I can't find a book I want in one of them. But none of them have a copy of Cole's book: When God Says War Is Right. Gee, I wonder why that might be?

I just ordered a copy from amazon.com for $9. I thought immediately of how Milton Friedman wrote about how most of the segregation and racism of the old South was instituted by government, and how the marketplace tended to color-blind!

Update: Keep in mind that it's the publisher who gets to chose a title for the book. I'd guess that the in-your-face title was not Mr Cole's idea.

Of course they won't apologize--he's "the neocon's neocon"...

William A. Jacobson: Will The Left Apologize To Bolton?:

Will The Left Apologize To Bolton? On May 20, 2009, John Bolton wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled "Get Ready for Another North Korean Nuke Test" in which he noted that the complacency of the Obama administration about North Korea's nuclear ambitions (and Iran's) was misplaced:

"The curtain is about to rise again on the long-running nuclear tragicomedy, "North Korea Outwits the United States." Despite Kim Jong Il's explicit threats of another nuclear test, U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth said last week that the Obama administration is "relatively relaxed" and that "there is not a sense of crisis." They're certainly smiling in Pyongyang."

As usual, the Left lashed out at Bolton, who may be third after George Bush and Dick Cheney in being portrayed as crazy and paranoid. Bolton has been derided as "the neocon's neocon" who "laps up the hosannas of fellow knuckle-draggers." ...

Me, I'm proud to be a knuckle-dragger.

Apologize to Bolton? Well, wake us up when that happens. The animals won't, you may feel confident, even apologize to the human race after NK nukes Japan, or Iran nukes Israel.

Reasoning with "liberal Jews" is probably a waste of time...

...But the thought of my Jewish friends still holding warm fuzzy thoughts for the "international community" (and of course opposing the horrid cowboy "unilateralism" of President Bush) ... and maybe donating money to UNESCO... and praising the United Nations? Ugh. How sick and suicidal can people be? How STUPID, to make the same STUPID mistakes decade after decade?

Bernard-Henri Lévy: UNESCO: The Shame of a Disaster Foretold:

...Who declared in April 2001: "Israel has never contributed to Civilization in any era, for it has only ever appropriated the contributions of others" -- and added almost two months later: "the Israeli culture is an inhumane culture; it is an aggressive, racist, pretentious culture based on one simple principle: steal what does not belong to in order to then claim its appropriation"?

Who explained in 1997, and has repeated it since in every way possible, that he was the "archenemy" of all attempts to normalize his country's relations with Israel?

Or who, as recently as 2008, responded to a deputy of the Egyptian parliament who was alarmed that Israeli books could be introduced into the Alexandria Library: "Burn these books; if there are any there, I will myself burn them in front of you"?

Who said in 2001 in the newspaper Ruz-al-Yusuf that Israel was "aided" in its dark intrigues by "the infiltration of Jews into the international media" and by their diabolical ability to "spread lies"?...

Who? Why, an honored leader of the "international community," of course...

It take self-induced stupidity for smart people to continue to act stupidly and not see reality right in front of them. And to persist in delusion for lifetimes...

"The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood..."

Mark Steyn, writing in Imprimis. And saying the same sort of things I say. But of course saying them far better, so I'm glad he's copying me...

...My book America Alone is often assumed to be about radical Islam, firebreathing imams, the excitable young men jumping up and down in the street doing the old "Death to the Great Satan" dance. It's not. It's about us. It's about a possibly terminal manifestation of an old civilizational temptation: Indolence, as Machiavelli understood, is the greatest enemy of a republic. When I ran into trouble with the so-called "human rights" commissions up in Canada, it seemed bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of the alliance profess to be pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists; the other half are homophobic, misogynist theocrats. Even as the cheap bus 'n' truck road-tour version of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, it made no sense. But in fact what they have in common overrides their superficially more obvious incompatibilities: Both the secular Big Government progressives and political Islam recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential.

In most of the developed world, the state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood—health care, child care, care of the elderly—to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. Hillary Rodham Clinton said it takes a village to raise a child. It's supposedly an African proverb—there is no record of anyone in Africa ever using this proverb, but let that pass. P.J. O'Rourke summed up that book superbly: It takes a village to raise a child. The government is the village, and you're the child. Oh, and by the way, even if it did take a village to raise a child, I wouldn't want it to be an African village. If you fly over West Africa at night, the lights form one giant coastal megalopolis: Not even Africans regard the African village as a useful societal model. But nor is the European village. Europe's addiction to big government, unaffordable entitlements, cradle-to-grave welfare, and a dependence on mass immigration needed to sustain it has become an existential threat to some of the oldest nation-states in the world.

And now the last holdout, the United States, is embarking on the same grim path...

The Insanity Only Grows #12,963...

Imagine a long-ago (say in the 1960's) conservative who declares that this new thing called "affirmative action" is wicked folly. Of course he's a racist! A bigot! He hates blacks, right?

And suppose he says that "affirmative action" is a bad idea because once it starts, it will just grow like a cancer, metastasizing into every crevice of life, putting more and more decisions into the hands of bureaucrats who will pick and choose life's winners according to the leftist fashion of the moment. Obviously he's CRAZY, right? That couldn't possibly happen, right? There's no such thing as a "slippery slope," right?

Trolley Driver May Get Hit With Charges - ABC News

...The office of Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley made the statement a day after ABCNews.com revealed that Aiden Quinn was hired in 2007 from a lottery that consisted of minority candidates. Quinn's status at that time was female-to-male transgender, and sources told ABC News that status was what qualified him as a minority....

What I find more important is, that if that 1960's conservative had told a liberal friend that someday people would be selected for "preferred minority" status because they were having sex-change operations, the liberal would not only have thought that that was impossible, he would have considered the impossibility as a rock-like certainty that he could have confidence in!

That is, if you told him that his liberal pilgrimage was taking him into a realm where there was no certainty, where every idea or belief could morph and shift, where nothing is dependable... He would not believe it. He would assume that some things will never change.

And what makes me want to scream is that if you encountered that same liberal today, he will still not THINK. Even though heaps of things he once considered settled and trustworthy have been swept away like sand-castles by the tide, he still believes that whatever exists at the moment is secure. He does not DARE to think.

It's like pointing out to a liberal that the same arguments he accepts now for "gay marriage," would (and will) work just as well to "justify" man-boy marriage or human-animal marriage or group marriage. He won't give you any clear answer, won't even take the point. He assumes that won't happen, that "they" won't let it happen. And when the next outrage comes along, he will just drift like jellyfish with the current, and accept the new thing: "You're a bigot to say my daughter shouldn't be able to marry the pony she loves. You are denying her EQUALITY! It's her constitutional right!"

OR, maybe the liberal will "draw the line" at that point, and say no. On what grounds, you might ask? Why, traditional morality of course!

"Bake sales against genocide"

Michael, re Obama's view of the Holocaust:

Those numbers can be our future, our fellow citizens of the world showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say "never again."

I take your point that "it may be what he means by 'never again,' but most everybody else means 'we're going to act to throttle the next would-be Hitler.'" But I'm not sure everybody else does mean that, not anymore.

The French thinker (if you'll pardon the expression) Alain Finkielkraut says that "Never again" to a European means "Never again power politics. Never again nationalism. Never again Auschwitz" — which sounds like a slightly different order of priorities from yours. And over the decades the revulsion against any kind of "power politics" has come to trump whatever revulsion post-Auschwitz Europe might feel about mass murder. That's why in the early Nineties the EU let hundreds of thousands die on its borders in the Balkans rather than act to prevent it. Indeed, they "acted" only to prevent the Americans coming in and doing something about it, because they found it easier to tolerate the murder of their fellow Europeans than the idea of American military action to stop it.

It's interesting how easily the Obama definition of "Never again" fits that kind of passivity. Two of the three "causes for hope" the president cites — Rwanda, Sudan — are textbook "Never again" scenarios that roll around again and again and again. In fact, Darfur is still ongoing, so to congratulate yourself merely because some American high-schoolers have formed "Save Darfur" chapters looks at best like moral preening and at worst like the kind of feeble passivity that enabled the Holocaust first time round. It's grand to be a member of the Grade Ten "Save Darfur" campaign, not so good to be back in Darfur wondering when the actual saving's going to start. If "Never again" now means "Bake sales against genocide," we're all doomed.

"Bake sales against genocide." Mr Steyn hits on the right phrase as usual.

How I despise liberals who talk abut Hitler in self-congratulatory terms, as a great liberal victory. Them liberals are long gone. Just imagine the situation of, say, 1936 were to exist today, and President George W Bush was urging Americans to go to war and stop this menace while it could still be done with relatively small loss of life! Do you have any doubt that our 'liberals" and fake-pacifists would happily let the Jews fry?

Government health care. Disaster. So, why do it?

Mark Steyn, on the Hugh Hewitt show... (emphasis added)

...HH: Everywhere you try it, you just mentioned Bulgaria, Great Britain and Canada, it is a disaster. Why do they want to do it?

MS: Well, what is does is, if you're a Democrat, what it does is it changes the relationship between the citizen and the state. It alters the equation. If you provide government health care, then suddenly all the elections, they're not thought about war and foreign policy, or even big economic questions. They're suddenly fought about government services, and the level of government services, and that's all they're about, because once you get government health care, the citizens' dependency on government as provider is so fundamentally changed that in effect, every election is fought on left wing terms. And for the Democratic Party, that is a huge, transformative advantage.

HH: Oh, that's very interesting. Now in Canada, though, don't people get mad at their quality of health care? Don't they throw the bums out and perhaps urge a return to American style medicine?

MS: No, because the strange thing is that when people, even when people have really bad experiences, you see this in the British press all the time whenever they have one of these horror stories about someone who goes in because they've got a bad case of, they've got a case of pneumonia, and they wake up and find their left leg's been amputated because the wrong memo went around. All those horror stories are always followed two days later by someone writing a fawningly, groveling letter about having received mediocre, third world care, but being eternally grateful for it. It really does, government health care is really the ditch you want to fight in, because once you surrender that, I think it's very difficult to have genuine self-reliant citizenry every again. It really fundamentally changes the equation.

HH: Then where's the AMA?  Where is business? Why hasn't this battle been joined even as the ink is getting very dry on the big Obama rewrite of American medicine?

MS: Well, because I think most of the spokesmen for the conservative argument in Washington do not make the case. And they don't understand that once you've got a government system, it becomes like any other government program. On Friday, you have to pay the doctor, you have to pay the nurse, you have to pay the janitor. So your only way of controlling the cost is to restrict access to the patient, to the customer. And that's why once you've got a government health care system, everything is about waiting lists and waiting time. It's about waiting two years for a hip operation. It's about waiting 9 months for an MRI. It's about waiting, waiting, waiting....

Some other thoughts by Alan Sullivan here.

"Small "t" torture"...

TigerHawk:

...Jon Stewart had to call Truman a war criminal over Hiroshima-Nagasaki, else he'd have lost the debate. QED.

A similar tactic from the left is to force debate over whether waterboarding is or isn't torture. If you admit it is, then waterboarding gets lumped in with far worse tortures -- you lose the debate. But by saying it isn't, you look disingenuous or worse.

I'm convinced waterboarding keeps coming up, because the left enjoys playing this rhetorical game. Waterboarding is a small sideshow in the scheme of things -- it's small "t" torture, didn't happen a lot, and many of us would wish far worse things upon guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Obama has dredged it up to make himself look good -- especially with his base -- and as a distraction from more momentous things that are going on.

Exactly. It's a rhetorical game, defining "torture." We always lose.

But more important is not to let the real context of the debate be denied. The US ended torture and cruelty in Iraq and Afghanistan that were millions of times worse than anything we've even been accused of. But this "debate" is one the Left has moved onto it's own ground, where nothing happens unless the US (or Israel) is present. A world where only the US is real. We should not let Lefty psycho-dramas set the terms of debate.

Yer toast, Jews...

Roger L. Simon:

...Did Rahm Emanuel just put the screws to his own people? Quite possibly, although all we have at present is a second hand report of what he told 300 big donors to AIPAC in a private meeting. According to the Jerusalem Post: Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. [bold mine]

Great, Rahm. What a guy you are for spelling this out. But before you do anything, would you please explain the word "progress"? When last we saw serious negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians (Bill Clinton and then Taba), the Palestinians, led by Arafat, walked out and began Intifada II. Would you have blamed Israel for that lack of "progress" and allowed Iran to get the bomb? Could it just be that the Palestinians (Hamas and Fatah) don't really want a two-state solution? Has the occurred to you after all this time? What if that turns out to be true? Think about that, Rahm. This isn't a Hollywood negotiation that your brother might conduct between Warner Brothers and Universal. People die here, big time. As Ayatollah Rafsanjani has told us, the Iranians don't fear a nuclear war with Israel because there are hundreds of more millions of Muslims than there are Jews.

One last question, Rahm. How do you sleep?...

Israel better look to itself. The White House is running on the Jeremiah Wright worldview, and Jews are definitely expendable. Israel should pull out all the stops to bolster its alliances with the other friends of America that Obam is now abandoning in favor of tyrants. You know, horrid oppressor countries like India and Turkey and Indonesia and Japan. And she should take out Iran's nukes NOW.

And still American Jews will support Obama. It's part of their religion, which is liberalism. Suicidal liberalism. And if Tel Aviv gets turned to green glass, it will be a "tragedy," and they will STILL vote Democrat. And if they or their loved ones get their heads sawed off with rusty knives, they will STILL not vote for Republicans--why, of course not, that would be tacky!

And the whole business of linking Middle East peace to "progress" in "peace negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinians has always been an utter fraud and sham. It's just an excuse to do nothing, since there will never be peace with a sick death-cult that wants to destroy all the Jews. It's an excuse to leave tyrants in power in the interests of "peace." The peace of death for all the victims of tyranny and anti-Semitism.

"Infusions of legitimacy"

... Americans who are apt to argue that U.S. foreign policy needs constant infusions of legitimacy from the approbation of European governments are also apt to deplore, in the domestic culture wars, Eurocentrism in academic curricula. Such Americans resist the cultural products of Europe's centuries of vitality, but defer to the politics of Europe in its decadence.

Why? Perhaps because yesterday's European culture helped make America what it is, and today's European politics expresses resentment and distrust of what America is. Both sensibilities arise from the distaste of some Americans for America...

    -- George Will

We are what government says we are...

William C. Duncan - The Corner on National Review Online:

The New Hampshire Senate has just voted 13-11 in favor of a bill that would redefine marriage in the state. This was an amended version of a same-sex marriage bill already approved by the House, so it must now go back to the House for approval before going to the governor. The "concessions" in the Senate version distinguish civil and religious marriages (was that a question?) and allow married couples to choose to be designated as "bride," "groom," or "spouse." One senator is quoted as saying this generosity is "respectful to both sides of the debate" although bill opponents might be forgiven for sensing a patronizing note in this.

One of the many aspects of "gay marriage" that no one seems to care about is that it is a huge expansion of government power. Government never had this power in the past; it has always merely adumbrated the common traditional ideas. One would think that "libertarians" would be concerned, but I haven't seen it.

If I might adapt a common phrase, "The power to define is the power to destroy." Allowing the state to define marriage—and thus implicitely to define almost any personal matter—is a far greater step towards tyranny than the nationalizing of banks or auto companies. Why? Because those economic experiments will probably be given up in the future when their failure becomes evident. But we can never go back to the original state of things where no one even imagined the state could change what marriage or families or personal relationships should be. Or what "grooms" or "spouses" are.

Even to politically fight against gay marriage is to implicitly agree that we are what government says we are.

I don't expect leftists to be able to think clearly, but the acquiescent stupidity of "libertarians" just stupefies me. The same people who—rightly—decry government intervention in the marketplace, and point out that this will inevitably tend to grow and become oppressive, sit supinely while government decides what a family is. And they imagine that this is making them more free.

Equally stupid is the common assumption that of course no one will go any farther in defining stuff. This is the end of the project! This is the only change that will be made! Fools. (One might ponder this: Toppling the last taboo: Is incest merely a relic of a decrepit moral system?) Well, I'm telling you now, they will be back for another redefinition of marriage soon enough. Don't come bleating to me like sheep saying, "I didn't expect this to happen!"

Update: Underlying the disastrous idea of government defining us is the deeper folly of thinking we can define ourselves. That seems like freedom on the face of it, but the problem is that we then define ourselves according to the common ideas of the moment. We subject ourselves to the tyranny of the crowd. There is no objective standard, no baseline, and so we are soon trapped in a labyrinth of fun-house mirrors. The distorted image becomes the definition of what is "real," and then the next mirror distorts reality in another direction, and that becomes what's "real," and then another...

Then I tear my hair out saying, "Can't you SEE that you've become Gumby! (And people look at me like I'm some kind of nut.)

Something to save for next year...

I'm late with this, but it might be worth a look. Pretty funny. (And pretty mendacious, since I doubt any of these people have apologized, and most of them are still spouting any BS that helps the Left, science be damned. Notice the last "prediction.") Earth Day predictions of 1970: (Thanks to Alan. 1970 was the first "Earth Day")

"We have about five more years at the outside to do something."
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

"We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation."
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

"Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction."
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s."
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,"
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

"Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…."
• Life Magazine, January 1970

"At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable."
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

"Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone."
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones."
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’"
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Yet another comment on a comment....

I started to comment on a comment by my friend Dave T, at this post, but it grew longer and longer, and I decided to make it a stand-alone post because I don't want to waste electrons on Earth Day:

What Dave's given here won't lead to an honest debate [on so-called torture]. There is something askew, something missing.

Think about the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza. Put aside the question of who was right or wrong, and think about the fact that the whole Western world was riveted by the conflict. Why? It was tiny on a global scale, yet it was treated like the biggest of things. Treated as a much bigger deal than, say, the death of a million people in Rawanda. Why? The Middle East has multitudes of oppressions and attacks, but no one cares if Turks kill a bunch of Kurds, or Iranians oppress the Ghashghai. Why is Israel important? It is weird, yet everyone takes it for granted.

I won't keep you in suspense. The reason is that there are only two countries that are real to the average Western Leftist. The USA, and Israel. To most liberals, this planet is like some vast dark warehouse where the only lights are America and Israel. All the other places are only seen if one of us two comes near. Only exist at that moment.

I could cite hundreds of examples, but I'll just give you two. (Extrapolate! You can do it.)

Example: The French are much rougher on terror suspects than we are. Gitmo is a playpen compared to their jails, but no one cares. (This is not just a matter of us Americans giving priority to our own supposed sins; European Lefties obsess over Guantanamo just as much as we do.) Also the French have made numerous military incursions into Africa in the post-colonial period, but no one asks them to obey "international law," or ask permission of the UN. Why? Why do no "pacifists" protest? No one pays the least attention. The US is real, from a Left perspective, and France is not. Why?

Example: In 1992 30,000 Palestinians were kicked out of their homes and sent into exile. Quick, how many of you reading this can name the country that did the deed? Hmmm? And for bonus points, describe the protests that convulsed the globe as liberals and "pacifists" took to the streets demanding justice, and calling on the UN to take action. Well, you can't describe the protests because there weren't any. All those Libs who say they "care" about the Palestinians? They are liars.

Yet....not exactly liars. To them there is no lie, because only Israel is real. Nothing happened to the Palestinians in 1992 because they were not hurt by Israel. Kuwait does not exist to them! It's not real!

We see this stuff all the time, but we don't notice it. I feel like that obnoxious kid pointing out that the Emperor is naked.

Look at the quote by "IOZ" that Dave posted. It is, to put it bluntly, delusional. Crazy. It paints a world where nothing moves except the United States. No one else acts, or speaks, or has any effect on anything. The entire rest of the human race is just a deer in the headlights.

And Dave's own comments assume that the US is the only moral actor that can be considered. The only one that exists. I've followed Dave's writing for many a year, and he has never subjected other countries to intense moral scrutiny. Oh wait, I'm wrong! Actually, it did happen, just once. The country was......Israel! He once heaped harsh moral censure on Israel for striking back against a terror bomber by bulldozing a house. SO, get this, terrorists turn women and children into shredded meat, Israel responds without killing or injuring any person....and who does our supposed pacifist condemn? I've been shaking my head at the sheer craziness of that one for years.

Trying to reason with such a worldview is a waste of time. It's like telling a paranoiac that nobody's trying to get them. The simple fact is that America, which would really like to stay home and enjoy the good life, has been forced into the position of being the decent cop in a rough neighborhood. Of course we slap some wise-guys around, but it's necessary if hoodlums are to be kept from taking over and making things a million times worse.

We water-boarded a few people (and do so routinely to our own troops such as Navy SEALS in training) in the course of fighting against people who interrogate using electric drills to drill into people's heads and knees. That's the context that somehow goes missing when you try to debate with leftists. If poor brown-skinned fellows get tortured or massacred in distant corners of the globe, they don't care. They posture all the time about how "caring" they are, but they. DO. NOT. CARE. It's not even real to them. Therefore what America is doing in the WoT is not real.

Actually they don't even care about the real living breathing America or Israel! These are only important to them as symbols. Remember your college psych class? Symbols, right? Important, psychologically. And spiritually. (Actually in the Catholic worldview symbols can actually "come alive" and be real! Awesome life-changing stuff, but that's for another day.)

So what's going on, symbolically speaking? Well, you have to understand first that liberals are not liberals any more. (Sorry if you've heard this already.) Once upon a time liberalism was a philosophy that people believed in, would fight for. (Imagine Harry Truman or JFK being asked if it's morally right to fight to topple a fascist dictator, and bring democracy to oppressed people! They would have laughed to think one would even need to ask such a question.) Liberalism was a sort of religion, in the sense that it was bigger than the individual.

But that belief has drained away, and left nothing inside. Nothing but self-worship. Nihilism. NOTHING. Now people like IOZ or Dave are wearing liberalism as a kind of disguise.

But if you put yourself in the center, if you make yourself god, then you will hate and fear rival gods. Countries of course are not normally anything like gods. BUT, there are two countries (guess which) on this planet that are something analogous to gods, in the sense that they are really ideas, ideas that demand our service and belief. They are the only two countries you can easily join by accepting their idea. If you dig it, if you "get" the constitution and the Declaration and the Federalist Papers and similar things, then you are an American. Even if you never set foot on US flag territory! (And here's an interesting piece on becoming an Israeli.)

But the nihilist hates and fears belief. He is always against God (sometimes cloaking this in a religious disguise) because being a Christian or a Jew means being a "servant of the Word," or "bearing the yoke of Torah." If you worship yourself you can't be no servant! And on a much lower, but analogous, plane, being an American or an Israeli means being the servant of an idea. It means putting yourself second.

When Leftists rant interminably about the sins of Israel and America, (ignoring everything else in the world) what they are really saying is, "Don't you dare make a claim on me! Don't you dare suggest that anything could be more important than ME! I'm never going to be a servant!" They scrabble endlessly to find excuses to avoid duty, hence the way they savor any mistakes made by... you know who.

This is, I more and more suspect, a very unhappy state of existence. But the empty soul doesn't realize he's unhappy. Why? Because he's like that paranoid, who also doesn't think he's unhappy. He thinks everything would be FINE if only those people weren't trying to kill him! WE know that he's unhappy. He's obviously deeply unhappy. But he can't see it himself.

And the biggest pity is that it's all so unnecessary. People imagine that being a servant to things greater than the self is a kind of death. That it will be a misery. But it is just the opposite. It's hard to demonstrate this point when you look at the big ideas, but the cosmos works by analogies, and there is a small-scale analog close at hand that most people can understand. That is the family. You could look at me as a wretched slave to my wife and children, and in a way I am. But while I've lost big-time as an autonomous individual, I've gained enormous dignity and respect-worthiness as a member—a servant—of my little family. And gained far more than I've lost in richness of life. (And of course we see a lot of people who look on the family in the way Lefties look at America. And call abortion a "blessing," and being unattached "freedom.")

And all the other analogous things work just the same way, up and down the ladder of importance. They look like death to the self, but they are really where the self can be what it wants to be, and was always intended to be, the servant of greater things. Poor IOZ, he thinks he's declaring truths, but he looks to me like some poor ragged wretch walking down the street screaming paranoid fantasies.

Just for the record...

You might keep in mind this article from the Washington Post, December 9, 2007, Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002. (From a good piece by Hugh Hewitt.)

This is similar to the abu Ghraib scandal, in which members of Congress knew of the problem months before it hit the news, knew it was being corrected and the guilty were due to be punished...then, when those pictures surfaced, they suddenly discovered that betraying their country with fake outrage would be a big partisan winner.

Same with "torture." Democrat leaders never gave a damn about waterboarding. Not until America was in difficulties. Then the dirty turncoats jumped-ship to what looked like the winning side—al Qaeda.. Leftist fake outrage about torture is treason pure and simple.

And any talk or action now about prosecuting Bush administration officials for things Congress was in agreement with at the time, and declined to make illegal....is not only vile injustice, but treason.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. ...


...Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement...

"Questions better batted down than answered"

Byron York, in the Washington Times, on the hysterical reactions to the tea party protests: In Time of Victory, Why Is The Left So Angry?

...Then there is the question of self-image. Watching Garofalo and Olbermann discuss the tea parties, it was impossible to avoid the sense that they saw themselves as two good people talking about many bad people. "One of the things about narcissism is that it looks like people who are just proud of themselves and smug, but in fact narcissism is a very brittle and unstable state," Anderson told me. "People who are deeply invested in narcissism spend an awful lot of energy trying to maintain the illusion they have of themselves as being powerful and good, and they are exquisitely sensitive to anything that might prick that balloon."

Again, the tea parties could represent a threat. What if the protesters weren't racists, weren't violent, weren't mentally defective? What if their point was legitimate, or even partly legitimate? Those are questions better batted down than answered....

"Narcissism is a very brittle and unstable state." That sure fits with what I'm seeing around here in Pelosiville. Psychologically it is much wiser and less stressful to believe in Original Sin, and acknowledge that your group and you yourself are prone to error and failure, and that paradise on Earth is not achievable.

Think of the liberals who imagine themselves as still riding the wave of transformative energy of the 1960's and the civil rights movement. They may tell themselves things are going great, but of course nothing has actually gone according to the hopes raised at that period. (I was there—I know.) So the poor liberal has to repress.

And it's the same with the Obama regime. Vast clouds of nebulous hope have been frothed-up in front of us, but it's already clear that reality is not going to fit the vague dreams and schemes. It reminds me of a recollection I read by someone who was in the JFK administration, right at the beginning. Apparently they were worried about what they would do in the second term, after they had solved all the country's problems!

Commenting on a comment...

I am not clear on this subject at all but are you saying that rough work works so it is OK to do it now and then?.

Mark Shea I don't think radiates any partisan hatred or venom. He is consistent: anything that deviates from Church preaching is to be rejected.

Had the Catholics consistently followed this principle, a lot of past trouble eg World Wars might have been avoided.

Maybe you will object, that this goes against Prudence and thus Catholic States never applied such standard to themselves. But perhaps USA needs to set higher standards for itself.

The virtue of Prudence is crucial for Moral Reasoning. (For all people, not just Christians. Moral law exists objectively, applies to all of us, and can be apprehended by reason.) Prudence is not optional. It is not a "lower standard." It is not some sort of fudge-factor added on so that people can compromise with the strict demands of doing what is just. ALL good deeds and good things can be bad if done at the wrong time or place or situation. The beautiful poverty and service of St Francis would have been an evil thing if he had left a wife and children to starve to death!

There is NO situation—either personal or societal—to which one can simply "apply Church teachings" without considering Prudence.

And therefore there is no complex situation where one can simply take one small aspect and demand that people do the moral thing, without considering the whole. Prudence demands looking at the whole picture.

Therefore, if a moralist is going to try to influence people on how we should fight the "War on Terror," then he or she must consider the situation as a whole, and think through things. Think about questions like how, in general, this new kind of war can best be fought. And how those tactics and strategies fit in with moral principles.

As an example, people need to ponder how Christian "Just War" thinking should be applied to a new sort of war Aquinas never imagined. Another example: one needs to think about how our words and actions will be seen by others, and what behavior they will elicit. Are we tempting people to wrong-doing? (I'd say that Mr Shea is broadcasting messages that encourage terrorism.)

There are lots of similar things that need to be considered to decide what the moral way to deal with our world situation is. I don't follow everything Shea writes, so I may be doing him an injustice, but, it looks to me like he has cherry-picked those issues he happens to be interested in, and opines on them without ever articulating a philosophy of how the situation as a whole should be seen, and how dealt with. This is morally wrong; it is a failure to exercise Prudence.

In fact he not only has the duty to think through the whole situation, he also has the duty to encourage criticism and discourse. The way he sneers at those who disagree with him is itself a moral failure—it is doubling-down on his basic failure of Prudence. I wouldn't even consider challenging Shea's ideas at his blog, because I've never heard of him making reasoned responses like this one I'm trying to write. (Bisaal is doing me a favor by criticizing me, by prodding my reasoning, and I'm grateful.)

And I think Shea is partisan because his attitudes and the issues he in interested seem to match precisely those of far-left political activists. You can SEE this. The issues that make his cheeks glow and his eyes sparkle match up closely with groups like moveon.org or Code Pink. And he never seems (I don't read everything he writes, so I may be mistaken) to work up a sweat over the victims of terrorism, or over the war crimes that groups like al-Qaeda commit every day.

Who are the REAL Christians today? Well, I've blogged my opinion on one that often enough. Try this post. Or this....

(photo by Michael Yon, of a child deliberately slaughtered by terrorist madmen.)

(And now I've really got to get to work, and I haven't even addressed torture specifically. Oh well, another day)

A Quote for you...

Charlene liked this quote, from a great piece by Kathy Shaidle:

...The Left is very concerned about something they like to call "social justice", which I define as the stubborn application of unworkable solutions to imaginary problems. ...

I call them heroes...

John Hinderaker at Power Line, About Those "Torture Memos":

...You can read the memos here. If you do, you will see that DOJ's lawyers grappled carefully and fairly with issues that are, by their nature, both difficult and distasteful. I find much to agree with in the memos and little, if anything, with which I disagree from a legal standpoint. Several things about the memos are striking: the concern that is shown for the health and well-being of the detainees; the very limited circumstances under harsh interrogation techniques were used (only when the CIA had reason to believe that the detainee had knowledge about pending terrorist attacks, among other limitations), and confirmation of the fact that thousands of American servicemen have been waterboarded and subjected to the other techniques in question, as part of their training--a practice that continued at least up to the dates of the memos.

I think the opinions were correct in substance; in any event, CIA officials were obviously justified in relying on them. In this context, the Obama administration's announcement that it will not prosecute the CIA personnel involved is evidently grandstanding. Of course they won't be prosecuted: to do so would be a double-cross of the worst sort, and the likelihood of getting a conviction would be nil. The fact is that the CIA officials who extracted valuable information from captured al Qaeda leaders--information that we have every reason to believe prevented successful terrorist attacks--are heroes. Their task was a thankless one, but, based on all the information we have, including the newly-released DOJ memos, they performed it well....

They are heroes. Exactly. They do the rough work necessary to protect us, while the fake-liberals who sneer and stab at them continue to luxuriate in the safety we have. And would howl in outrage if any danger actually approached them. Frauds. Pigs.

And none of the "anti-torture" crowd acknowledges that the US and Coalition militaries ended (at a painful sacrifice in dead and wounded) torture by the Saddam regime that was a million times worse than even what America is accused of. None of them ever said "thank you" for our ending (while "liberals" sat fat and safe, and never lifted a finger to help the suffering) the mass-production torture that was going on in Iraq. They are frauds, all of them. Their "concern" about torture is pure enmity against America and Bush. (I especially despise Mark Shea in this, since he is a well-known Catholic writer who just radiates partisan hatred and venom. What a twisted disgrace to our faith.)

Update: [link] "Most prominent among those briefed on waterboarding was Nancy Pelosi. According to the Post’s interviews, members of the Congressional oversight committees understood that they had to weigh the limits of inhumane treatment of people known to have Al Qaeda connections against the threat of new attacks. They believed that these techniques struck the right balance in the circumstances. Yet I haven't heard of any serious call for prosecuting Speaker Pelosi or any of her colleagues for complicity in torture."

Emma Sky

Nibras Kazimi, at his blog Talisman Gate:

...The "Sky" I'm referring to is Emma Sky. I've been watching her rise for some time, and couldn't tell whether this was a remarkably deft penetration of the American decision-making process courtesy of the 'cousins' across the pond, or that it was just an accident of history when mediocre characters, thrust into the eye of history, begin making irresponsible and ill-conceived choices. I'm still wavering between the two.

Sky has maneuvered herself into becoming General Ray Odierno's brain.

Sky has been recently quoted as saying:

"It is a fascinating society," she said of Iraq. "They have got things here that we have totally lost in the West: the appreciation of each other, whether it is the family, the clan or the tribe; values that aren't capitalist."

How foolish is that? What toxic mix of cluelessness and self-righteousness is necessary to allow someone to string together these words? Is Emma Sky arguing for a pre-capitalistic society for Iraq? Wheres the sense of irony here?

But I'll hand it to her, she has been quite clever in rallying the ranks of her fellow travelers among the western media (think Tom Ricks), as well as the left-leaning think-tankers. She's managed to manipulate them into adhering to a disciplined message about Iraq, one that is heavily colored by her politics....

"..Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class," Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, "and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected..."

Sky doesn't really care about "the family, the clan or the tribe;" what's important is that these people are still poor and unsophisticated (and "colorful"), and therefore may be amenable to being guided by people like Ms. Sky. As soon as they start to attain self-confident middle-class status she will drop them.

(Much like our own intelligentsia used to dote on poor wretches in Appalachia, and gourmandised on their folk music and folk art. And congratulated themselves on being caring (with the taxpayers' $'s) and on being cool and "genuine" while listening to recordings of some old granny singing hymns of a faith they in fact despise. And of course once those people managed to escape from dire poverty, they were "rednecks," they were "spoiled by capitalism," and deserved to be sneered-at or ignored.)

It goes without saying that Sky hates "Zionists," and is not fond of Kurds. "..toxic mix of cluelessness and self-righteousness..." Well put.

What us schlubs need is "inspired tutelage..."

Fred Siegel, in FrontPage Magazine, has a very worth-reading history of the origins of American liberalism...

...The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. "Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class," Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, "and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected." Alienated from middle-class American life, liberalism drew on an idealized image of both organic pre-modern folkways and the harmony to come when it would re-establish the proper hierarchy of virtue in a post-bourgeois, post-democratic world....

....Croly, said literary critic Edmund Wilson memorializing him, "was a kind of saint." In another age he might have become the "founder of a religious order." Instead he founded The New Republic, which became the primary political organ of the new liberalism. Croly, whose sanctimony was sometimes mocked as "Crolier than thou," told Edmund Wilson that "he saw his culture as mainly French." He was the first child in the United States whose parents christened him, so to speak, into the mid-nineteenth-century French intellectual August Comte's "Religion of Humanity." Comte's concoction was designed to create a scientific, progressive, and comparably hierarchical alternative to Catholicism.

To attain that "religion of humanity," Croly called for a Rousseau-like "reconstruction" of American ideals "on a platform of possible human perfectibility." "What a democratic nation must do is not to accept human nature as it is, but to move it in the direction of improvement." The people in this picture "are not sovereign . . . even when united in a majority." His hope, however was that under inspired tutelage they can "become sovereign . . . in so far as they succeed on reaching and expressing a collective purpose," and that purpose was a strong unified nation in which religion and politics were melded into "the religion of humanity," which would be "a religion based not on conjecture but fact." The famous closing lines of The Promise read: "The common citizen can become something of a saint and something of a hero" if "his exceptional fellow-countrymen" are able to "offer acceptable examples of heroism and saintliness."....

Do read it. And when I write, as I often do, that "liberals" aren't liberals any more, this is the kind of thing I'm referring to. (And I'm sure you can already guess that I think that every morsel of the above quoted ideas are profoundly evil and dangerous. I don't need to spell it all out, right?)

Ha ha. I got under somebody's skin...

As I mentioned here, I have an "I miss W." bumper sticker on my truck.

I left my vehicle in a parking lot this morning, and came back to find a note stuck in the door, which read:

Dear GOP
(Grand Old Pedophiles)
Thank you for supporting "W."
We Liberals LOVE it!

Feelin' a little nervous, pal?

(I suspect this is just a morsel more confirmation of my theory that liberals hate Bush because he is a real liberal, and exposes them as being fake liberals. But whatever it is, I bugged somebody!)

Worst-case view...

The admirable Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post, Surviving in a post-American world:

...Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world's policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama's presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.

Somewhere between apologizing for American history - both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US's nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America's missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, "Don't worry, be happy," as he leaves them to Moscow's tender mercies; humiliating Iraq's leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world's aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.

Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington.

This news is music to the ears of the American Left and their friends in Europe. Obama's supporters like billionaire George Soros couldn't be more excited at the self-induced demise of the American superpower. CNN's former (anti-)Israel bureau chief Walter Rodgers wrote ecstatically in the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday, "America's... superpower status, is being downgraded as rapidly as its economy."....

If someone has a good argument against this, I've yet to hear it. We saw this kind of thing under Carter. Jay Nordlinger called Carter "the first anti-American president," and I think that was the simple truth. And now we have the second one. The good news is that the Left has to rely on sneakiness to gain power in America. (Carter's disguise was "Christian southerner;" Obama's is "post-partisan post-racial hopey-changy smoke-screen." Neither guy would have been elected if his real views were known.) The bad news is that Obama was more clearly a Leftist, and still got elected.

Leftists are almost always anti-American. (For reasons I've blogged often, and will repeat if anyone needs me to.) The huge question is, is America becoming anti-American?

Glick suggests that those countries who have been our friends and relied on our support should get off the dime and start working with each other to fill the void....

...THE RISKS that the newly inaugurated post-American world pose for America's threatened friends are clear. But viable opportunities for survival do exist, and Israel can and must play a central role in developing them. Specifically, Israel must move swiftly to develop active strategic alliances with Japan, Iraq, Poland, and the Czech Republic and it must expand its alliance with India....

...For the past 16 years, successive Israeli governments have wrongly believed that politics trump strategic interests. The notion that informed Israel's decision-makers - not unlike the notion that now informs the Obama administration - was that Israel's strategic interests would be secured as a consequence of its efforts to appease its enemies by weakening itself. Appreciative of Israel's sacrifices for peace, the nations of the world - and particularly the US, the Arabs and Europe - would come to Israel's defense in its hour of need. Now that the hour of need has arrived, Israel's political strategy for securing itself has been exposed as a complete fiasco.

The good news is that no doubt sooner rather than later, Obama's similarly disastrous bid to denude the US of its military power under the naive assumption that it will be able to use its new stature as a morally pure strategic weakling to win its enemies over to its side will fail spectacularly and America's foreign policy will revert to strategic rationality.

But to survive the current period of American strategic madness, Israel and the US's other unwanted allies must build alliances with one another - covertly if need be - to contain their adversaries in the absence of America. If they do so successfully, then the damage to global security induced by Obama's emasculation of his country will be limited. If on the other hand, they fail, then America's eventual return to its senses will likely come too late for its allies - if not for America itself....

She's dead right. But I'm not too optimistic. Another way of putting the above is that India and Israel (especially) and Japan, Iraq, Poland, and the Czech Republic should.....grow up! But asking democracies to do that? It doesn't happen very often.

I would normally just blast the squalid hypocrisy of the Obamanoid's, but...

...even more aggravating is the STUPIDITY of the general population of the world who took the attacks on Guantanamo seriously. If you fight a war, you will have to lock up prisoners, right? Unless you want to just shoot them on the battlefield, right? And you know who to lock up, and how long, only if your enemy follows the LAWS OF WAR, and does things like wearing uniforms, and having ranks and serial numbers, and keeping combat away from civilians.

If an enemy like al-Qaeda does not do such things, then they are committing war crimes. And if we lock up people without being perfectly sure that they are in fact combatants, it is because of al-Qaeda's war crimes. Not because we are doing anything wrong, but because we've been forced into doing things in an imperfect way.

The leftists who heaped criticism on the Bush Administration for Gitmo committed a vile injustice. Which they are now compounding by following—as logic demands—the very same policies. There's nothing I can do about it, except express my utmost contempt for the horrid lefty worms who took part in such a loathsome betrayal of decent Americans. And did so not out of conviction, but to gain political power.

Likewise, it is not our fault if the detention is of indefinite duration. Imagine if our enemies in WWII had been almost impossible to clearly defeat, because they could magically disappear whole armies, and then emerge in a year or two in a distant place to start fighting again. What would have been the fate of any prisoners we held? They would have been kept in indefinite detention, right? Am I right?

Now think of the above fantasy, and imagine that the Republicans orchestrated a huge clamor against Presidents Roosevelt or Truman. Enough so that they seriously hindered the Allied war effort, and forced the administration to release prisoners. Who subsequently returned to the fight and killed American soldiers. What would that be called? What's the word we are groping for???

Obama Administration Will Appeal Court Ruling Which Allows Habeas Petitions for Certain Captives in Afghanistan:

...The Obama administration has announced that it will appeal a recent Federal District Court decision, which held that three captives at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan could challenge their status as "enemy combatants" in United States courts. The District Court held that the Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene v. Bush, which allows Guantanamo Bay detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, also gives Bagram detainees access to United States courts. The Obama administration opposes the petitions and has announced that it will appeal the District Court's ruling.

Civil liberties advocates blasted the Bush administration for subjecting Guantanamo Bay captives to indefinite detention and for denying them access to federal courts. The outrage over Guantanamo Bay among President Obama's liberal base and among the populations of certain United States allies (particularly in Europe) probably explains why President Obama's first set of executive orders included a provision directing the closure of the controversial detention facility.

The Obama administration, however, has taken the position that Supreme Court's reasoning in Boumediene does not confer habeas rights to Bagram detainees. This is the same argument that the Bush administration made.

This logic, however, could support the capture and transfer of individuals to Bagram, where they could face prolonged and indefinite detention and denial of access to United States courts. Bagram could become the functional equivalent of Guantanamo Bay....

Kick a "journalist" today...

The curious case of 200 nearly identical MSM headlines:

The following headlines have appeared in newspapers within the last 24 hours. This is not an inclusive list....

...There are more. I just stopped listing them because I grew weary -- so weary -- of the physical labor associated with cutting and pasting.

All of the stories were marketed by a liberal "advocacy group" called Families USA .

According to Discover the Networks, Families USA is a member of the "Progressive States Network", which works closely with (you guessed it) ACORN and the SEIU. These ultra-partisan groups have truly one agenda: big government.

During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama spoke to a conference of Family USA activists and promised, "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country."

Data from the Census Bureau debunks the lie continually promoted by the mainstream media of the legendary 47 million uninsured Americans:...

The Left doesn't care about gays...they're just cannon fodder in the real war

Dafydd asks a great question. There are surely far more homosexuals affected by the ban on their openly serving in the military than there are gays who really want to get married. And far less justification for a ban. So, where is the Left? Why are no "liberals" clamoring for lifting the ban?

...At a guess, I believe that at least a hundred times as many gays serve (more or less secretly) in the military as want to get married to members of the same gender, and an even larger number are veterans or would like to serve in the future. At a guess, if about five million legal American residents are homosexual (loosely defined -- say 2% of men and 1% of women), easily as many as a million could be directly adversely affected by the policy. (I cannot imagine that anywhere near ten thousand gays and lesbians seriously intend to get married.)

And Congress or the president could enact that change right this very minute; I don't think Republicans could possibly muster 41 votes to filibuster a bill to lift the restriction, even if they wanted to -- and assuming congressional action is even required; it's possible that all it would take is an Executive Order from the Commander in Chief.

The Left could do it in a snap, even against unified Republican opposition (which I doubt could be mustered anyway). So why don't they?

Well, I didn't plan to leave that hanging as a rhetorical question. As anybody who has read more of this blog than just the seven paragraphs above knows, I ask because I think I know the answer -- which is simply this...

Democrats and liberals couldn't care less about gays, lesbians, transsexuals, transvestites, or any other such subgroup. They only champion the gay (or blacktivist, or feminist) agenda when a particular policy serves the larger agenda of the hard Left: the destruction of traditional Western culture and its replacement by secular humanism.

Simply and brutally put, destroying traditional marriage advances that liberal agenda, so liberal Democrats pursue it with a passion; but allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not advance that vile agenda -- so liberal Democrats truly could not care less...

There is really only One War. The only thing different now is the openness of the fight. (And yes, you are choosing sides even when you think you are neutral.)

World turned upside down...

Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online:

...The North Korean test, about which our new president has issued the feeblest of rote protests, is the flip side of the post below. The western world has no will. So we approach a state in which the planet's wealthiest jurisdictions, from Norway to New Zealand, lack any capacity to defend their borders, and the planet's basket-cases, from North Korea to Sudan, will be nuclear powers.

We'll see how that arrangement works out.

It's deeper than just "lack of will." Even those without the will to act should be able to see an insane situation when it is right in front of their nose, and at least feebly bleat that someone ought to do something. It's not lack of will, but intentional blindness. They don't want to SEE. The implications are too disturbing...

Another day, another lie...

JustOneMinute: We Get Pensive On Pensions:

...Inspired by a Boston Globe story and aroused by the indignant yet underinformed Josh Marshall, lefties are aghast that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation switched "much of" (per the Globe) or "most" (per the unflappable Josh Marshall) of its portfolio from safe bonds to risky stocks last February, prior to the stock market wipe-out (see "FEEL THE RAGE", below). However, our friends on the left are so intent on bashing Bush and his appointees that they have overlooked some good news, which I will bury for a while....

In fact it was just a proposal; nothing was done about it. The whole story is bullshit.

But you can depend on it that you will be hearing the lie decades from now as an example of the abhorrent horridness of the Bush Administration. (And of course if the PBGC had done something smart, something that increased their portfolio, that would have nothing to do with Bush and his greedy minions. In that case the agency would have been independent!)

There was another President who embraced evil at Notre Dame...

Here's a historical note on the beginnings of the situation we are now in. (Short version: pacifism kills.)

Jeffrey Lord in American Spectator: Jimmy Carter's Spirit of Notre Dame:

...Perhaps more importantly than Carter's personal political fate the speech signaled his decision to abandon his party's identification with the policies of military strength and American exceptionalism championed by Democrats from FDR to JFK and LBJ. Instead, Carter chose to move the country towards the more left-leaning foreign and defense policies advocated by 1972 nominee Senator George McGovern. The results were decidedly not approved of by the American public....

...The most notable single sentence in Carter's Notre Dame speech was this one:

We are now free of that inordinate fear of Communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in our fear.

Carter went on to insist that it was time to govern with a "wider framework of international cooperation" because "the world today is in the midst of the most profound and rapid transformation in its entire history." He also added this about the American approach to the Soviet Union in the Carter era: "Our goal is to be fair to both sides, to produce reciprocal stability, parity, and security." In other words, in Carter's view, a view widely held among leftward-leaning elites, both the United States and the Soviet Union had genuinely competing claims. They were morally equal to each other.

The speech was the lead story in the news the next day. By the time Carter left the White House after four years of promoting moral equivalence, the world was in murderous chaos....

"Murderous chaos." That's for sure. And we are still in it. Read the whole thing.

And by the way, not that any leftist would care in the slightest about mere human beings, but the policy sneered at as "embracing any dictator" has proved to be the correct one. The countries where "right-wing" dictators held back Communism are now mostly prosperous and democratic. Where Communism took hold there is unending poverty and tyranny, and the border guards keep people in, not out. Compare Cuba and Chile. Or North and South Korea. Or Taiwan and China.

And both the Notre Dame outrages are really about the same issue. Human beings are to be sacrificed to leftist theories.

Don't turn the lights off!

I've heard that some environmentalist flakes are promoting an "Earth Hour," where people are supposed to turn off their lights for an hour and sit in the dark and meditate on how horrible they are for breathing out CO2, and maybe lay some plans to save the planet by killing their children before they are even born. As I'm sure you can guess, I have nothing but contempt for such twisted atheist malarky.

(And it's not even smart on its own terms; it won't make any environmental difference at all. But Leftism is about feeling good, not about actually accomplishing anything.)

As an alternative, there's Human Achievement Hour! The video below is so-so, but I don't have time to make my own. Celebrating human achievements with rock music has gotta be this week's worst idea. Bach, it should have been

Two Obamas...

neo-neocon: What's behind Obama's Teleprompter addiction? (thanks to Rand):

...The late great Dean Barnett was one of the first to not only notice this but to understand what it might signify besides a simple desire for fluency. Writing in February 2008 about a speech Obama had made a few days earlier, Barnett shrewdly observed [emphasis mine]:

....But...[w]ith no Teleprompter signaling the prepared text, Obama failed to deliver the speech in his characteristically flawless fashion. He had to rely on notes. And his memory. And he improvised...

Virtually every time Obama deviated from the text, he expressed the partisan anger that has so poisoned the Democratic party. His spontaneous comments eschewed the conciliatory and optimistic tone that has made the Obama campaign such a phenomenon...[T]his different Obama was a far less attractive one...

Barnett noticed—as many had, even at the time—the enormous difference in articulateness between Teleprompter-Obama and Obama unplugged (the latter is the title of Barnett’s article). That was the easy part. The more discriminating observation Barnett made was between the message of Teleprompter Obama and the message of ad-lib Obama. The two were not just different in degree—they were profoundly opposite in tone and essence. Ad-lib Obama was far more angry and more radical—indeed, although Barnett doesn't mention it, this Obama resembled the angrier and more radical Michelle Obama, in her earlier campaign remarks that drew so much controversy.

Obama is addicted to his Teleprompter not only because he knows he sounds better—smoother and smarter—with it than without. The deeper reason for his reliance on it may just be that he differs so profoundly from the persona he wishes to convey that he quite literally cannot trust himself to speak without it....

Until recently it was a given that the Dems could not elect a Northern liberal president. They've only succeeded with Southerners since JFK (who wasn't very liberal by today's standards). And Obama was only elected by sneakiness—if America had known what he was really like he wouldn't have stood a chance.

It's not just being liberal that's the problem, it's that most liberals don't interact with conservatives. They stay in their lefty comfort-zones and talk to each other. And get their comfort-news from the NYT. But if you are going to be a Democrat governor of Arkansas or Georgia, then you need to be able to work with conservatives and Christians. You need to know what they are thinking, even if you don't agree.

Poor Barack is just clueless. He's spent his entire life in big-city Lefty cocoons. He doesn't know stuff.

We "are called to the same most high dignity"

Pope Leo XIII on Socialism...

For, indeed, although the socialists, stealing the very Gospel itself with a view to deceive more easily the unwary, have been accustomed to distort it so as to suit their own purposes, nevertheless so great is the difference between their depraved teachings and the most pure doctrine of Christ that none greater could exist: "for what participation hath justice with injustice or what fellowship hath light with darkness?"

Their habit, as we have intimated, is always to maintain that nature has made all men equal, and that, therefore, neither honor nor respect is due to majesty, nor obedience to laws, unless, perhaps, to those sanctioned by their own good pleasure. But, on the contrary, in accordance with the teachings of the Gospel, the equality of men consists in this: that all, having inherited the same nature, are called to the same most high dignity of the sons of God, and that, as one and the same end is set before all, each one is to be judged by the same law and will receive punishment or reward according to his deserts. The inequality of rights and of power proceeds from the very Author of nature, "from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named."...

...For, while the socialists would destroy the "right" of property, alleging it to be a human invention altogether opposed to the inborn equality of man, and, claiming a community of goods, argue that poverty should not be peaceably endured, and that the property and privileges of the rich may be rightly invaded, the Church, with much greater wisdom and good sense, recognizes the inequality among men, who are born with different powers of body and mind, inequality in actual possession, also, and holds that the right of property and of ownership, which springs from nature itself, must not be touched and stands inviolate. For she knows that stealing and robbery were forbidden in so special a manner by God, the Author and Defender of right, that He would not allow man even to desire what belonged to another, and that thieves and despoilers, no less than adulterers and idolaters, are shut out from the Kingdom of Heaven...
      -- Pope Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris

Leo XIII is a favorite of mine for various reasons, including that it was he who made John Henry Newman a Cardinal.

And he was the first Pope to have his voice recorded, and to be in a motion picture....in 1903!! (It doesn't sound like much--he was close to death at the time. But it's still a cool thing.)

Retroactive admiration...

Dr. Weevil: Prediction:

...I don't expect anyone except John Weidner and Orrin Judd to agree with me, but I want to put this on record, so I can gloat if it comes true:

If President Obama does not pull himself together and start acting like a president very soon -- and I doubt that he is capable of it -- retroactive admiration for the decency and (relative) competence of George W. Bush may spread so far and fast that Jeb Bush will have a real chance to be nominated and elected president in 2012. In what will surely be a crowded field, I would not put his chances of winning the nomination higher than 5% or 6%, but that's up from .001% in 2008, when it would have taken a meteor shower wiping out all the other candidates to outweigh pandemic Bush fatigue. I do think that whoever wins the Republican nomination in 2012 has at least a 75% chance of winning the election, and that Bush fatigue and even Bush hatred may (note: may) melt away, leaving only a slight, though extraordinarily foul, odor, like a very small piece of Limburger, or the spot on the road where a dead skunk lay before the highway department or a helpful vulture dragged it away....

Sounds good to me. Charlene and I just bought some   I  miss  W.    bumper-stickers (link). And, if Jeb were President, I would not have to add a new post category; I could just keep "President Bush!"

Of course I'd probably have the same frustrations with Jeb as I did with the President. I mean, the task of explaining things really shouldn't fall to me. Why do I have to give the world a list of 14 reasons to invade Iraq? I'm proud that those who read RJ are among the few who actually know what's happening in the world, but still....It does try my patience.

My guess is that Bush-hatred by the real lefties will never die. Sort of like Nixon-hatred. Come to think of it, there's a real parallel. Let me suggest that leftists hate Nixon because he was right about communists, and because he won the Vietnam War. Watergate was just seized upon ex post facto, to personalize the hatred.

Actually, there's a deeper parallel. Nixon was in many ways a liberal. Us conservatives were deeply unhappy with him on many issues. (remember FAP, wage-and-price controls, end of the gold standard? Probably few of you do--I alone have lived to tell thee!) And of course Bush too is in some ways a liberal. Especially in regards to that classic liberal project, overthrowing a fascist dictator and bringing democracy to oppressed people. They will never forgive him for that.

To a considerable extent my championing of George W Bush was only done because nobody else was presenting the positive side, so it fell to me. I could easily have been a much harsher critic from the right, if conservatives had been supporting the president as they should. But people were not being just. Leftists are unjust by nature of course, but many Republicans and conservatives were failing in this regard too.

What I would really like is a Sarah Palin who could articulate a conservative philosophy. But I doubt if she will hire me to get her up to speed....

Today's joke...

I just saw a bumper sticker on the car of one of our liberal neighbors (very nice folks, by the way. Nothin' personal): "Unjust War. Unending Debt. The Bush Legacy Continues." Pretty hilarious, seeing that Iraq's now a democracy and safer than many big American cities, and Obam's busy tripling the National debt.

It should be repeated frequently: the Iraq Campaign was a splendid, successful and idealistic liberal project by a great liberal president. That's why nihilists-pretending-to-be-liberals hate it. It exposes them as the frauds they are...

"We are Socialists. We don't pretend to be Christians"

On Charity, by James V. Schall, S.J.

Bruce Fingerhut, the good director of St. Augustine's Press, sent me the other day the following amusing, but provocative citation: "Bertrand Russell, who, when asked why he did not give to charity, replied: "I'm afraid you've got it all wrong. We are Socialists. We don't pretend to be Christians.'" Needless to say, that witty retort contains a whole theology and a philosophy that deserve to be spelled out. The logic of classic socialism makes Christianity not only superfluous�everyone has everything by rights�but impossible�no one has anything to give.

Russell is right, of course. In a socialist world, no charity can exist because there can be no need that is unfulfilled by the commonality's duty. It is a world in which there can be no gratitude. I can thank someone for giving me what is really his. I cannot thank him for giving me what is by rights already mine. And if everything belongs to the community, how can I give it away? Or if I do give it away, how can it be anything but stealing from the commons on my part and receiving illicit booty on the receiver's part?...

I remember an incident, maybe back in the 70's? The king of Sweden donated a large sum of money to charity. And Swedish leftists were outraged, and there was a big flap about it! It was treated as an insult to Sweden's socialistic state!

I'd guess that the recent proposal by the Obama administration to limit the deduction for charitable donations was not an accident. Charity is an area where any socialist will want to start squeezing out the private sector and gathering all "charity" into the hands of government...

Nudging the data...

Alan Sullivan pointed to this blog post, Kafka at Albany, about the investigation--or rather, non-investigation--of what looks like academic fraud. Fraud involving--you will be so surprised--climate-change and big federal grants.

I suspect there is a lot more of this than we will ever know. We won't know because most of it will be more subtle. Nudging the data rather than fudging. Quite probably much of it is unconscious--very few of us would not be influenced by knowing that finding one kind of data means we remain a "star professor" with a lab full of hot post-docs.....and coming up with a certain other sort of data means academic obscurity and possibly ostracization.

And there's this other thing going on. There is, I think, a lot of incentive towards slanting science due to the personal politics of the people involved. When certain science topics come up, everyone gets twitchy because we know the issues have political implications. One of my sisters is a scientist (smart, honest as they come, not involved in any controversial research) and a liberal. We normally don't mention politics! But climate science came up once in a e-mail exchange, and she made some complaint about Bush/Cheney... and I pointed out that she had in fact instantly turned the science into a political weapon. That ended that conversation pronto, but it's stuck in my mind.

...Last June I reported on the allegations of academic fraud levelled by a British mathematician, Doug Keenan, against Professor Wei-Chyung Wang of New York State University at Albany.

Dr Keenan alleged that in work that has come to be widely cited in climate studies, work that included the collation of data from temperature measuring stations in China, Professor Wang made statements that "cannot be true and could not be in error by accident. The statements are fabricated."

In August 2007, Dr Keenan submitted a report (pdf) of his allegations to the Vice President for Research at Wang's university and an inquiry was initiated. In February 2008 this was escalated into a full investigation by the Inquiry Committee.

All this was summarised in my earlier post, together with quotations from Dr Keenan's allegation....

An even worse snub to a friend of America....

Big Lizard writes that before Obama's snubs to Gordon Brown, he had treated the PM of Japan even worse...

From a Japanes story on Prime Minister Taro Aso's visit. (Which I bet you didn't even know happened--I didn't.)

...It was unprecedented that there was no state lunch or joint press conference [sound familar?].

There was no private one-on-one meeting, which is what is needed to meet the requirement of a "summit."

Just before the meeting, President Obama talked about the importance of the U.S.-Japan friendship and strengthening the alliance for east-Asian security. However, Mr. Obama did not take any action to publicize the message.

Mr. Obama gave his first speech to Congress that same night. The U.S. government, public, and media attention were all on that speech; they paid little to no attention to the prime minister's visit.

This meeting reminded Japanese of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murakami's visit to the U.S. in January of 1995. However, even during that visit, Murayama was allowed to stay at Blair House, the official guest house. But not Aso; he was forced to stay in a hotel in a Washington DC suburb. The duration of the visit was less than half of Murakami's....

This is insane. Or rather, it is if you think of Obama as a normal president. If you visualize him as a lefty activist-type who would at most make a good president of a state university, THEN it makes perfect sense. Imagine the lefties you know--how many of them would have been pleased to learn that President Bush had strengthened our alliance with Japan? Or with India, which is a far more important accomplishment of the Bush Administration? I'd lay money that the PM of India would be treated the same way, if he visited now. Lefties are anti-American, and Obama is running true-to-form.

More and more I'm coming around to Rush Limbaugh's view. I was originally guessing that Obama would aim to be another Bill Clinton, leftish by inclination but aware that that is not what America wants. Therefore I would support his more sensible moves (similar to my support of NAFTA and welfare reform under Clinton) and argue against his unwise ideas. Now he's looking more like one of those horrid cowardly sneaks trained by Saul Alinsky to pretend to be moderate so they can infiltrate institutions, and then seize power for marxist ends. (If any "Alinsky-ites are reading, I spit upon you with the utmost detestation! Sneaks! Termites!..... Hermaphrodites!)

But it doesn't look like that's what Obama is going to be. So, it is the moral and sensible thing to hope he fails. If anyone is interested, that what I'm feeling at the moment. I hope he fails even worse than Carter, which is saying a lot!. Then at least a few people will wake up from their stupor.

[I put up this picture of Rush so as to be unambiguous about how I'm feeling. Since I'm not a moral coward like 98% of leftists are, I write clearly what I think, and if I change my mind, or turn out to be wrong, I will just say so.]

Parody--is it even possible any more?

Drudge Report: Chavez calls on Obama to follow path of socialism:

...Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar....

...."Nothing is impossible. Who would have thought in the 1980s that the Soviet Union would disappear? No one," he said. ...

(Thanks to Richard Fernandez)

Same now as the year I was born.

From a piece by Thomas Sowell, "Not One of Us":

...Governor Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grass roots Republicans in a way that John McCain never did. But there was something about her that turned even some conservative intellectuals against her and provoked visceral anger and hatred from liberal intellectuals.

Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers, who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of us."

The trim, erect and impeccably dressed Alger Hiss, with his Ivy League and New Deal pedigree, clearly was "one of us." As it turned out, he was also a liar and a spy for the Soviet Union. Not only did a jury decide that at the time, the opening of the secret files of the Soviet Union in its last days added more evidence of his guilt.

The Hiss-Chambers confrontation of more than half a century ago produced the same kind of visceral polarization that Governor Sarah Palin provokes today.

Before the first trial of Alger Hiss began, reporters who gathered at the courthouse informally sounded each other out as to which of them they believed, before any evidence had been presented. Most believed that Hiss was telling the truth and that it was Chambers who was lying.

More important, those reporters who believed that Chambers was telling the truth were immediately ostracized. None of this could have been based on the evidence for either side, for that evidence had not yet been presented in court....

The causes and people morph and change, but lefties are still working for Stalin. Same as the year I was born, when the guilty verdict was handed down in the Hiss trial. And I used to think that Whittaker Chambers' book Witness was sort of a period piece. Now I think of it in conjunction with Tolkien's words: "...and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."

Witness remains one of the great American books.

They're rich liberals...what do they care if pickaninnies suffer?

NY'S SENATORS REFUSE TO 'VOUCH' FOR PUPILS - New York Post:

...New York's two US Democratic senators yesterday said they will vote against an amendment that would preserve a Washington, DC, school-voucher program that helps lower-income students attend private schools....

Why there aren't any barbers anymore...

Riehl World View: Of Plumbers And Barbers:

...In the 70's and 80's many states merged their Barber and Cosmetology Boards into one. Suddenly a young man who could make a decent living as a Barber couldn't do a partly paid apprenticeship, taking just months to learn a career that could serve him for life. He had to pay to attend a Community College or private tech education program that could last two years, while making him learn a variety of skills he'd never employ. And he, or she was also taught to charge much more for the service.

And that doesn't include the regulation side, which went on to require every Barbershop to meet the standards of the largest women's Salon in terms of specialized sinks and facilities a traditional Barber would never need.

In states where this took place a career once dominated by men became a women's forte - which is fine, though many never have learned how to give a good Men's haircut. Costs of a haircut more than doubled, you could forget getting a nice shave if you wanted it. And businesses saw their overhead costs rise dramatically. And all because the government was just looking out for you....

I'd guess this is just another example of people being destroyed to advance leftist theory. It's a humble example, to be sure, but no different in kind from the many examples of whole countries destroyed, and millions slain. (Like this recent example.)

I don't know any details of how these decisions were made, but one would have to be blind not to realize that the barbershop would be an irritant to "feminists" and the general run of girly-men bureaucrats and academics. Think of it--a bunch of guys sitting around a totally male place, laughing and joking, talking about the game, or listening to Rush..... How the vegetarian-pacifist types must have hated it.

And it was so American...the striped pole, the big chairs, the piles of Sports Illustrated and Playboy. To relaxed shabbiness, and total disinterest in trendy decor and style. I'm sure the faculty lounge crowd recoiled in disgust. You know that.

So they destroyed it. In the same way, though on a miniature scale, that Stalin sent annoying tribes to Siberia, or Castro sends writers to labor camps.

They destroyed it, and we never got a vote. The last thing "Democrats" want is democracy. The nihilists will win in the end, because they are tireless ant-workers, always chewing away at all things tough and meaningful. The decisions are made in obscure bureaucratic corridors, and the battle is lost before the public even realizes there was a battle. And every augmentation of government power and size--you know, the ones done to "help people"--is really about moving more decisions out of private hands, and out of any possibility of people voting on the issues.

My sons will never know that old American institution, the barber shop. And so they will be a little less masculine, a little less confident in this brave new world where real existence is found in cubicles staring at computer monitors. They will have a little less fun--masculine fun. A sick irony; my son the singer knows barbershop quartets... but has probably never been in a barbershop! The barber shop will just be something old guys talk about, before time's river carries them away. Something grandpa bores you by going on about, like patriotism or the Federalist Papers, or the Bataan Death March.

And women will wonder, in the vague ineffectual way proper to their sex, why men are becoming somehow less satisfying, less interesting. Of course they won't wonder enough to actually DO anything, or re-think the crap they have been indoctrinated with--that sort of thinking is upsetting and can make one feel uncomfortable on Facebook!

If this was an influential blog, I might have to keep a civil tone, so as not to alienate readers and make dialog impossible. Since I'm just a very minor blogger, I can say what I like. Say what's true. Liberalism is evil. Leftism is evil. If you are a "Democrat," you are, at the very least, up to your waist in foul evil and nihilism and the destruction of all things good and true. I look on you worms with the utmost contempt!

Update: Charlene adds that black hair braiding salons are now under pressure to adopt the same (utterly un-needed) "cosmetology" standards . But somehow this is an "institution" that liberals have some sympathy for preserving! I wonda why?

I hope he fails too....if he's doing what it looks like he's doing....

Peter Wehner, at the Corner...

I have a few thoughts on the "controversy" about Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes Barack Obama fails -- a claim that, based on the lead in to his show last night, left CNN's Anderson Cooper (among a slew of other media commentators) aghast.

The argument Limbaugh is making is fairly simple to follow: Pres. Obama is proposing plans Limbaugh believes (with justification, in my view) will hurt our economy and hurt our country. If Obama fails in getting his plans through Congress, we will be better off. ...

....But those in the MSM are pretending that those who hope Obama's plans fail are really rooting against America. That is nonsense. Limbaugh wants America to succeed; as a conservative, he hopes Obama's astonishing liberal power-grab fails. It's really not all that complicated to understand.

What I wonder, though, is where Anderson Cooper and his colleagues were during the Iraq debate, when the surge was clearly beginning to work -- yet leading Democrats, one after another, said it was failing. This was a situation in which America was engaged in a war of enormous consequences and, if we had lost, it would have been a geo-political and humanitarian catastrophe. Yet anti-war critics -- including Senator Barack Obama -- insisted on promoting the narrative of America's failure in Iraq when the evidence was the opposite.

Where was the outrage then, I wonder?....

Yeah, and how about some outrage over leftists wanting Bush's plan to save Social Security to fail? (Of course they had an important reason to want it to fail---what could be worse for a Lefty than to have the little people become investors, and perhaps lose their dependency on their betters?)

" the conscious atmosphere of corruption and payoff..."

From Maimon Schwarzschild, Not the Spirit of the New Deal:

....There are different streams of ideas on today's politcal left than there were in the 1930s. There is the idea that prosperity and growth are bad: bad for the "planet", hostile to the environment, vulgar, and linked to immoral individualism. There is the idea that a humbler, poorer, less powerful America would be a good thing. These are fundamentally pessimistic ideas, pessimistic about America at least: very different from the buoyant and self-confident (if sometimes, or often, misguided) outlook of FDR and the liberals and leftists who made the New Deal (and who went on to fight the Second World War.)

The spirit of the Obama-Pelosi "stimulus", and the conscious atmosphere of corruption and payoff that surrounds it, is consistent with today's negative, if not sour, leftist worldview. The New Dealers believed they were building a more "scientific" and much more prosperous world. There was a great deal of genuine idealism among them. Today's triumphant political class does not seriously imagine that it will promote economic growth and prosperity. The political class is, at best, ambivalent about whether it even wants such things. What today's political class wants is a massive transfer of power and money to itself. This is what the "stimulus", and much else that will follow, is openly intended to do. If there were a spirit of optimism and generosity and idealism about it, as there was among the New Dealers, there would at least be reason to hope that things wouldn't quickly degenerate into corruption. It seems to me that there is little such spirit, or none at all, today. ..
(Thanks to Chicagoboyz)

SO, are these people, in fact, liberals at all? I'd say Schwarzschild is missing the interesting part of the story, though he's right on the edge of it.

"the liberals and leftists who made the New Deal (and who went on to fight the Second World War.)" Right. They led a great war to overthrow fascist dictators, end genocide, and bring freedom and democracy to oppressed peoples. Today's leftists had an opportunity to do the very same thing. And what happened? They HATED it! Hated it even when things were going well, and millions of Iraqis were braving terrorism to vote in elections. Hated the man in charge (who was the real liberal).

I'd say what we see is NOT merely a "pessimistic outlook." It is nihilism. (Tune out if you've already heard me on this subject.) Leftists are like a church that keeps reciting the Creed every Sunday, even though all faith and belief has leaked away. "Liberals" are NOT liberals, and our world will not make sense as long as you keep thinking they are.

Former enemies

Mike Plaiss sent me a link to this Bloomberg piece, Former Iraq Enemies Share Raids as America Prepares to Withdraw. It's interesting to me for several reasons. One is that I think this is the analog, on the level of nations, of the Christian command to love ones enemy. Our contemporary fake-pacifists try to play Christianity as justifying their appeasement of tyrants. But the problem is, they are loving someone else's enemy--and looking on with ice-hearted indifference as the poor someone-else gets shredded like a pi�ata..

Another piece of crap that stories like this give the lie to is the despicable falsehood spread by America-hating toads that we are fighting the War on Terror for revenge.

Feb. 24 -- Capt. John Bradley, patrol leader of a U.S. field-artillery unit, sat with Col. Mohammed, an Iraqi Army officer, sharing tea and ambitions to wipe out rebels.

Mohammed explained how they would raid a roadside-bomb factory together in Mosul. Bradley offered computer discs of city maps to help.

It was a military love-in a long time coming. After the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq in 2003, American administrators disbanded Saddam Hussein's troops as an incorrigible remnant of dictatorship. Now, Mohammed, a Hussein-era vet who asked that only his first name be used for security, was planning forays with a solicitous American counterpart. "We’re here to back you up," Bradley said.

The performance of Iraq's army, rebuilt in the past five years into a force of 210,000 strong, is fundamental to the country's stability. U.S. soldiers, which number 140,000, are scheduled to withdraw from cities by the end of June and from the whole country by late 2011. President Barack Obama is pondering Pentagon proposals to pull out earlier: perhaps 23 months from now or even by mid-2010.

As the clock runs down, the U.S. is shifting responsibility for counterinsurgency to Iraqis, replacing Americans with recent enemies as the vanguard of pacification.

Officers who served under Hussein have quietly enlisted in the army, and on Feb. 15, Iraqi leaders invited more to return from exile and join up. Former Sunni Muslim rebels have been recruited to police troubled neighborhoods in Baghdad and towns in western Iraq. Desert tribes that once blew up oil pipelines to undermine the American occupation now guard them....

Flaily flaily...

Reader Becky M. notes a climate change ... change:

I was forced to have lunch with two repulsive and rabid environmentalists the other day.

A most unpleasant experience, but I did learn something.

The correct terminology for the phenomenon formerly known as global warming and later as climate change is now to be referred to as "climate disruption." By using "climate disruption," one effectively blocks the "knuckleheads who point to headlines about 'record cold,' etc."

They've already ditched "climate crisis", then. And extreme weather. Can't these clowns make a brand stick? Perhaps we should offer a superior, enduring title -- "weather" might work -- in comments. Otherwise we're going to be hit with New Coke versions of global warming until the End of Days.

"Climate disruption." I'm all agog to see what will happen when it really starts to sink in the the planet is cooling. (Yes, yes, of course the current decade-long cooling trend could reverse. I'll take your bet, if you want to put money on that.)

On the one hand, the chomskies have a lot of credit invested in global warming, so cooling could hit them hard. On the other hand, they don't think or reason (and have no character or honesty) so they will surely try to flip to "Global Cooling Hysteria" without any intervening moment when things are considered OK.

Really, I'm not just being snarky; this very much interests me.

Misses the real question....

Randy Barnett:

...Fair enough. But even with this admonition in mind, I will modify my claim only slightly: No avowedly creationist Republican candidate will be elected President of the United States. Not. Gonna. Happen. And if that creationist Republican candidate is far superior with respect to governing philosophy and executive experience and skills, as he or she may well be, it will be so much the worse for the country. Sorry Bobby, Tim & Mark. Republicans: Do NOT try this electoral experiment. Please!...

(Thanks to Glenn)

My guess is that Randy is off the mark here. The real issue has little to do with science*. (I am by the way a Catholic, and I think Creationism is quite silly. Darwinian evolution is the best model of biological science we have so far, and is not in conflict with Christian faith.)

The real issue is that natural science is commonly used--in a way that has nothing scientific about it--to attack Christian and Jewish faith. We absorb from the culture around us a vague idea that science (or history) has already answered the questions, and have clearly shown that there is no god, etc. Of course science doesn't say anything of the sort.

And this should be of concern even to, say, non-believing libertarians, because the same bogus methods are used to attack things like our civil liberties. Or our belief in our own Western civilization. How so? These things have always been supported by a quasi-religious assumption that they have authority, as things handed down from revered ancestors.

If you say that rights are "inalienable," for instance, you are expressing something analogous to religious faith. Something that can be destroyed by pushing the fraudulent idea that "science" has already debunked all those old fuddy-duddy notions, and that "experts" should be given a free hand to improve and bring-up-to-date. (Experts connected with government, of course.)

A Creationist is attacking an important problem with the wrong weapon. But I would gladly vote for a Creationist if the alternative were someone who vaguely implies that science has rendered things like nations and free speech and human dignity and economic freedom obsolete.

[*As an example of the sort of misuse of science I'm thinking of, I recently read some conservative secularist declare something like "we have no need of improbable events like virgin births..." But an action by God is inherently outside the realm of things we can assign probabilities to. The statement is absurd and meaningless, but many people will take it as good sense.]

Of course it's improper to critique a book just from a review....

...but liberal thinking just doesn't compute, and I'm willing to bet money this stuff wouldn't make more sense if I read the whole thing...

Beliefs - The New Atheism, and Something More - NYTimes.com:

...Mr. Aronson proposed that neither it nor the other [atheist] books under review provided "the most urgent need" for secularists today: "a coherent popular philosophy that answers vital questions about how to live one's life." [It can't be done. You've been trying for several centuries now.]

A "new atheism must absorb the experience of the 20th century and the issues of the 21st," he wrote. "It must answer questions about living without God, face issues concerning forces beyond our control as well as our own responsibility, find a satisfying way of thinking about what we may know and what we cannot know, affirm a secular basis for morality, point to ways of coming to terms with death and explore what hope might mean today." [Tall order! You've rejected authority, so if you succeed, what authority will validate your success? It will just be a theory, competing with ten-thousand other theories.]

"Living Without God" (Counterpoint, 2008) is now the title of Mr. Aronson's own effort to provide such a popular philosophy. It is meant to take up, he writes, where books like "The End of Faith" leave off.

Mr. Aronson makes a good argument that Americans are far more secular -- or at least less religious -- than is often recognized. But, he says, contemporary secularism has lost the buoyant confidence it once gained from "its essential link to the idea of Progress, which promised so much and came to such grief during the 20th century." [Nuh uh, pal. Secularism and "Progress" caused the grief of the 20th century. YOU killed a hundred-million or two people in pursuit of various secular paradises. It doesn't work to pretend that these things just happened out of the blue. The blood is on your hands.]

"To live comfortably without God today," he says, "means doing what has not yet been done -- namely, rethinking the secular worldview after the eclipse of modern optimism." [That optimism was itself a transference of the HABIT of Christian Hope to the secular realm. But the habit's wearing off. Now you are realizing you are bankrupt. ]

Indeed, "religion is not really the issue, but rather the incompleteness or tentativeness, the thinness or emptiness [couldn't have described it better myself], of today's atheism, agnosticism and secularism. Living without God means turning toward something." [Well fancy that! Let me just guess--it's going to be a very amorphous "something." Characterized by... incompleteness or tentativeness, thinness, emptiness... Right? C'mon pal, surprise me! Invent a secular worldview that has even one one-hundredth of the gritty REALNESS of the Church Catholic.]

For Mr. Aronson, that "something" is not the ideal of an autonomous individual striding confidently into the dawning future but the drama [drama??] of an interdependent humankind embedded in complex systems of forces, knit into networks of natural environment, historical legacies, social institutions and personal relations. [What a load of galumpfh. "Embedded in complex systems of forces." What does that MEAN? Embedded like bees in a hive? Like raisins in a cookie? If you have complex systems, then decisions need to be made. Who makes them? How do people set priorities and goals?

What if your priority involves my being eliminated for the good of the whole? Hmmm? What if people don't WANT to be knit into networks? Every revolution starts with wooly-headed intellectuals sketching vague paradises of happy embeds. But the kulaks prefer not to be embedded in the collective farm. So then the ruthless rise to the top, and start forcing people into the mold. And probably sending guys like Aronson on that long march to nowhere.]

From this larger story of interdependency, he draws a ground, not surprisingly, for responsibility and morality: a recognizable left-of-center commitment to collective struggle against "domination, inequality and oppression, rooted in scarcity." [This one sentence has enough lunacy to write a whole essay on. To take just one, morality requires drawing lines. Saying X is immoral, and it is wrong to do it. Period. But just proposing your own morality gives no authority to draw hard and fast rules. How can you? What justifies your rule over someone elses?

And, importantly, who DEFINES things? Liberal morality tends to say "I can do what I want if I don't hurt someone." BUT, it's the liberal himself who is defining what "hurt" is. And who is a "someone." So they can define an unborn baby as "not human," and murder it. Or define the entrepreneurs who provide society's wealth as "parasites" and zeks, and expropriate them, or send them to the camps.]

More originally, he argues that this interdependence should summon gratitude -- gratitude "for," even if not "to." Giving thanks, he recognizes, has been central to religion, and secular culture needs to be enriched with an equivalent.... [There is no equivalent. Gratitude is, in its essence, humble. You can't be grateful for something you think you deserve; you are grateful for a gift. You must acknowledge something bigger and better than oneself. But that's a religious attitude. No one's ever going to feel gratitude to "complex systems of forces."]

I suspect that the recent spate of atheist books is not because atheists think they are winning, nor that, as some have suggested, they think they are losing. I think we are at the moment that Guardini predicted, back in the 1950's. (link) They are staring into the abyss. They are finally realizing what it's like to live without God, or without anything greater than the self.

Remember "Bush epic fail?"

I remember well the foul dishonesty with which lefty-bloggers and "journalists" used Hurricane Katrina as a club to beat President Bush. Now we see how much they really believed what they wrote, as Obama gets a disaster of his own.

I'd say it is time for a lot of people on the Left to apologize. But that would be what adults do; we can't expect it from "liberals." The Anchoress puts things well:

More Ice storm & More | The Anchoress:

...The severe ice storm that has crippled parts of the midwest and devastated Kentucky is getting a little more attention from the press than it has since last Tuesday, when the storm hit. This is the Monday after. Time Magazine writes a professional-sounding piece that is completely devoid of emotion, mentions President Obama exactly once (in passive voice) and never ever strays into unfair wonderings such as "why isn't more being done," or "where is the President, why isn't he present here," or "how can the president stay warm, eat steak and watch football when scores have died, half a million remain cold and helpless, without power, water, heat and sometimes without food?" No one is asking why there are no pictures of bodies for the press to print. Wolf Blitzer, who famously (and terribly) cried of the Katrina displaced, "they are so poor, and so black," is not standing in teeth-chattering frost declaring, "these people are so cold, and so white..."

That would also be a terrible thing to say, and I think playing the racism card is stupid, but the point is, when Katrina hit, the press pulled out every stop they possibly could - including the racism canard - to identify that disaster with a "Bush epic fail." They ignored his early pleadings to Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco to evacuate. They ignored his declaring NOLA and surrounding areas as Disaster Areas even before Katrina hit, so the fed could immediately get to work. They ignored the proper jurisdiction of emergencies (local, then state, then fed) and the extreme incompetence of the Louisiana leadership and made Katrina all about "what Bush did or didn't do." By contrast, the press seems to be going out of its way to insure that Obama is not associated with this week-long drama at all.

We"ve heard that "Bush ate cake", while people suffered. (Obama ate steak and watched the Super Bowl). Bush did not quickly enough go to the disaster area to survey it and hug people and cry. (Obama - like the derided Bush - is wisely staying away so as not to impede relief efforts, but he remains un-derided). Bush dared to praise FEMA, even though FEMA was late because flood conditions and Gov. Blanco prevented them from doing much at first. Obama...hasn't said much of anything....

The main responsibility for disaster response is always local. That should be obvious. My criticism of Bush is that he should have used to mandate of 9/11 to make FEMA more of a goad to improve local response capability, rather than trying to place more responsibility at the federal level.

It's the "anti-torture" crowd that is promoting torture...

Apparently the Obama Administration is banning "harsh interrogation techniques," but preserving the option of rendition!

The twisted logic of this just stupefies me. It's like chopping off a painfully injured limb to avoid the danger of becoming addicted to painkillers.

The simple fact is that waterboarding someone is a thousand times more humane than shipping them off to Jordan to be tortured. Am I right? Any liberals reading this, am I not right? Hmmm? People undergo waterboarding voluntarily. We use it on our own troops in training.

But "liberalism" is about making liberals feel good, not about actually helping human beings.

LAT: Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.

The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street...

"...taking suspected terrorists off the street." Jeeez. That's what Guantanamo was for. Gitmo is in fact a far more humane facility than ordinary American prisons. European penologists have visited it and reported that it is better than anything they have back home. A thousand times better than what a prisoner will get if shipped to Egypt. But since the evil Bush started it, it has to go. And who cares how much people suffer. Not liberals.

And liberals care nothing about the suffering of the victims of terrorism. In Iraq al-Qaeda has set off powerful bombs in pet markets, where people take children to see the animals. Think about it, you leftists who despise America for extracting information that can stop terror attacks.

New Cabinet post: Department of People-elimination,

The American Spectator: Nancy Pelosi's Modest Proposal:

..."It will reduces costs," Nancy Pelosi said on This Week, in reference to the "stimulus" rationale for sending millions of dollars to the states for "family planning."

What would once have been considered an astonishingly chilly and incomprehensible stretch is now blandly stated liberal policy.

The full title of Jonathan Swift's work, A Modest Proposal, was, For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public. Change a few of the words and it could be a Democratic Party policy paper. Swift suggested that 18th-century Ireland stimulate its economy by turning children into food for the wealthy. Pelosi proposes stimulating the U.S. economy by eliminating them....

...Pelosi has helpfully if dimly blurted out what's often implicit in many of the left's schemes for human improvement: that, after all the rhetorical bells and whistles have fallen silent, the final solution concealed within the schemes is to eliminate people.

Alan Weisman's The World Without Us isn't a horrifying thesis to the liberal elite but enjoyable beach reading. Al Gore lists population control as the first solution to global warming and they nod and give him a Nobel Prize.

They name awards after eugenicists like Margaret Sanger. "Unwanted" children are immediately seen as an unspeakable burden. Pregnancy is a punishment, and fertility is little more than a disease. Pelosi's gaffe illustrates the extent to which eugenics and economics merge in the liberal utilitarian mind. Malthus lives.

Hillary Clinton's State Department will soon treat people-elimination, in one form or another, as "development."...

The Lefist obsession with reducing population doesn't make sense if you think of it as "liberalism." But it makes perfect sense if you realize that most leftists (you've heard this from me before--sorry) are really self-worshippers, who care for no cause higher than themselves. I can easily slip into that frame of mind myself, and then it seems obvious that a lot of people should just vanish. Think how much less crowded the freeways would be!

All this is a good example of how there is terrible moral danger in a vague "do-gooder" attitude. What's that Google motto? "Don't be evil"? Something like that. That kind of thinking is a road that leads to....being evil. Morality isn't something you can just take for granted. Your conscience has to be educated. And it has to be exercised. If it isn't you just drift into the path of least resistance, a la Pelosi, and start thinking what a better world it would be if those icky poor people would just stop being born...

Thise is what "Democrats" were (and are) against...

BBC NEWS, Iraqis vote in landmark elections:

...The turnout is expected to be strong even in Sunni areas. The head of the Iraqi electoral commission in Anbar province - a centre of the Sunni resistance to the US occupation - said he was expecting a 60% turnout.

Fewer than 2% voted in the 2005 election, with the result that Shia and Kurdish parties took control of parliament. Some Sunnis, like Khaled al-Azemi, said the boycott last time had been a mistake. "We lost a lot because we didn't vote and we saw the result - sectarian violence" he told the BBC. "That's why we want to vote now to avoid the mistakes of the past." The drawing of alienated Sunnis back into the political arena is one of the big changes these elections will crystallise, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Baghdad.

On the Shia side, the results will also be closely watched amid signs that many voters intend to turn away from the big religious factions and towards nationalist or secular ones....

Thank you President Bush, for standing up for freedom and democracy, even for the "inferior races" that leftists despise. Democracy in Iraq may fail in the future, and it will certainly be more rough and trouble-plagued than ours. (But that's true of all of the poorer democracies.)

But it is still a million times better than what life was like under Saddam. Or under al-Qaeda, as they discovered in places like al Anbar. It was and is something worth fighting for.

It's a pity we no longer have a liberal in the White House...

Hugh Hewitt: A lot of people have missed the Obama appeal to Arabiya, and the fact that he didn't bring up its gender apartheid, Christopher Hitchens calls it. It's where gays are executed. And he made no rebuke to these societies. I found it astonishing, Mark Steyn. What did you think?

Mark Steyn: Well, you don't have to be gay, an oppressed homosexual about to be executed. You don't have to be a woman who's being sold to an arranged child marriage. You just have to be a moderate, centrist Arab intellectual in, say, Cairo or Amman, and you listen to Obama sucking up to these creeps, and there's nothing for you in it. What he's doing is he says, he's saying to hell with the Bush freedom agenda. We just want to get back to schmoozing the feted Arab dictatorships and the mullahs in Tehran all over again. And so if you're a gay or a woman, you're out of there. And as I said, if you're a moderate Arab who just would like to have a free society in Cairo or Amman or wherever, you're out of it, too. You're on the Obama horizon. It was a pathetic, disgraceful Jimmy Carter speech.

Hugh Hewitt: I agree with this, and he did it on the day that the Iranians arrested those horrible criminals in Tehran who allowed the women soccer players to play with the men soccer players....

Mark Steyn: ....I think in fact, on that al-Arabiya interview, he just sounded basically way out of his league. And I hope someone brings him up to speed soon, because going around giving those interviews, as I said, he was talking about getting us back to thirty years ago. Well, thirty years ago, they were taking Americans hostage in Tehran. Thirty years ago, Jimmy Carter was communicating weakness to the world, and the Ayatollah rightly concluded these Americans are pushovers. And Obama shouldn't be doing that message all over again. [Transcript of the whole interview here.]

"A pathetic, disgraceful Jimmy Carter speech." Exactly.

It's important to remember how strongly Bush was pressuring the Middle East tyrants towards democracy and human rights, before the Democrat/al-Qaeda Alliance cut the ground from under him. Now we get a "Democrat" sucking up to dictators in the true Carter style.

I'm sure glad I'm not a part of such an evil party.

It's no longer just that the inmates are running the asylum...

...It's that they elect those among themselves who are mentally retarded to provide leadership.

Berkeley departments skirmish over 3M contract:

...Berkeley's public library will face a showdown with the city's Peace and Justice Commission tonight over whether a service contract for the book check-out system violates the city's nuclear-free ordinance. The dispute centers on a five-year, $63,000 contract the library wants to sign with 3M, an international technology company based in Minnesota, to service five scanner machines library patrons use to check out books.

But 3M, a company with operations in 60 countries, refused to sign Berkeley's nuclear-free disclosure form as required by the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act passed by voters in 1986.

As a result, the library's self-checkout machines have not been serviced in about six months. Library officials say 3M is the only company authorized by the manufacturer to fix the machines, which were purchased in 2004.

The library asked the Peace and Justice Commission for a waiver, but at its Jan. 5 meeting the commission voted 7-1, with two abstentions, to reject the request. The library is now appealing the decision to the City Council...

....The Peace and Justice Commission does not see it that way. Commissioners said the library should try harder to find a company that complies with the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act. "We really mean it when we say we don't want to be part of the nuclear machinery," said commission member George Lippman. "The act is meant to be a blow against nuclear war. We're serious about upholding that."...

It's not a "blow against nuclear war." None of those fake-pacifists care about nuclear weapons in Russia or China or Pakistan. None of them gave any encouragement or support to President Bush in his efforts to diplomatically halt nuclear weapons development in Iran or North Korea.

And they are perfectly happy to be protected by the US military, nukes and all. But in the style of snotty teenagers who accept support from their parents as their due, while pretending to be independent and special.

(Via Mark Steyn)

I'm proud to say I've never read Updike...

John Updike's Dead: Do We Still Have To Pretend To Like His Books?:

...Updike was a novelist, not an economist. But the politics with which he infected his craft made him a star.

The media loved Updike because Updike was unsparingly critical of the United States. He castigated it for its greed, its stupidity, its xenophobia. He saw Americans as a group of know-nothing conservatives consumed with money-lust and more typical lust. He saw everyday Americans as hypocrites who thumped both Bibles and the minister's wife.

Updike has been hailed as one of the great American writers. When it comes to American writers, no one surpasses Mark Twain. In his famously brilliant essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," Twain took James Fenimore Cooper, author of "The Last of the Mohicans," to the woodshed. His words fairly describe Updike:

"A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.

Long before I was even starting to think clearly about such things, I've had an aversion to all those literary globbits that we are required to like. Supposed to like. You know, supposed to like them because our betters who live in New York tell us to. Fatuous people who write for the New York/er/Times/Review of Books.

"He saw Americans as a group of know-nothing conservatives consumed with money-lust and more typical lust. He saw everyday Americans as hypocrites who thumped both Bibles and the minister's wife." And how did he find that out? From other liberals in Manhattan!

I know how this shit works--I live in San Francisco. Everybody can imitate the accent and asininity of a red-neck southern fundamentalist. How? From the movies, or learned from liberal culture. No liberal I've ever heard of would try to actually get to know small-town or conservative Americans. They already know what to think.

Beyond tacky...

Jay Nordlinger - The Corner on National Review Online:

When I read that the crowd today booed President Bush -- and then saw a video of it -- I thought of a quip my friend Eddie made, not long ago: "When the Left asks for a classless society, now I know what they mean."

So, when will we hear from the torture crowd?

'Hamas torturing Fatah members in Gaza' -- Jerusalem Post:

...A Fatah official in Ramallah told the Post that at least 100 of his men had been killed or wounded as a result of the massive Hamas crackdown. Some had been brutally tortured, he added.

The official said that the perpetrators belonged to Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, and to the movement's Internal Security Force.

According to the official, at least three of the detainees had their eyes put out by their interrogators, who accused them of providing Israel with wartime information about the location of Hamas militiamen and officials.

A number of Hamas leaders and spokesmen have claimed in the past few days that Fatah members in the Gaza Strip had been spying on their movement and passing the information to Israel....

So here's our chance to see if those people who have been howling about waterboarding etc. are really what they claim to be, or if they just hate America...

Oh, and those westerners who claim they care SO much about the Palestinians....are they gonna care about these Palestinians?

Summoned to a great cause, "liberals" have failed the test...

This is a bit of a piece that Orrin Judd has re-posted.

...Even setting aside the dependence of a healthy liberal democracy on a morality that only Judeo-Christianity can supply -- an issue you can probably never convince most secularists of -- it is unarguable that to the extent that you diminish the central role of religious institutions in society you create a vacuum which government fills and in the process cause people to be more dependent on government. Thus does secularism, which usually casts itself as a liberating movement, instead lead inexorably to an ever more powerful and intrusive state. The resulting State has no purpose other than its own continuance, a purpose which is obviously abetted by exactly that dependence which its very rise fosters, in a brilliant kind of recursive loop.

We can not be surprised then when our former liberal democratic allies in Europe prove incapable of being summoned to a higher cause--like liberalizing the Islamic world--their only cause is themselves. Though folk have been slow to accept the fact, it is simply the case that we longer share a common culture with them...

We don't have to look so far to find people "incapable of being summoned to a higher cause." That's the American Left in a nutshell. George W Bush summoned them to a noble and liberal cause, and they have failed the test.

Now we get to hear people gassing endlessly about the Civil Rights Movement, with the implication that they--liberals--are still the same people. That things are the same now as way back then, and we can continue to bask in the light of MLK forever. In fact today's leftists are solidly aligned with tyrants and big government, while the captives groan unheard. (Including minority children trapped in failing public schools--that's the civil rights cause of our time.)

And leftists jabber on and on about Hitler, as if "anti-fascist" is still what they are. But Saddam Hussein was the Hitler of our time, and 99% of "liberals" desperately wanted him to be left in power...because they knew a summons to greatness would reveal their utter emptiness. And they try to cover up by pretending to be "pacifists." Frauds.

"Real" truth and the "state" truth

Bookworm, Can't fight group think:

Several years ago, I read one of Natan Sharansky's books in which he described his life as a refusenik in the former Soviet Union. One of the points he made that struck me with incredible force was the way in which citizens in totalitarian regimes develop an internal life entirely separate from the external forces against them. For example, Soviet citizens were forced in public to accept that their economy was a miracle of Communist exceptionalism, even as their logical brains figured out that this propaganda bore no relationship to the truth. Their brains developed a binary quality, processing the "real" truth and the "state" truth, creating an exceptional level of intellectual and emotional stress.

I was rather brutally reminded of that yesterday, when my husband and I had the opportunity to listen to our children speak to third parties about the upcoming inauguration. Both of them, using almost precisely the same words, stated that they were very excited about the inauguration because Obama is the first African-American president, which makes him special.

Later, Mr. Bookworm said to the kids that it sounded a bit funny to him them saying the same thing, and asked if they really meant that. Both assured him that they did not. That is, they didn't bear any hostility to Obama because of his race. They simply didn't care. However, both earnestly explained that, if they didn't say this rote line about Obama's historica importance, they would be ostracized....

A side effect seen in totalitarian states (you could call SF, and Bookworm's Marin County, sort of "honorary totalitarian states") is that those pushing the "state truth" are intellectually weakened, and that they become fearful. Liberals around here are often angry and defensive, and push the "state truth" stridently and insistently. They are afraid. They are living in fear, exactly like a tyrant who does not know who might be plotting against him.

Another irony is that Obama's election has been robbed of most of its "historic meaning" precisely because he ran as someone who was going to be "historic." That's sort of like letting all your friends know you would like a surprise birthday party. The affirmation that you are loved and valued lacks a certain indefinable something...

Progressives, Unite Against The Jews!

Charlene recommends this video, How To Effectively Boycott Israel...

Thanks to israellycool

Now us reality-based conservatives get to laugh at you...

This is NOT an important post--just my chance to "answer back" to a poor fellow who has enough sense to dimly percieve that something's wrong, but can't connect the dots...

Why the anti-war movement is lost, By John Bruhns:

AS INAUGURATION Day approaches, the anti-war movement is working hard to stay politically relevant. President-elect Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate [Nope. Obama is the Obama candidate.] has been empowered by a frustrated electorate demanding exactly what he promised in his campaign: change. [There were all sorts of "changes" hoped for, and each group of suckers lied to itself and "hoped" Obama agreed with them. Now us reality-based conservatives get to laugh at you.]

But the anti-war movement isn't buying the "change" Obama is selling. [Actually, we still don't know what he's selling.] Instead, they've crafted unrealistic demands for the next president, and should he not kowtow, they'll undoubtedly convince themselves he's no different from George W. Bush. Perhaps they already have. [And nobody will care.]

Most Americans agree that the war in Iraq has been a catastrophe financially and militarily. [In fact, compared to other occasions when America has liberated people from fascist tyranny, this one's been cheap and easy.] Some have strictly advocated against the war from a position of philanthropy for the Iraqi people and our service-people killed in action. Whatever the gripe, all aspects have legitimacy. [They are all just covers for nihilism.]

But many fail to realize that the war isn't something that can be easily corrected, because it's festered for far too long. [Festered? Wake up, mush-brain. The Iraq Campaign's been WON, and you are irrelevant.] And since day one, a bipartisan majority of Congress has repeatedly voted to give the Bush administration every tool needed to continue the war - even members of Congress who receive the anti-war vote. [As they say, never give a sucker an even break.]

In the summer of 2007, I had a meeting with Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and his senior military adviser. Davis, former chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, struck me as a concerned moderate looking for a practical and realistic solution to the mess in Iraq. [We found one. It's called "victory." Your al-Qaeda pals have been crushed in battle, and the poor people of Iraq have at least a chance at the freedom you despise.]

DAVIS UNDERSTOOD my frustration with the war and said, "We have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in." I would hear Obama echo the exact same sentiment repeatedly on the campaign trail. [Ya can't be too careful. We're still in Germany and Japan 60 years later. Why don't we round the number up, and plan for a hundred years?]

Later, I and two other vets met with Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.). He listened for more than an hour. At the end, Castle agreed we needed to get out of Iraq. But he had no concrete solution - and neither did we. [How unfair. Al-Qaeda and the Ba'athists slaughtered tens-of-thousands of civilians for YOU, but some days you just can't get a break.]

As you can see, Republicans are not so different from Democrats on the war issue. [Nah, we're a million miles apart. Republicans love America and work for democracy and freedom. Democrats........]

The main contrast I saw in my years of anti-Iraq war advocacy was that while members of both parties voted the same way, the Democrats griped about their votes. They acknowledge that they were against what they were voting for. [Just when talking to you, sucker.] So what's the alternative? Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney aren't getting elected to anything anytime soon.

And here's what we have to look forward to. On March 19, many anti-war groups will assemble a tumultuous crowd at the post-Bush Pentagon. They'll scream for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq while jumping up and down in opposition to the military industrial complex. [It's all about making themselves feel good.]

They'll demand that legal action be taken against Bush for ordering the invasion of Iraq. [They hate Bush because he's a liberal, in the old sense of Truman and JFK. He shows what phonies they are.]

But the Defense Department doesn't decide whether or not we go to war - that's up to the president and Congress. The military HQ is the wrong venue. [They hate our military because it is symbolic of believing in something enough to fight for it---nihilists hate belief.]

Some Iraq vets will join this protest out of a feeling of nostalgia for a time before they were even born. But it's no longer the Vietnam war, civil-rights, military draft '60s. Sporting a grungy military uniform is a tactic that the real policymakers can dismiss as a non-threat to their political viability. Even John Kerry quit that gig more than 30 years ago. [Well put. It was phony all along.]

Over the life of the recent anti-war movement, the attempted revival of the '60s was destined for failure from the beginning. [The 60's were a stupid tacky failure from the beginning--except for the birth of the conservative movement. That was the one success.]

Too many other issues were dragged into the effort. What middle-of-the-road Americans would attend a demonstration against the war if they knew they'd be standing in a mob of Che Guevara T-shirts listening to chants of 'Free Mumia!'? [A tautology. If they are comfortable with leftist lunacy, they are not "middle-of-the-road."]

I support people protesting what they think are injustices, but all issues aren't linked. It's not a good tactic to force people to stand under an umbrella of issues, all of which that they may not support. [Clue-up, dolt. The "anti-war" movement was always and only about the internal psycho-drama of nihilist whack-jobs. They hate America and Israel, and anything else that is symbolic of allegiance to a higher cause.]

In a democracy, strength is in numbers. This anti-establishment and absolutist view of the political process is likely to be the real cause of their implosion. [Kooks are kooks. Can't get around that.]

As someone who's been fighting for years for an end to the war in Iraq, I find this tragic because we need the voices of millions to put pressure on our elected officials to end the conflict and fix the many problems facing our country. But those voices have to be credible to be taken seriously, and circus acts never are. [A question for you, friend. Suppose America pulls out of Iraq. Would you define that as "the end of the conflict," even if fighting goes on for years and millions die subsequently? Hmmm? That's what the Vietnam protestors did. They "ended" the war, and then patted themselves on the back even as MILLIONS were being killed, or put into concentration camps. Is that OK with you? Look at yourself in the mirror when you shave, and ask yourself if you are that kind of person.]

But the truth is that the 'real' anti-war movement has become far too radical to be effective. [It never cared about actual people.]

They've pushed themselves into a corner where there's no possibility of meeting an opposing side halfway. If they ever hope to regroup into a force capable of generating a strong political will, they'll need to accept that it's 2009, not 1969 - and be more tolerant of other opinions. [I beg you, friend, re-think. You take notice of all this craziness and futility--now ask yourself some questions. You are working with people who would flush the entire population of Iraq down the toilet just to feel self-rightous. You are complicit in their evil. Do you think the same way? If America leaves Iraq, will Iraq drop off your radar? Or do you actually care about that land?]

Today's bit of leftlunacy...

The Secularist Church must have come down hard on Ms. Huffington! Think of the cocktail parties she must have been about to be disinvited to, for daring to suggest that there might be two sides to a certain issue...

NewsBusters.org: Huffington: 'I Would Not Have Posted' Article Asking Gore To Apologize:

....The associate blog editor published the post. It was an error in judgment. I would not have posted it. Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues...

Pretty funny. Think about how she must have choked when she discovered that she had published heresy! Here's a link to the article...

Harold Ambler: Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted:

....Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that 'the science is in.' Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:....

Update: Perhaps I'm too harsh in criticizing "liberals" for having no principles. I'd guess a lot of them are firm believers that the "climate crisis" must not be debated. There's a bedrock principle for you! They will bravely nail their thesis to the door: "There are NOT two sides to every issue."

Suddenly we're all interested in the morality of war...

Jeffrey Goldberg, The World's Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure :

...Okay, yesterday I was depressed. Today, I'm just pissed off. It's absolutely astonishing to me how interested the world is in Israel's failings. This is the source of a bitter but hilarious observation I once heard a Kurdish leader make: He was complaining to me that his people were cursed, and I asked him what he meant: Cursed by geography, cursed by their proximity to Kurd-hating Arabs, what? He said the Kurds were cursed because they didn't have Jewish enemies. Only with Jewish enemies would the world pay attention to their plight...

I'm pissed too. Hamas has been shooting rockets into Israel for what? Three years now? And where were all the moral geniuses then? Where were the "pacifists?" The "anti-war activists?" Where was the Vatican, and "religious leaders?" Where were the "progressives?" What a bunch of phonies.

But let Israel start to fight back, and people start furrowing their brows and pondering ponderously. Suddenly morality is really a big deal. Mostly Jewish morality...

...One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people...

The "reporters" won't probe; they are on the other side.

Puzzling things...

Madoff the Jew: The Media's Hypocritical Obsession With the Fraudster's Faith, by Phyllis Chesler:

...Most Jews do not recognize themselves in what Madoff did; they still expect to be judged on their own merits. I doubt this will happen. I think� Jews will be judged as if we are all guilty, whether or not we are innocent or poor, and whether or not we fight for justice for Palestinians or for justice for murdered Chabadniks in Mumbai. Here's one reason why.

For days now,� I have been following the media coverage of the Madoff scandal. I could not help but note that the New York Times kept emphasizing that he is Jewish and moved in monied, Jewish circles; not once, but time and again, in the same article, and in article after article. 'Tis true,� alas, 'tis true, the rogue is a Jew: But how exactly is Madoff's religion more relevant than Rod Blagojevich's religion?� The Times has not described Blagojevich� (or Kenneth Lay of Enron) as "Christians," nor do they describe the Arab or south Asian Muslim terrorists as "Muslims."....[Thanks to Bookworm]

That last sentence is misleading. If there was some way to link Ken Lay with real Christianity, they would have leaped at it. Imagine if he had been a pro-life activist!

Still, the kind of Jew-hatred the Times is showing is strange. It is exceedingly likely that most of the Jews touched by the Madoff mess are not very Jewish, except as a cultural holdover. For most American Jews, their real "religion" is liberalism, and the percentage of them who read the NYT is probably far higher than the general population. Yet we se leftist anti-Semitism all the time, especially in the truly insane hatred of the state of Israel. Think how crazy it is--Israel is a tolerant democratic society where Muslim MP's can heckle the Prime Minister, who might well be a woman. Israel is a place that has "gay pride" parades--and yet the Left invariably prefers Muslims who oppress women and gays.

Equally puzzling is why American Jews continue to put up with this. Perhaps they have just transferred their stubborn religious faithfulness to the new faith of liberalism, and are refusing to be detered by persecution!

Also puzzling is the philo-Semitism of so many of us on the Right. We sure don't gain any tangible benefits! One of the oddest things I read this year was this piece about President Bush's speech to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel. The Israelis were quite embarrassed to be lauded as Zionists and the Chosen People. Not to mention those references to that quaint old thing, the Bible!

It's almost like nobody believes the current "non-Jewishness" of so many Jews is real. Like any day now they will pull off the mask and be the People of the Book again...

An excerpt from the article:

....nd most embarrassingly of all, what President Bush believes about the Jews is something that nearly all Jews once believed about themselves. It's aggravating to be reminded of the you you once were and would like to forget. Remember the time back in high school when you had great ambitions and thought you had a God-given talent that the world would hear about some day? Not really, because now, decades later, you've done everything you can to banish it from your mind -- which is why you cringe when you run into an old classmate who recognizes you and exclaims with a slap on the back, "Hey, it's you! I'll never forget the impression you made on me."

For many Jews, President Bush is like that classmate. They wish he hadn't recognized them.

The president, it was observed rather ruefully in Israel, gave a Zionist speech such as hasn't been heard from mainstream Israeli politicians for many years. If by that is meant that he invoked the Bible, rather than the Oslo "peace process" or his own "road map," this is certainly true. The Bible has long ceased to be bon ton in Israeli intellectual life. It has become politically incorrect for Israelis to think that just because some possibly imaginary progenitors of theirs had religious fantasies about God's pledging them a country, their contemporary thinking needs to take this into account. If an American president feels comfortable with such fairy tales, that's no reason why they should.

President Bush clearly believes the Jews are central to history in a way most Jews themselves no longer do. They find such thinking primitive. The only problem is that history itself shows signs of agreeing with the president.

This, really, is the astonishing thing about the country Mr. Bush addressed last week when he said, "Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again and America will be at your side": How central to everything it is. A tiny place with a population that wouldn't fill any of the world's ten largest cities, it finds itself in the middle of all the great conflicts of our times: The battle for democracy, the war against terror, the fight against Islamic fundamentalism, the campaign against nuclear proliferation. Practically every scenario for a nuclear Armageddon, ranging from that of the most wild-eyed preacher of the Gospel to that of the most cool-headed political scientist, revolves around Israel.

Perhaps it really is primitive to believe, as President Bush does, that this has something to do with the Jews being the people of the Bible. Certainly, most Jews themselves would like to think that it has to do with other things. They would rather not be at the center of anything. It makes them nervous when someone reminds them that, despite their best efforts, that's where they still are. The role of being a chosen people is big on them.

The president of the United States disagrees. That's part of the reason why many Jews will be relieved to see him leave office next January. It's not just stem-cell research, or even the war in Iraq. The man thinks too much of us. That's something we're not prepared to put up with...

Zombies. They're back again. Can't kill 'em....

I don't know why I bother to repeat this kind of thing...it is about as inevitable as anything can be that Leftists are going to love a regime that hates America and promises to nuke some Jews. What an intoxicating thrill for our "pacifists!" (And they get the added frisson of betraying their supposed feminism and homo-philia. I suspect a lot of lefties get an almost sexual kick from doing these things that are so deliciously wicked and perverse.)

Anyway, read all about it. Code Pink Hearts Iran's Mullahs:

....Benjamin and Evans wrote daily accounts of their trip to Tehran on their blog — and wasted not a word on poor Fatemeh or on the tragedy of women's rights in Iran under the mullahs and their Sharia laws. Benjamin and Evans portray a rosy and unrealistic situation, where Iranians of all social classes and political persuasions welcome them enthusiastically, share their anti-war sentiments, and desire for peaceful and loving relations with the U.S. and all nations. Medea Benjamin, who lived for seven years in Cuba calling the Castro dictatorship "a paradise on earth," notices that in Tehran "public transportation is priced right -- 20 cents for the subway and 2 cents for the bus." She fails to mention that the Iranian currency sustained 700 percent devaluation since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and that inflation is at 23% according to governmental statistics and significantly higher than that according to World Bank estimates. Income per capita in Iran is $300 per year, a pittance when compared to other oil-rich nations in the Persian Gulf, like Kuwait ($26,000), United Arab Emirates ($25,000), or Saudi Arabia ($12,400).

Recently, an Iranian parliamentarian blurted out that almost 50% of Iran, the fourth most oil-rich country in the world, is living on or under $1 a day. This means there are some who are not able to satisfy their basic needs for food, clothing, and housing, let alone transportation, even if the public transportation ticket does "only" cost 20 cents of a toman, the Iranian currency....

By the way, while those limousine radicals were in Iran, a woman was executed there for the crime of killing her husband to prevent him raping their 14-year old daughter. Hung from the neck until dead. Let's all just hold our breaths, waiting for our anti-death-penalty "activists" to raise their voices in protest...

Essential reading for the serious person in our time...

Macklin Horton has an important post, on reading the book Witness, by Whittaker Chambers.

I haven't quite finished Whittaker Chambers' Witness, but I'm ready to declare that it's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the 20th century and the spiritual battle being waged in the modern world generally�meaning, by "modern," roughly "post-Enlightenment"...

...At the end of The Lord of the Rings Sauron is defeated and destroyed. But we are given to understand�I can't remember whether it's in the book or in some remark of Tolkien's elsewhere�that his evil does not cease to exist, but rather spreads as a sort of vapor, dispersing itself throughout the world; from this time on, evil will not be so concentrated and easy to identify, but will work subtly and obscurely.

Something like that is the situation we're in after the fall of the great totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, communism and fascism. Of the two, the evil of fascism has generally been easier to recognize, or at any rate more widely recognized, principally because of the Holocaust but also because its mythos is in general less appealing, especially to those who set the terms and tone of opinion in our society. Communism had a deeper and wider appeal, in part because it spoke, superficially at least, to more benevolent motives. But if it's possible to say that one is worse than the other, I would say that communism takes the prize, in part because it was more successful and thus able to murder more people, and partly because it was more consciously and systematically an assault on God. Communism involved a cold intention to remove from the universe any moral authority external to man, to seize that authority for man�for the handful of men worthy of it, on behalf of all the rest�and to exercise it for the purpose of creating heaven in the only place where it could possibly exist, in this life. (Fascism, in contrast, seems to have been less coherent.)...

...Like the cloud that was Sauron, communism as an all-explanatory philosophy and an all-encompassing program of action, both directed against God, has been dispersed. There is no single ideology or mass movement with both its coherence and its popularity at work today. But the basic idea�there is no God, and we're glad there isn't, because now we can get on with the business of solving our problems without interference from superstition�is everywhere. The intellectual and spiritual presuppositions of much of our political and social discourse are the same as those of communism...

The "debonair nihilism" of our age does not produce the titanic struggles that were going on when I was a boy, though the battle is just as deadly. Now the "vapor of evil" is everywhere and nowhere, as hard to fight against as blowing leaves. The story Chambers tells is a kind of analog of our own story...

I quoted a little bit from Witness here

Looks like being in the Loyal Opposition is going to be a lot of laffs...

There are so many funny things lately. I keep finding myself staring at the screen with a big grin. This one sounds like a classic dirty trick played on some Euro-nihilist terror-appeasers who really deserve it...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: US Military Praise 'Ludicrous': Steinmeier Rejects Doubts about Agents in Iraq :

...The parliamentary investigative committee had been meeting for hours by the time daylight began fading in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday in Berlin. But right at 3:24 p.m., Germany's normally unflappable Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier lost his temper. He had said a number of times throughout the day that his patience was growing thin. This time, though, he pounded loudly on the table.

Few were surprised by the display of frustration. Anticipation of Steinmeier's appearance before the committee has been growing all week -- ever since SPIEGEL published US military praise for the help provided by two German intelligence agents stationed in Baghdad in the run-up to the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the time, Steinmeier was chief of staff under then Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, who had staked his political reputation on his opposition to the war. Now, he is the Social Democrat candidate for the Chancellery in next year's elections. Should the investigative committee find that Germany assisted the US invasion, it could seriously harm Steinmeier's credibility.

All of which helps explain Steinmeier's vehement rejection of the new claims that German intelligence played an important role in the Iraq War. Repeatedly, he called the investigative committee "na�ve" for believing that the new US military comments weren't politically motivated. He called US comments 'ludicrous' and 'outlandish.' He said that the military praise of German intelligence was 'poisoned.'

The comments Steinmeier was referring to, though, are difficult to brush aside. General Tommy Franks, who led 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' told SPIEGEL that 'it would be a huge mistake to underestimate the value of information provided by the Germans. These guys were invaluable.'

General James Marks, who was in charge of pre-invasion reconnaissance, told SPIEGEL that the two German agents from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, were 'heroes' who had helped save American lives. He said 'we trusted the Germans more than we trusted the CIA.'

Marc Garlasco, who was head of High Value Targeting at the Pentagon during the Iraq invasion, told SPIEGEL that 'it is rewriting history to deny that the BND helped us in US military and combat operations during the war.' He also said 'German (human intelligence) was far more robust and ever present than any of the garbage we got from CIA sources. The Germans were reliable, professional military people...

I think W should give the guy a medal. That would fix his wagon!

"...the military praise of German intelligence was 'poisoned.'" Well yeah.

Well, Wright's a prophet, doncha know...

Mary Katharine Ham, Liberal Logic: Wright vs. Warren

Let me get this straight:

A 20-year association with a radically leftist, anti-American, racist preacher whom Obama referred to as a spiritual adviser meant absolutely nothing about Obama's judgment or philosophy, and illustrated only the bigotry of those who dared criticize it.

A 20-minute association with one of the country's most well-liked, mainstream evangelical preachers who happens to support traditional marriage cannot be countenanced and illustrates only the bigotry of those who would dare allow it.

Got it.

How many Progressives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

We had dinner with a crowd of liberals last night, which provided me with one moment of bliss. A guy told me, with great seriousness, that while the departure of Bush and Sarah Palin from the public scene was good for the country, it was going to be bad for comedians, who will not have anything to poke fun at anymore....

"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing . "

The Phoenix, Take Back Barack:

.....Millions of us stood up and shouted, handed out fliers, talked to our neighbors, donated hard-earned money, and drove people to the polls for Change. We screamed, hugged, kissed, and cried when we learned Change had come to America. We knew Change wouldn't come overnight, that it would take time, but we were excited that we had elected a man who was open to Change, who said he wanted to consider real people's needs while in the Oval Office. We eagerly awaited the first hints of Change, as the president-elect's transition developed.

And now, we have reason to worry that Change is not coming to America after all. For nearly two years we were encouraged to 'Be the Change you want to see in America.' It is now obvious that we have a ways to go toward Being that Change. And so does President-elect Barack Obama. And that, above all else, needs to Change....(Thanks to Orrin Judd.)

I suppose I ought to feel pity for the starry-eyed who swooned over Obam, and worked hard for "Change," but the fact is, they are so STUPID they deserve to be winnowed out of the gene-pool by Darwinian selection. If a person has reached the age of 46 years, then you can see what sort of person they are. If they are one of the rare people who changes things, then they will have already changed something! Accomplished something.

Obama and "change" is like a person who has been a shy introvert all their life announcing that, if elected, they will be an effervescent extrovert. C'mon now, how likely is that? How STUPID would a person have to be to believe that?

Actually, I don't think they are intrinsically stupid. They are rendered stupid by bad ideas.

You can't call them Nazis...they have a clinic!

This piece by the "Public Editor" of the NYT, Separating the Terror and the Terrorists, is about the reluctance of the Times to use the word "terrorist."

The namby-pamby-ism is just amazin'. I could write a long thoughtful screed on why obvious terrorists are not called terrorists, but really all it takes is a sentence. The Times, and most of our lefty "journalists," are like the isolationists before WWII trying to write about Nazi Germany. If you tell the truth (then or now) you are lining up for war alongside the United States and the Jews.

....The issue comes up most often in connection with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and to the dismay of supporters of Israel--and sometimes supporters of the other side, denouncing Israeli military actions--The Times is sparing in its use of 'terrorist' when reporting on that complex struggle.

The reluctance carried over when the Mumbai attacks began. Graham Bowley, who was writing for a Times blog, The Lede, said, "I'm aware very much of the sensitivity around the word, so I knew they had to be 'attackers'�" until the paper knew more. One of his editors, Andrea Kannapell, told me she was much more focused in the early hours on who the people were and what they were doing than on what to call them.

Readers like 'Bill' were having none of it, and as Jim Roberts, the editor of the Web site, read their comments, he began to think they had a point. 'Indiscriminately shooting civilians seems on its very face to be an act of terror,' he said. How, Roberts wondered, could you separate the act from the actor?

He conferred with Kannapell, Paul Winfield, the news editor, and Phil Corbett, Winfield's deputy. Winfield talked with Ian Fisher, a deputy foreign editor. 'Terrorist' became an acceptable term in the Mumbai story. 'We jointly decided we didn't need to be throwing the word around flagrantly, but we didn't need to run away from it, either,' Roberts said.

Ilsa and Lisa Klinghoffer, whose father, Leon, was shot and thrown from a cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1985, wrote a letter to the editor asking why The Times was referring to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the shadowy group that apparently orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, as a 'militant group.' "When people kill innocent civilians for political gain, they should be called 'terrorists,'�" the sisters said.

Susan Chira, the foreign editor, said The Times may eventually put that label on Lashkar, but reporters are still trying to learn more about it. 'Our instinct is to proceed with caution, not rushing to label any group with the word terrorist before we have a deeper understanding of its full dimensions,' she said.

To the consternation of many, The Times does not call Hamas a terrorist organization, though it sponsors acts of terror against Israel. Hamas was elected to govern Gaza. It provides social services and operates charities, hospitals and clinics. Corbett said: 'You get to the question: Somebody works in a Hamas clinic � is that person a terrorist? We don't want to go there.' I think that is right.....

My advice to Lashkar-e-Taiba: open a clinic. That will give the Times cover for its appeasement.

The future belongs to those who will fight for it...

I found this piece from The Australian, Obama May Have To Keep Neo-con Ideals, very revealing. For the obvious irony of course, but more for the underlying dilemma of the left--which won't go away because a lefty is in the White House... (I point the problem out in paragraph three.)

Ian Buruma writes:

WITH George W. Bush's presidency about to end, what will happen to the neo-conservatives? Rarely in the history of US politics has a small number of bookish intellectuals had so much influence on foreign policy as the neo-cons had under Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, neither of whom is noted for his deep intellectual interests. [They are both of them deeper thinkers than the press wants us to know. But more importantly, the job of a leader is NOT to be a clever intellectual, but to have the wisdom to chose the right policies. A wise leader uses intellectuals such as the neo-cons, none of whom should ever be president.]

Most presidents hope to attach some special meaning to their time in office. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, gave neo-con intellectuals the chance to lend their brand of revolutionary idealism to the Bush-Cheney enterprise. [Note how the author insunuates motives here--but he will not present any evidence for the sneer. The neo-cons had been saying for decades that our policies were failing, and we were heading for big trouble. Being right when everyone else was wrong tends to EARN one the job of cleaning up the mess.]

Writing for journals such as The Weekly Standard and using the pulpits of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, neo-cons offered an intellectual boost to the invasion of Iraq. The logic of the US mission to spread freedom across the globe - grounded, it was argued, in American history since the founding fathers - demanded nothing less. [I'll fill you in on what's really going on. You can skip the rest of my stuff, but understand this: This "neo-con" notion of overthrowing tyrants and spreading freedom is linked in our history with certain leaders...FDR, Truman, JFK. It is the quintessential LIBERAL project. In fact it is fair to call the neo-cons Liberals, in the older sense of those who think that things and countries can be fixed.

They, and Bush, are the true liberals of our time. That's why they are hated by the Left. Because most leftists are no longer liberals, but are still wearing liberal garments as a disguise. Bush and the Iraq Campaign have shone a cruel spotlight on leftists, and revealed them as the nihilists they have become. You will never understand current politics until you grasp that liberals aren't liberal anymore. Baruma is tiptoeing around the problem in this piece.]

Objections from European and Asian allies were brushed away as old-fashioned, unimaginative, cowardly reactions to the dawn of a new age of worldwide democracy, [Which they were.] enforced by unassailable US military power. [The neo-cons never said any such thing. Rather, that democracy was something that would grow and take root if our power cleared it some space. Since this has happened many times in the post-WWII world, it's not an unreasonable proposal.]

The neo-cons will not be missed by many. [I'd bet money you are wrong.] They made their last stand in the presidential election campaign of Republican John McCain, whose foreign policy advisers included some prominent members of the fraternity. (Most were men.) None, so far, seems to have found much favour in the ranks of Barack Obama's consultants.  [Wait'll he actually decides to accomplish something. He'll need to find some thinkers who still believe that things can be fixed. Nihilists and "realists" won't cut it.]

Such clout as the neo-cons wielded under Bush is unusual in the political culture of the US, which is noted for its scepticism towards intellectual experiments. [And yet with a straight face Leftists will say that Bush is "anti-intellectual."]

A certain degree of philistinism in politics is not a bad thing. Intellectuals, usually powerless themselves outside the rarefied preserves of think tanks and universities, are sometimes too easily attracted to powerful leaders in the hope that such leaders may carry out their ideas.

But wise leaders are necessarily pragmatic because messy reality demands compromise and accommodation. Only zealots want ideas to be pushed to their logical extremes. The combination of powerful leaders with an authoritarian bent and intellectual idealists often results in bad policies. [Baruma's so close, but can't make the leap. The Iraq Campaign was extremely pragmatic. You can read my reasons here.]

This is what happened when Bush and Cheney took up the ideas promoted by the neo-cons. Both previously had been pragmatic men. Bush first ran for office as a cautious conservative, prepared to be moderate at home and humble abroad. Cheney was better known as a ruthless bureaucratic operator than a man of bold ideas. But he was obsessed with the notion of expanding the executive powers of the president. [He was, wisely, concerned to reverse the post-Watergate erosion of Presidential power. It was not an expansion. And each of our major wars has required the amplification of executive power. Bush has done nothing compared to Lincoln or Wilson or FDR.]

The combustible mix of autocratic ambition and misguided idealism took hold soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Even if, by some miracle, Iraq were to evolve into a stable, harmonious, liberal democratic state, the price already paid in (mostly Iraqi) blood and (mostly American) treasure is already too high to justify the kind of revolutionary military intervention promoted by the neo-cons. [ Nonsense. The price has been TRIFLING compared to our other experiments in freeing countries and helping them become democratic. About one tenth of the price for South Korea for instance---does the author think that was a mistake? Would he care to compare North and South Korea, and then apply the same standard to Truman that he does to Bush?]

Another casualty of neo-conservative hubris may be the idea of spreading democracy. The word, when voiced by US government spokesmen, has become tainted by neo-imperialist connotations. [The connotations exist only in the heads of lefty nihilists. To the oppressed peoples of the earth the dream is as sweet as ever. As witness the ENVY being expressed in Third World countries because here in America a corrupt governor has been arrested!]

Similar things have happened before, of course. The idealism of Japanese intellectuals in the 1930s and early '40s was partly responsible for Japan's catastrophic war to liberate Asia from Western imperialism. [What pernicious nonsense. This is the usual "moral equivalence" malarky of people desperate to deny that there are high ideals that impose a DUTY on them. ]

The ideal of pan-Asian solidarity in a common struggle for independence was not a bad one; it was commendable. [That "ideal" was never Japanese policy. Our ideals ARE policy.] But the idea that it could be enforced by the imperial Japanese army running amok through China and Southeast Asia was disastrous. [There is no comparison. We have not "run amok;" we have liberated just two countries, and helped them form elected constitutional governments. ]

Socialism, too, was a brave and necessary corrective to the social inequalities that emerged from laissez-faire capitalism. Watered down by the compromises without which liberal democracies cannot thrive, socialism did a great deal of good in western Europe. [Europe is DYING, you fool. Dying of socialism before our eyes. Every European country is in demographic collapse. Europe is bankrupt and decadent, no longer leading in ANY realm except bureaucratic regulation. Not in religion, nor ideas, nor movements, nor economic growth, nor innovation, nor the arts. No one goes to Europe for the exciting new trends. (Except to Vatican City.) Socialism has failed, always and everywhere.] But attempts to implement socialist or communist ideals through force ended in oppression and mass murder.

This is why many central and eastern Europeans view even social democracy with suspicion. Even as Obama is worshipped in western Europe, many Poles, Czechs and Hungarians think he is some kind of socialist. [They KNOW! They know the beast.]

The neo-cons, despite their name, were not really conservatives at all. They were radical opponents of the pragmatic approach to foreign strongmen espoused by people who called themselves realists. Even though the arch-realist Henry Kissinger endorsed the war in Iraq, his brand of realpolitik was the primary target of neo-con intellectuals. [To oppose "realism" does not mean you are not a conservative.]

They believed that aggressive promotion of democracy abroad was not only moral, and in the US tradition, but in the national interest as well. [They didn't just assert it, they made a case. Which leftists have never countered in any credible way. Instead they just pretend the theory has already been invalidated.]

There is a core of truth in this assertion. Liberals, too, can agree that Islamist terrorism, for instance, is linked to the lack of democracy in the Middle East. Realism, in the sense of balancing power by appeasing dictators, has its limits.

Democracy must be encouraged, wherever possible, by the most powerful democracy on earth. But revolutionary wars are not the most effective way to do this. [I've bad news for you pal. It's always going to be a bloody and messy business. Therefore it will only be done by those who still have beliefs they are willing to fight for. Therefore you Eloi are out of the game. You are useless and obsolete. The future belongs to those who will fight for it.]

What is needed is to find a less belligerent, more liberal way to promote democracy, stressing international co-operation instead of blunt military force. [It'll never happen. It's the same with nations as with individuals. Those who are willing to fight are real, all others are just fading shadows. You might notice that the "shadows"�people or nations� have at least two things in common. Lack of Christian or Jewish faith.......and socialism.]

Obama is unlikely to repeat the mistakes of the neo-cons. [He will have to folllow the template Bush has set for the WoT. But he will probably not do it as well.] But, to succeed, he will have to save some of their ideals from the ruins of their disastrous policies. [He is going to piggyback on Bush's successes, and try to claim them as his own.]

Rights become negotiable....

Charlene pointed me to these paragraphs from a piece in the Weekly Standard, Human Rights at 60:

....How did we arrive at this dismal state of affairs? The problem is not simply that human rights have become grossly politicized. The problem is that rights have been profoundly secularized--and severed from their deepest moral foundation, the concept of man as the imago Dei, the image of God.

Under the banner of 'multiculturalism,' the United Nations has produced a torrent of treaties and conventions, with ever-expanding categories of rights. In the process, the Western idea of rights as transcendent claims against a coercive state has been greatly weakened. Human rights are on the same footing as social benefits and economic aspirations. Thus, we have the spectacle of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development inviting North Korea--a regime that sustains itself by starving its people--to become a member in good standing. We have nations such as Iran claiming an 'inalienable right' to nuclear technology, language that in fact appears in Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him? When human rights are no longer considered the gift of nature and nature's God, human dignity is made more vulnerable to assault. When repressive regimes are rewarded with membership and voting privileges in U.N. bodies, the entire human rights project is debased. The political result is that fundamental rights--the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of religion--become negotiable. In the end, they become disposable....

That rights can be negotiable is exactly what the Fathers of this country opposed. "The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition." -- John Adams

I despair about these and similar things. Our rights erode before our eyes because we won't think clearly about them. But of course it is always a small minority of human beings who will think clearly about ANY subject. If we are dependent on thinking we are toast, and that's always been the case.

Which is why � you liberals needn't bother reading this; you are probably too far gone to get it � which is why tradition is valuable above almost anything. Individuals don't think, but cultures slowly ruminate, with God's help, and codify wisdom in the form of tradition.

The wise person will consult tradition first, and cherish it because it will be in many ways wiser than he can ever be.

And those who wish to destroy us will attack tradition. Will sneer at it, and undermine it. For instance by inventing new "rights" to destroy the traditional Anglospheric belief that rights are inalienable, which is to say that they are bigger than us, and not something we create.

And the attacks being made on our rights and traditions are always disguised as things beneficial. Liberals today often assert that we have a "right" to health care. This is an extremely evil thing in itself (That's a subject for another post) but it is also a very insidious attack on our rights because who could dare be against health care? How could one be so cold-hearted as to be against such health? How easy it is to denigrate that person, to say they are heartless, and want people to die.!

"I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket, Watson..."

Reason #339 why liberals discourage the study of history... (Thanks to Glenn R.)

If each of us carried a gun--Times Online:

....Rhetoric about standing firm against terrorists aside, in Britain we have no more legal deterrent to prevent an armed assault than did the people of Mumbai, and individually we would be just as helpless as victims. The Mumbai massacre could happen in London tomorrow; but probably it could not have happened to Londoners 100 years ago.

In January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back -- and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down.

Today we are probably more shocked at the idea of so many ordinary Londoners carrying guns in the street than we are at the idea of an armed robbery. But the world of Conan Doyle's Dr Watson, pocketing his revolver before he walked the London streets, was real. The arming of the populace guaranteed rather than disturbed the peace.

That armed England existed within living memory....

I've read about incidents like this in Israel, where people pull out their pistols and chase down terrorists. Terrorism isn't a new concept. what's new is our populations of hapless "protected" people, who are taught to think that nothing's worth fighting for. Also new is the twisted idea that countries can safely wage covert war by supporting terrorist groups. In the past that would have been pointless, because they would have gotten open war pronto. Just another way that pacifism causes war and bloodshed.

The article also has this quote by Ghandi, which I had not seen before:

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest"

Parasites...

Our letter to Amazon.com, regarding their: "Amazon Music's 12 Days of Holiday" promo... (Thanx to Mark Steyn.)

Please tell someone in charge who cares about your customers (if there are any) that we are people who spend a lot of money with you, and we are disgusted and offended by your "twelve days of holiday" promotion.

You probably have some BS line about "Christmas" being offensive to other faiths, but it isn't. It's only offensive to lefty nihilists. To YOU.

If you don't like "Christmas," why don't you have the HONESTY to stop having what are obviously Christmas promotions, from which you make a mint of money! And stop using a Christmas carol for advertising that is unwilling to use the word "Christmas."

John and Charlene Weidner

PS: Have a happy and Holy Christmas.

If the animal-rights loonies don't like it...

....It's good by me!

I was just telling Charlene there's nothing to read on the blogs, and then Andrea came through. Thanks! ...

Yes, there is a Santa Claus:

And I'll bet he eats reindeer sausage.

I don't know about you, but my estimation of Ikea just went up a little from that report. I mean, I love their cheap Swedish-designed crap assembled into flat packs by Chinese political prisoners like anyone else, but selling reindeer meat during the holidays? That takes balls. I wonder if they have any at my local store... (Probably not, I do live near Disney World after all -- God forbid some tourist decide to stop by for Swedish meatballs and see that Donder and Blitzen are shrinkwrapped and ready for snacking...)

How likely is the "accident" theory?

A prominent SF Jewish gay pro-Israel activist goes to his Arabic class--which was cancelled, but he didn't get the message--and somehow forces open the door of an out-of-order elevator and falls down the shaft and is killed. Police are calling it an "accident."

Read here.

Of course they call it an accident. THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW! Don't want to know they're at war.

...So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain's most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?

Why did Britain's highly regarded Channel 4 News state that the "militants" showed a "wanton disregard for race or creed" when exactly the opposite was true: Targets and victims were very carefully selected. Why did the "experts" invited to discuss the Mumbai attacks in one show on the state-funded Radio France Internationale, the voice of France around the world, harp on about Baruch Goldstein (who carried out the Hebron shootings in 1994), virtually the sole case of a Jewish terrorist in living memory?...

Especially sickening to me is that American Jews don't want to know. Or rather, liberal Jews. They've converted to a new secularist faith, and desperately wish that the crazy uncles in their mental attics would just go away, and stop the God talk, so they can assimilate in peace, and enjoy being Eloi.

FOOLS. If you are Jewish, there are millions of people on this planet who would enjoy killing you. Personally. With their own hands. And they don't care that you've discovered flower-power and you think weakness and passivity will make war go away and everyone live as brothers-in-insipidity.

You may not be interested in war,
but war is interested in you.
    -- Leon Trotsky

ALSO: I wrote a post a couple of years back, about the way police almost always label lone-wolf jihadis as anything except......Islamic terrorists. They are always said to be mentally disturbed individuals who were upset by their purely secular personal life.....even if they put a Koran in their pocket and start killing people. I can't find the post now. Does anybody remember any key-words I can search for?

Update: Never mind, I found it. The key-word was "Bosnia." GO READ IT!
>

"Liberalism" is anti-human...

Sunday Mercury: POLITICALLY correct NHS bosses in Birmingham are battling to ban a smoking room for terminally ill patients -- forcing them to be turfed out into the cold to enjoy their final cigarettes.

The Sheldon Unit, a palliative care home for patients dying from lung cancer and other diseases, in Northfield, is one of only two health centres in the region that has escaped rigid Smoke Free legislation on 'sympathetic grounds'.

But when board members of South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, in charge of the unit, heard of plans to upgrade the smoking room with a new ventilation system, the whole scheme went up in smoke.

Bureaucrat Dr Chris Spencer-Jones, South Birmingham public health director, ranted against the renovation plans, saying he did not care if lifelong smokers were dying, he still didn't want them smoking indoors.

"It doesn't matter if patients might be terminally ill," said Dr Spencer-Jones, who also heads the British Medical Association's (BMA) national committee for public health....

He laughs, bitterly...

Michelle, on the latest from the Obama transition process, aka: Becoming Grownups In 60 Days...

...Nothing clarifies the mind like a jihadi boomerang. Never before have an administration and its followers matured so quickly in office -- and they haven't even taken office yet. While Obama paid lip service to the "Close the Gitmo gulag!" agenda on 60 Minutes over the weekend, his kitchen cabinet is proceeding more pragmatically. Believe it or not, the Obama crowd is now contemplating a preventive detention law and an alternative judicial system for the most sensitive national security cases involving the most highly classified information. Information that has no place being aired in the civilian courts for public consumption...

...Moreover, Obama transition team members have suggested to the Wall Street Journal that despite his campaign season CIA-bashing, "Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight."

Next thing you know, they'll start arguing that the world has been fooled by years of sob-story propaganda about the Gitmo detainees-- funded by Kuwaiti government-subsidized lawyers who cast them all as innocent potato farmers and schmucks dazed and confused on battlefields.....

The deeper issue revealed here is that the domestic opponents of our efforts in the War on Terror have been deeply dishonest and morally corrupt. Random Jottings has been arguing that since November 2001. People put on a guise of principled opposition to war, or religious opposition or pacifism or respect for "international law." But these are just camouflage for brutally expedient Leftism.

Just you watch. Once a Dem is in the White House, then a bit of roughness in dealing with terrorists will be no big deal. Laudable, even. Remember, "extraordinary rendition" was an invention of the Clinton Administration.

Leftist theory imposed on people; MILLIONS die...

....How many times have we heard that story!

...The story of Zimbabwe is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. Once a first-world nation, Rhodesia -- and Zimbabwe during the 80s -- exported enough food to feed roughly half of Africa. Though deeply stained by the apartheid policies of the white minority government, Rhodesia still boasted the largest black middle class in Africa, had a top-tier educational system for both blacks and whites that rivaled those in Europe and the United States, a Rhodesian dollar that was nearly equal with its U.S. cousin, and unemployment that was in the low single digits.

Today, after Robert Mugabe's tyrannical 28 year reign, Zimbabwe has become one of the poorest nations in the world. Unemployment is at 80 percent and rising. Inflation is an unbelievable 2000 percent, also rising. Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe is now reliant on Western food relief to feed its people. Refugees pour over the South African and Botswanan borders by the thousands, as AIDS (and now cholera) ravage the countryside. Life expectancy for a Rhodesian male was appx. 67 years. That number has collapsed to an unthinkable 37 years.

To this day, Carter is unrepentant for his assistance in Mugabe's rise to power...

He is unrepentant. In fact, as far as I can see, ALL leftists are unrepentant about this latest batch of millions of deaths they have caused. They don't care---their "theory" is what is real; the human beings are just cardboard figures.

If you are a "liberal," if you are part of Lefty/Progressive/Democrat/Quaker/peacenik/liberal-christian "Axis Of Fuzzy Thinking," then YOU helped destroy these people. Cholera! Cholera in the 21st Century! That's INSANE. But you don't care.

And almost worse than the ice-heartedness of leftists is that none of you will re-think.

In fact I suspect the textbooks will continue to trumpet the great "civil rights" victory of removing whites from power in Rhodesia! That's much more important than the deaths of a few niggers.

One would have thought that the great prosperity of Rhodesia would have caused people to be cautious, so as not to kill the goose whose golden eggs helped blacks as well as white ruling class. (Rhodesia was not "apartheid," by the way). It should have been obvious to anyone that the real resource behind the prosperity of Rhodesia was white people, and that preserving that capital should be the number one priority of anyone who really wanted to help blacks!

But the real priority was always feeding the smugness of "liberals."

People refer to the Gulag, or Pol Pot, or the Cultural Revolution, as mistakes of the past. But the death toll of Jimmy Carter and other liberals who helped Mugabe into power could easily top Cambodia. Jimmy Carter is our Pol Pot!

Guess where this is heading...

India Times: India, which is planning to send four more warships to the Gulf of Aden, has already conveyed to Somalia that it will use all necessary means to fight pirates who have targeted merchant ships passing through one of the world's strategic shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.... [It's in those Anglosphere genes.]

....After the Indian offensive against the pirates, the Indian government is now considering the option of augmenting forces in the pirate-infested waters. [Ramp it up. If nothing else, you will blood the troops.] At present India has deployed INS Tabar, a stealth guided missile frigate, that has successfully defended two merchant ships against a pirate attack and ensured safe passage of many more. [Unilateralist cowboys! Advocates of violence!] The proposal is to send four more warships to the region. Naval officials also met defence minister A K Antony to discuss matters related to the continuing naval operation.

But even as the Navy takes a decision at augmenting its efforts in the Gulf of Aden, there is also consensus within the Navy and the government that the menace can only be tackled effectively if there is a coordinated international effort to take on the pirates who have managed to grab the world's attention by seizing a number of ships including Saudi owned supertanker. At the moment countries are only defending their own merchant ships. [The term you will be needing soon is "Coalition of the Willing." Try the Poles.]

India has been pushing for such an international effort and at a recent meeting of the International Maritime Organisation had revived a proposal to set up a UN peacekeeping force to take on pirates in the region. "These proposals are under consideration," said Mr Ravi, adding that a concrete proposal would emerge after consultations in the UN. [Been there, done that. Won't work.]

Mr Ravi also pointed out that were two United Nations Security Council resolutions on piracy. UN resolution 1816, which was approved on June 2, 2008, allows foreign navies to enter Somalian territorial waters to pursue pirates while resolution 1838, which was passed on October 20, 2008, authorises the use of "necessary means" to combat piracy in international waters. India can take action under these two resolutions but there is recognition that a more substantive resolution is needed for a coordinated international effort. [There were 16 "Binding UN Resolutions" against the Saddam regime. When we finally enforced them, all the world's lefty frauds said we were "violating international law." Just warning you.]

However, India is not isolated in its call for an international effort. The US and other countries have also talked about the need for an international effort against pirates. The US said that it is worked in the Security Council to pass a new resolution piracy. ["The US and other countries..." It's called the "Axis of Good." Guy named Bush started it. It means you go through the UN bullshit, then a few non-decadent countries just go ahead and do what's necessary.]

"It's an international problem. You're not going to solve this � the US is not going to solve this alone," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted as saying. [Actually, we could. But we are paralyzed by the Nihilist Party.] Similarly, an anti-piracy watchdog, which welcomed the sinking of the pirate ship, also called for an international effort. "If all warships do this, it will be a strong deterrent. But if it's just a rare case, then it won't work," Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre told an agency.... [In other words, the problem could be solved fairly easily if everybody did their duty. Instead the evil of pacifism will prolong the problem indefinitely, and cause rivers of blood to flow...]

(Thanks to O Judd.)

If Lenin were here he would know exactly what's going on....

One thing that keeps striking me about certain current conflicts like gay rights and abortion and infanticide rights is that, though it was all in a good cause, the American Civil Rights Movement was also one of the great calamities of our history.

Why do I say such a politically incorrect thing? One which would get me cast out of polite liberal society, had I ever been invited into polite liberal society?

Because it has imposed a template on our world. A template that says that anyone who is campaigning for any sort of imagined "civil right" is entitled to trample their opposition. To just bulldoze over them.

And to feel utterly smug and superior, and to indulge in orgies of self congratulation. To be automatically granted a kind of "secular sainthood."

And, most appealing of all, the template says you can treat your opponents with complete contempt and disrespect....because, of course, they are just "rednecks."

I was recently called a "hateful bigot" by someone who should know better. For what? For simply agreeing with what 99.9999% of human being have always considered to be true. That is, that marriage happens between men and women. Something that no one, liberal or conservative, doubted until a few years ago.

That's the "template" at work. One needs merely assert a new right, and then one can act like a pompous ass.

And the template was always intended for sinister purposes by the Lefty "activists" who organize rights campaigns from the shadows. Our current battles are examples of a type of Leftist plot that the world has seen hundreds of times over the last century. If Lenin were here he would know instantly what's going on, and approve. (And then send the gays to the Gulag when they were no longer needed.)

The scheme is always the same. Champion some "oppressed" group, lure large numbers of "useful idiots" to fight the battle, manipulate the battle to gain Leftist goals, then discard the "oppressed group" the instant they are no longer useful.

The classic example is Communists battling for labor rights, then crushing labor once they gain power. Another is the way, when I was in college, everyone talked about "the People of Vietnam." Those poor souls were instantly forgotten once the Communists were in control. (Stupid me, I thought the peaceniks really cared!) Or the black peoples of South Africa. In the 80's liberals were shedding copious tears over them. But as soon as they were no longer useful they were dropped. People in Soweto are STILL poor and STILL badly governed. Does anybody talk about them now at the Quaker Meeting? Will publishers want to publish their stories NOW? Ha ha.

Most of the supporters of gay marriage are in the "useful idiot" category. The big problem is that relentless propaganda has made the "template" a default mindset for most Americans. They never question anything, no matter how flaky, it it's packaged as a rights crusade. The useful idiots are now approaching a majority of the population!

Andrew, your analogy was really stupid. The question before us is not, "Why can't I marry whoever I want?" The question is, "What IS marriage." All Americans already have the right to marry whoever they want, within the current definition of marriage. YOU are proposing to change the definition. So YOU need to come up with good arguments why people like you know better than all the great thinkers and religious leaders of all of human history, and the common opinion of all of mankind up to very recently.

If you were HONEST, that's what you would be arguing about. But the template frees you from the requirement of honest argument---why, it would be like arguing the merits of segregation. Instead you just make assertions.

The arguments you are making could be used to support my right to marry a two-year old, or to marry three people. Or a dog, or a cute robot. Do you support those things? Do you have a good argument against them? Or for them? Of course not, you haven't done any thinking.

There are going to be lots of new "rights" crusades coming in the future. Have you thought out where you will draw the line?

(What a hateful bigot I am, to suggest that any "rights" could be over the line! I Oughta be shot. I'm just a redneck. The next thing you know I'll be coming up with oppressive hillbilly ideas such as "right and wrong." Or "God," or "morals." Just ignore me; the important thing is that rights must be protected. Especially ancient rights, like ones that are more than 6 weeks old.)

Hey Lefties, look in the mirror....

...Before election day, national media hand-wringers forged a wildly popular narrative: The Right was, in the words of New York Times" columnist Paul Krugman, gripped by "insane rage." Outbreaks of incivility (some real, but mostly imagined) were proof positive of the extremist takeover of the Republican Party. The cluck-cluckers and tut-tutters shook in fear.

But when the GOP took a beating on Nov. 4, no mass protests ensued. No nationwide boycotts erupted. Conservatives took their lumps and began the peaceful post-defeat process of self-flagellation, self-analysis, and self-autopsy. In fact, there's only one angry mob gripped by "insane rage" in the wake of campaign 2008: The mob of left-wing, same-sex marriage activists incensed at their defeat in California. Voters there approved a traditional marriage initiative, Proposition 8, by 52-48.

Instead of introspection and self-criticism, however, the sore losers who opposed Prop. 8 have responded with threats, fists, and blacklists.

That's right. Activists have published an "Anti-Gay Black List" of Prop. 8 donors on the Internet. If the tables had been turned and Prop. 8 proponents created such an enemies" list, everyone in Hollywood would be screaming "McCarthyism" faster than you can count to eight. A Los Angeles restaurant whose manager made a small donation to the Prop. 8 campaign has been besieged nightly by hordes of protesters who have disrupted the business, intimidated patrons, and brought employees there to tears. In fear for their jobs and their lives, workers at El Coyote Mexican Caf� pooled together $500 to pay off the bullies.

Scott Eckern, a beleaguered artistic director at the California Musical Theatre, was forced to resign over his $1,000 donation to the Prop. 8 campaign. The director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, Rich Raddon, is next on the chopping block after the anti-Prop. 8 mob discovered that he had also contributed to the Yes on 8 campaign. Calls have been pouring in for his firing.

Over the past two weeks, anti-Prop. 8 organizers have targeted Mormon, Catholic, and evangelical churches. Sentiments like this one, found on the anti-Prop.8 website "JoeMyGod," are common across the left-wing blogosphere: "Burn their f�ing churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers." Thousands of gay-rights demonstrators stood in front of the Mormon temple in Los Angeles shouting "Mormon scum."...

Just in case you thought the "gay marriage" push was about equal rights or something...

We get "scaled back" because we are stupid...

This piece about Obama writing to federal employees before the election is a subject where I could criticize the Dems harshly for a variety of conservative reasons. But others will do that job, no doubt. I'm in a mood to criticize... Republicans....

In wooing federal employee votes on the eve of the election, Barack Obama wrote a series of letters to workers that offer detailed descriptions of how he intends to add muscle to specific government programs, give new power to bureaucrats and roll back some Bush administration policies.

The letters, sent to employees at seven agencies, describe Obama's intention to scale back on contracts to private firms doing government work, to remove censorship from scientific research, and to champion tougher industry regulation to protect workers and the environment...

Notice the bold type above. You read in Random Jottings way back in 2002 about what Bush was doing to open federal jobs to private bidders. Link [I've been giving you the straight dope since November-2001! Has it earned me fame and fortune? Nah.]

SO, how much have you heard about this since? In particular, how much support and praise did President Bush get from Republicans? From conservatives? From the "oh-so-wise" at National Review? None, as far as I've noticed. Bush was out in front doing things conservatives should be lauding, encouraging, publicizing.

I'm sure this would have been popular with voters, if it had been publicized. It's not like ordinary Americans are fond of Federal bureaucrats. So why hasn't the party been running on things like this? Bragging about it? And conservatives, libertarians, wake up: this is the closest you are ever going to get to cutting back the Federal monster. Shrinking big government isn't going to happen--but there are a lot of things we can to to mitigate the problem. You had a chance to, and it looks like you blew it...

PS: If you think I'm surprised by anything Obama's doing, well, I notice that I was also writing in 2002 about the fact then emerging that President Carter asked the SOVIETS to help him defeat Reagan! If I write that "Democrats" are evil slime animals, it is not because I'm intemperate and uncharitable, it's because they are, obviously, evil slime animals...

Tolerant and diverse Obamanoids.....

This John Kass column doesn't surprise me a bit. Living in SF, I get to see plenty of this kind of thing, and San Francisco isn't really bad compared with--ugh! Barf!-- "affluent suburbs." You have to be somewhat tolerant to live in the City, because there's such a smorgasbord of different types and groups here. If you have a bunch of white liberal elitists living together, then you get the real bigots. (And worse than the bigotry is the way they ooze the butter of self-satisfaction from every pore. Gag me with a silver spoon!) [Thanx to Bookworm]

A liberal gal we know (one with an atypically strong self-image, and a Republican boyfriend) was telling me the other day about her bewilderment at many of her liberal friends, whose reaction to Republicans and opposing ideas was total shut-out: "I don't want to hear it!" I just nodded my head and said Ummm hmmm. That's the era we are in. The Republic is probably doomed, but at least I have the satisfaction of not being part of the idiocy.

Tolerance fails T-shirt test -- chicagotribune.com:

...Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching 'inclusion,' and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

'I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,' Catherine told us. 'I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.'

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

'People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it,' Catherine said. Then it got worse.

'One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,' Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

'In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,' Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

'Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said,' Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

'He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' ' Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be 'burned with her shirt on' for 'being a filthy-rich Republican.'

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.....

Surprise! Obama lied.....

We still know little about what sort of President Obama is going to be. But there a certain things leftists always tend towards, and we can be almost certain they will make themselves known in the coming months. One of them is hating Jews and Israel...

Today we got some concrete evidence...

...After it became known Malley was working on the campaign and the ensuing backlash, the Obama campaign immediately issued a statement saying Malley was only giving the campaign "informal advice."

Then in May, the London Times reported that Malley � who wasn't supposed to be working on the campaign � had been sacked from a post on the campaign's Middle East advisory council because he had recently held meetings with Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Well now sources are reporting "Aides said Obama had sent senior foreign policy adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate's policy on the Middle East."...

There's going to be lots of this kind of thing over the next four years. The new administration will be filled with leftists, and so they won't be able to help it. Politically it is just not smart to have toxic swine like Malley sucking up to tyrants and terrorists. But you watch. You will see the Obama crowd doing this over and over---and then lying like crazy to cover up their Jew-hatred...

And "liberal Jews" will be squirming and wriggling and doing everything they can to fudge the issue, even though it means helping people who would be delighted to saw their heads off with rusty knives, and then circulate the video-tape...

This makes me think about "debating" with liberals...

Plato knew about nailing jello
(from Theaetetus):

...For, in accordance with their text-books, they are always in motion; but as for dwelling upon an argument or a question, and quietly asking and answering in turn, they can no more do so than they can fly; or rather, the determination of these fellows not to have a particle of rest in them is more than the utmost powers of negation can express. If you ask any of them a question, he will produce, as from a quiver, sayings brief and dark, and shoot them at you; and if you inquire the reason of what he has said, you will be hit by some other new-fangled word, and will make no way with any of them, nor they with one another; their great care is, not to allow of any settled principle either in their arguments or in their minds, conceiving, as I imagine, that any such principle would be stationary; for they are at war with the stationary, and do what they can to drive it out everywhere...

Makes 'em feel cool...

From a follow-up by Jay Nordlinger, to that comment of his I quoted yesterday...

....But I was struck by all the e-mails that came from the left: many of them seething with hate, and many of them � surprisingly enough � defending communism. It's not that these readers thought I had defamed Barack Obama; they thought I had defamed communism. Nine decades of killing fields, and still . . . well, never mind....

That doesn't surprise me. There are tons of people around here like that. It's wierd, really. None of them will ever call themselves communists, but anything commie has a glow for them. It gives them a buzz of pleasure to say nice things about Mao or Castro. Sort of like they are fans of a rock band, who never personally endorse their sex-drugs-violence drenched suicidal life-stye, no no no.... but obviously enjoy being close to the thrilling and dirty ambience.

Does this say it all or does this say it all?

Jay Nordlinger, at The Corner:

Senator Obama said this about John McCain: "By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich." That's interesting. Obama evidently thinks of communists as people who share. I think of them as people who kill.

"Who feels threatened?"

This piece, by Caroline Glick of the The Jerusalem Post, The Threat of a Jewish Army, is intensely interesting to me, because I'm obsessed with the broad movements of Western Civilization. Thanks to Richard Fernandez, who writes that Israel is the "canary in the coalmine."�

Glick writes: "The Left's vision of Israel as an atheistic, multicultural, morally relativist society holds little attraction for most Israelis." I sure hope so, since that's the Left's vision of America too. My guess is that the chomskys are going to be very disappointed in the results if their current "Manchurian Candidate" is elected He will have about as much success in advancing socialism as Clinton did. His judicial appointees will do a lot by legislating from the bench, since the vile measures of the Left rarely find favor with American voters they despise. That will be an evil thing, but he won't do any better with his version of HillaryCare than Bill did.

....Under the title "Without a Lord of (Military) Hosts," the paper demanded that IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi "put the military rabbinate in its place" and force it to limit its activities to ensuring that IDF grub is kosher and that religious soldiers have what they need to observe religious laws. Haaretz further insisted that the position of chief rabbi be cancelled and that the position of "chief religious services officer" be created in its place. As the editorial put it, "The injection of a religious dimension into the Israel Defense Forces' goals constitutes a serious internal threat."

The real question is, who feels threatened? The Haaretz editorial claimed that Israel "has a secular majority, which would be outraged if anyone tried to change its way of life through religious coercion." But this is untrue and Haaretz's editors know it.

They know it because last November Haaretz published the results of a survey conducted by the Israeli Democracy Institute regarding how Israeli Jews self-identify on the secular-religious spectrum. The results of that survey showed that only twenty percent of Israelis classify themselves as secular. Eighty percent of Israelis view themselves as either religious or traditional.

Rabbi Ronski himself is the most beloved and charismatic IDF chief rabbi since Rabbi Shmuel Goren, who served as chief rabbi during the Six-Day War. Rabbi Ronski, 56, regularly risks his life by accompanying combat units on missions. He doesn't simply show up. The soldiers ask him to join them.

The popularity of leaders like Rabbi Ronski is an unbearable affront to the Israeli Left. The enthusiasm with which young Israelis embrace their Jewish heritage is a direct assault on the Left's demand for cultural supremacy. But what the Left refuses to acknowledge is the simple fact that Israeli society has never accepted their views of what Israel is supposed to be.

Until the mid-1970s, most of today's leftists were Labor Zionists. They believed Israeli society followed them both for their Zionism and for their socialism. But Israeli society never bought into the Left's utopian social theories. Labor Zionists were the cultural avant-garde because they were Zionists.

When, in the late 1970s, the Labor Zionist movement began disavowing Zionism, it became increasingly estranged from the general public. Religious Zionists like Rabbi Ronski are followed while the leftist cultural elites are ignored because religious Zionists today are the most outspoken advocates of values shared by the vast majority of Israelis.

The Left's vision of Israel as an atheistic, multicultural, morally relativist society holds little attraction for most Israelis. So to reassert their cultural superiority, leftists have increasingly taken to bullying and intimidating the rest of the country to toe their line. The seasonal assaults on religious soldiers are simply one aspect of their larger culture war against Israeli society as a whole.

"When, in the late 1970s, the Labor Zionist movement began disavowing Zionism, it became increasingly estranged from the general public..." Substitute "Democrat Party" for Labor-Zionist, and "Christianity/Judaism" for Zionism, and you describe current American politics. I bet we will be seeing more attacks on the US military for having too many Christians...

Literati... Making my day...

The New York Observer:

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an 'obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night.'

...My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves....

Boy, talk about name-dropping! Worried about the "literary reputation," eh Erica?

...My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium...

Ooooh. All the pwecious wittle witerati is having spasms! They cwy all night, wowied about wosing their weftist secuwty bwankets! Ha ha ha ha....

...Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act...

So WHY, (as Orrin Judd has asked), are no Obama supporters talking about Obama ending the "police state?" Surely they are looking forward to those poor imprisoned reporters tottering out into the sunlight from their dungeons? And the wiretaps....why is no one celebrating Obama's executive-order-to-come, preserving your right to call madrassahs in Pakistan without interference by Cheney's Gestapo? Why? Whywhywhywhy?

Please win, Sarah! If only just to torture these self-inflated frauds! (I didn't mean literally torture them, but if you do I won't blame you. If I ask him nicely I bet Dick will be willing to stay on for a little extra waterboarding...)

"Opposed to Western/Judeo-Christian civilization"

From Orrin, in a post with the splendid title (I envy him this sort of cleverness) Inherit the Windbags, about "conservatives" who support Obama...

....In fact, the only real difference [in Obama's policies compared to McCain] is precisely that he's the most extreme supporter of aggressive social experimentation to be nominated for president during this era. On matters of abortion, infanticide, gay "rights," infant stem cells, euthanasia, etc. he is consistently and radically Pro-Death and opposed to Western/Judeo-Christian civilization. Edmund Burke would have no trouble recognizing the Jacobin in at least this aspect of Mr. Obama's politics

When we consider then what sorts of Republicans are supporting Mr. Obama we would, as Mr. Powers says, expect to find the old Eastern Establishment, secular Darwinist Right. Contrary to Mr. Powers, these issues are pretty much the same and Rockefeller money funded the more openly eugenic experimentation of the early/mid 20th Century. That's not, of course, to say that every "conservative" backing Mr. Obama is doing so because he'd increase abortion and fund it for "the poor," but it is fair to say that they are at least unbothered by the prospect. In fact, even the ostensibly pro-life Doug Kmiec was willing to forgo Communion in order to back Barack Obama.

This is why so many of the converts cite the choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate. The choice drove home the reality that the GOP is and is going to stay the party of the religious. They were hoping for a Joe Lieberman, Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, or Tom Ridge who are indifferent to or supportive of abortion.

Over time this is likely to be a more permanent divide and is certain to impact the Democratic Party more heavily than the Republican. After all, Darwinism is a marginal belief in America while Christianity is central. Eventually one would expect to see the parties divide along more clearly secular vs religious lines and the Democratic hold on entire tribes loosen, a process that will be accelerated by the recognition that intellectual elites support the Democrats in no small part because of "population control."...

It just fascinates me the people who hate Sarah. It's so revealing. The "feminists" who fantasize about seeing her raped or murdered, for example. (Ladies, your guilt is showing.) Or the Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley types on the right.

And this is all extra interesting because traditionally the V-P is someone who can give red meat to the base, allowing the presidential candidate to act "presidential," and move to the center. This is normal in our politics. So why should Republican "centrists" and libertarians hate Sarah? Why?

The real battle is increasingly about who we are. What is America and who are Americans. This is because old habits have worn off. Habits of religion, yes, but also patriotic faith, and faith in those things, including morality, that ancestors and founders have handed down to us---faith that those traditions should be revered. And just---faith in America. When I was growing up, everybody was patriotic.

I'd say that when Orrin writes: "...the GOP is and is going to stay the party of the religious," we should think of "the religious" in a broad-brush sort of way. It could include those who cherish the Great Books of Western Civ., and those who get a lump in their throats when they hear the Star Spangled Banner at the ball game. That is, those who think there are things bigger than the almighty self, things which demand an attitude of humility and willingness to sacrifice.

And the irreligious should include many people who still go to church, but recite their creed in the spirit of participating in a charming old folk-ritual. Or who call themselves people of the Right, but recoil from moral responsibility and personal humility.

The battle-lines are shifting, and as they do various people are going to find themselves suddenly stranded in no-man's-land, wondering which way to scurry. A few decades ago we had the neo-cons; Democrats who noticed that the Democrat Party had drawn away from them like the tide going out...and awkwardly found a new home on the right. Perhaps now we will have a bunch of neo-libs!

I'm thinking of Sager especially. The libertarian creep of the world. I should fisk this piece, The Rove Realignment, Have libertarians been driven out of the GOP? But what's the use? He'll never get it. Better he should just head over to the Party of Death where he belongs...

It is morally wrong to say we have a "right" to health care...

Two reasons. One, which I heard Rush elucidate, is that we have a responsibility to maintain our own health, and we have a moral obligation to help those who can't help themselves.

Making health care a "right" destroys both responsibility and obligation, and damages us spiritually.

The other I just noticed, by Rand Simberg:

Does Barack Obama agree with Marcy Kaptur that we need a Second Bill of Rights?...

...Sure he does. He already said in a debate that we all have a "right" to health care. No, I don't think that I, or anyone, has a "right" to stuff that requires taking from others. This is Eurosocialism...

Of course I've always been in agreement with those points, but I hadn't ever expressed them clearly.

We are all so GOOD!!!

Ron comments on the previous post:

You know, I've been thinking about this Obama phenomenon for some time, and it just doesn't make any sense. Where did he come from and how in the world did he get such a following in such a short period of time? It's downright spooky. Could someone out there explain this all to me....

You came to the right place, Ron. Random Jottings knows all, tells all. I think this post, with its quote by Shannon Love, gets closest to explaining...

A bit of the quote:

...I think that politics on the Left has become a social process, i.e., a means of group identification and self-validation. Leftists care less about the triumph of ideas and far more about the triumph of a group of people with which they ego-identify. They need their ego-identity candidate to win so that they can feel good about themselves. The character and policies of the actual candidate does not matter....

When I was a wee lad, if a person wanted to be a "non-conformist," they became a Beatnik, or joined some similar artsy subculture. That is, they conformed to the ways of a group that was non-conformist! The idiocy of this sort of thing rarely seems to be noticed, then or now. (I remember it well. People daringly drank French wine and Italian coffee, and ate Moussaka. And looked down on the conformist rabble.)

It's similar now. If you want to be "good," you can't just, like, you know, be good. No way. You have to join a group that is perceived to be good. In popular imagination today that means liberal Democrat. (The fact that they are actually evil is of no consequence.) And then whenever the Democrat candidate wins, you get a sort of "validation." As if the world is giving you an accolade for being "good." Confirming your superiorty, as it were.

Now if the Dem candidate is the usual white middle-aged career pol, this validation is sort of muted. It lacks pizazz. But if the candidate is cool, and handsome, and youngish and well-dressed (all qualities one would like to have rub off on oneself)---wow, the payoff is bigger by an order of magnitude.

AND, if the ego-identity candidate is.....brace yourself for a thrill running down your leg....if he is.....yes......African-American....a magic negro....the coolest thing....the ego-validation is just stratospheric!

The Dems could probably run a cardboard cut-out of Mr Obama and have a good chance of winning....

Update: As a historical note, I remember reading somewhere about bohemian non-conformist types in New York, around maybe 1910. They would head down to The Village, which was then Italian, and be really artsy and different by eating......Spaghetti! I laugh every time I think of that.

The McCain ad I would be running...

...If I ran the campaign circus... (Inspired by this great post by Bill Dyer)

Scene: A schoolyard. A father is picking up his daughter...

Child: Daddy, daddy, I got 98 points on my math test! That's an "A"

Teacher: Now Susie, you know that 27% of those points will have to be given to those who are less fortunate than you. Other children don't have the points you have. Your grade will be C+.

Child: But, but.....I worked HARD! And those other kids just goofed off!

Teacher: Remember how I told the class how Leader Obama has taught us about "redistributive change.." You are supposed to be happy to help the poor and those harmed by white racism...

Clip of Obama speaking: "... the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which to bring about redistributive change..."

Father: But, what about our Constitution?

Teacher: Leader Obama wishes to preserve our sacred Constitution from desecration and change. That's why he has had it revised and brought up to date...

Clip of Obama speaking: "...The Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution..."

Teacher: Susie, your mind is still filled with white ideas about personal property. Next week we will begin studying Education Leader Ayers' new book "Social Justice for the New Millenium," and you will start to understand about giving to people in accordance with their needs...

"redistributive change"

...But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties...

And one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which to bring about redistributive change...

He's a Commie, who wants to destroy our country and way of life. It's that simple.

Hey, my Lefty readers. Obama says: "[the Warren Court] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" in favor of "redistribution of wealth." That's obviously what Obama wants. Are you OK with this or not? Yes or no? Show some guts and honesty for once, scrubs, and take a clear stand

Be thoughtful--listen to Oprah...

Bookworm writes:

...I was sitting near two women and overheard part of their conversation. After a lengthy back and forth praising Oprah, this gem came out: "Sarah Palin is stupid but she communicates really well to Americans because most Americans are stupid."

I live among this sort of people; that's exactly how they think. In fact a lot of them (including I'm sure these two---this is Marin County) are Democrats because the Dem Party is somehow, in the popular mind, "associated" with intelligence. They would never dream of showing intelligence by actually thinking. Instead they will buy some books Oprah recommends, and put them on the coffee table, to show that they are thoughtful

My experience in seven years of blogging is that Democrats are in fact really stupid. Not one of them has been able to make a case for their vague slippery ideas.

Rambling answer to libertarian comment...

I think you're wide of the mark, John.

The coercion in the case of gay marriage lies not in the marriage itself-- one is free to marry or not marry as one pleases. The coercion lies in teaching things to kids who aren't old enough to make sense of them.

So, the anecdote about the cute little Hispanic girl isn't an argument against gay marriage; it's an argument against government-run schools, which are often "captured" by people who really shouldn't be trusted with the power to ram things down the throats of unsuspecting children.

You've just pushed the underlying problem away, not confronted it. The message comes from a hundred directions, not just public schools. And private schools want to push the same message, at least here in SF. (Coming soon to a town near you!) Hollywood and Internet too.

In our world we have a LOT of people who want to change the world into something very different. And it's hard to discuss this because we are using different terminology. In your terms that goal is some sort of socialism. Something like the Euro-socialist welfare state. You see the growth of the state as the problem, and you are right--that's a large part of the plan. (Though notice that there no longer seems to be any worship of the state, as there was in fascist and communist regimes.No demands for sacrifice for the state.)

In my terms the goal is to free themselves of anything that the individual can feel as being bigger than the self. That's the nihilism I keep harping about. The goal is making oneself God. (I would say that gay marriage and socialism and "radical feminism" and the welfare state are exactly the same problem, in different dress. They all have the same underlying goal.)

We are allies in a vast struggle with people who are foes of libertarianism, conservatism, democracy, religion, and tradition. But their tactics are like the peddling of a dangerous and seductive addictive drug. One whose harms only show up slowly, and whose pleasures are immediate. Not like the old socialist revolutions---there's no Comintern anymore.

For want of common terms, I'll call the problem "the Drug."

Libertarianism doesn't have a good answer. Less government doesn't get rid of the problem. The front line is everywhere, not just government. Art, architecture, literature, journalism, entertainment; all are war zones. All are being churned and transformed like a WWI battlefield. The meanings of the very words we speak are being morphed, sometimes deliberately. (And recently we've seen capitalist bastions on Wall Street turn out to be Democrat strongholds!)

Actually the battleground is every person. Libertarianism says to let people choose, but the very essence of the people who do the choosing is what is being struggled over and changed. Changed by this Drug, that gives people the power "to be like gods." To be in control of themselves and others.

I'm sure most libertarians would agree that this drug should be resisted. BUT, the ideas that help fight against the drug did not come from libertarianism. You have inherited those ideas as part of the package of Western---especially Jewish and Christian---civilization.

Libertarianism piggy-backs on a great inheritance of Western ideas and virtues. And you are assuming that most people here have a good stock of those. And that therefore you can give people lots of free choice, and expect good things. But libertarianism has no answer to the problem of when those ideas themselves slip away or grow dim. I think that is happening.

To fight this insidious Drug, we can't just rely on a diminishing stock of inherited virtue. My evidence can be expressed in one word: Europe. We've been watching Europe ratchet down, down, down for the last century, at least. And to me, one of the most salient features of this decline is that, at any particular moment, people assume that ordinary European people will stay the same. They assume that the German will always be hard-working. That the Englishman's home will be his castle. That the Spaniard will be Catholic, and the Italian will have a big extended family with lots of pasta-munching bambinos. That the Frenchman will fight for La Patrie...

But all those assumptions have been WRONG. If you bet any chips on the character, the inherited ideas and culture, on the virtues, of Europeans, you've lost your bet. And this wasn't like a fight between good guys and bad guys. It was a matter of people being "hollowed out." Of virtue just draining away mysteriously.

A telling statistic: By the year 2050, 60% of Italians will not know what it is like to have a brother or a sister or an aunt or an uncle or a nephew or a niece. Italy is in demographic collapse now, and will soon be in population collapse. It is economically stagnant, and produces no exciting new ideas or inventions. But who is the "bad guy?" Who forced this upon the Italians? No one; they chose it.

What does libertarianism offer here? How does it explain this? I think you are carrying a knife to a shotgun fight. You are unarmed.

"The New Progressive Person"

This post at The Corner by Maggie Gallagher focused my previously-amorphous thoughts on one of the reasons I think libertarianism is profoundly unwise.

Any libertarian will understand that trying to force people to act contrary to the market is asking for trouble. If, say, his city government decided to issue "voluntary guidelines" on what were "fair wages" for various jobs, alarm bells would go off in his head! He would NOT say, "It's voluntary, so what do I care?" Because he knows darn well that coercion is the next step. And since enforcing such a thing would be like herding cats, there would have to be a LOT of cowboys, with a LOT of coercive power, to move the herd. (Just collecting the needed information would require massive government intrusion on people's lives.)

[Note: The libertarian could be a she, but I'm flouting the "voluntary guidelines" for non-sexist language.]

The latest Protect Marriage Yes on 8 television ad in California shows an incredibly cute 8 year old Hispanic girl bringing the book King and King home to her mother saying "Guess what I learned in school today. . . I can marry a princess!"

The anti-Prop 8, pro gay marriage crowd is running ads charging this whole idea that public schools will teach gay marriage is just a "lie."

The latest press release from the Protect Marriage Yes on 8 campaign in California rather cleverly points out the same groups now charging it's a lie public schools will teach about gay marriage whether parents like it or not --- were just in court in Massachussetts filing amicus briefs arguing parents don't have any right to opt their children out of the pro-gay marriage curriculum...

Just read the rest of the post, with the Amicus briefs arguing that parents have no constitutional right to opt-out...

Or check out this...

Lego ad red lighted over shades of pink and blue: A Swedish advertising watchdog has slammed Danish toymaker Lego for a catalogue it claims promotes outdated gender roles.

Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) singled out images in a recent Lego catalog which featured a little girl playing in a pink room with ponies, a princess, and a palace accompanied by a caption reading, "Everything a princess could wish for..."

On the opposite side of the page, a little boy can be seen in a blue room playing with a fire station, fire trucks, a police station, and an airplane. The caption beneath reads, "Tons of blocks for slightly older boys." (Thanks to Orrin)

The implications of "human nature" are enormous, and most people don't want to think about them. Don't want to think through what is implied. They are afraid of inferences...

Prepare for the Jew-haters...

..and the America-haters...

Jesse Jackson: PREPARE for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.

He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."

The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.

Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House....

Actually, although ugly anti-Semitism is still common on the Left, the really big motivator is hatred of developed Western countries that still believe in themselves enough to fight for themselves. Who could that be? Let's start a little list...America...Israel..... Ummm, anybody else? No.

And which countries do Leftists hate? Amazin' coincidence!

(Note: As far as leftists or pacifists care, the people of the undeveloped world can happily slaughter each other. They are not human beings. Unless they ally with the US--then they are evil human beings, and must be opposed by "liberation movements.".)

I'm used to this cowardly idiocy...

...When I vote against Obama on November 4, 2008:

• It won't be because Obama thinks that a nuclear Iran is no threat to the Western World, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because I think it's an incredibly stupid idea for the most powerful nation in the world to approach evil totalitarian dictators as a supplicant, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because I hate the idea of a President who will subordinate America's interests to the UN (as he inevitably will), it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama has the thinnest resume ever in the history of Presidential candidates, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because I think Obama's Leftist connections (Ayres, Dohrn, Soros, Pfleger, Wright, etc.) show him to be either stupid about or complicit with an agenda antithetical to basic American values, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama consistently chooses as advisers people who have opted for the wrong side in the completely binary debate about Israel's right to exist, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama wants to socialize American medicine, which I believe will destroy the high quality of medical care available to most Americans, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama wants to gut the military and reduce us to a nation with a big target painted on our collective backside, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama wants to gut the Second Amendment and destroy Americans' Constitutional right to protect themselves from foreign and domestic enemies, it will be because I'm a racist.
• It won't be because Obama has already announced loud and clear that he will support activist judges who place their “feelings” above the law, it will be because I'm a racist.....

Us Republicans are accustomed to being called "racists" and "homophobes" and "sexists" and all the usual Lefty crap that substitutes for actually debating the issues. I expect to hear a ton of it if Barack loses. Well, in anticipation, I spit with contempt on all cowardly Leftists.

Don't go there...

You know, if I became a Democrat, and (oxymoron alert) I continued to be able to think and reason clearly, I'd be voting against Barack Obama, because putting him at the center of the world's attention for four years is likely to destroy the Dem Party. There are lots of dead fish starting to float to the surface, but it takes time for hidden facts to be untangled and organized. And for their import to sink in...

Probably, alas, more time than we have before the election. But not more time than we have before 2012...or even 2010... Do you really want to spend the next four years waiting for the next shoe to drop? and the next? Does the name Rashid Khalidi ring a bell? Do you really want to find out?

Dr Sanity:

...Nothing disgusted me more about the last Presidential debate (and believe me, there was LOTS to be disgusted about) than Obama's casual remark that, "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11."

Yeah, I remember that day. And it wasn't a fucking tragedy--like some sort of natural disaster--it was an act of war in which 3000 Americans were killed in the blink of an eye by despicable people with ideologically distorted minds eerily similar to William Ayer's and his ilk. I am not the one who has forgotten that day and what it meant and still means.

Yeah, I remember 9/11; and I am also not likely to forget any terrorists who despise this country and what it stands for and want to destroy it--whether they hail from Al Qaeda, Mr. Obama's neighborhood, or any address on the extreme political left.

The simple fact is that Barack Obama is anti-American. He has spent his adult life swimming in Leftist schools of fish. I know these people. I went to college at Berkeley, and I live in San Francisco. They use code words in public discourse, but they savor any flaw that's noticed about this country. When abu Ghraib is mentioned their cheeks glow and their eyes sparkle.

And even the code words are giveaways to anyone who cares to think and notice. People who refer to 9/11 as a "tragedy" do NOT love this country. Imagine someone whose family-member was brutally murdered by an evil maniac. Would they call it a "tragedy?" As if it was just one of those random bad things that happen? No way! They'd call it murder, and do their best to see that the killer was locked-up forever, at the very least.

Real Americans love their country the way they love their family. (No, I'm not saying that precludes criticism.) I may criticize my relatives, even fight with them, but if one of them is attacked, it's like an attack on ME. I would not be standing at a distance, I would have no cool reserve. Likewise if this country is attacked.

When Leftists reacted to 9/11 with detachment, they were saying clearly that they do not love our country. Barack Obama is wholly a person of the Left. He does not love America. Democrats, if you elect this guy people are going to figure it out eventually.

The opiate of the trendy liberal...

Peter Guttman has written a piece which argues that no one should be President who hasn't traveled. (He's a travel writer!) I think he's got it exactly backwards...

...Although historians will long debate how this country arrived at the global mess it's now in, it seems clear that much of it could have been prevented. In fact, I believe that a relatively simple amendment to the Constitution could prevent it from happening again. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, drafted in 1787, says that only natural-born Americans, at least 35 years of age, who have lived in the country for 14 years can serve as president or vice president. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has proposed (apparently with his friend, Arnold Schwarzenegger, firmly in mind) that this antiquated provision could best be corrected by opening the presidency to foreign-born U.S. citizens.

[It's hard to debate this guy, since the "global mess" is not defined--sloppy writing. War on Terror? Financial crisis? We're not popular in Belgium? Maybe it's the old "Europeans are so much more sophisticated and nuanced than us crude cowboy Americans" line. I'm guessing he is NOT thinking of Schwarzenegger as a solution to anything. For the record I don't think we are in a "global mess."]

But this adjustment misses the real point. Although a revision to this section is much needed, I believe that qualifications should not be loosened but rather tightened. I suggest the Constitution be amended to require that candidates for the presidency (and vice presidential selections as well) have visited a minimum of 20 countries. The amendment would require that each visit would have been made more than four years before the candidate's possible inauguration and that it would have lasted at least 48 hours. This serves as proof that a candidate is genuinely interested in, and possibly even knowledgeable about, the world around him or her.

[I would argue the opposite. The person who has travelled that much has likely lost the clarity of vision of what America is all about, and in fact probably never had it in the first place. I propose that to be eligible for the Presidency, a person should have lived at least twelve years in rural or heartland America, doing some real job. (Not government or foundation or academic or journalist).]

In the 21st century (unlike the period during which the Constitution was written), travel no longer means days of arduous journey by stagecoach or months aboard a steamship to reach an overseas destination. In a country that hopes to lead the world toward a more enlightened future, it is no longer acceptable to allow the reins of American leadership to reside in the hands of anyone lacking what is perhaps the most valuable credential of all -- the experience of foreign travel.

Sadly, we ignored a red flag during our previous two presidential campaigns. Quite simply, a middle-aged man of considerable means and privilege who has freely chosen in his first fortysomething years on this planet to visit fewer than four countries (of the almost 200 United Nations' members) should not be permitted to captain our nation. It is plainly irresponsible to allow a blindfolded driver to navigate through the increasingly chaotic rush-hour traffic of global development, aided only by an off-key chorus of back-seat drivers...

[He misunderstands the Presidency. If the President is steering the car he is failing his duty. (Think Carter.) What the President is supposed to do is to SEE WHEREwe want to get to, and continually nudge the thousands of drivers of our government to move that way.]

...Our recent myopic, good-versus-evil attitude toward foreign policy has been one of the obvious results. Our current cartoon perspective on the world could have been sensibly altered with the experience-tempered subtlety and sophistication of leaders who have spent time outside the country.

[It's the "good-versus-evil attitude" that is reasonable. We face opponents who are evil. And we ARE the good guys. "experience-tempered subtlety and sophistication" are just code-words for moral relativism. and a decadence that will never fight against evil, even if it's throat is about to be sawed through by terrorists.]

I believe that President Bush has been gravely HARMED by the traveling he has done in office. He started out like the child who sees that the Emperor has no clothes, and isn't afraid to point it out. He broke silly taboos, for instance by saying openly that we would defend Taiwan. And demanding that the Palestinians abandon terrorism before getting any more concessions. But we haven't seen much of that refreshing candor lately---too much traveling, I'd guess.

I'll drink to her....

The more I think about the debate the more jazzed I get. (Or maybe it's the Laphroaig. They have it at Costco now. You just gotta drink it. Life's too short not to.) The attacks on our Sarah over the last few weeks have been the most insane thing I've ever seen in politics.

I was even reading somebody's screed about how her lip liner or lip gloss or some such was a fake! I mean, this was seriously discussed! With blown-up photographs. I kid you not. She is Kryptonite to Lefty losers, and they knew it from the first day McCain announced her. They went berserk, they've thrown everything they could at her...... And tonight she just made all that ankle-biting moot. She just went right past it onto new ground.

And think about when her e-mail was hacked. What was cool and really interesting was that they didn't find anything useful. There was really nothing there for anyone to be ashamed of. Her private life is exactly the same as her public life. Just imagine if people could eavesdrop on a private conversation by Obama and his radical leftist pals. Wow. If that went public he would be dead. Sarah: WYSIWYG

The situation for Republicans is not good, and Mr Creepy may well end up being our Jimmy-Carter-of-color. But that, bad as it will be for the country and the world, will just beg for a Reagan to follow on. And we may have found her....

Grim days, I think...

Today's events have really got me down.

I have been arguing for years that the "Left" in this country, and throughout the developed world, is not just pursuing bad policies, but is in deep psychological and existential trouble. Is suffering from pathologies that have no likely cure.

A crisis is an chance to test the theory. The indication is that I'm right. And this is a case where I would LOVE to have been proved wrong. Because I think we are not just looking at one financial crisis. If a large portion of the country---maybe 25%, maybe 33%? Who knows?---is seriously deranged, then we can only expect things to get worse in the future.

Only scrubs act like this...

CBS New anchor Katie Couric ordered staff to drop all references to "Governor" or "Gov." from her interview with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. When a staff member pointed out that in other venues, Couric and CBS News had referred to Governor Palin's opponent, Joe Biden, using his title of "Senator" or the abbreviation, Couric, according to a CBS News editorial aide, sought approval from CBS News management to drop the "Governor" reference during her broadcast interview with Palin that began on Wednesday night.

"It's not true," said another CBS News source. "We treat everyone the same."

But, in fact, that's not the case: as late as September 22, CBS News and Couric -- even on the CBS website -- used Biden's honorific. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of a Couric interview with "Sen." Biden:

Katie Couric: How is it preparing for the debates?

Sen. Joe Biden: Well, it's kind of hard to prepare because I don't know what she thinks. There's been no -- I don't know a lot about her, so I have to assume for purposes of the debate that she agrees with John on everything.

Now compare that the transcript of the "Palin" interview:

Couric: Why do you say that? Why are they waiting for John McCain and not Barack Obama? Palin: He's got the track record of the leadership qualities and the pragmatism that's needed at a crisis time like this.

In fact, at no point during the broadcast interview does Couric refer to the GOP vice presidential nominee as "Governor."....

The usual Quaker scam...

....Meanwhile, other religious figures are reaching out to Ahmadinejad. On Thursday, the Iranian president will be the honored guest at an Iftar dinner--the ceremonial breaking of the Ramadan fast--at the New York Grand Hyatt Hotel. That meal is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches-United Nations Liaison Office (notice the absence of any Jewish organization.) According to the invitation, the assembled guests--including Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Rev. Kjell Bondevik, former Prime Minister of Norway and President of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights--will hold a "conversation about the role of religions in tackling global challenges and building peaceful societies." The discussion will occur "In the presence of His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

You'd think that with such a high-profile figure addressing such an important topic, the Quaker lobby and its friends would want to share their honored guest's views with the world. But the event is closed to the press. So I called Mark Graham, Director of External Relations for the American Friends Service Committee. He said that "Jewish individuals," but not Jewish organizations, had been invited to Thursday's event, though he wouldn't name any of them for me. As far as the program is concerned, the evening's discussion will consist of a "dialogue around the idea that God has created us all and our common humanity. People are going to speak about the politicial, social,and religious implications that it has for their faith perspectives." This is actually the fourth event that AFSC (which has led interfaith delegations to Iran, though, again, with no Jews participating) has held with Ahmadinejad, and when I asked Graham about Ahmadinejad's thoughts on the Holocaust, he defended the Iranian President, telling me that "he readily says that the Holocaust was an historical event and he feels for the Palestinian people since the creation of Israel." When I asked if AFSC would press the Iranian President about his pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, support for international terrorism and the murder of American soldiers in Iraq, Graham told me that, "What we hope for with this event, like with others, is that we will help to understand each other a bit better. We will have more precedent for open questioning and a two-way dialogue that's open and honest."

There will be a protest of this Quaker Meeting. Details here.

The pacifist position is simple. War is something that America and Israel do. Iran openly racing to build nuclear bombs while openly talking about frying Israel is not war. So, why should any pacifist object?

Actually, it's worse than fake-pacifism. The Quakers and all those other "inter-faith/peace" groups are completely hollowed-out. They have no faith of any kind. All that's left is leftist politics. (And they would be much more respect-worthy if they really believed in those.) You can bet money that these useful idiots will conclude that Ahmadinejad is a mis-understood peace-lover, but Sarah Palin is a threat to the planet.

And you can be sure no Quakers will be holding "candle-light vigils" about this Christian convert under sentence of death in Iran.

Who do you stand shoulder to shoulder with?

....LIBERAL AMERICAN Jews, like liberal Americans in general, and indeed like their fellow leftists in Israel and throughout the West, uphold themselves as champions of human rights. They claim that they care about the underdog, the wretched of the earth. They care about the environment. They care about securing American women's unfettered access to abortions. They care about keeping Christianity and God out of the public sphere. They care about offering peace to those who are actively seeking their destruction so that they can applaud themselves for their open-mindedness and tell themselves how much better they are than savage conservatives.

Those horrible, war-mongering, Bambi killing, unborn baby defending, God-believing conservatives, who think that there are things worth going to war to protect, must be defeated at all costs. They must intimidate, attack, demonize and defeat those conservatives who think that the free women of the West should be standing shoulder to shoulder not with Planned Parenthood, but with the women of the Islamic world who are enslaved by a misogynist Shari'a legal code that treats them as slaves and deprives them of control not simply of their wombs, but of their faces, their hair, their arms, their legs, their minds and their hearts.

The lives of 6 million Jews in Israel are today tied to the fortunes of those women, to the fortunes of American forces in Iraq, to the willingness of Americans across the political and ideological spectrum to recognize that there is more that unifies them than divides them and to act on that knowledge to defeat the forces of genocide, oppression, hatred and destruction that are led today by the Iranian regime and personified in the brutal personality of Ahmadinejad. But Jewish Democrats chose to ignore this basic truth in order to silence Palin.

They should be ashamed. The Democratic Party should be ashamed. And Jewish American voters should consider carefully whether opposing a woman who opposes the abortion of fetuses is really more important than standing up for the right of already born Jews to continue to live and for the Jewish state to continue to exist. Because this week it came to that.

Most people probably find this situation confusing. Why would Jews reject help in standing up to terrorists who want to kill Jews? Why would they put lefty politics ahead of preventing the possible destruction of Israel? Regular readers of Random Jottings know the answer, everyone else has to flounder.

I was going to rant here, but really, you can guess my opinion on this... and I won't try to top Caroline.

"Today's Democrats will not stand against the darkness"

I think Dr Sanity has this right...

...Because, you see, Iran and the rest of the terrorists are patiently waiting. They are waiting for the Democrats--with all their inherent moral weakness and confusion; the Iranians are waiting because they perceive fear, appeasement, defeat, and surrender in the Democratic rhetoric and behavior. They know that as soon as an Obama gets elected, they will be home free and will not have to suffer any consequences for wiping Israel off the map--from the U.S., anyway. They will be able to do as they like without interference.

The dithering Democrats will excuse, rationalize and basically look for any reason to exculpate any atrocity Iran initiates, because they are 'the party of peace' and they just know they can talk to lunatics and trust them

They Iranians know that today's Democrats will not stand against the darkness; instead they will simply turn off the lights and dwell in the dark without protest--then say it is a good thing...

My own feeling is that we will continue to fight the War on Terror in the pattern wisely set by President Bush. Democrats will have to do it, or be turned out by the voters.

BUT, it will likely be a much bloodier and longer war if we elect Obama, or any similar Dem. The terrorists play a game of advance and retreat. They try to gain objectives by using enough violence to destroy the forces of order and freedom in some odd corner of the globe, without actually rousing various sleeping giants.

Put yourself in the shoes of al-Qaeda, and look at Mr Obama. You just know he doesn't want to fight. Nor do Pelosi or Reid or Biden or any of the Dems. Terrorists will push a lot harder if those people are in control. And all those who look to us for global leadership will be discouraged, and will be less likely to stand up to terrorist intimidation. Eventually we will roused to action, but in the meantime a LOT of people will die. (And Tel Aviv may get turned to green glass, and then Tehran in retaliation, in which case tens-of-millions will die.)

And those deaths will be the responsibility of those who are appeasers. Who project weakness instead of resolve. AND those who vote for them.

Voting for Mr Obama is murder. Voting for the party that ejected its one senior leader who strongly supported the War on Terror is murder.

Voting Democrat right now is voting to kill little brown-skinned people in distant corners of the planet.

The looniest lefty meltdown yet...

Oh boy, this cookie takes the cake. And unfortunately she's a local scribbler, and my daughter (who has taste) was required to read one of her books in school. She made my kid suffer, so sympathy is not what I'm feeling...

Anne Lamott:

I had to leave church Sunday morning when it turned out that the sermon was not about bearing up under desperate circumstances, when you feel like you're going crazy because something is being perpetrated upon you and your country that is so obscene that it simply cannot be happening.

I sat outside a 7-Eleven and had a sacramental Dove chocolate bar. Jeez: Here we are again. A man and a woman whose values we loathe and despise -- lying, rageful and incompetent, so dangerous to children and old people, to innocent people in every part of the world -- are being worshiped, exalted by the media, in a position to take a swing at all that is loveliest about this earth and what's left of our precious freedoms.

When I got home from church, I drank a bunch of water to metabolize the Dove bar and called my Jesuit friend, who I know hates these people, too. I asked, "Don't you think God finds these smug egomaniacs morally repellent? Recoils from their smugness as from hot flame?"

And he said, "Absolutely. They are everything He or She hates in a Christian."

I have been in a better mood ever since, and have decided not to even say this woman's name anymore, because she fills me with such existential doubt, such a sense of impending doom and disbelief, that only the Germans could possibly have words for it. Nor am I going to say the word "lipstick" again until after the election, as it would only be used against me. Or "polar bear," because that one image makes me sadder than even horrible old I can stand...

This is especially kooky because I'm sure the author (and her Jesuit pal) would tell you that conservatives are hate-mongers and think God is on their side---and of course that we are deficient in loving-kindness. And yet here she is foaming at the mouth with pure detestation, and writing about how God hates the people she hates! And totally unaware of the irony.

Her problem of course is that she's looking into the future....and she isn't it. Sarah does that to people.

We'll cry all the way to the bank."...

It's getting to be hilarious how freaked-out leftizoids are about our Vice-Presidential pick! I've haven't seen something get under their skin like this since GW Bush suggested to the world's "liberals" that since they are always bloviating about how bad Hitler was---surely they will be glad to help take down a present-day Hitler! Ha ha. Didn't that put the frauds on the hot-spot.

But Palin's better. Her mere existence is like sprinkling salt on Lefty slugs. Pure delight... Like this example:

By Charles M. Blow, NY Times:

Mr. McCain, on Monday you repeated your delusional notion that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. [Grew at a 3.4% rate last quarter--sounds strong to me.] Now, the federal government is working on a deal to save that economy from collapsing. [No retard, it's the financial sector that is a problem, not the economy as a whole. Of course this will damage the economy in the future if not fixed, but right now all the other economic sectors are still strong.] You have admitted that the economy is not your forte, so you could have used a running mate with some financial chops. (Remember Mitt Romney?) [McCain is only a phone call away from Romney's advice. Plus about 10,000 other economic experts. Why this weird obsession about Palin? Since when is the V-P the main economic advisor?]

But no. Who did you pick? SnowJob SquareGlasses whose financial credentials include running Wasilla into debt, [One project got hit with a big lawsuit, and that cost the city millions, but it was otherwise a thrifty administration.] listing (but not selling) a plane on EBay [She got a talking-point that drives you nuts, then she sold the plane the usual way. Sounds pretty smart to me!] and flip-flopping on a bridge to wherever. [Ended up doing the right thing--when has Obama ever?] In fact, when it comes to real issues in general, she may prove to be a liability. [So why aren't you nihilists happy? Hmm? Who are you talking to here? Are you whistling past the graveyard of failed Leftist candidates?]

In what respect, you may ask?

It turns out that the Republican enthusiasm for Sarah Palin is just as superficial as she is. They were so eager for someone to cheer for (because they really don't like you [Actually we like him MUCH more now.]) that they dove face first into the Palin mirage. But, on the issues, even they worry about her. [No, we worry that she may get tripped-up by some Palin-deranged leftist. But she's obviously fundamentally sound and wise.]

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this week 77 percent of Republicans said that they had a favorable opinion of Palin. But when asked what specifically they liked about her, their top five reasons were that she was honest, tough, caring, outspoken and fresh-faced. Sounds like a talk-show host, not a vice president. [Liar. You would KILL for a candidate those words fit. You haven't had one in my lifetime.] (By the way, her intelligence was in a three-way tie for eighth place, right behind "I just like her.") [Oh yeah. Our stupid candidates like Reagan and Bush keep getting rejected by the voters. Not. As my mother says, "I'll cry all the way to the bank."]

When those Republicans were asked what they liked least about her, they started to sound more like everyone else. Aside from those who said that there was nothing they didn't like, [You don't seem to be telling us what percentage said that. I bet it's high.] next on the list were: her lack of experience, her record as governor and her lack of foreign-policy experience.

Also, most Republicans think you only picked her to help with the election, not because she is qualified, and a third said that they would be "concerned" if for some reason she actually had to serve as president. [Concerned about your head exploding and splattering us with brain tissue...]

And Palin is proving to be just as vacant as people suspected. In her interview with Charles Gibson last week, she didn't know what the Bush doctrine was. [I answered that one here. She knows the concept, just not the name. Let me explain. The world is like the Old West. If Jesse James and his gang move in nearby, YOU GUYS want to wait until AFTER he has pillaged the town and raped the women and killed the men to do something (If the UN allows, of course). The dumb cowboy says, "T' hell with that, boys, let's go smoke 'em out!" Would you care to ask ordinary Americans which view they support?]

Update: I keep laughing about guys like this, who put on a mantle of ponderous seriousness to tell us that Sarah Palin is an insignificant fluff-ball who no one could possibly take seriously! And by the way tell us Republicans what we really think, since we can't figure it out ourselves. Psst. What we really think is that we could kiss Sarah's feet in gratitude, for giving these chomskys indigestion.

"Is THIS really how they want to win an election?"

The Anchoress on the hacking of Sarah Palin's e-mail...

...I don't know anyone who has not occasionally used their private email for business and vice versa. But that's not the point. What they've done to Palin is criminal and can bring jailtime. More importantly, is THIS really how they want to win an election? By getting into picayune minutiae of email, trying to find something scandalous, when there is not a politician alive who would want his or her private emails smeared across the internet, of for that matter, anyone else? What gives these people the right to think they can invade someone's privacy like this?

And excuse me, but aren't the people on the left the ones who have been telling us - without basis - for the last 8 years that "evil nazi Bush" has been "intruding into people's private correspondences" and that this (if it were happening) would be a bad thing? Can the hypocrisy get any thicker? First Palin is "not a woman", and "not the mother of her baby," and all the rest of the looney tunes stuff�now, she is not an American entitled to her privacy? Is she associating with known terrorists? Is that why she was invaded?...

Crazy. Literally. I mean, we are so used to Lefty craziness that we hardly notice any more how crazy it is. This is really nuts. Imagine if some McCain supporters had hacked Joe Biden's e-mails and published them, and published his phone numbers and stuff like that. Everyone would go ballistic, and Republicans most of all. We'd be falling all over ourselves to condemn this outrage.

But most Dems seem to think this is no big deal. You guys are just crazy. Lost in a mental wilderness where nothing means anything any more.

Lefty panic makes my morning coffee taste SO good...

By Gary Kamiya, in Salon:

....Palin represents the reappearance of the one part of Bush that never died -- the culture warrior. [What's hilarious is that she doesn't have to be a culture warrior. She hardly mentions "God guns 'n gays. Neither did Bush. And Palin never mentions abortion. She just IS the Culture of Life.] Democrats may have forgotten about the notorious red state-blue state divide, or hoped that the failures of the last eight years had made it go away. But it hasn't. It's been there all along. [And it's coming to your home town!] If Palin catapults McCain to victory, it will be revealed to be the most powerful and enduring force in American politics. And that fact will raise serious questions about the viability of American democracy itself. [Right, it's not a democracy if those stupid voters reject their betters]

The culture war is driven by resentment, on the one hand, and crude identification, on the other. Resentment of "elites," "Washington insiders" and overeducated coastal snobs goes hand in hand with an unreflective, emotional identification with candidates who "are just like me." [Resentment of "proles" goes hand in hand with an unreflective, emotional identification with a metrosexual nihilist "who is just like me"]

Large numbers of Americans voted for Bush because he seemed like a regular guy, someone you'd want to have a beer with. [He IS a regular guy.] As Thomas Frank argued in "What's the Matter With Kansas," ideology also played a role. As hard-line "moral values" exponent and former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer told the New York Times, "Joe Six-Pack doesn't understand why the world and his culture are changing and why he doesn't have a say in it." [Well, Mr Kamiya, that's a very good question. This is a democracy. Why, EXACTLY, do you think Joe S should NOT have a say?] The GOP appealed to Joe Six-Pack by harping on cultural issues like the "three Gs," gods, guns and gays.... [We don't have to harp. You Lefties keep assaulting the beliefs of ordinary Americans. You do all the heavy lifting. We just have to look like more-or-less like ordinary people, and we get elected.]

....It's terrifying that so many Americans are so driven by resentment that they will vote against more qualified candidates simply because they seem "different" from them. [That's very true. Sarah Palin is clearly the most qualified to be President of the four candidates, yet the resentment of Lefty nihilists because she is "different" won't even let them consider her.]

For what this means is that anyone with expertise, unusual intelligence, mastery, special knowledge, is likely to be rejected by voters who are resentful of "elites." [As an example, mastery of energy issues, expertise in working across the aisle in the Senate, or special knowledge of the nuts and bolts of state and local government. Or the unusual intelligence needed to rise quickly in politics without riding anyones coat-tails, or having an Ivy League education.] This constitutes a rejection of the very idea that it matters if someone is better at something than someone else. [It's a shocking thing. I see it daily here in SF.]

The peculiar thing is that this only applies to politics: Voters who would not dream of taking their car to an incompetent mechanic or their body to an unlicensed physician have no problem electing totally unqualified candidates to perform the most difficult and important job in the world, simply because they identify with them. [The Obama strategy in a nutshell.]

If you are not smart enough to earn a living, become a journalist.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) By Ed Stoddard and Yereth Rosen- Is Sarah Palin a friend or foe of big oil?

As governor of Alaska, she raised taxes on oil companies and clashed with them over a planned pipeline through her state.

But on the fundamental issues of drilling for oil and the environment, her positions look very much like those of the man she seeks to replace: Vice President Dick Cheney...

Personally I consider a comparison with Dick Cheney to be a big compliment. But this really shows desperation by the Media Wing of the DNC.

And stupidity! The world is not divided between "friends and foes of big oil." Oil companies are just businesses, with good points and bad points. The idea that they are reservoirs of mysterious evil, and that any sane person would be "foes" of them is the level of thinking of sociology professors at junior colleges. Or Reuters "journalists." Imagine someone dividing people into friends or foes of "big auto." Pretty stupid, right?

If you are Governor of Alaska, you very much want to have big oil working in your state, but you need to negotiate hard to get the best terms you can. That's what Palin did. She's neither friend nor foe of the oil industry, and I'm sure they don't consider her a friend or a foe. More like a tough but honest business partner. Alaska is in the oil business almost as much as they are. I'd trust any oil company employee over a Reuters hack.

We are nearing the end of eight years of the Bush Administration. I'll take this moment to say, "Thank you Mr Cheney. You are a patriot and a great public servant, and your life should be an inspiration to all real Americans. And the fact that you have attracted the ankle-biting hatred of the pit-Chihuahua's of the nihilist Left is just confirmation of this."

Kooks---fewer than they appear?

I gave my son a ride to SF State this morning, and we were listing to a bit of Rush. And he said that he thought that the kooks who are at the heart of the Democrat Party are really not that great in number, and that their influence is amplified by the Drive-By Media.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. Actually, I hope there's a lot of truth in it. My perspective is probably slanted, living here in SF as an "embedded journalist" within the post-moral Left.

There are surely large numbers of ordinary Americans who vote Democrat because they always have, and because the liberal platitudes seem appealing. But who would recoil in horror if they could eavesdrop on a private conversation between Barack and his pal Bill Ayers.

The Dem Party is sort of like student government on a college campus. Go to almost any college or university in America, and look at student government, and you would guess that the entire school is a glowing fire-pit of anarchism, Marxism, jihadism, La Raza-ism, and environmentalist-wacko-ism. You would think the guy in the picture is the norm.

Actually, 90% of college students pay no attention to "student government" at all. They just want to get their education, plus have some fun. The Leftizoids can take over the student gov because they are the only ones who care! (It's different in High School, where status is the great disideratum. Thank God my kids are all past that!)

Similarly, Obama was nominated on the strength of the votes of caucus-goers (and the infatuation of the media). If all the states had primaries, he would not be the candidate. It's the extremists who care enough to drag themselves out for the lengthy tedium of a caucus.

Evasion ...

....It may seem like ages ago but during the Clinton administration, conservative traditionalists were everywhere. The nuclear family is sacrosanct. Women should shun the workforce and become full-time moms. Kids should obey their parents and, if they choose not to, discipline, including harsh measures, ought to be applied. Sex outside of marriage is strictly forbidden. Our culture is spinning wildly out of control, and sexual liberation, the worst byproduct of the God-awful 1960s, is the cause. And, by the way, abortion is murder and should be forbidden.

All that is left, if the Palin controversy is any indication, is abortion. Palin's defenders, far from being traditionalists, are moral relativists. We should not rush to judgment. It is important to understand the pressures that families face. Love is all you need. Forgive in order to forget. People are entitled to their privacy, even, if not especially, in the bedroom. The state should not be in the business of telling people what to do. It sounds like the language of the left, but it has also had long resonance on the libertarian right. When the McCain campaign said that Bristol Palin had a choice, it was correct. These days we all have choices. The fact that we do has always bothered conservative traditionalists.

Sarah Palin's nomination is a public service. No longer will we hear lectures from the likes of Newt Gingrich telling poor women on welfare how to conduct their sex lives. Focus on the Family will have to focus on a different kind of family. William Bennett has no virtues left to write about. At long last our national nightmare over sexual hypocrisy has come to an end, and we can all thank John McCain for that...

Conservative traditionalists are still everywhere. And one thing sure hasn't changed since the 90's: Leftists like Mr Wolfe are afraid to engage their actual arguments, and instead desperately erect strawmen to tear down.

Mr Gingrich was not "telling poor women on welfare how to conduct their sex lives," (except in the sense that he may have pointed out that certain actions tend to have bad consequences, such as keeping you mired in poverty and welfare dependency.)

His main point, and mine, is that you, Mr Wolfe,YOU, and your fellow Leftists, are destroying human beings by undermining the intricate web of culture and laws and faith and decent entertainment and traditions and hard work that used to encourage people to live their lives well and sensibly.

The Christian view of sin (or at least the Catholic one I was taught) is not that God is a killjoy who doesn't want you to have fun. Rather, he is like your mother when she told you not to poke the knife into the electrical outlet! God says if you do certain things you will suffer bad consequences. That's just the way the Universe works. (Interestingly, the Hebrew word usually translated as "commandments" can also mean "statements." Think of The Ten Statements, and things will be clearer.)

Conservatives want to discourage sin because people�and societies�who try not to sin do better, in both the short and long run. Bristol and Levi are less likely to have successful lives together because they are marrying as teenagers. It is Christian Charity to try to discourage this. To balance this, they have a greater chance of a good future because they are surrounded by a loving and moral community, that will tend to push them towards lives of hard work and honesty and Christian faith. And will discourage them from taking easy outs like abortion and divorce. This has always been our view.

And what do "Conservative traditionalists" think when they think about the Palin's situation? Have they cynically become "moral relativists?" They think three things.

1. That the Palin's may very well have failed somehow, but that they were probably doing their best. Teenagers happen. And there is nothing cynical about making allowances. We Christians expect that we will often fail, and will pick ourselves up and try again. (Catholics, by the way, call this "continuous conversion," and we think it is a much more realistic picturethan the Evangelical "conversion experience.")

2. We know that there is always a painful trade-off in trying to discourage sin (or crime.) Treating the sinner harshly may be less compassionate than it should be towards the individual, but also is more compassionate towards other people who need to be kept from temptation. The shame that used to surround the unwed mother was harsh on her, but also a kindness to all the others who were discouraged from making the same mistake. (And I know what I'm talking about, because I grew up in that old world, which Mr Wolfe sneers at.)

3. We are always bitterly aware that our children have to grow up in a foul nihilist culture that encourages everything that degrades people, and is designed (consciously or un) to atomize society, the better to make us dependent on the state. To break down all the institutions that stand between the individual and government, in order to give power to bureaucracies that just happen (surprise surprise) to be manned almost entirely by leftists like Mr Wolfe.

We are keenly aware that every institution that assaults tradition, morality, religion, patriotism�think Hollywood, the press, the academy, the "arts"�they ALL of them support Mr Obama. If Bristol and Levi sinned, we are well aware that they are surrounded by enemies who have spared no effort to cause their failure.

"in the DNA of the left all along"

I recommend this piece, Why They Hate Her : Sarah Palin is a Smart Missile Aimed at the Heart of the Left, by Jeffrey Bell in The Weekly Standard.

He explains some things that, as usual, I have just been groping towards. In particular, why leftists reacted with instant hatred of Sarah, before we knew anything about her.......except that she has those five children....

....In the short run, most political elites weathered the storm [of the 1960's] . A big reason, the left gradually realized, was that socialist economics had become an albatross. Increasingly, the democratic parties of the left in Western countries downplayed socialism or even decoupled from it, leaving them free to pursue the anti-institutional, relativistic moral crusade that has been in the DNA of the left all along.

This newly revitalized social and cultural agenda made it possible for the left to shrug off the collapse of European communism and the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago. Even in countries like China where the Communist party retained dictatorial power, socialist economics became a thing of the past. Attempts to suppress religion and limit the autonomy of the family did not.

For the post-1960s, post-socialist left, the single most important breakthrough has been the alliance between modern feminism and the sexual revolution. This was far from inevitable. Up until around 1960, attempts at sexual liberation were resisted by most educated women....

....Though earlier versions of feminism tended to embrace children and elevate motherhood, the more adversarial feminism that gained a mass base in virtually every affluent democracy beginning in the 1970s preached that children and childbearing were the central instrumentality of men's subjugation of women. This more than anything else in the menu of the post-socialist left raised toward cultural consensus a vision in which the monogamous family was what prevented humanity from achieving a Rousseau-like "natural" state of freedom from all laws and all bonds of mutual obligation.

If this analysis is correct, the single most important narrative holding the left together in today's politics and culture is the one offered--often with little or no dissent--by adversarial feminism. The premise of this narrative is that for women to achieve dignity and self-fulfillment in modern society, they must distance themselves, not necessarily from men or marriage or childbearing, but from the kind of marriage in which a mother's temptation to be with and enjoy several children becomes a synonym for holding women back and cheating them out of professional success...

...The simple fact of her being a pro-life married mother of five with a thriving political career was--before anything else about her was known--enough for the left and its outliers to target her for destruction. She could not be allowed to contradict symbolically one of the central narratives of the left...

In a sense, Sarah doesn't have to say anything. Her mere existence, her marvelous presence, eclipses many leftish ideas. A slide-show of Sarah pictures makes all sorts of Leftizoid clap-trap suddenly look gray and wispy. Silly. Old. Vegetarianism, Ivy-League superiority, atheist as "Bright," ugly old feminist leader as "liberated," Christians or hunters as "primitive," small-town Americans as dullards.

And there are plenty more. Pacifism and appeasement as having anything to do with peace, for a start. "Community organizer" as serious person. Lofty rhetoric as superior to gritty reality. Biden and Obama as "men of the people."

How you do it, Sarah...I'm mystified. But may God bless you and protect you from your enemies. If you die tomorrow you have already struck a mighty blow for liberty.

Our lives are hectic and frustrating right now, but Charlene and I often just look at each other and start smiling. Or cackling. We hardly need to mention what we are thinking about.

Animals...

AOG notes:

Check out this picture (via Just One Minute). It's a lone policeman, knocked to the ground by a group of thugs at the Republican National Convention with lots of media in the circle. Just count the cameras. How many of them do you think would intervene if the thugs started beating the cop bloody? Any? How many do you think would carefully capture any (however justified) retaliation by the cop or his buddies?

Well, amen to that, brother. For citizens to stand aside and snap pictures when an officer (or anybody) is attacked by criminals is despicable.

Actually, I think about 98% of everything that goes under the name of "protest" is just pure evil. Even such a meritorious cause as the Civil Rights Movement was a witch's-brew of things good and things toxic.

You know, I think I'll just post the photo, as an example of everything I despise:

The photo is credited to a creature named Robert Stolarik of (of course) the NYT. Well Mr Stolarik, you have earned my utmost contempt, along with with all the other fake-journalists in the picture. You do not deserve to live in this great country, if you can stand by cooly as a "disinterested" observer while a citizen is set upon by a mob of hoodlums.

And of course the bogus journalist isn't "disinterested" at all. He hopes that that officer will strike back, so he can snap a picture of "police brutality" and earn his Pulitzer, or some other badge of foulest dishonor and treason. And, as always, help get the Democrat elected. (And if criminals break into his house some night, why, then what will he do? He will...........call the cops! And expect them to risk their lives to protect him.)

McCain should use his nukes...

Guardian:

...Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November. Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin...

I think this is a great issue for McCain and Palin. "Dirty little lefty animals want to destroy the great men and women who have been leading us in wartime" is what he should say. (Of course putting it in more politic language.) "Who will be willing to serve our country in the future if they have to fear being thrown in prison by commie atheists disguised as Dem politicians?" (Same caveat.)

In fact I'd advise him to ask the President to fly out and speak to the convention tonight, just to publicly spit in the eye of the horrid little traitors in the Appeasement Party.

Thanks to Tigerhawk.

Problems should be tidied-away!

This is a good point, thanks to Orrin

When Leftists push the line that Bristol's pregnancy means that Sarah wasn't vetted, it probably makes perfect sense from their viewpoint. They assume a smart politician would have ensured that the little "punishment" slept with the fishes.

Photo thanks to Meghan McCain's blog. Which I recommend highly for its pictures of life on the campaign trail. Piper Palin is a pistol!

That's Todd with Piper and Willow. I don't know who is holding the baby...

Desperately seeking Anita...

Michelle writes:

There's something about outspoken conservative women that drives the left mad. It's a peculiar pathology I've reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democratic circles and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can't help themselves.

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As female Republican officeholders and female conservative public figures have grown in number and visibility, so has the progression of Conservative Female Abuse. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

The first stage of Conservative Female Abuse by the left is infantilization. Right-wing women can't possibly believe what they say they believe about the sanctity of life, self-defense, free markets or foreign policy. They must be submissive little dolls of the White Male Hierarchy. Or, as a far-left (Is there any other kind of left in San Francisco?) San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of first lady Laura Bush, they must be put in their place as "docile doormats" with no brains of their own. True to form, no sooner had John McCain announced Gov. Palin as his veep pick than jeers of "Palin = neocon puppet" sprouted across the Internet....

"They just can't help themselves." That's so true. The Left has reacted as a single entity, instantly.

And stupidly, like all hive-minds. My guess is that the odds are at least 95% that these attacks will backfire big. They are obviously attacks on a quintessentially ordinary American, and there are a lot more ordinary Americans than there are effete Lefty snobs. "Flyover country" goes on for a lonnnnng ways.

Do read Michelle's whole piece. We are going to see tons of this stuff.

Resistance is futile...

The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand By Kleinheider

...The Left will fight this battle as a political debate. They will argue that Bristol Palin proves their assertions about traditionalism. They will lay it out point by point. The evidence will be solid. And their case will make sense — in theory.

But this is not theory, and to a certain extent i'ts not even politics, this is life. Steve Schmidt is not wrong when in reaction to the news he says, “Life happens.” Life does happen. It happens again and again to people in rural America who go to church, work and pray hard. Everyday life happens. Despite their prayers, it happens.

The Left simply misunderstands the Cultural War because they believe that social and religious conservatives think they are perfect people. Rural, working class people know exactly who they are. The Left seems to think that they are somehow breaking the news to social conservatives that sometimes, even often, kids will have sex and get pregnant. Social conservatives know these things. They are not as divorced from reality as they sometimes get painted...

That's exactly what leftists are doing. For instance, by Sally Quinn:

...And now we learn the 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. She and the father of the child plan to marry. This may be a hard one for the Republican conservative family-values crowd to swallow. Of course, this can happen in any family. But it must certainly raise the question among the evangelical base about whether Sarah Palin has been enough of a hands-on mother…

Stupid. Of course she didn't actually ask anyone in the "conservative family-values crowd" what they thought.

I enjoy the thought of liberals waiting and waiting for social conservatives to recoil in horror because sex has reared its unexpected head. Be patient guys, it will take a little while for this to penetrate the thick skulls of the knuckle draggers. Perhaps you should explain it to them more forcefully. Really make a case. Explain that they should surrender to the zeitgeist, that resistance is futile, and that Hollywood knows what's best for their children.

Update: Plus I'm really charmed to see Lefties and "feminists" expressing doubt about the possibility of a woman balancing a family and a career. Lovely, lovely, just lovely.

The future belongs to those who show up for it...

Regarding the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, Hugh Hewitt published this e-mail:

Hugh –

There couldn’t be a clearer difference between conservatives and liberals than this one…

Obama…
“If my daughter makes a mistake, I don’t want her punished with a baby”

Palin…
“As [our daughter] faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

(also… "Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.”)

When I, myself, became pregnant in college, my soon-to-be mother in law (a hard-core liberal Democrat who had openly encouraged me to have un-married sex with her son) expressed her “disappointment” in both of us – and immediately pushed for an abortion. My own mother (a sex-before-marriage-is-sin Catholic) immediately comforted me, affirmed her love for me and said, “There’s always room in our family for another baby.” My husband and I have been JOYFULLY married 21 years and have 4 amazing kids…. What an beautiful gift of love my mother gave me that day!

Babies...Punishment vs. Love. I think I’ll take love...

If your worship yourself, you worship a bloodthirsty god. I've come to think that abortion is the sacrament of the nihilist Left. It is fascinating that abortion (indeed, infanticide) is the one issue where Mr Obama has show some political conviction, and done more than was required by political calculation...

The best joke of the year...

Mark Steyn, of course, sees the joke...

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy...

...Fourth, Governor Palin has what the British Labour Party politician Denis Healy likes to call a "hinterland" - a life beyond politics. Whenever Senator Obama attempts anything non-political (such as bowling), he comes over like a visiting dignitary to a foreign country getting shanghaied into some impenetrable local folk ritual. Sarah Palin isn't just on the right side of the issues intellectually. She won't need the usual stage-managed "hunting" trip to reassure gun owners: she's lived the Second Amendment all her life. Likewise, on abortion, we're often told it's easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.

Fifth, she complicates all the laziest Democrat pieties. Energy? Unlike Biden and Obama, she's been to ANWR and, like most Alaskans, supports drilling there.

Sixth (see Kathleen's link to Craig Ferguson below), I kinda like the whole naughty librarian vibe.

This is the best joke of the year! Maybe the decade. Us intellectual conservatives have been debating about identity politics and leftist nihilism endlessly, without much success. Who reads boring arguments? And we have been thinking John McCain hasn't been really seeing things clearly enough for our taste. But the party-loving wise-cracking flyboy is wiser than we. And the pie in the face of the pompous fat lady---perfect.

Sarah is a joke that everyone can see at a glance. She is worth a thousand issues of National Review...

As I said in a comment to a previous post....

...In postmodern literary terms, what we are doing is subverting the narrative. The text we have presumes a hierarchical distinction of canonical forms whose dialectic cannot be resolved without inverting the bourgeois typos and collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm.

In other words, we are playing with your heads, you silly stuffed-shirts...

Mooseburgers!!!!

Palinesques....

Jay Nordlinger writes, at The Corner:

Will Sarah P. be considered a woman — by the media, by the “chattering classes”? That is a question worth pondering. Possibly, she’ll be considered just a conservative Republican. Did anyone ever consider Mrs. Thatcher a woman — in a political-electoral context? Are black conservatives considered black? Are Cuban Americans considered Hispanic?

One of my favorite facts about a recent Supreme Court case had to do with this last question. The case was the University of Michigan Law School case (relating to race preferences). According to documents submitted, an admissions officer questioned whether Cubans should be counted as Hispanic, saying, “Don’t they vote Republican?”....

The feminazis will hate her like poison, and will try to say she's not a "real woman." Good luck with that!

Lexington Green:

....In fact, as I think about it, this is the first moment when I have not been absolutely certain McCain would lose.

McCain is also showing, as he has generally, that he is very aggressive and confident, almost cocky. His congratulation message to Obama was classic. It showed class and it showed fearlessness, and a certain condescension to Obama. It reminds me of David Hackett Fischer’s depiction of the Backcountry selection process for leaders: Tanistry. The Border Scots selected a Thane based on age, strength and cunning, not mere seniority. McCain is a backcountryman by ancestry. They are wily and they are fighters. McCain already seems to be inside Obama’s OODA loop. Making this pick the day after the Donk convention, to steal the buzz, is tactically perfect.

Apparently Palin talks like a hick. She calls herself a “momma” unironically, instead of a mom or a mother. This will cause her to be mocked and jeered at in states the GOP is already going to lose. But it cannot hurt with blue collar voters in WV, OH, PA and MI, which are states Obama could lose....

I don't think Lex quite gets America, if he thinks an old Jacksonian is at a natural disadvantage. Inside his OODA Loop, yeah. Yesterday a graceful congratulation to Barack, then less than 24 hours later, Ker-Whaaap! Ha ha ha. So who do you like, the tough sneaky old fighter or Mr Nuance from Harvard?

And Palin will be mocked as a hick? I can't wait. There are few better indicators of political success in the USA.

Ladyblog: "She has children named “Track”, “Bristol”, and “Willow”. It’s like NASCAR meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer..."

Looks like someone hit a nerve....

From a "Daily Kos" diarist:

...The recent William Ayers ad plays on the theme of Obama-is-the-enemy and highlights the Republican platform in 2008. Some Republican Billionaire and accomplice of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth paid for the Ayers ad

Fortunately for us, the Obama campaign is making good on its promise to prevent McSame's efforts to extend the reign of Bush through the same old lies and tricks.

From Politico: Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,”

Furthermore, the Obama camp has also written 2 letters to news networks

Here is the key of the whole article from Politico and the essence of the message from our most excellent Presidential nominee:

"The Obama campaign plans to punish the stations that air the ad financially, an Obama aide said, organizing his supporters to target the stations that air it and their advertisers."....

Wow! Something tells me there's more to this Ayers story than we've heard yet. Maybe stuff like this, by Jonah Goldberg:

....Consider Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and the co-host of Obama's career-launching fundraiser. When she was in the Weather Underground she was one of those members typically fascinated with Charles Manson (I discuss this briefly in my book). Speaking of Manson's famous murders she exclaimed, "Dig It! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” In appreciation, her Weather Underground cell made a threefingered “fork” gesture its official salute...

Dig It!

Same old same old...

Same lefty BS I've been hearing all my adult life---the little jabs about how [insert communist/socialistic country] does something or other better than America. Cuba has wonderful health care, people of X truly enjoy life, Euro product Y has je ne sais quoi, Chinesians don't suffer from individualism... Little jabs and sneers always delivered with a certain glow of satisfaction....

Here's a recent one from Barackmo:

Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics , Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a coporation deciding where to do business you're starting to think, "Beijing looks like a pretty good option."

Well, Mr O, China recently had an earthquake. And hundreds of schools collapsed, killing thousands of children. But government buildings did NOT collapse--they were well built. And people like me were outraged and horrified. THAT'S what WE think about when the topic of Chinese infrastructure comes up.

And I think we can guess now that it's not what YOU think of when that subject comes up.

To understand the Left, read Lewis Carroll...

So who's blocking "alternative power?" "Renewable energy?" Greens. Leftists. Democrats. No surprise there; once you abandon the use of logic, anything is possible...

WSJ, August 18, 2008: Wind Jammers

In this year's great energy debate, Democrats describe a future when the U.S. finally embraces the anything-but-carbon avant-garde. It turns out, however, that when wind and solar power do start to come on line, they face a familiar obstacle: environmentalists and many Democrats.

To wit, the greens are blocking the very transmission network needed for renewable electricity to move throughout the economy. The best sites for wind and solar energy happen to be in the sticks -- in the desert Southwest where sunlight is most intense for longest, or the plains where the wind blows most often. To exploit this energy, utilities need to build transmission lines to connect their electricity to the places where consumers actually live. In addition to other technical problems, the transmission gap is a big reason wind only provides two-thirds of 1% of electricity generated in the U.S., and solar one-tenth of 1%.

Only last week, Duke Energy and American Electric Power announced a $1 billion joint venture to build a mere 240 miles of transmission line in Indiana necessary to accommodate new wind farms. Yet the utilities don't expect to be able to complete the lines for six long years -- until 2014, at the earliest, because of the time necessary to obtain regulatory approval and rights-of-way, plus the obligatory lawsuits.

In California, hundreds turned out at the end of July to protest a connection between the solar and geothermal fields of the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles and Orange County. The environmental class is likewise lobbying state commissioners to kill a 150-mile link between San Diego and solar panels because it would entail a 20-mile jaunt through Anza-Borrego state park. "It's kind of schizophrenic behavior," Arnold Schwarzenegger said recently. "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere."....

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Besotted with the candidate...

Walter Shapiro:

...Five days after Edwards flat-lined on "Nightline," I am still embarrassed by how badly I misjudged him both in print and in my personal feelings.

Beginning with a trip to North Carolina in the spring of 2001 to scout this first-term Senate phenom, I chronicled his dogged pursuit of the presidency both as a newspaper columnist and for Salon, as well as making him (and Elizabeth) central figures in my book on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. My wife (a magazine writer who developed her own friendship with Elizabeth) and I had several off-the-record dinners with the Edwardses, including an emotionally raw evening in Washington two weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

Without overstating these bonds, I naively believed that I knew Edwards as well as I understood anyone in the political center ring. Yet I never saw this sex scandal coming -- partly because I accepted the mythology that surrounded the Edwardses' marriage and partly because I assumed that any hint of a wandering eye would have come out during the 2004 campaign. But then Rielle Hunter and the National Enquirer brought us all into the real world...

What malarky. You were besotted with Edwards because he was (or was pretending to be) a liberal Democrat. And Edwards almost certainly paid flattering attention to the guy who was writing a book about his campaign. You dolt, Edwards and his wife almost certainly coldly planned how to woo you, and knew what your weaknesses are. That's what trial lawyers do with a jury. They study every scrap of information available on each juryman, and, like chameleons, tailor the message, and paint their very selves, to fit them. (I know about this stuff; my dear wife's on the other side, the good side, fighting scoundrels like Edwards every day.)

Everybody who retained any objectivity could see that he was a phony, and were not surprised by this. When a guy talks populism and green-ism while building the biggest mansion in the county, there's a 99% chance that he's a sham. When a guy spends minutes in front of a mirror fluffing his hairdo, there's a 99% chance that he will not resist the sexual temptations available to a celebrity.

And when you make millions as a trial lawyer, it means you are skilled at convincing people of things that just ain't so.

Most importantly, what you are comes out in your life. If you are real, then a presidential campaign will bring lots of stories to the surface, from people who were impressed with the candidate's actions long before they could be helpful in any campaign. If Edwards really cared about that poor little girl supposedly shivering because she could not afford a coat, he would have been spending time working with groups who help the poor. And doing so long ago, before it might gain him any advantage. (And if Shapiro were a real journalist he would have taken note that cheap coats are available at any thrift store, and that people just give old coats away by the ton. The story was always bogus.)

Of course every candidate has to be something of a fake, and present himself in a contrived way. But there should be some congruence between the campaign persona and the real man or woman. Bush wasn't faking his love of sports; he bought, with great difficulty, a team. He wasn't just pretending to be a Texan, he showed it by frequently escaping to the Texas summer heat, to the dismay of reporters. And there have been plenty of stories about him caring for the ordinary people far beyond what the photo-op required. (Read this, for instance.)

Update: Also, a candidate has an obligation to his party and his supporters. An obligation to campaign in the best way he can, so as not to waste the donations and energy that have been given to him. To not squander the belief that simple people have. Building a mansion while playing the populist card was a betrayal in this sense. He could have just waited a few years, but self-indulgence ruled. He was openly betraying millions of supporters, and that should have been a wake-up for poor Mr Shapiro.

I could be wrong...

Russia has invaded Georgia. So where are the giant puppets?

Where is the "anti-war" movement? Where the protests?

Perhaps they just haven't had time to get organized yet. I walked past the Russian consulate on Green Street today, and all was sleepy.

But perhaps the "pacifists" just need a few days to gin up the protest machinery. Right?

It would be wrong to judge them harshly so early in the game. Wrong to indulge my suspicion that they are horrid frauds who are only anti-America, and don't give a damn if distant foreigners live or die.

Perhaps they will surprise me.....

Analogy to the Inquisition...

I got another e-mail on the subject of the Inquisition, in response to my post here.

...I'm OK with people calling some beliefs heresy, but killing people for it just feels over the line, especially for someone saying they are fully authorized agent of Jesus. If that's what being a Catholic is, that's a deal breaker for me. Is it still OK to kill heretics?...

No. Absolutely not. And to a considerable extant it never was. I don't think this was ever a part of Catholic dogma or doctrine.

What you have to realize is that until recently religions were the "political" groups. And a person who secretly believed something different from the state religion was often a political danger. Someone who would fight in a rebellion, or assassinate the monarch. If you read a bit about the Wars of Religion, you will see a lot this. There was back then no concept of a "loyal opposition." (In the religious sphere that's actually something that developed in the 17th and 18th Centuries out of the bloodbath of the Thirty Years War.)

And many accounts of the Inquisitions don't give you that context. They leave you to imagine that a bunch of cruel Dominicans were simply imposing their religion on peaceful folk, when in fact the real movers were usually governments worried (often with good reason) about fifth-columnists.

There is something of an analogy in what the Communists in the earlier 20th Century were to us. A Communist back then was NOT just someone with a different philosophy, he was often a secret agent for Lenin or Stalin. For the Comintern. If an American "converted" to Communism, there was a good likelihood that he would no longer be loyal to our country, and might work actively to subvert it. A splendid book to read, to understand the period, is Witness, by Whittaker Chambers.

This justified measures that were not normally acceptable in American tradition. It has never been right in America to blacklist or harass people because of their political beliefs. The "McCarthy Era" is often portrayed by liars as if it were just that, but in fact it was about hunting down people who were secret agents of a totalitarian conspiracy. One that was responsible for at least 100 million deaths in the 20th Century. Of course many of those who were harassed were not working for the Soviet Union, and had no real desire for the triumph of tyranny.

Innocent people were persecuted. BUT, the responsibility for this rests entirely on those traitors who concealed themselves among those who were, as you might say, "loyal communists." If someone was dragged in to testify before HUAC, and maybe had their career ruined, they usually are portrayed by liberal historians as people who were crushed by America, by cruel red-baiters, etc.

Bullshit. The responsibility rests with those who were hiding among them, using them as cover for their attempts to destroy our country. The most famous of these of course was Alger Hiss. And due to the fall of the Soviet Union we now have access to archives that show that Hiss was in fact a Soviet spy. But for 50 years he was pictured by cynical leftists as an "innocent victim" of men like Chambers and Richard Nixon. In fact the opposite was true. Hiss was guilty as hell, and was working hard to give us our own American Gulag Archipelago. And Chambers and Nixon were true American heroes, fighting ugly subversion with necessary roughness.

The "McCarthy Era" is usually portrayed as a period of madness, and analogized to the Salem witch trials. (Or the Inquisition!) The difference is that in the 20th Century there really were witches, and if they had achieved their ends people like you and me might be routinely rounded up at gunpoint and sent on that long march to nowhere....

"under the skin of the post-moral left"

I was just rummaging deep in the archives and found this quote from Melanie Phillips, which bears posting again, since it is very close to certain of my own themes...

...Such people often think of themselves as liberals. But authentic liberalism is very different. For it was at its core a moral project, based on the desire to suppress the bad and promote the good in the belief that a better society could and should be built. What has happened in recent decades is that this moral core which upholds social norms and discriminates against values that threaten them has been replaced by a post-modern creed of the left, which has tried to destroy all external authority and moral norms and the institutions that uphold them, and replace them by an individualist, moral free-for-all —the creed which has led to the moral relativism and denial of truth that lie at the core of the anti-war movement.

Where Sullivan is absolutely right is to call Bush a liberal. For in repudiating the corrupted values of both the post-moral left and the reactionary appeasers of the right, Bush has indeed exhibited the classic liberal desire to build a better society, along with the characteristic liberal optimism that such a project can and must succeed.

And this is surely why Bush is so hated by the left. For this hatred wildly exceeds the normal dislike of a political opponent. It is as visceral and obsessive as it is irrational. At root, this is surely because Bush has got under the skin of the post-moral left in a way no true conservative ever would. And this is because he has stolen their own clothes and revealed them to be morally naked. He has exposed the falseness of their own claim to be liberal. He has revealed them instead to be reactionaries, who want both to preserve the despotic and terrorist status quo abroad and to go with the flow of social and moral collapse at home, instead of fighting all these deformities and building a better society....

Send the worms to the mud.

An Affair of Honor, by James Bowman

There is something screamingly funny about the media’s lecturing John McCain about the impropriety of his saying in New Hampshire last week that "This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." Joe Klein of Time wrote: "This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad." Sad? I’ll just bet he’s shedding tears about it. Likewise David Wright of ABC News, who said to Senator McCain in an interview: "But what you seem to be saying there is that it's all about personal ambition for him and not about what he honestly thinks is right for the country."

For the last five years and upwards, the media have been saying as scurrilous things or worse about President Bush, and routinely reporting without comment or challenge the words of his fiercest critics — who accuse him of "lying" in order to take the country to war in Iraq. In all that time, I cannot recall an occasion when a reporter came back at one of those critics with the suggestion that the president might have gone to war in good faith and therefore on behalf of "what he honestly thinks is right for the country."...

There is a special deep noxious level in Hell waiting for the nihilist worms who claimed that "Bush lied," when he was saying the very same things that all major Dem leaders said, and all the leaders of the major nations said, and all the intelligence services of the major nations said...

John Yoo should be shot for this....

(Thanks to Tim B)

The lawyers for the Bali bombers plan to lodge a constitutional court challenge against the way their clients are to be executed...

...Lawyer Mahendra Data said that because their clients may be shot twice before they are dead, there is a potential for them to experience pain...[link].

They "might experience pain!" How dreadful. How barbaric! What is the world coming to? (It's all Bush's fault, torturing people around the globe, just because they want to blow people into bloody shreds of hamburger.)

But talk about "Western cultural imperialism" corrupting the indigenous cultures of the world. Now we got crazed Islamic killers going the ACLU route. (They should never have let in KFC.) Hey stupes, you are supposed to be MARTYRS!

Questions for Samantha...

I was thinking of fisking this piece, The Democrats & National Security, by Samantha Power, in New York Review of Books. There's lots to correct, but really, the piece is self-contradictory; there's no point in attacking it. In fact it's kind of comical, in the way it misses the essence of the subject.

It's about the possibility of Democrats reversing the traditional Republican advantage among voters on national security issues and military matters. But all the arguments and assumptions of the article are leftist arguments and assumptions. It amounts to saying that ordinary Americans will trust Dems with national security any minute now---as soon as we start thinking like the people who subscribe to the NY Review of Books.

To be trusted on defense, it's not enough to have a clever policy. There's a certain other quality one must possess...

Samantha, dear, let me ask you a few questions. When was the last time you got a lump in your throat when you heard The Star Spangled Banner? Hmmm? Or when thinking of Pearl Harbor, or the Bataan Death March? When was the last time you were outraged because a hero who was given the Medal of Honor was ignored by the press? Eh? When was the last time you said that the President should be given honor and respect as Commander in Chief, even if one disagrees with his politics?

And your friends. When accusations are made, how often do they give American troops the benefit of the doubt? How often do they suspect that the grunts probably acted correctly, and are being smeared by the press? And is their first instinct to support our leaders in time of war? And what do you kids do on Memorial Day to honor those who have fallen in service of our country? On what days do you fly our flag?

When you hear, Samantha, of someone taking a job in Iraq, or joining the reserves, do you feel envious? Hmmm? Like us ordinary Americans do? And maybe a little bit guilty that you are not also standing on Freedom's Wall?

Is "Freedom's Wall" a phrase you would feel comfortable using? Comfortable among your friends? And your readers at the NY Review of Books? Hmmm? You know, the sort of Democrats who are going to, as you say: "advance a distinct twenty-first-century foreign policy that voters will prefer and trust them to execute?" That doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it? Wouldn't it be more poetic to say that you are going to "Stand on Freedom's Wall and defend America?"

Try saying that. Say it out loud. Among your pals. Try it on for size, since you are "auditioning," shall we say, for the part of "trusted with national security."

Or say this:

“We in this country, in this generation, are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of ‘peace on earth, goodwill toward men.’ That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago, ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

It was a Democrat who said that. Can you say it?

Thoughts to think by the gas pump...

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management today published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States....

...The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is only publishing proposed regulations at this time because the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 prohibits the agency from using FY2008 funds to prepare or publish final regulations. The President has called on Congress to remove the ban on finalizing oil shale program regulations...

...The largest known deposits of oil shale are located in a 16,000-square mile area in the Green River formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Shale formations in that area hold the equivalent of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Federal lands comprise 72 percent of the total surface of oil shale acreage in the Green River formation....

That is to say, in plain English, that Democrats are blocking the extraction of petroleum in the US. How much petroleum? 800 billion barrels...what does number that mean? Hmmm? Well children, the human race has used, to date, about 1 trillion barrels of oil. So the Green River Formation, by itself, is equal to about 80% of all the oil we've ever used on earth. Arabia ain't in it!

Why am I not surprised?

So now we discover that most of the "homeless" who infest San Francisco's streets aren't homeless at all...

A long overdue civil grand jury report released Wednesday says that the city should be proud of getting over 4,000 homeless people into housing since 2004 but distressed at the scene on the streets.

Panhandling, public drunkenness and street loitering are still an unpleasant reality downtown.

The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing.

"We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's Stuart Smith. "Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn't address the problem."

In short, the jury is reflecting the views of many San Franciscans who made the choice to live here. They understood that housing and taxes would be higher, and so would the cost of a meal in a restaurant. They understand and believe that the city needs to provide for its poorest homeless residents and don't begrudge what the grand jury says is $186 million a year in city funds spent to finance homeless programs.

But, they ask, can't someone stop the panhandling? And, given all the programs and services, is it unreasonable to ask those who are being given supportive housing to start making some effort to be self-sufficient?....

It's unreasonable to ask if you are a liberal.

More lies from our "intellectual elites"

Remember all theose sob-stories about how America is responsible for the destruction of Iraq's treasures? They've mostly turned out to be dirty lies. Now another one bites the dust....

So Much for the 'Looted Sites' By MELIK KAYLAN, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2008; Page D9
A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists from the U.S. and U.K. who specialize in Mesopotamia found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites -- eight of them -- had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news.

Up to now, it had seemed a clear-cut case. It stood to reason that a chaotic land rich with artifacts would be easy to loot and plunder. Ergo, the accusations against the U.S., the de facto governing authority, had been taken on faith. No one had bothered to challenge the reports, the evidence or the logic, not least because many ancient sites were in hostile terrain and couldn't be double-checked. By implication, the U.S. had been blamed for that too: After all, the presiding authority is effectively responsible for allowing no-go areas to exist where such things can occur.

Yet, paradoxically, there always was thought to be enough evidence to adduce blame. "We believe that every major site in Southern Iraq is in serious danger," Donny George, the former head of the Baghdad Museum, was quoted as saying in the New York Times in 2003. A recent book by Lawrence Rothfield of the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Institute carried the estimate that, every year, roughly 10% of Iraq's heritage was being destroyed.

One of the foremost specialists who went on the trip, Elizabeth Stone from Stony Brook University, actually quantified the damage with the help of satellite images -- just before going. Alarmingly, and prematurely it seems, she concluded that nearly 10 miles of land had been looted and hundreds of thousands of objects had been taken. Confident statistics of this kind have been regularly tossed around, yet one wonders how such calculations can be made, not least by viewing the remains of illicit digs from satellite pictures. When looters attacked the Baghdad Museum in 2003, the news media put the number of destroyed and looted objects at 170,000 -- a figure equal to the entire collection. It emerged later that most of the important pieces had been successfully hidden away. Others were soon found. The number of missing objects that is cited has since fluctuated between 3,000 and 15,000, with the figure never taking into account the systematic semiofficial looting and frequent substituting with fakes that occurred in Saddam's time.

Considering the political impact of such data, one would expect the experts to approach the subject with scientific circumspection, using numbers sparingly and conservatively. Too often they seem to have done the reverse. So now, as a matter of course, their method, their probity in sifting the evidence -- do they have a political agenda? -- has come into question...

OF COURSE they have a political agenda. They are America-hating Bush-hating lefty liars. Like a lot of academics, they are dishonorable scoundrels who will bend the evidence to fit the political agenda.

Neither tough nor principled...

Joe Lieberman responds...

...Senator Obama this morning said that he wants a foreign policy that is “tough, smart, and principled.” This afternoon, I ask: was it tough when Senator Obama voted to order U.S. forces to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline—regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders, regardless of conditions on the ground? Was it smart when Senator Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve security? Was it principled when Senator Obama said that he would order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq, regardless of the humanitarian consequences for millions of innocent Iraqis—even genocide? Was it tough and principled when Senator Obama said he would be open to changing his plan for Iraq after going there and talking to General Petraeus—only to change that position a few hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like Moveon.org? I say respectfully, the answer to all of those questions is no.

Senator Obama also said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that recognizes that we have interests “not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London.” But what Senator Obama does not seem to recognize is that—in an interdependent world—what happens in Baghdad affects our interests in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London. What Senator Obama does not seem to understand is that—had we taken the course he had counseled and retreated from Iraq—the United States would have suffered a catastrophic defeat that would have left America and our allies less safe not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London...

Thank you Senator Joe...

It is good to remember that ALL our big Twentieth Century wars were Democrat wars. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam... and in ALL of the them Republicans supported America as a LOYAL opposition. This was hard for us, because we had to refrain from many of the criticisms that might have helped us politically. For instance, we've been hearing Democrats howling about mistakes made by the Administration. Well, the mistakes made in the Democrat wars dwarf anything that's happened now. There were mistakes that caused casualties in the tens-of-thousands, in the space of weeks or days. But no Republican leader undermined our war efforts by publicly pillorying the administration.

To be loyal in war time does not mean "no criticism,' but it does mean only constructive criticism within the context of general support for our country and the success of our military.

The Iraq Campaign is not "Bush's war," it is America's war. It was voted for by the Congress of the United States of America. Once that happens, to undermine our troops, to undercut our war efforts for mere political advantage is treason. Sorry, I know that's a harsh word. But I'm a very minor blogger, not influential, and I don't have any reason to pussyfoot.

What the Dems have been doing is treason. What Obama is doing is treason. To encourage our enemies by publicly promising retreat is treason. And, of a certainty, these actions have killed, and will continue to kill, American troops. The blood of our soldiers is on their hands.

To vote Democrat at this particular time is to vote for traitors. It is morally wrong.

Slippery deal...

Dafydd has a good post on some attempted "legislation by bureaucrats" that leftists tried to slip under the radar...

...Today, President George W. Bush did something that shocked some of us: With a sweep of his presidential hand, he rejected the attempt by a low-level advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency to force the administration to regular carbon dioxide (which we all exhale) as a "pollutant," defying both the Democrats and the Supreme Court...

Good for him.

This was, of course, an attempt by Democrats/collectivists to create an "establishment" of their (Global Warmist) religion. Without of course allowing voters any say in the matter, and without requiring the Dems in Congress to actually stand up for something and pass legislation. (Too bad they didn't try, it would be fun to watch them write into law that your every exhalation is destroying the planet, and your breath is an affront to Gaia. Hey, they could market an abortifacient mouthwash!)

Thank you President Bush. (Though how I wish, as always, that George W Bush were a communicator, and could take on these evils in open conflict, asking the American people for help and understanding. But that isn't Bush.)

The self-described "tolerant."

Andrew Breitbart writes in the Washington Times about Republicans staying in the closet in Hollywood: Spielberg, Tear Down This Wall:

....While it is true that the ratio of Obama-to-McCain bumper stickers in West L.A. is about 250-to-1, there are untold closet Republicans in the entertainment industry who dare not advertise their beliefs in movie studio parking lots. (Unfortunately, car keying is a tactic wielded liberally by the self-described "tolerant.")

But in this land of superficiality and augmented assets, the inconvenient truth is that, in Hollywood, absolute conformity to the Democratic Party is a well-constructed facade. The environment is not so much unfavorable to the Grand Old Party as it is utterly totalitarian. There's simply no lifestyle choice that receives a worse response at dinner parties.

Convicted murderer? Has anyone optioned the rights to your story?

Avowed Marxist? Viva la revolucion!

Scientologist? Do you take Visa or Mastercard?

Syphilitic drug abuser? Let's talk!

Conservative? You should go.

Only proclaiming one's self a practicing Christian is met with greater disdain - making Christian Republicans the gold standard in Hollywood pariah status...

....When asked recently what it was like to work with "Republican" Clint Eastwood (the question speaks volumes), Angelina Jolie, a "surge" supporter who also wants to produce Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," surprised Entertainment Weekly with her answer: "Actually, we don't disagree as much as you'd think. I think people assume I'm a Democrat. But I'm registered independent and I'm still undecided. So I'm looking at McCain as well as Obama."

You hedge, girl....

Dangerous if provoked

Paul at PowerLine:

A new Gallup poll on religious belief and preference for president contains much to reflect upon. Like David Hazony, I took particular note of the views of Jewish voters. According to the poll, Jews who see religion as important in their daily lives make up 39 percent of the Jewish vote (an interesting fact in itself). These voters divide evenly between McCain and Obama. However, among the remaining 61 percent, Obama trounces McCain, 68 to 26 percent. When you add it all up, McCain gets about 33 percent of the Jewish vote, compared to 24 percent for President Bush in 2004.

You might think that even Jewish voters for whom their religion isn't terribly important would have serious reservations about a candidate who worshipped for 20 years under the spiritual guidance of a raving hater of Israel, and who himself apparently sympathizes with the Palestinians and, at least until political considerations intervened, favored transforming U.S. Middle East policy accordingly. But it seems that they don't, and I can't say I'm surprised.

I found the 39% surprising also. But otherwise, nope, no surprise.

The two countries Leftists hate are Israel and America. (They usually don't admit it, but watch how their eyes light up when an excuse to criticize those countries comes.) This doesn't make much sense until you realize (because you read Random Jottings) that most leftists or "liberals" are really nihilists. They no longer believe in anything bigger than themselves. And what the nihilist hates is belief. It is an irritant, in a way analogous to how you might be irritated by some snooty person assuming they are socially superior to you, for no discernible reason. The nihilist senses that the believer has a certain je ne sais quoi, but what is it? He suspects we may be laughing at him. Yes, we are.

Israel and America are perpetual irritants to Leftists, because they symbolize belief. They do so in the most concrete way, by being willing to fight for themselves and their interests. They are the only remaining developed Western nations of whom it can be said, "Dangerous if provoked." (And the same irritation extends to the religious belief itself. The term "fundamentalist" is flung around promiscuously.)

A large part of secular Jews fit that category, and they are not going to be much bothered that Obama tends to surround himself with Jew-haters. (Who, if challenged on their anti-Semitism, probably reply, "I'm not one of those anti-Semites who thinks the Jews are secretly controlling the world for their own benefit. I'm just pointing out that ISRAEL is secretly controlling the world for its own benefit.")

The flip-side of the story...

NY Daily News:

A young undercover city detective spent four years in the shadowy world of terrorist wanna-bes - taking part in jihadist discussions and training in parks in the dead of night - to get a handle on the homegrown threat.

At great personal risk, he participated in everything from prayers at a mosque to martial arts training under cover of darkness to watching jihadist videos, with many of the activities laced with talk of killing, according to a source familiar with the undercover's investigations.

His experiences paint a vivid portrait of the potential for local terror. While the picture is in no way indicative of the city's Muslim population as a whole, it provides insight into its most radical element.

The detective spent his time interacting with informal groups of youths and men who shared extremist views - and his experiences illustrate what police say is the potential for radicalization of some elements in the community.

He reported that after prayers at a neighborhood mosque, there were often private classes that included discussions about bombing different areas.

The men discussed violent jihad in bookstores, private houses and on buses en route to paintball and shooting-range events.
He was invited to join in "bonding" activities like working out at a gym and martial arts training in parks at night, during which the group discussed ideological justifications for killing Westerners....

It's good to be aware of things like this.

But, as always, what really interests me is the invisible flip-side to the story. If you think of radical Islam as a pressure, tending to expand and grow, there is also a partial vacuum that is encouraging that growth. Drawing it forth.

Let me ask you, why isn't this kind of story in the NYT or the WaPo? It would sell papers. It would be good for business. Why? It is because they and their readers don't want to know.

Leftists often complain about how Bush is destroying the Constitution to wage perpetual war, etc etc blah blah. But if you know anything about our history you know that what is conspicuously absent in this war is tough quasi-lawless action against domestic subversion. If Bush had been acting like Abraham Lincoln (scaled-up to our greater population) there would have been tens-of-thousands of suspicious characters imprisoned, beat-up, roughed-up, kicked-out, disappeared, or hanged at Gitmo. "Terrorist wanna-bes" wouldn't dare go from a mosque to "paintball and shooting-range events." And I say that it is the absence of that fear that is like a vacuum drawing-out violence and terrorism.

My point here is not about whether we should be doing such stuff (that's a different topic), my point is that there is that there is something missing in the souls of maybe 30 or 40 percent of Americans, such that they are repelled by the thought of taking decisive and tough action in defense of our country (and won't give it political support). Something that wasn't missing before. Wilson and FDR were liberals, but they never hesitated to take ruthless action in defense of our nation. Wilson for instance shut down hundreds of newspapers.

And my theory, which I've often mentioned, that it is really the absence of ALL belief that we see here. That most liberals today aren't liberals at all, they are nihilists. That belief in anything (except themselves, and perhaps family) has drained away, leaving them like HD Wells' Invisible Man, wrapping themselves in bandages to conceal their emptiness.

It's not only liberals who are running on empty, but "liberalism" is the most useful set of bandages right now. It allows one to puff up the all-important self without demanding any real commitment. Liberal or New-Age religios now performs the same function. To inflate the ego by being too "spiritually advanced" to believe in anything.

Minor fisking...feel free to skip...

It's silly of me to waste time fisking a Boston Globe editorial, but it's my equivalent of watching mindless TV shows when too tired to do anything constructive. This one's from a week ago, which makes it doubly absurd, since Obam's flip-flops have already made it obsolete...

FEW AMERICANS, whatever their political persuasion, will mourn George W. Bush's departure from office. [Me will. And I bet lots of others, once they get a load of whoever comes next.] Democrats and Republicans alike are counting the days until the inauguration of a new president will wipe the slate clean.

Yet in crucial respects, the Bush era will not end Jan. 20, 2009. The administration's many failures, especially those related to Iraq, [where we are trouncing al-Qaeda, ha ha!] mask a considerable legacy. Among other things, the Bush team has accomplished the following:

• Defined the contemporary era as an "age of terror" with an open-ended "global war" as the necessary, indeed the only logical, response; [It is the logical response.]
• Promulgated and implemented a doctrine of preventive war, thereby creating a far more permissive rationale for employing armed force; [It's about time! It was appeasement and reluctance to squash terrorists that got us INTO this war.]
• Affirmed - despite the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001 - that the primary role of the Department of Defense is not defense, but power projection; [Neither—the job is to fight such wars as we happen to get into. In fact we should go back to the old name: Dept. of War.]
• Removed constraints on military spending so that once more, as Ronald Reagan used to declare, "defense is not a budget item"; [Actually, as a % of GDP our defense budget is much lower than Reagan's. But defeating the Evil Empire was a bigger job than chasing rag-head banditti.]
• Enhanced the prerogatives of the imperial presidency on all matters pertaining to national security, effectively eviscerating the system of checks and balances; [Well, Congress keeps giving Bush what he asks for...is that what you mean?]
• Preserved and even expanded the national security state, despite the manifest shortcomings of institutions such as the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff; [So you advocate abolishing them? I could get behind that idea.]
• Preempted any inclination to question the wisdom of the post-Cold War foreign policy consensus, founded on expectations of a sole superpower exercising "global leadership"; [Does this sentence even make sense? I'm sure it adds up to Europe-Good America-Bad, but how to parse it I don't know.]
• Completed the shift of US strategic priorities away from Europe and toward the Greater Middle East, the defense of Israel having now supplanted the defense of Berlin as the cause to which presidents and would-be presidents ritually declare their fealty. [Defending Berlin? From what? ]

By almost any measure, this constitutes a record of substantial, if almost entirely malignant, achievement.

Bush's harshest critics, left liberals as well as traditional conservatives, have repeatedly called attention to this record. That criticism has yet to garner mainstream political traction. [Maybe 'cause he's just doing what the situation obviously demands] Throughout the long primary season, even as various contenders in both parties argued endlessly about Iraq, they seemed oblivious to the more fundamental questions raised by the Bush years: whether global war makes sense as an antidote to terror, [it does] whether preventive war works, [it does] whether the costs of "global leadership" are sustainable, [easily] and whether events in Asia rather than the Middle East just might determine the course of the 21st century. [Too late, pal. They are already on the Globalization train. They will be assimilated.]

Now only two candidates remain standing. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both insist that the presidential contest will mark a historic turning point. Yet, absent a willingness to assess in full all that Bush has wrought, the general election won't signify a real break from the past. [You poor booby. Bush has set the template for a generation to come. It won't matter who's president, you'll still be stuck with him, just like the Brits are tuck with Thatcher. And the template is rejection of nihilism. That means rejection of YOU. The USA is rejecting you.]

The burden of identifying and confronting the Bush legacy necessarily falls on Obama. Although for tactical reasons McCain will distance himself from the president's record, he largely subscribes to the principles informing Bush's post-9/11 policies. McCain's determination to stay the course in Iraq expresses his commitment not simply to the ongoing conflict there, but to the ideas that gave rise to that war in the first place. While McCain may differ with the president on certain particulars, his election will affirm the main thrust of Bush's approach to national security. [And he WILL be elected. And you appeasers will be rejected.]

The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict. [it's hilarious to fisk this thing a week late, with Obama now slithering towards the Bush center with such alacrity!]

By showing that Bush has put the country on a path pointing to permanent war, ever increasing debt and dependency, and further abuses of executive authority, Obama can transform the election into a referendum on the current administration's entire national security legacy. [Legacy = victory.] By articulating a set of principles that will safeguard the country's vital interests, both today and in the long run, at a price we can afford [We SO poor.....you wish.] while preserving rather than distorting the Constitution, [You should research what Lincoln Wilson and FDR did in their wars! Bush ain't in it.] Obama can persuade Americans to repudiate the Bush legacy and to choose another course. [which would be.....LOSING! Yeah, Run on it, Barack baby!]

This is a stiff test, not the work of a speech or two, but of an entire campaign. Whether or not Obama passes the test will determine his fitness for the presidency. [Well, looks like he's not fit.]

How to lie like a journalist #2338

Here's an interesting article on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's claim that terrorism has been defeated in his country.

But, slipped into the second half of the article is something that seems newsworthy enough for its own article: AP Exclusive: U.S. Removes Uranium From Iraq. It's about how Iraq is shipping Saddam's yellowcake Uranium to Canada, where a company has purchased it for peaceful use.

That's sneaky. And typical. Leftists really really need to downplay the simple fact that Saddam was indeed pursuing nuclear weapons, and had said openly that they were intended for use against Jews. This obvious truth puts those who opposed his overthrow in the same moral position as anyone who tried to prevent us from stopping Hitler from killing Jews.

But what I found especially interesting were the last two sentences, because they are an example of lying without saying anything that is factually untrue. A Satanic skill...

....And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Factually true but totally misleading. In fact, a sneaky dirty lie. You would never guess from reading this that the 9/11 Report showed that the "former U.S. ambassador" lied in that very article, and had previously told the CIA exactly the opposite; that he thought Saddam HAD tried to buy Yellowcake from Niger. You would never guess that that "wide-ranging probe" found that the leak was not in the White House, as had been eagerly hoped, but in the State Department, done by a person who was not friendly to the Administration.

You would never guess that huge numbers of leftists demonstrated that they were despicable frauds when their torrents of faux outrage over the unspeakable crime of "outing a CIA agent" evaporated the instant it was found that the culprit wasn't someone whose fall might hurt the Bush administration. It's also misleading because it is presented in the form of commonly-accepted background information that needn't be scrutinized.

And mostly it is a form of lie because it is deliberate smoke and mirrors to distract us from what we should be pondering. Which is that the Iraq Campaign is pretty much justified by the facts in this article: That a mad and violent dictator was stockpiling Yellowcake with plans to make nuclear weapons.

However, slipped into the second half of the article is something that seems newsworthy enough for its own article: AP Exclusive: U.S. Removes Uranium From Iraq. It's about how Iraq is shipping Saddam's yellowcake Uranium to Canada, where a company has purchased it for peaceful use...

...But what I found even more interesting were the last two sentences, because they are an example of lying without saying anything that is factually untrue. A Satanic skill...

Keep THIS to throw in their faces...

There's a common line of sly leftist insinuation, that paints our troops as "victims." You know, rubes, under-educated dupes "sent off to die for oil," and similar dirty lies. (If only we were stealing oil; It's a killer to fill up my truck these days!)

The next time you hear that stuff from America-hating Obama-loving types, you might fling this story from Bob Krumm back at them....

BAGHDAD – How are you spending your 4th of July holiday? While most Americans probably slept, 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines raised their right hands and committed to a combined 5,500 years of additional service during the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military. Beneath a large American flag which dwarfed even the enormous chandelier that Saddam Hussein had built for the Al Faw Palace, members of all services, representing all 50 states took the oath administered by Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq.

Petraeus, reiterating earlier remarks made by Command Sergeant Major Hill, said that the unprecedented ceremony sends a “message to friend and foe alike.” He told those assembled that it is “impossible to calculate the value of what you are giving to our country . . . For no bonus, no matter the size, can adequately compensate you for the contribution each of you makes as a custodian of our nation’s defenses.”

Last year Gen. Petraeus, along with Senator John McCain, presided over a similar Independence Day ceremony. Then only 588 servicemen reenlisted. This year’s event, more than twice as large, saw the equivalent of two battalions extend their service in America’s military....

Also, remember, to the "liberal," the "soldiers as victims" meme is just a proxy for the bigger story--that we are all victims! No one should stand tall. Except for government bureaucracies, of course.

Update: Ethan Hahn sends a link to a picture of the event, from this article, on the official MNF-Iraq web site.

1,215 Servicemembers from all over Iraq gather in the Al Faw Palace rotunda on Camp Victory, to re-enlist and celebrate America’s Independence Day, July 4, 2008. Photo by MNF-I Public Affairs.

Shoulda known it was a fake...

I wrote yesterday about Mr Obama's embrace of Faith Based Programs. How-ev-er, there's a catch. Obama will, generous fellow that he is, allow your group to be based on faith. But you can't discriminate in hiring, say, by discriminating in favor of those who actually, like, have faith. That would be wrong.

Terry Eastland at the Weekly Standard Blog...

....A key issue in the eight years of Bush’s faith-based initiative has concerned the authority of religious entities as employers: May they take religion into account when hiring people to do the work that government funds? On numerous occasions Bush has asked Congress to pass legislation confirming such authority--on the argument that otherwise the character and mission of faith-based organizations would be compromised. With Congress refusing to do that, Bush has used executive orders to try to secure that authority. In announcing his faith-based initiative yesterday, Obama made clear that he sides with Congress. Which is to say that under Obama religious charities would not be allowed to consider religion when making their hires. In other words, a Methodist charity could not hire only Methodists or otherwise make Methodism a ground for an employment decision.

Obama’s position on this matter is likely to weaken his effort to appeal to religious conservatives. Especially since he also supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (known as ENDA), which would make sexual orientation a forbidden basis for employment decisions--including, necessarily, those made by religious charities taking federal dollars....

The idea that a Catholic charity should hire Catholics, or a Jewish charity should hire Jews, is reasonable. (And in practice such organizations are normally very diverse and tolerant, and are rarely white-supremicist pre-millenarian death-cults.) The opposition by collectivists like Obama has nothing to do with preventing discrimination. It's all about destroying faith.

By the way, I'm by no means sure that Faith-Based is a good idea. I wrote in a comment in that previous post:

I've never decided what I think about Faith Based Programs. On one hand it is indisputable that many of then do a better job, for less, than secular alternatives. And the interpretation of the constitution that claims we can't give funds to them is both both false and stupid.

On the other hand, while I see no plausible danger of faith-based groups corrupting the republic, I see a big danger that government funds may corrupt the groups. If you start sending me a fat monthly check, I'll probably start to discover that your ideas have a lot more merit than I had previously supposed... (I'll try the experiment, if anybody's willing) ;-)

Plus what government agency is going to.........discriminate? Say against nice innocent faith-based Wahabbist groups? Or Scientologists? Or Wiccans? They may do so at first, but then a Dem gets in the White House, or donations are made to congressmen.....

The purity-codes of an ersatz religion....

Reading this WSJ article on the absurd contortions of the Dems trying to keep their convention undefiled by the corrupting grossness of the Great Satan, I don't know whether to cry or to hoot with laughter and throw globs of organic waste at the next Prius that drives by....

...To test whether celebratory balloons advertised as biodegradable actually will decompose, Ms. Robinson buried samples in a steaming compost heap. She hired an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed. The Democrats hope to pay penance for those emissions by investing in renewable energy projects.

Perhaps Ms. Robinson's most audacious goal is to reuse, recycle or compost at least 85% of all waste generated during the convention.

The Trash Brigade: To police the four-day event Aug. 25-28, she's assembling (via paperless online signup) a trash brigade. Decked out in green shirts, 900 volunteers will hover at waste-disposal stations to make sure delegates put each scrap of trash in the proper bin. Lest a fork slip into the wrong container unnoticed, volunteers will paw through every bag before it is hauled away.

"That's the only way to make sure it's pure," Ms. Robinson says...

They will "hover at waste-disposal stations." To ensure purity! Wow. Wouldn't that make some very funny campaign commercials? I think Republicans should sponsor, in honor of the Dem convention, a national "Laugh at Looney Lefties Day."

....Republicans are pushing conservation, too.....But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with undisguised glee at some of the Democrats' efforts -- such as the "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines.

Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. "One would think," says Mr. Burns, "that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish to bake -- they have ruled out frying already -- than mandating color-coordinated pretzel platters."...

Makes me want to have chicherones and Coors beer for dinner....

"To his credit, Senator Obama has been very artful"

From a talk by Ward Connerly, (Thanks to Alan)

....In my private life, where I began, I worked at the Redevelopment Agency of Sacramento. That was my first job out of college. And my job was to go out and buy properties for the Redevelopment Agency that we would put into more productive uses through the power of eminent domain but in a different context, by defining a neighborhood, and I always had some misgivings about redevelopment process, but nonetheless, a guy's got to eat, and I had a young family, so I went to work right out of college for the Redevelopment Agency.

That's where I learned something about community organizing. My great enemies were community organizers. I have never met in 40-some years a community organizer who was not a socialist.

Now, I don't like to stereotype, but I want to tell you that when you are a community organizer, you have to have a certain view of the world, a certain view of things that puts you at variance with free enterprise, puts you at variance with the notion of individual rights, makes you want to redistribute the wealth. That's what community organization is.

The country seemed surprised by Reverend Wright and Father Phleger's comments. I don't know why you're surprised because if you've had one debate about affirmative action on a college campus, the rhetoric of institutional racism, the nation just heard it with Phleger and Reverend Wright. The problem is the media doesn't understand the debate enough to be able to ask the right questions of Senator Obama, not whether you think the rhetoric is divisive.

You know, when I first got involved in all of this, some of my fellow Republicans would say, "We can't support that because it's divisive." Not a question of divisive. Public policy is divisive. The question is, do you agree or do you disagree with the merits of the issue?

So when Senator Obama says it's divisive, he is very artfully avoiding the question of whether he agrees or disagrees with the inherent philosophy. And what Phleger and Wright are saying is that view of the nation in which whites, basically white males, are inherently evil and don't want to share the good life with anybody else and that the order has to be changed in our nation, change -- change -- so that all of this is reconfigured, this is a defining moment.

To his credit, Senator Obama has been very artful. He has not shucked and jived his way by saying, "I don't agree with the inherent philosophy." He has been artful, and if we let him get away with it, shame on us. But there is a profound change that is being offered to the American people, a profound change about our economic system, about the relationship between the government and its citizens, and if we embrace that, our kids and our grandkids are going to have a tough life from here on out because America, as we know it, folks, will not be the same. It will not be the same....

"Artful." In other words, he's trying to slip a fast one past us. Connerly is saying that being "artful" is better than flat-out lying. I'm not so sure myself. It's like sin. The flagrant sinner is in a better position than the person who thinks, "I'm a good person so God, if there is a God, will surely approve of me." The sinner can see that he's in trouble and repent! The other guy has wrapped himself in dangerous falsehoods that he probably wont be able to see past.

It's the same with Obama's "artfulness." It's designed to prevent serious thought and criticism. To prevent the country from debating and voting on the real issues.

As is much of today's leftist rhetoric. Leftists don't debate the ideas in question, they criticize the delivery. It's "divisive," it's "polarizing," it's "hateful," or "hate speech." It's "contemptuous," it's "questioning my patriotism." It's "censorship."

Well, for the record, I think there are some things that should be hated, that should be treated with contempt. And therefore there is nothing intrinsically wrong with pouring scorn upon them. And if someone doesn't like it, let them debate fairly.

Obama, if he were honest, would possibly talk lot like Wright and Phleger. It would be hateful, but that would be a good thing. The issues could be debated openly. (Or maybe if Obama were really really honest he would say, "I want to be president because I, to myself, am the most important thing in the universe, and my hungers are paramount.)

Go for it, Israel...

The Wall Street Journal, on the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities...

....Those exercises – reportedly involving about 100 fighters, tactical bombers, refueling planes and rescue helicopters – were conducted about 900 miles westof Israel's shores in the Mediterranean. Iran's nuclear facilities at Bushehr, Isfahan and Natanz all fall roughly within the same radius, albeit in the opposite direction. The point was not lost on Tehran, which promptly warned of "strong blows" in the event of a pre-emptive Israeli attack.

The more important question is whether the meaning of Israel's exercise registered in Western capitals. It's been six years since Iran's secret nuclear programs were publicly exposed, and Israel has more or less bided its time as the Bush Administration and Europe have pursued diplomacy to induce Tehran to cease enriching uranium.

It hasn't worked. Iran has rejected repeated offers of technical and economic assistance, most recently this month. Despite four years of pleading, the Administration has failed to win anything but weak U.N. sanctions. Russia plans to sell advanced antiaircraft missiles to Iran and finish work on a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, though spent fuel from that reactor could eventually be diverted and reprocessed into weapons-usable plutonium. Chinese companies still invest in Iran, while the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly downplayed Iran's nuclear threat...

Diplomacy hasn't worked. WELL OF COURSE IT HASN'T WORKED! Diplomacy works as an alternative to force. If you are too sick and corroded inside to be willing to use force, then why should anyone bother to give you anything at the negotiating table? And if you can't solve problems through diplomacy, what do you get? War!

Weakness leads to war. Pacifism leads to war. Quakerism leads to war.

This one won't be an actual war, just a surgical strike on certain facilities. But there will be casualties, including civilians. That's because the evil Iranian regime has placed it's nuclear bomb facilities to make this happen. Which is a war crime, by the way. Not that they will get any blame for it. Our morally-depraved "liberals" will place all the blame on Israel, as always. How dare the Jews defend themselves against nuclear attack?

Well I say, go for it, Israel. You will only be doing what the US should have done years ago. And doing the world a huge favor.

Fraudulent from the beginning...

By Bridget Johnson, PJ Media, The silence of the world grows deafening as Robert Mugabe mercilessly crushes those who dare to oppose him

If you want to challenge Robert Mugabe — who once claimed that he’d be president until 100 years of age — you’ll be lucky to come out of the experience alive.

That’s what makes opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai a true survivor. Tsvangirai’s party announced Sunday that he will pull out of his presidential runoff race against Mugabe in the midst of mounting violence and intimidation...

The world is silent because the western liberals who mobilized the West to bring about the downfall of the white governments of South Africa and Rhodesia—now called Zimbabwe—never gave a damn about the African people involved. It was always just a proxy for domestic politics. A little morality play where the bad guy is the redneck sheriff down south, opposed by the brave and good leftists. It was all about them feeling good about themselves, and laying the propaganda-foundations for taking power.

Cowardly liar....

Reuters: Obama says Republicans will use race to stoke fear

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him.

"It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy," Obama told a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. "We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid.

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"...

What a vile and despicable accusation. Neither McCain nor any Republicans of prominence have brought race into the campaign. Nor are they going to. (Nor would it do any good, since any racists we might be appealing to probably already have some slight awareness of the color of Mr Obama's skin.)

And it is doubly vile because the only ones who have brought race into politics so far are involved in the Democrat primary. Actually the only real racism in the primary was the fact that neither candidate could slam the other as had as they should have because of fear of being called "racist" or "sexist." The real racism today is contained in the identity politics that leftists practice. It is racist to go light on a candidate because of his race. Or gender.

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me." That's totally bogus. We are planning to make people worry—even be afraid—of where Obama's policies will lead the country. There's nothing wrong with that. Who would bother to try to make people afraid of Obama himself? That would be giving him more substance than he has.

Hilarious...

Beware the Chicago boys: Obama's vow of love for free markets gives reason to fear a replay of Bill Clinton's 1993 U-turn (Naomi Klein, 6/13/08, The Guardian)

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed the 37-year-old Jason Furman, one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, to head his economic team....

Delightful, to think of all the leftizoids who will be sucking on this little lemon!

And they tend to love Obama because they think he's magical. If Obama is elected, then things will just happen. There won't be any hard work and discipline needed, the world will just change. (It's like, who could oppose him? That would be racist!) But reality lurks, ready to pounce on even those who eat in the trendiest restaurants.

There are lot of people whose whole economic philosophy is: "Big corporations are icky." (And the really wierd thing is that they can be people who actually know a lot about economics! I love reading tech writer Daniel Eran Dilger, who is totally lucid in explaining what big corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Sun etc are up to. But he recently wrote: "Obama’s campaign is known for its grassroots outreach to individuals, as opposed to the typical political campaigns catering to corporate lobbyists...")

And I guess the "big corporations are icky" crowd are going to have some painful shocks if they think a corrupt Chicago pol will make evil economics just magically disappear. Or maybe they won't; human capacity for self-deception is unlimited, and, at least in the news media, ickyness WILL disappear if a Dem is in the White House.

FDR Lied....Or should have if it had been necessary.

The Rockefeller Report supposedly substantiates the "Bush lied" line of leftist propaganda. But the actual report demonstrates the opposite, as this editorial in the WaPo (no friends of Bush they) shows...

.....But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation....

Now the "Bush lied" story has always been bullshit, among other reasons because all the Dem leaders are on the record as saying exactly the same sort of things about the dangers posed by the Iraqi regime. And they had access to the same intelligence. Still, it's nice to see the Post confirm it.

But I have always thought that the whole controversy is based on a false and very pernicious philosophy. One that in fact causes war. I think the basic Western default "common wisdom" response to terrorism is the very reason terrorism exists and works. It's a game played by rules that ensure that the game will go on and on.

Imagine that Iran sent a plane and dropped a bomb on some American base, and killed some of our people. We would say that that is an act of war. We would, at the very least, bomb them in retaliation, and make no apologies about it. But suppose Iran covertly supports a terrorist group that sends a suicide bomber and kills the very same Americans. We are supposed to pretend that nothing much has happened. If we suspect an Iranian connection and bomb Iran's Presidential Palace in retaliation, world opinion would say that we are starting a war!

That's crazy. And that kind of thinking is the reason there are terror-supporting nations. They fund and arm terror groups because they can get away with it. Our enemies can attack us without much fear of retaliation. So they do. It is the lack of response that promotes terrorism. We reward them, rather than punishing them.

And the way our "conventional wisdom" works is by declaring the terror-supporting nations innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's what the "Bush lied" campaign is all about.

But Saddam was openly a supporter of terrorism. He was paying bounties for Jews killed. (Some of whom were Americans.) We are in a global war on terrorism. We have a perfect right to attack any terror-supporters and terror groups. Just as we had a right to attack nations that were aiding the Axis during WWII, even though we were not technically at war with them.

The only way to stop terrorism is to stop playing the silly game of "we can't hit back unless we prove beyond doubt that you hit first." That encourages covert attacks. that rewards them. The way to peace is to smack hard any country that even looks like it might be supporting terror groups.

IF Bush lied about the dangers of Iraq (he didn't) it is only because of a crazy system that protects Iraq. We should be taking out obdurate terror-supporters, and if it took a lie to get us doing what was right, then it was a noble deed. He shouldn't even need to ask permission. We are in a war, Iraq was clearly on the other side, President Bush is Commander in Chief, so he should be able to order the invasion of Iraq without any fuss.

President Roosevelt didn't go to Congress for permission to invade North Africa, even though we were not technically at war with French Morocco. He just did it. And if he had not had a loyal opposition party, if he had had a disloyal opposition, an anti_American opposition, as we do now, then he might have had to lie to get permission to attack. And if so, then his duty would have been to lie.

We taught them to act that way...

Glenn posted this quote by Norm Geras...

...You couldn't ask for a clearer symbol of the double-edged character of [African] nationalism. At one time a powerful force in the fight for liberation from colonial rule and in the long struggle against apartheid, African nationalism has, in the hands of Mbeki and other African leaders rallying round Mugabe, been transmuted into an apologia and defence of the most blatant criminality and oppression. The US ambassador, representing a country widely derided in liberal circles for its role in international affairs, bears witness to the crimes of the Mugabe regime; the man standing at the head of a nation that won the world's admiration for getting rid of an odious racist system disgraces that legacy.

What is missed here is that the defense of "the most blatant criminality and oppression" was always a part of the Western fight against apartheid. (And also against colonialism.) At least among liberals. Why?

Remember how we heard over and over that South Africa did not have majority rule? I sure do. But the fact is, at that time NO African nation had majority rule. All African countries other than South Africa were ruled by dictators or very small elite groups. None of the anti-apartheid activist types found this objectionable. They implicitly defined brutal tyranny as "majority rule," so long as the Head of State had dark skin! An evil lesson.

The fact that South Africa had an illegal immigrant problem, with black people fleeing to SA from much worse places, did not matter to them at all. Few or no Western "activists" announced that South Africa was just the first problem, and that after it was solved they would turn their efforts to bringing majority rule to other African nations. They didn't care.

So the West has in fact "taught" Africans that dictatorship or one party rule are acceptable. And we are still teaching the same lesson. Those who are upset about Mugabe's oppression are few, and tend not to be the same people who were outraged by the lack of "majority rule" in SA.

The activists never really cared about Africans at all, not as people like us. Their fun was in attacking white conservatives. One those were gone they dropped the whole subject.

Update: Western leftists have "taught" the same lesson in the Middle East. They "care" about the Palestinians only to the extant that they are injured by Israel. Arab regimes have treated the Palestinians far worse than Israel has, without any protest from the sort of Westerners who wear kaffiyas. (For instance, in 1992 Kuwait booted 30,000 Palestinians out of their homes and out of the country. And protests came there none!)

One more Update: And right here in the USA. The Civil Rights Movement was, and is, only interesting to leftists to the extant that it can be used to bash conservative whites. Once the "rednecks" were gone, the fun was mostly over. Festering problems within black communities, such as corrupt politicians, crime, poor work and study habits, and anti-white racism are not priorities. If the choice is between fixing inner-city schools, and placating the teachers' unions who bankroll the Democrat Party, the pickininnies get tossed to the sharks every time.

Perhaps I owe Mark Morford an apology...

It's possible I was too negative towards Mark Morford in my post this morning.

It's not true that Mr Obama has never accomplished anything. He did in fact have one "Profiles in Courage" moment, when he went out on a limb, and took a stand that was not politically necessary. It was due to "unique high-vibration integrity," I'm sure. (I've copied an article about it below the fold.)

Hey Morford, why don't you show the article to those people you've been talking to? The "enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence." Could you please bring us some specific reactions from those "spiritually advanced people," those "philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order?"

I'd like to hear their take, being myself just a cowed-by-religion member of the the armies of BushCo darkness. Enlighten me!

Obama More Pro-Choice Than NARAL
by Amanda B. Carpenter
Posted: 12/26/2006

Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) portrays himself as a thoughtful Democrat who carefully considers both sides of controversial issues, but his radical stance on abortion puts him further left on that issue than even NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.

Both the Illinois and the federal bill sought equal treatment for babies who survived premature inducement for the purpose of abortion and wanted babies who were born prematurely and given live-saving medical attention.

When the federal bill was being debated, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement that said, “Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act ... floor debate served to clarify the bill’s intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to choose.”

But Obama voted against this bill in the Illinois senate and killed it in committee. Twice, the Induced Infant Liability Act came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served. At its first reading he voted “present.” At the second he voted “no.”

The bill was then referred to the senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama chaired after the Illinois Senate went Democratic in 2003. As chairman, he never called the bill up for a vote.

Jill Stanek, a registered delivery-ward nurse who was the prime mover behind the legislation after she witnessed aborted babies’ being born alive and left to die, testified twice before Obama in support of the Induced Infant Liability Act bills. She also testified before the U.S. Congress in support of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Stanek told me her testimony “did not faze” Obama.

"I'm feeling those good vibrations"

Hard upon discovering the WaPo editorial I just blogged-up, about Obama re-alligning his foreign policy positions to something amazingly Bush flavored, I read this by Mark Morford, in the SF Chron. The juxtapose is just too too delicious...

I find I'm having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans [We are just puddles of misery] and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I'm having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell's the big deal about Obama?

I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.

Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former '60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain't gonna like this one little bit. [Click away? No way brother, you are making my day.]

Ready? It goes likes this: Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. [Chariots of the Gods? Remember that one?]

This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don't understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama's aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.

To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?

No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity. [Chicago politics seems to bring that out in people.]

Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence [Intuitively. Not one of them can make a principled argument for any of this.] - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord. [So Mark, shall we put some money on it? My $100 says it's gonna be "vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores" all the way down.]

Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious [meaning having a creed that can actually be pinned down], mind you, but deeply spiritual [meaning indistinguishable from nihilism] ) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies [Ooops] or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul. [How about the soul of the Democrat Party? As a kind of, you know, "test case?" Do we see peace? Philosophy? Sweetness and light? Anybody evolvin' there?]

The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. [Poor poor Frodo, crawling across Mordor.] And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history. [So you would think—Obama is 46 years old—that Mr Morford would now be pointing to some actual "lightwork" that Mr Obama has actually accomplished. If a person is, like, radiant, and he's been involved in public life for a couple of decades, SOMETHING ought to have happened. Right? Hmm? Something, uh, luminous? I'm sitting here, just waiting to be impressed. Mark?]

Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? [Maybe because we are narcissists who value feel-good emotions over actual facts?] Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him. [He was killed by a Communist "Progressive," who hated it when he got tough on St. Fidel. Ooops, sorry, that's too literal. Stupid of me. I'm SO "not attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things."]

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land [smokin' ruins as far as the eye can see] and embarrassed the country [Euro elites and Middle East tyrants, PLEASE forgive us for being Americans] and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp [Speak for yourself, pulpy pal] and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp,[?] we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.

Let me be completely clear: I'm not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. [Coulda fooled me] I'm not saying the man's going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.

Please. I'm also certainly not saying he's perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama's certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn't hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history. [Hey Morford, want to put another C-note on what the history books end up saying?]

But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it's not even about Obama, per se. There's a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that's been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama's candidacy. People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically drawn to him. It's exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better. [That's too intrinsic for me to even comment on. But Mark, would you care to set a few specific benchmarks, so we can eventually come to some judgement on all this?]

Don't buy any of it? Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes? [Yep] I understand. I get it. I often believe it myself. Not this time.

I am evolving! It's a new way of being on the planet!

[By the way, I have nothing against: "...The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture..." It's real, it just happens to be discoverable in the Church founded by Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. And not in "swirling vibrational energies." Rather it's about giving up self-love, and taking up ones cross, and following.]

If you really want to be of public service...

Thomas Sowell writes...

EVERY YEAR ABOUT THIS TIME, big-government liberals stand up in front of college commencement crowds across the country and urge the graduates to do the noblest thing possible -- become big-government liberals.

That isn't how they phrase it, of course. Commencement speakers express great reverence for "public service," as distinguished from narrow private "greed." There is usually not the slightest sign of embarrassment at this self-serving celebration of the kinds of careers they have chosen -- over and above the careers of others who merely provide us with the food we eat, the homes we live in, the clothes we wear and the medical care that saves our health and our lives.

What I would like to see is someone with the guts to tell those students: Do you want to be of some use and service to your fellow human beings? Then let your fellow human beings tell you what they want -- not with words, but by putting their money where their mouth is.

You want to see more people have better housing? Build it! Become a builder or developer-- if you can stand the sneers and disdain of your classmates and professors who regard the very words as repulsive.

Would you like to see more things become more affordable to more people? Then figure out more efficient ways of getting thousands of things from the producers to the consumers at a lower cost. That's what a man named Richard Sears did a century ago. In the process he rose from near poverty to become one of the richest men around....

Thinking about commencements, the last of our three children just graduated from High School. One naturally feels both pride and sadness at these milestones, and at having our kids grow up and become more independent. (She will start at UC Santa Cruz in September—she's very excited!)

But one aspect of their youth that none of us Weidners will miss at all is school-mandated "community service." It grated upon all of us. And I don't think that we are any less inclined to want to want to help people than other Americans. But involuntary voluntarism is offensive. And the treacly sentiments that go with it are doubly offensive.

And most irritating of all is that the whole process assumes that one has bought-into various liberal pieties. Which you are never allowed to question. Or, actually, saying "never allowed" puts things too clearly. Think of a world where the entire concept of questioning underlying liberal assumptions doesn't exist, and any attempt to do so would be seen as crazy. Not to mention jeopardizing ones chances of getting into college!

Charlene asks, "When did this community-service thing start? I never heard of it when I was in school." These things are fads; they just grow. Why are so many women wearing incredibly-unflattering hip-hugger pants now? Do you think they did any thinking? Of course not. As well ask a school of minnows how they plan their route. Unconsciously I think educators, like leftist politicians, know that the poor and hapless are a precious resource, which needs to be conserved and nurtured, so as to justify big government and anti-Americanism. If one could help homeless people get jobs and get off the street, that would not be "community service."

Tip-toe around a little problem...

Yet another Dem lays the groundwork for blaming Obama's coming defeat on racism. It's got to be racism; a repudiation of Leftism or infanticide or "change" can't possibly happen in a country that is eager for higher taxes, racial quotas, feminism, and more government control of everything! Of course Mr Cohen has to tip-toe around a wee teensy little problem....This is a primary, and no Republicans are involved. (Thanks to Hugh)

....I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. [And it is all among DEMOCRATS. You Lefties have, for decades, been delighted when you could claim (usually dishonestly) that Republicans are racist.The biter is bit.] I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. [You "opinion leaders" have TAUGHT them to think in terms of interest groups, not individual worth. And now you are surprised?] Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening...

[We've been POUNDED with racialist propaganda for half a century. By people like you, Mr Cohen. Everything must be judged in terms of RACE. Or gender, or sexual orientation. (I know this; I've raised three children in SF. My daughter once said that at her school, "Black History Month comes four times a year!") But a lot of us—mostly Republicans—believe that God values every human being equally, and doesn't give a f*** whether they are black or white. We REJECT your leftist racism. We spit upon it. We judge people by their merits, and would have judged Colin Powell or Condi Rice in exactly the same way we chose between McCain and Romney.]

...I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late. But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad. [It is not "sad," it is evil. And it is your evil. Now you have to face it.]

I loathe what has happened to Hillary Clinton. This person of no mean achievement has been witchified, turned into a shrew, so that almost any remark of hers is instantly interpreted as sinister and ugly. All she had to do, for instance, was note that it took Lyndon Johnson to implement Martin Luther King's dream, and somehow it became a racist statement. The Obama camp has been no help in this regard, expressing insincere regret instead of a sincere "that's not what she meant.".... [I could go on and on here, but I've got to get back to work. You get my drift...]

Update: Remember when Obama gave his fake-apology speech on race, and said, I think, "We need to have a national dialog on race?" Something like that?

Well, we've had a "national monolog" on race for the last 50 years, with liberals endlessly haranguing us ordinary white Americans, who are supposed to hang our heads and shuffle our feet, and feel guilty about how horrible we are. Well, maybe, just maybe, this Obama campaign may be the catalyst for a true dialog. And some people may at last be able to answer back. Starting with answering back to the claim that liberals are "morally superior beings" because they "wave the bloody shirt" of the Civil Rights Movement all the time.

"Bogus world brotherhood"

Simon Jenkins, in the Guardian, Once, 'international' sounded saintly. Now it means bureaucracy and waste...(Thanks to Orrin)

Gazing briefly at the Eurovision song contest this week I could not rid my mind of a quite different image, that of Nato's multilateral force headquarters in Kabul. There was the same flag-waving and confusion of purpose, the same small-state rivalry and cynical balancing of interests. There was the same belief that, simply by being international, a so-called community of nations was forged.

For Eurovision and Nato, read the Olympics and Burma, read the Moscow cup final and Darfur. Read the European parliament, Fifa, the World Bank, the Organisation of African Unity, the European parliament. I was brought up to regard "international" as synonymous with saintly. It was a concept to supplant the rude nationalism of the 20th century in a worldwide concord of peace, ruled by a clerisy of selfless bureaucrats; Dag Hammersköld out of Albert Schweitzer.

Today the word "international" suggests tailored suits, tax-free salaries, white Land Cruisers and Geneva. The Eurovision contest is run by the European Broadcasting Union with 400 staff in Switzerland, with no risk of oversight or reform. It takes after the International Olympics Committee, which now charges its host taxpayers $20-30bn for two weeks of extravaganza in the name of bogus world brotherhood...

Read it all; there's lots to appall.

But Jenkins is wrong on one point. Actually, "internationalism" was bogus from the beginning. It was never an "ideal" that was corrupted. The UN was, from its very founding, supported by Leftists because it would hinder and limit the United States of America, and would hurt Western Civilization. Millions of ordinary people bought into the "ideal," and imagined something noble, (Lots still do, despite evidence) but it was always a lie. And it was always intended to thwart what was truly noble, our working to spread freedom and capitalism and—most importantly, democracy, to the masses of this planet.

"Internationalism" is always about elites running things without accountability to voters.

My dad called them "educated fools"

Hugh Hewitt writes...

...It has become obvious in a very short period of time that Senator Obama attended some very fine schools and learned almost nothing of American history. He has, however, hung out with radicals for the past few decades, and their view of America and its history has sunk in, leaving Obama not only gaffe-prone, but wholly unprepared to be the Commander-in-Chief. He's a product of his years and years in the Chicago machine with its nonsensical view of why things are the way they are and how the county and the economy works.

This takes us back to the Rev. Wright and Obama's two decades of listening to and reading the pastor's worldview, and before that to his college years in California and New York, and working as a "community organizer" in Chicago. Senator Obama has lived his entire life in places where the distorted history of left-wing radicalism prevailed, and the consequences of this long immersion in pseudo-history and pseudo-economics are easy to see and will be disqualifying for most voters.....

This is absolutely consistent with my experiences, living in liberal SF, but especially in attempting, as a blogger, to have reasoned debates with left-leaning people. Or watching other bloggers do so.

That's never happened. It's never worked. Lefties live in a fantasy world.

We're the good guys. Of course we win...

Ralph Peters:

May 20, 2008 -- DO we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?

If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.

Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.

But that fact isn't helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.

You won't see that above the fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks - they've adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.....

...And Obama, the NYT, and al-Qaeda are the bad guys. They want America and the free people of Iraq to lose. They are on the other side.

Oh well. So what else is new...

"A defining feature of his campaign and of his political persona..."

Caroline Glick, from Jerusalem, refreshingly blunt.

....The only strong reaction that Bush's remarks provoked in Israel was relief. In spite of the Bush administration's own participation in the six-party talks with North Korea, its support for the EU-3's feckless discussions with the mullahs, its paralysis in the face of Hizbullah's takeover of Lebanon, and its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state run by Fatah terrorists dedicated to Israel's destruction, at the very least, standing before the Knesset, Bush effectively pledged not to allow Iran to acquire the means to conduct a new Holocaust.

From an Israeli vantage point then, it was shocking to see that immediately after Bush stepped down from the rostrum, Obama and his Democratic supporters began pillorying him for his remarks. Most distressing is what Obama's reaction said about the Democratic presidential hopeful.

Obama's response to Bush's speech was an effective acknowledgement that appeasing Iran and other terror sponsors is a defining feature of his campaign and of his political persona. As far as he is concerned, an attack against appeasement is an attack against Obama....

Of course he's an appeaser. And anti-Israel. He could not possibly be a successful and popular Democrat candidate otherwise. If he weren't, the "activist" Dems would turn on him, like they turned on Joe Lieberman. It's the party of appeasement. And you already know why it's the party of appeasement, 'cause I've told you lots of times.

And also good is Bret Stephens, Obama and the Jews...

...Or take Iran, which Israelis universally see as their deadliest enemy. Yes, there are arguments to be made in favor of presidential-level negotiations between Washington and Tehran – perhaps as a last-ditch effort to avert military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. But does anyone seriously think Mr. Obama would authorize such strikes?

Instead, Mr. Obama says he favors "tough diplomacy," including tighter sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. Last fall, however, he was one of only 22 senators to oppose a Senate resolution calling for the IRGC to be designated as a terrorist organization, a vote that made him a dove even within the Democratic Party. Mr. Obama argued at the time the amendment would give the administration a pretext to go to war with Iran. It was an odd claim for a nonbinding resolution...

"Tough diplomacy." Right. There's no such animal. If you are tough in general, then diplomacy often works. Diplomacy is a way of avoiding a fight. But out enemies will look at Obama and know he doesn't want to fight. So why should they negotiate?

Can I re-define "taxpayer" to exclude me?

From Justice Baxter's opinion (Quoted by Hugh Hewitt) on the California Supreme Court's

...History confirms the importance of the judiciary’s constitutional role as a check against majoritarian abuse. Still, courts must use caution when exercising the potentially transformative authority to articulate constitutional rights. Otherwise, judges with limited accountability risk infringing upon our society’s most basic shared premise — the People’s general right, directly or through their chosen legislators, to decide fundamental issues of public policy for themselves.

Judicial restraint is particularly appropriate where, as here, the claimed constitutional entitlement is of recent conception and challenges the most fundamental assumption about a basic social institution.

The majority has violated these principles. It simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice...

If judges can simply re-define marriage at their whim, then what can't they re-define?

The real issue here is that leftists hate democracy, and work tirelessly to circumvent it. They used to hate it because they were socialists, and no people, knowing what they are getting into, will ever vote for socialism. Now they are nihilists, and their only goal is to worship themselves, and feel good about themselves. But the result is the same. They feel good about themselves because of their supposed superiority, and so they need to circumvent democracy, and impose their superior ideas on people who would never vote for them.

And ALL the lefty whims work in one way or another to destroy those institutions and cultures (such as families, churches, traditional morality) that stand between the individual and the state. To atomize society, so that the state (staffed almost entirely by liberals) will have supreme power. So the end that's being worked-toward is still......socialism!

Update: It is very ironic here that the twisted and racist accusations of Jeremiah Wright---that whites have invented AIDS, or have introduced cocaine in order to kill blacks---are partly true. White middle-class liberals have worked tirelessly to legalize and legitimize drug use, with devastating effects on black communities. And they've done everything they can to legitimize and popularize the suicidal promiscuity of the gay community. And promiscuity in general. So gays and drug-using minorities are destroyed by AIDS, while the Prius-driving crowd continues to feel superior to all those red-neck conservatives who are so horribly "intolerant" of gays or drug use.

Jeremiah Wright is correct--whites are trying to destroy blacks. White liberals, that is. Like Barack Obama.

"The emptiest vessel ever..."

Baseball Crank has a worthwhilepiece on the importance of experience in a presidential candidate...

.....And if one must speak of hypocrisy, it is rather amusing that we heard Democrats the past few years arguing that various Bush appointees were underqualified hacks who lacked the basic qualifications for their jobs (e.g., Miers, Mike Brown), but those same Democrats who were outraged at appointing unqualified people to mid-level jobs in the Administration are suddenly unconcerned about picking a guy without adequate experience for the top job, the guy who appoints all the others.

But for the same reasons why I rejected that style of argument when I came out in opposition to Harriet Miers (here and here) and Mitt Romney, Obama's lack of all the relevant types of experience, taken together, are very much a problem and quite arguably disqualifying by themselves, or at least very substantial reasons to be skeptical of his candidacy. Assuming he does hang on to squeeze Hillary out of the race, Obama is the emptiest vessel ever to get a major party nomination, a man who can't be judged on the results he has achieved because he's scarcely left a trace of results anywhere. It's all too easy to say "yes, we can" when you haven't ever had to be the guy people look to to say "yes we did."

He's never run anything at all, not even a small law practice like John Edwards. Besides his campaign, probably the biggest thing he's ever run was the Harvard Law Review.

He has nothing resembling national security experience or even particularly sustained advocacy on the issue before announcing his candidacy in 2007. The man has apparently hardly even traveled to Europe, to pick one example.

He is running in a contested election outside the insular world of Chicago politics for the first time and has never had any sort of responsibility for political leadership.

He's never served in the military and seems to have scarcely any experience even knowing people who served in the military.

His private-sector business background is negligible.

Are any of these things disqualifying from the Presidency? No. But electing a man who is so seriously lacking in all of them is indeed unprecedented. And that is and should be a central issue in this campaign......

I think Obama's lack of experience is central to his appeal to "core Democrats." They prefer it. Why? Because, as I've argued many times before, Liberals aren't "Liberal" any more. They have no belief in anything bigger than themselves. They wear "Liberalism" as a disguise, and to give themselves reasons to feel superior and important.

Their big fear is that they are going to be called on this. That they will be put into a situation where they will have to either fight fight for something, or admit they are frauds. That's why they hate the Iraq Campaign so bitterly, whether it's going well or badly. Overthrowing a fascist dictator and sponsoring democracy and freedom are Liberal ideas, and leftists still preen themselves on their regime-change in Nazi Germany. Iraq called this bluff.

Even the minimal experience Clinton can claim is associated with making choices. The latte-sipping crowd longs to float above all the gritty choices of practical politics, and just feel good about themselves. They want, for instance, to endlessly bask in the warm glow of the Civil Rights Movement, while ignoring the current plight of minority children in dysfunctional inner-city schools. And ignore the fact that black Africans are being enslaved right now, by Moslems in Sudan.

Mommy! Mommy! Johnny McCain said a bad word!

Rich Lowry on the Obama Rules. Which purport to declare all sorts of criticisms of Obama "off-limits" in acceptable political discourse...

....Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can’t be called a “liberal” (“the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (“attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (“the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (“pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.

Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can’t manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn’t be that difficult). As for “fear” and “division,” they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn’t command 100 percent assent....

We've been hearing lots of this poop. We also not supposed to point out that his pastor is a racist jew-hating nut job... "How dare you! He's a prophet!" Or that he's been endorsed by Hamas. (They know a Jimmy Carter when they see one.) Or that he's pals with unrepentant murdering 1960's terrorists.

I'd advise McCain to confront this nonsense directly, and declare that the "rules" are codswallop, and that he's not going to follow any of them. And that he reserves the right to call Obama a white liberal elitist if he wants to!

22 Ways to be a good Democrat...

Bookworm posted this....

22 WAYS TO BE A GOOD DEMOCRAT

IT’S NOT SO HARD, EVEN A CAVEMAN CAN DO IT….

1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.

2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.

4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.

5. You have to believe that global temperatures are more affected by soccer moms driving SUVs than by scientifically documented cyclical changes in the earth’s climate.

6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.

7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can’t teach fourth graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

9. You have to believe that hunters don’t care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.

10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make The Passion of the Christ for financial gain only.

12. You have to believe that the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.

14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell.

15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.

16. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and is a very nice person.

17. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried is because the right people haven’t been in charge.

18. You have to believe that conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and sex offender belonged in the White House.

19. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

20. You have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese Government is somehow in the best interest of the United States

21. You have to believe that it’s okay to give federal workers the day off on Christmas Day, but it’s not okay to say “Merry Christmas.”

22. You have to believe that this message is part of a vast right wing conspiracy.

As a charter member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, I endorse this message...

Lawsuit over "hostile work environment"

This just tops all...(From WSJ)

Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."...

...Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor...

...Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.....

Don't I wish I could sue certain people for inflicting "intellectual distress" on me!

good job...

When casualties were high in Iraq, Democrat leaders deplored them loudly. Pretended they gave a damn about Americans and Iraqis dying. And SO, when casualty-rates dropped 80 or 90%, did they express pleasure? Satisfaction? Of course not, the liars.

They just changed the subject, and deplored that Iraq was not making political progress, and not hitting the "benchmarks." Pretended they cared about that. So, now that Iraq has been hitting one benchmark after another, do they say thank you? Do they say "Well done?"

Of course not. They are all black-hearted liars.

Iraq just achieved another one of those benchmarks, with a mass-release of prisoners, mostly Sunni, not accused of serious crimes. Shall I hold my breath waiting for the Ried's and Pelosis and Obama's and Clinton's to acknowledge that goals they said they considered important are being met? Of course not. They were lying. They are America-hating liars, and the magnificent feats-of-arms of our troops and our Iraqi allies are the last thing they want to happen.

They are on the other side.

Well, I'll say it. Congratulations, to Prime Minister al-Maliki, and to the free people of Iraq.

"The mother-of-all-environmental scares"

From Happy Earth Day, by Steven F. Hayward...

More than 30 years ago political scientist Anthony Downs discerned what he called the “issue-attention cycle,” a five-stage process by which the public and especially the news media grow alarmed over an issue, agitate for action, generate piles of scary headlines, and then begin to draw back as we come to recognize that the problem has been exaggerated or misconceived, and the price tag for action comes in. While Downs thought that the issue-attention cycle for the environment would last longer than most issues, it appears the mother-of-all-environmental scares -- global warming -- is following his model and is going to begin to fade like other environmental alarms of the past such as the population bomb and the “we’re running out of everything” scares.

The current media and political blitz on Capitol Hill for government controls on energy production are the product of the panic felt by environmentalists who realize that opinion polls show the public is climbing off global warming bandwagon...

I think a lot of the panic is coming from the unconscious, because even if the globalistas ignore the facts that contradict global warming theory, they had to be expecting a lot more bad news than there has been. Global mean temps have not increased since 1998! That's gotta be making certain people nervous.

And Argo. Argo was going to clinch the case for global warming. People were expecting that. Now you hear almost nothing about it.

What's bothersome to me is that the demise of each scare-issue doesn't cause ordinary people to start thinking for themselves. Minds just gradually adjust to the new CW, without people noticing that there's something really wrong. The "population bomb" fades away, and people stop worrying, but they retain a vague idea that there are too many people, and some of them really ought to be eliminated to "save the planet." That the predictions of mass-starvation never came true.... that's not dwelt upon.

They are all snobs...

I just had to fisk this silly thing. I need a bit of fun now and then...

There's real danger to Obama in a cry of 'snob', by Michael Crowley, The Observer, Sunday April 20 2008

....Obama's line was not fatal, but Norquist still has grounds for glee. For a fundamental battle has been joined here - that battle to define the Democratic nominee's character. [The Republican nominee, on the other hand, has always been open and honest about himself. This is a huge advantage for ANY human being.]

One recurring feature of recent presidential campaigns has been the disgraceful effort of the Republican party to compensate for its unpopular positions on major issues, from health care to Iraq, by impugning the character of the Democratic presidential nominee [By telling the truth about them. Notice that Crowley never claims Obama is NOT a person with character flaws. He just wishes the issue would go away.]. Liberals have made this complaint for some time, but I lent it new credence after listening to a senior figure in the Bush political machine. 'You guys never get it,' he said to a group of journalists who'd been debating the politics of some newsworthy issue. 'People don't vote on issues. They vote on character.' [The voters are wise. Issues morph and change; character is forever. And, I hate to break this to you, Mr "Journalist," but "newsworthy" means what people (those horrid little commoners) want to hear about, not what you want to report.]

The man knew whereof he spoke, for character largely explains how Bush won two presidential elections. In 2004, torture and beheadings were the norm in Iraq. [Performed by your al-Qaeda news-generating teams.] Yet Republicans substantially focused the election around John Kerry's persona. He was a flip-flopper, a windsurfer and snowboarder, a Swiss-educated man with a slightly 'foreign' mien. Never mind that Bush was the wealthy son of a former President educated at both Yale and Harvard - he was the 'regular guy'. [Bush IS a regular guy...he oozes Midland Texas from every pore. A fact confirmed by the way Dems heap scorn on all his "regular guy" traits! You can't ridicule someone for mis-pronouncing "nuclear," and then claim he's a rich Ivy-Leaguer]

Amazingly, one poll taken just before the election showed that pro-Bush voters cared more about 'character and strength of leadership than how a candidate stands on the issues' by a nearly three-to-one margin. Is it any wonder American politics is the subject of ridicule and derision around the world? [SO, how's them Italian/German/French/Belgian politics workin' out? Big success, right? Hmmm?]

It had been the same story four years earlier. A long stretch of peace and prosperity had made Al Gore clear favourite to succeed Clinton. But the GOP skilfully caricatured Gore as a pedantic snob [He is], a know-it-all who allegedly claimed to have 'invented' the internet. That defamation campaign, in turn, was modelled after the 1988 ridicule of Michael Dukakis as a product of pointy-headed academic Boston.

In every case, the GOP message to America was the same: the Democratic candidate is too fancy to understand your world. He looks down on you. He is a product of a coastal elite establishment that derides real Americans. [I live among the coastal elites. This is simple truth] Republicans have always known how they would attack Hillary Clinton's character: They've had more than 15 years of trashing her as mean-tempered, ultra-feminist prevaricator. [She is] But Obama's comments, which can at least be construed to deride the legitimate faith, traditions and concerns of small-towners, have opened the GOP door to tarring him with the label of elitist snob. [Notice we are presented with zero evidence showing he is not an elitist snob.] This is how it's going to go. In the derisive commentary of the past two weeks, we can see how Obama is heading for the Kerry-Gore-Dukakis treatment. He will be cast as a 'professor' from the university enclave of Chicago's Hyde Park. [Fits] And just as Kerry was heckled by conservatives for supposedly looking French, the campaign to define Obama as 'foreign', thanks to his Kenyan father and his boyhood years in Indonesia, is already underway. [If the charge is false, it won't stick. So how's that bowling score, Barry? Geeze, I could bowl more convincingly, and I haven't touched a ball for 40 years.]

And just as the elder George Bush used Dukakis's opposition to a constitutional ban on flag burning to impugn his patriotism, so the right is now encouraging the preposterous story that Obama is unpatriotic because he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin and was once photographed without his hand placed over his heart during the national anthem. [I'm "embedded" among lefty elitists. They are NOT patriotic, and their aversion to flag pins reflects their beliefs perfectly] Attacks like these will be particularly convenient for Republicans given McCain's unimpeachably heroic and patriotic background.

Obama's campaign handlers have proven themselves a highly shrewd bunch. They are already working to bolster his regular-guy credibility - see Obama's recent photo-op at a Pennsylvania bowling alley [Must be the same guys that put Dukakis in a tank. Shrewd, shrewd.] and his endorsement by that ultimate salt-of-the-earth tribune [Triple-Word-Score in Pointy-Head Scrabble™] Bruce Springsteen. [To paraphrase Andy Warhol, there's nothing so un-regular as trying to be a regular guy.]

[Also, stupider by an order-of-magnitude is trying to make a girl a into a "regular guy." Hillary tossing back a shot in a bar tops all of this, in my opinion! Puke-worthy.]

That may help against Clinton on Tuesday. But an autumn endorsement by the Boss, alas, wasn't enough to save Kerry. Obama will have to muster a better defence. He can start by choosing his words more carefully. [Ha ha ha. In other words, be more careful about living a lie. Honest people don't have to worry about "choosing their words carefully." What comes out is what they are.] He can also console himself in knowing that the Bush Republicans have left American in such rotten shape that even the GOP's mendacious character politics may not be enough to save them this time around. [Dream on, Lefty losers.]

What always amazes me is that Dems are so insular and anti-American that they never get serious about fixing these big problems. You'd think they would have a "regular guy" summer camp, where effete coastal snob politicians go to learn how to eat cheese steaks, and drink boiler-makers, and talk to ranchers.

The Newman quote on my sidebar says, "Aim at things and your words will be right without aiming." But most lefties can't do that, because they live in fear. They no longer have any underlying philosophy they can build their lives on. They are not just hiding their souls from ordinary Americans, they are hiding from themselves. Their dishonesty goes to the bone.

Update: Another odd thing. Imagine the situation were reversed, and McCain was trying to win the votes of lefty trendoid professors by arranging photo-ops at MOMA, or listening to avant-guard poetry in a coffee house. Who would not laugh at such nonsense? Yet no leftist seems to notice that it is just as preposterous to put Baracky-boy in a bowling alley. I mean, who are the stupids here? Republicans are called the "stupid party," but who's cluelix?

I'll just wait for the protests to happen....

From The Australian...

SUPPORTERS of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party have set up a network of torture camps where they have been assaulting opposition activists, a leading rights group says.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said suspected supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were being rounded up and then beaten for several hours at a time with wooden sticks and batons in the wake of last month's disputed elections.

"Torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe," Human Rights Watch's Africa director Georgette Gagnon said in a new report.

"ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month's elections."

The organisation said it had conducted interviews with more than 30 people who had sustained serious injuries, including broken limbs, as a result of the beatings in the camps.

The aim of the beatings was to punish people for voting for the opposition in the March 29 polls and coerce them into supporting Mugabe in a possible second round run-off, HRW added. (Thanks to jammiewearingfool)

Any minute now the hundred-thousand or so people who have wailed for years about abu Ghraib will be making ringing denunciations of this new evil. I'll just sit here and hold my breath 'till it happens! Any minute now. Candle-light vigils, for sure. Headlines in the NYT.

Of course they won't do any such thing, the despicable frauds. 99% of the abu Ghraib bitching was pure hatred of America. None of them care about torture, unless there is a political point to be made.

And I'm still disgusted about how the splendid work of the 391st Military Police Battalion, from Columbus, Ohio, has never gotten a single morsel of credit. They are the ones who took over abu Ghraib prison after the scandal, and broke their backs doing everything with scrupulous care, so as to restore our country's honor. The trouble is, shams like Mark Shea, and all the other torture pomposos, couldn't care less. All they are interested in is tearing down this great nation, under the pretense of superior morality. Not a word of thanks ever to those who do things right.

And for that matter, Saddam's regime was, in the opinion of this history buff, the worst for torture in the history of this planet. Saddam's nine different secret police agencies tortured at least ten-thousand people every year, in the most hideous ways imaginable. Like having people eaten alive by dogs. Or torturing children in front of their parents. The US military put an end to that torture—torture on a scale a million times worse than abu Ghraib. And do any of our torture-mongers ever pause from complaining about water-boarding to say thank you to our troops, for stopping Saddam's torture regime, at the risk of their lives?

Of course not. They are all—from Shea on down—utterly uninterested in the subject of torture--a miillion brown-skinned foreigners could be tortured every day, and they would never shed a tear. Unless the USA could be blamed for it. THEN it would be a "moral issue."

Our two critical advantages...

Don't Miss mark Steyn's scathing comments on Mr Obama's rare moment of truthfulness. Guns and God? Hell, yes!

....Sen. Obama's remarks about poor dumb, bitter rural losers "clinging to" guns and God certainly testify to the instinctive snobbery of a big segment of the political class. But we shouldn't let it go by merely deploring coastal condescension toward the knuckledraggers. No, what Michelle Malkin calls Crackerquiddick (quite rightly – it's more than just another dreary "-gate") is not just snobbish nor even merely wrongheaded. It's an attack on two of the critical advantages the United States holds over most of the rest of the Western world. In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God 'n' guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion.

How's that working out? ....

Workin' out like shit. Spiritual collapse, demographic collapse, economic stagnation, an utter absence of any compelling new movements or dreams. That's Europe. And that's what Obama and the San Francisco Democrats want for us. They want it desperately, even though they dare not make a case for it openly.

Why? Because what they are fleeing from is belief. Belief in anything that is bigger than oneself.

I'd say this is a good answer to nihilist Euro-weenie hate-America Democrats like Clinton and Obama:

Rubes, fools, and hate-mongers for John McCain!

From The Rubes and the Elites, by Michael Lind, in Salon...

....In the act of rushing to Obama's defense, some prominent liberal bloggers reinforced the stereotype of elite liberal snobbery. On Friday, regular DailyKos diarist RKA argued, "This quote and the resulting feeding frenzy are a huge opportunity for Obama to get the attention of low-information small-town voters who are skeptical of him and convince some of them to vote their pocketbooks instead of their culture." On TPM Cafe, Todd Gitlin wrote that "Obama spoke artlessly, forgetting that the first law of American politics is: Flatter the rubes."

Now there's a campaign slogan. Hey, rubes -- I mean low-information voters -- Vote Your Pocketbook, Not Your Culture!

Should anyone doubt that dissing rather than flattering the "rubes" is an aberration, examples of liberal snobbery are not hard to find in progressive publications. Sometimes it's genteel, sometimes it's raw. In an essay titled "The Urban Archipelago" a few years ago, the editors of Seattle's alt-weekly the Stranger wrote: "It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion -- New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on ... And we are the real Americans. They -- rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs -- are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers ... We can secede emotionally ... by turning our backs on the heartland ... We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan."....

Doesn't that just capture it all...

"Emerging truth"

I commend to your attention this piece from the National Post, about how the BBC was cajoled into changing an article that didn't conform to The Church of Climate Change orthodoxy... (Thanks to Michael Goldfarb)

This is just a part of the quoted e-mail exchange. "Roger" is the journalist, "Jo" is cracking the whip on behalf of the "Campaign Against Climate Change."

jo.

From: Roger Harrabin

The article makes all these points quite clear. We can't ignore the fact that skeptics have jumped on the lack of increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media.

Best to tackle this -- and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored, which makes them v. suspicious.

Roger

---

Hi Roger,

... . Your word "debate." This is not an issue of "debate." This is an issue of emerging truth. I don't think you should worry about whether people feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the skeptics. Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : Please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the skeptics. Respectfully,

jo.

---

From: Roger Harrabin

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.

"This is not an issue of "debate." This is an issue of emerging truth." You gotta love the frankness!

Notice how Jo Abbess just assumes she has the right to demand suppression of facts! As does the "journalist," Roger Harrabin. He doesn't even pretend to be objective; he merely claims it is better tactics to be open about inconvenient truths.

And this is similar to a few occasions I recall when the Old Media have been c aught being taken to task by Democrats for publishing some story that hurts a Dem. It is just assumed that the media are in the leftist camp, and that it is perfectly proper to tell them they can't publisj tjis or that.

And you just know that these "journalists" go to journalist banquets where they present each other with plaques and awards for journalistic integrity and "speaking truth to power." And listen to speeches about how a free press is essential to the functioning of democracy.

"syllogistic string of superciliousness:"

John Podhorertz: (Thanks to Glenn)

Well, it has finally happened. Barack Obama has done what Democratic candidates for president invariably do — he has revealed the profound sense of unearned superiority that is the sad and persistent hallmark of contemporary liberalism. Obama’s statement today that small-town folk “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” may be the most distilled example of this train of thought I’ve ever seen.

Obama’s astonishing sentence offers a syllogistic string of superciliousness: Gun ownership is equated with religious fanaticism, which is said to accompany hatred of the other in the form of opposition to immigration and support for trade barriers. It drips with an attitude so important to the spiritual well-being of the American liberal — the paternalistic attitude that says, “Oh, well, people only do thing differently from me because they are ignorant and superstitious and backward” — that it has survived and thrived despite the suicidal impact it has had on the achievement of liberal political goals and aims.....

Actually, feeling superior IS the liberal goal. If you don't believe in anything bigger than yourself, then how you feel is the most important thing there is. And if liberals DO believe in something bigger them themselves, well, what is it? Can someone tell me?

Update: Hmm. Why does this line seem to have a certain similarity... Beijing's second in command in Tibet, Qiangba Puncog: "I believe Tibetans are a good, simple people who know how to be grateful..."

Update: Rand Simberg is a don't-miss: "By cracky, it's like the man sees into my soul!

"Thirty years ago, I had a good job in the mill in Pittsburgh. I was bringing in a good income, going to jazz clubs, discussing Proust over white wine and brie, with my gay friends of all colors. I was all for free trade, so that we could sell the steel overseas, and I never bothered to go to church, let alone actually believe in God.

"But then, the plant closed down, and I couldn't get another job. I went on unemployment, and found odd jobs here and there, but they barely paid the rent in the loft, and the payment on the Bimmer. I couldn't afford the wine and brie any more, and had to shift over to beer and brats.

"Of course, as a result, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd--the beer drinkers..."

There's nothin' like peace

Israel Today (Thanks to ALa)

Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure Benjamin Ben-Eliezer warned on Monday that if Iran attacks the Jewish state, it will suffer widespread destruction as a result.

Speaking at the headquarters for Israel's largest ever national emergency and defense drill, Ben-Eliezer said that "an Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation."...

....In related news, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proudly announced on Tuesday that his nation had begun installing an additional 6,000 advanced centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium. Iran already has 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges on line....

What Iran and Israel are doing makes sense---crazy dictators always want to kill Jews, it's in their nature. And Jews quite naturally have another opinion.

What gets me, what seems just crazy, is that if the US now drops some bunker-busters on those centrifuges, we will be called "warmongers," and aggressors!

And if President Bush does nothing, sits on his hands, lets two countries edge towards nuclear war, that's "peace."

Sick. Pacifism is sick.

"The liberal message of national improvement"

The Patriotism Problem Thursday, Apr. 03, 2008 By Joe Klein

....But there was still something missing. I noticed it during Obama's response to a young man who remembered how the country had come together after Sept. 11 and lamented "the dangerously low levels of patriotism and pride in our country, the loss of faith in our elected officials." Obama used this, understandably, to go after George W. Bush. "Cynicism has become the hot stock," he said, "the growth industry during the Bush Administration." He talked about the Administration's mendacity, its incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, its lack of transparency. But he never returned to the question of patriotism. He never said, "But hey, look, we're Americans. This is the greatest country on earth. We'll rise to the occasion."

This is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what's wrong with America than what's right. When Ronald Reagan touted "Morning in America" in the 1980s, Dick Gephardt famously countered that it was near midnight "and getting darker all the time." This is ironic and weirdly self-defeating, since the liberal message of national improvement is profoundly more optimistic, and patriotic, than the innate conservative pessimism about the perfectibility of human nature. Obama's hopemongering is about as American as a message can get — although, in the end, it is mostly about our ability to transcend our imperfections rather than the effortless brilliance of our diversity, informality and freedom-propelled creativity...

"...the liberal message of national improvement is profoundly more optimistic, and patriotic, than the innate conservative pessimism about the perfectibility of human nature..." What is wrong with this statement? For one thing, "conservative pessimism" is intrinsic to what America IS. It is woven into our Constitution, whose "checks and balances," and limitations on government power assume the non-perfectibility of human nature.

Also, in practice, that "national improvement" stuff starts with the premise that America is a horrid place, except for its liberal elites, and needs to be bullied and "re-educated" towards goals that ordinary Americans by no means hold. It is the opposite of patriotism.

Am I "questioning somebody's patriotism?" Damn right I am. Is there something wrong with questioning people's patriotism? NO! It's my right as a patriotic American. Do I think Mr Klein, Mr Obama, & Mrs Clinton are unpatriotic? Yes, I do. Their underlying assumptions are those of leftist anti-Americanism. They are unpatriotic.

...Patriotism is, sadly, a crucial challenge for Obama now. His aides believe that the Wright controversy was more about anti-Americanism than it was about race. Michelle Obama's unfortunate comment that the success of the campaign had made her proud of America "for the first time" in her adult life and the Senator's own decision to stow his American-flag lapel pin — plus his Islamic-sounding name — have fed a scurrilous undercurrent of doubt about whether he is "American" enough...

Why is it "scurrilous?" Why is it scurrilous to ask if a candidate for President of the US actually loves the US? Why, Mr Klein? Why exactly? And why did you put "American" in scare quotes?

"The liberal message of national improvement.." I for one do not want to be "improved." I spit upon your "improvements" with the utmost contempt. If anyone needs to be improved, it's you anti-American lefties. Maybe a few years in a Cuban prison camp, along with various Cuban writers who dared to suggest improvements in the much-admired Castro's socialist paradise, would give you a little insight into why us non-elite people proudly wear our American flag pins.

Update: By the way Mr Klein, you seem to disagree with "conservative pessimism about the perfectibility of human nature." Would you be so kind as to share with us your evidence? Could you give us some example of human nature being "perfected?" Or even just slightly improved? I would be very curious to see this wonder.

It's about time...

Jeez, it's about time. The Pentagon may finally getting tough with the lefty scoff-laws of the "academy." How I despise fakes, especially fake pacifists. There they sit, fat 'n useless, enjoying prosperity and freedom secured by military violence, and then they spit on our troops, and pretend they are dwelling on some superior moral plane.. And it's not like they actually believe any of their anti-war bullshit. If al Qaeda moved into Berkeley or Ann Arbor, they'd all of them be howling for the Marines.

Army Times: The Defense Department has announced a new get-tough policy with colleges and universities that interfere with the work of military recruiters and Reserve Officer Training Corps programs.

Under rules that will take effect April 28, defense officials said they want the exact same access to student directories that is provided to all other prospective employers.

Students can opt out of having their information turned over to the military only if they opt out of having their information provided to all other recruiters, but schools cannot have policies that exclude only the military, defense officials said in a March 28 notice of the new policy in the Federal Register.

The Defense Department “will honor only those student ‘opt-outs’ from the disclosure of directory information that are even-handedly applied to all prospective employers seeking information for recruiting purposes,” the notice says....

....The new policy also no longer lets schools ban military recruiters from working on campuses solely because a school determines that no students have expressed interest in joining the military. If other employers are invited, the military has to have the same access.

Federal funding can be cut off if colleges and universities do not give recruiters and ROTC programs campus access. While student financial assistance is not at risk, other federal aid, especially research funding, can disappear if a school does not cooperate.

The Pentagon can declare colleges or universities anti-ROTC if they prohibit or prevent a Senior ROTC program from being established, maintained or efficiently operated.

The new policy is, in part, the result of a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the federal government’s ability to use funding as a means of forcing equal access for military recruiters and ROTC units on campuses....

A less-than-accurate description of the situation in Baghdad...

Michael Goldfarb gives a quote from a book I'm going to be reading soon, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

...In 2002, the vice president had been briefed on fresh intelligence that members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad had made their way to Iraq and had begun setting up safe houses in Baghdad. Cheney found the report interesting, but odd. He had understood that Egyptian Islamic Jihad had merged with al Qaeda several years earlier. Ayman al Zawahiri, the group’s longtime leader, was now Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy. Cheney wanted to know why the report did not simply conclude that al Qaeda was setting up safe houses in Baghdad.

He returned the report to the CIA with a question: Would it be accurate to substitute “al Qaeda” for every mention of “Egyptian Islamic Jihad?” The answer did not come immediately, but when it did, the CIA finally acknowledged that members of al Qaeda were operating in Baghdad.

To Cheney, the episode was one example of many that demonstrated the unwillingness of some CIA analysts to take an objective look at Iraq and its support for radical Islamic terrorists, al Qaeda in particular. In this case, analysts were so determined to avoid reporting the presence of al Qaeda members in Iraq that they presented Cheney with a less-than-accurate description of the situation in Baghdad...

To me it is one of the most interesting things of our time, the way liberals (and the CIA is very liberal; it's not a place you will find any Republicans) are repelled, as if by some invisible magnetic field, from looking straight at Iraq. They know, and they knew then, back in 2002, that it was the biggest danger to them. That it would unmask them.

They'd been decrying fascism forever, and preening themselves on their anti-Hitler credentials, and then......comes George W Bush who says, "Bully! Let's all go together and overthrow a fascist dictator who makes Adolph Hitler look like a moderate." Ha ha. He got them, the vile phonies.

If President Bush (along with Vice-President Cheney) never accomplished anything else (in fact the list of his accomplishments is a long one) he would be a great president just because he exposed "liberals" and "pacifists" for the nihilists most of them are.

In multiculturalist eyes, "understand" means "no criticism."....

William Katz:

When Urgent Agenda began - and that was only two and a half months ago - I promised to defend the English language. I've done too little in that regard, for which I offer apologies. However, let me now try a bit of redemption and discuss briefly the misuse of a word. The word is "understanding."

We're hearing that word every day. Barack Obama's campaign, we're told, is an attempt at "understanding" across racial lines. The intellectual elites tell us we must do more to foster international "understanding." The multicultural industry informs us that "understanding" other cultures is the key to going to Heaven.

But what do they actually mean when they say "understanding"?

What they often mean, without telling us, is "approval." The word "understanding" has been so abused and degraded that it often is a code word for appeasement. "Understanding" across ethnic lines is noble, but the word is often employed to shut down discussion. If we "understand," after all, we must not be "judgmental." Only those who don't "understand" are judgmental.

A true, honest multiculturalist will say that "we must understand other cultures, and they must understand us." But when have you ever heard the second part of that expression? In multiculturalist eyes, "understand" means "no criticism."

So be on guard when you hear the word. The definition of "understanding" may not be the one you would use. A message is often being sent. It is sometimes a dishonest message.

It's almost always a dishonest message. And it's extra-likely to be dishonest when the subject is race in America. The Civil Rights Movement was, like so many other revolutions and noble causes, two-faced. There were crowds of idealists moved by a noble cause, but the inner core was power-hungry leftists, who use movements and causes cynically.

And the Civil Rights Movement was always as much about destroying blacks as it was about freeing them. It is not surprising that we discover black leaders peddling racism and anti-Americanism. That was part of the "movement" from the very beginning.

If you teach someone—anyone—that they should have a sense of grievance and resentment and entitlement...you are trying to destroy them. You are destroying their character. You are killing their spirit. When Jeremiah Wright, and many other black leaders, tell their people that they are "owed," that they are "oppressed" and are entitled to feel resentment and sullenness, they are destroying souls.

Suppose I teach my children that the world is against them, that the world owes them a living, and that they are entitled to special favors to make up for all the blows that life offers to everyone......what would I be doing to them? Would I be helping them or hurting them? You know the answer. What if I taught them that they should not accept criticism?

The Civil Rights Movement (and many other movements) was always two-faced. And this can be seen from the beginning, in the implicit "bargain" offered whites (and blacks too), that we can be on the "right side," that we can be the good guys, as long as we don't criticize blacks.

This was, and is, a pernicious and destructive idea. We all need criticism. It is painful, but it is good for us. We need to get it, and to respond thoughtfully. (And that includes thoughtful rejection of criticism, if it is unwarranted.) The wise person says, "Hit me with your hardest shot. If my beliefs and actions are valid, then they will withstand the test. And if they are not, I should change." And we even need unfair criticism. It's good for us; teaches us to discriminate between valid and invalid.

But the subtext of the Civil Rights Movement was always that any criticism of black Americans was racist. That it was equivalent to those racist claims that "all blacks are shiftless and lazy." That was an evil idea. The leaders of the movement should have been requesting fair criticism.

Black (and other minority) Americans were hurt by this, but they were in fact just collateral damage. The real goal was to protect leftists from criticism, especially leaders.. To protect them from having to defend various quasi-socialist policies on the merits. They have been hiding behind this ever since. The subtext is always "Don't you dare criticize me, because I'm helping [fill in the grievance-group]. If you scrutinize me you are a [fill in the blank: racist/sexist/homophobe, etc.].

The prohibition on criticism of "oppressed" groups creates a penumbra that shields leftists in general. That's why two ludicrously under-qualified candidates are vying for the Democrat nomination right now. Neither of them would even be in the running if they were white males. But each offers the possibility of giving blanket protection to their supporters. Any criticism will be called sexism or racism. No defeat will have to be acknowledged on its merits; it was just evil white/male America destroying the good minority group, as usual. (The same thing would work for Al Gore, but the grievance-group would be Polar Bears.)

Guys like Obama are in the habit, when things get sticky, of trotting out the line about how America needs to have a "conversation about race." This is always a lie; what's envisioned is a monologue, where whites are supposed to shut up and be told how horrid they are, and how minorities need more loot to make up for racism. But If Obama is the nominee, then I can imagine a more honest conversation happening!

The odds are against it, to be sure. Americans have been subjected to decades of relentless propaganda to teach them that this is taboo. McCain won't do it; it would not be smart politics, and he's too moderate. But, the folly called "Campaign Finance Reform" has, thanks to Mr McCain, taken much of election campaigning out of the hands of parties and candidates!

In 2004, the obvious fact that John Kerry's "war hero" status was a sham was taboo to mention, by press, parties and candidates. But the Swift Boat Veterans were not part of that apparatus. (Dems like to claim that they were a plot by Rove, but if they had been they would have been much better-funded!) The Swifties didn't care that they were going to be slammed for daring to break a taboo.

We could see some new variants on the Swifties this year. None of the elites really want to turn over rocks and shine harsh lights on the Jeremiah Wrights. But there are lots of ordinary Americans who might scratch their heads and think, "America has fixed at least 95% of what was wrong before the Civil Rights era, and yet the bellyaching never stops. Something is fishy here. In fact, I think this is a pile of BS."

Same thing about feminism, if Hillary wins the nomination. There's more than a few Americans who would like to turn that rock over and see the ugly bugs squirm in the sunshine. Probably won't happen, but the potential is there. Politics tends to unleash forces like nothing else. The elites are compromised, and won't go against the taboos, but elites matter less in the Information Age. They have less control of the agenda. Information routes around them.

Question for "Democrats"

In Mr Obama's speech, he said:

...To succeed in Afghanistan, we also need to fundamentally rethink our Pakistan policy. For years, we have supported stability over democracy in Pakistan, and gotten neither. The core leadership of al Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. The Taliban are able to strike inside Afghanistan and then return to the mountains of the Pakistani border. Throughout Pakistan, domestic unrest has been rising. The full democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people have been too long denied. A child growing up in Pakistan, more often than not, is taught to see America as a source of hate – not hope...

So, question for Dems, for liberals: WHY are you so disdainful of democracy in Iraq?

WHY did you prefer "stability over democracy" in Iraq? Even to the point of supporting the cruelest fascist tyrant ever?

Iraq just passed its provincial election law, one of the" benchmarks" leftists have been complaining about. WHY is no leftish person expressing happiness?

What is it about Iraq?

My theory is that Iraq is not only the central front of the War on Terror, it is at this moment the "central front" in the much larger struggle for the soul of the Western World.

President Bush, with a wicked cleverness we never dreamed he possessed, has posed, in the form of the Iraq Campaign, the perfect "put up or shut up" test for that vast part of the West that can be labeled "liberal."

• You claim to be anti-fascist, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to be pro-democracy, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to oppose genocide, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to care about people who have no "homeland," here's the biggest bunch of all, the Kurds...

I could write a much longer list. Almost everything "liberals" claim to be for, Saddam was against. And when President Bush posed the question, "liberals" (most of them) failed on every count.

The test has been repeated, and "liberals" have failed, repeatedly. Not only did they fail to support, for Iraqis, things like a free press, women's rights, gay rights, worker's rights, the right to travel........they failed even to express pleasure when Iraqis gained any of those rights!

And when al Qaeda and many of the Sunni tried to destroy the new Iraqi democracy by a campaign of savage terror, "liberals" failed again. They were almost all of them in favor of handing the Iraqis over to the butchers. And now that Iraqis have turned strongly against terrorism, and American and Iraqi forces are working together to achieve a stunning victory over al Qaeda, "liberals" have failed yet again. They are not happy with our success at all.

From Obama's speech: "...And that is why Senator McCain can argue – as he did last year – that we couldn’t leave Iraq because violence was up, and then argue this year that we can’t leave Iraq because violence is down..."

Well, I would turn that sentence around. Mr O, whether violence is up or violence is down, you are desperate to get out of Iraq. Why? Whether things are going good, or going bad, whether we are winning or losing, you are desperate to get out of Iraq. Why? Some liberals, like you Mr O, claim they want to get tough in places like Iran, Afghanistan, or Pakistan.....other liberals don't want to get tough anywhere......but you are ALL of you desperate to get out of Iraq. WHY?

I think most liberals are writhing in agony because they are being put to the test over and over again. I bet Obama could have come out in favor of conquering Pakistan and making it an Imperial Protectorate, and no lefties would have minded, as long as he promised to get out of Iraq.

That's what that speech was really about.

A quote to start the week...

From the National Post:

...Why aren't the Vietnamese more grateful to Tom Hayden? Recently, he returned for the first time in 36 years to the country that he and his then-wife Jane Fonda tried to save from American domination in the Vietnam war. The trip disappointed him. As he writes in the March 10 issue of The Nation, Vietnam has turned capitalist...

(Thanks to Orrin.)

Turning over a rotting log...

OBAMA'S JEREMIAD. By Investor's Business Daily:

Election 2008: Imagine the uproar if John McCain's pastor used the "N"-word and asked God to "damn" blacks. Yet Barack Obama's pastor condemns whites, and liberal pundits bite their lip.

This newspaper was the first to draw attention to Obama's hate-mongering preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, and his black segregationist church in Chicago. Our January 2007 editorial, "Obama's Real Faith," exposed their preaching of a militantly anti-white and socialist doctrine called the "Black Value System," triggering a major story in the Chicago Tribune, which led to other stories.

Now comes the leaking of recently videotaped sermons by Wright angrily condemning whites as racists and America as evil. If you close your eyes, you'd swear you were listening to the hateful rantings of uber-bigot Louis Farrakhan. Like the Nation of Islam minister, Wright feeds his 8,500-member flock, including Obama and his family, legends about whites keeping blacks down by getting them hooked on crack and then locking them up. He even claims whites invented AIDS to destroy blacks.

Obama is not immune to such myths. Until recently, when he was informed it wasn't true, he repeated a favorite Wright line that "we've got more black men in prison than there are in college."

"The government gives (black men) drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," Wright thundered in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Locked in a Jim Crow time warp, he claims America — which he affectionately calls "the US-KKK-A" — is "controlled by and run by rich white people." Never mind that institutionalized racism is a distant memory. Or that the most popular candidate in the country right now, according to some polls, is his top acolyte.

In 2006, Wright said from the pulpit: "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. And. And-and! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this sh*t!"....

If Mr Obama has been sitting in the pew for twenty years listening to this foul lying stuff, he not only does not deserve to be President, he does not deserve to be welcomed into the company of decent people. And if Democrats are not anti-American racists, they will repudiate him. Ha ha...I won't hold my breath on that one.

Of course in one sense he wasn't sitting in a pew, since this is not religion. It's politics. Mr Wright's church has been "hollowed-out," its faith replaced by politics, just as much as the many mushy white churches that have replaced salvation through the Lord Jesus with "peace 'n justice 'n the UN Millennium Goals."

And of course this is a perfect example of how the news-media hurts Democrats by trying to help them. Maybe, just maybe, certain Democrat Primary voters would have wanted to know this stuff. Hmmm? D'you think? Too late now, suckers. Maybe you Dems should think about telling the press to just report the damn news honestly, instead of trying to mold the country with their superior elite wisdom.

"When mystery no longer counts for anything, then politics necessarily becomes the religion"
      --Pope Benedict XVI, Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions, p. 126

Treason pure and simple

Michelle Malkin has a long long LONG report on the many ongoing attacks and harassment of military recruiters by leftists. It's worth reading. These things have nothing to do with any sort of legitimate free speech or democratic political action.

They are crimes, pure and simple. And treason pure and simple. And evil, pure and simple--this has no connection to any sort of real pacifism. (Which is apparently extinct—I don't expect our current crop of fake-pacifists to make any protest against lawless violence. Violence in favor of left-wing goals is always fine with those frauds.)

Leftists hate America, and hate the Iraq Campaign, and hate our military...for one reason. Those three have something in common. They each symbolize a willingness to fight for what one believes in. To the nihilist, belief is an affront and an irritant.

"It was always a shabby line of attack"

Jay Nordlinger:

In the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, we heard this from Democrats, constantly: You have to have worn the uniform, in order to qualify as president. Moreover, you have to have gone to war, in order to qualify as president.

Why did the Democrats say this? Because their nominees were Al Gore and John Kerry, both of whom had been to Vietnam, for some months. And the Republican nominee was George W. Bush, who had merely flown fighter jets in the Guard...

...Okay, my question: Will we hear the same talk from Democrats in 2008? Will they say that you have to have been to war, in order to qualify as president? The Democratic nominee will be either Obama or Hillary; and the Republican will be McCain.

Um, I don’t think so.

It was always a shabby line of attack, that particular one. And I hope that, in retrospect, those who used it will blush a little.

Yeah, right, blush like Ananias. Now they will be back to "soldiers are baby-killers." Frauds.

And you know, I'm still royally pissed about the smears against President Bush's military service. Flying 102's in the Air Guard was more dangerous than the duty Kerry volunteered for--Swift Boats operating off the coast of Vietnam. (It was after he joined them that they were sent up the Mekong. Surprise!) It was certainly more difficult; the F-102 was the crankiest and most crash-prone high-performance jet we have ever put into service. And Bush got high marks for his piloting skill, and gave 2 1/2 years of active service.

Lordy, how I loathe lying leftists. Here are some FACTS on the subject: Link, Link, Link...................

The wicked man fleeth, when no man pursueth...

Life.news.com (Thanks to Orrin)

Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting with a unanimous Senate to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death...

...During the Tuesday debate, Obama said he should have stood up against the life-saving legislation...

This seems strange to me. Maybe I missed something, but I haven't heard that Obama is taking any flack for his Schaivo vote. Hillary isn't saying, "You voted to save Schaivo. You've betrayed a woman's right to choose. Of course here it was a man who got to chose, but it's the principle of the thing!" So why bring the issue up? Is it some kind of Left-wing litmus test?

One would think that, politically, he would just want to let the issue slide. Surely he stands to lose votes over this, at least in the general election?

Maybe it comes from the heart. I've rather suspected, that, to the lefty nihilist, abortion and euthanasia are sacraments.

More Republican dirty tricks...

David Freddoso, at The Corner:

Senate Republicans just voted for cloture on the bill to withdraw from Iraq. Cloture was acheived in a 70-24 vote.

Why did they vote that way? So that they could debate it. This is not unlike what happened when Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) attempted to impeach Vice President Cheney. The Republicans there voted to have the debate (although they were stymied by the House Majority).

Majority leader Reid (D-Nev.), who filed for cloture, complains now that the Republicans are engaged in delaying tactics. Why isn't he welcoming a chance to have an up-or-down vote on ending our involvement in Iraq?

It's good to see us Republicans taking advantage of the evil witlessness of Democrats!

Ker-bam!

By Thom Shanker. WASHINGTON: Videotape of the U.S. Navy mission to shoot down a dying spy satellite made available shows an interceptor missile ascending atop a bright trail of burning fuel, and then a flash, a fireball and a plume of vapor. A cloud of debris left little doubt that the missile had squarely hit its mark as it spent its final days orbiting high above the Pacific Ocean.

A different kind of doubt still lingers, though, expressed by policy analysts, some politicians and scientists, and not a few foreign powers, especially China and Russia: Should the people of the world be breathing a sigh of relief that the risk has passed of a half-ton of frozen, toxic rocket fuel landing who knows where? Or should they be worried about the latest display of U.S. technical prowess and see it as a thinly veiled test for a shadow antisatellite program?....

"Should the people of the world be worried...." The way the question is put reminds me once again of the contempt I feel for the sort of people who make up the New York Times. (Shanker is their Pentagon reporter.) His loyalty and sympathy, as a member of the "coastal elites," is centered somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and a lot closer to Paris than to the nasty old USA. His heart is in Belgium.

When he writes "the people of the world," he doesn't mean, like, you know, the actual grubby little people. No. He means their owners, the ruling elites. They are the ones who might not want us to be able to shoot down incoming missiles.

So let me rephrase the question. Should the people of the world be breathing a sigh of relief that the cops are on the beat, and carrying bigger guns than the hoodlums who think they own the neighborhood? Yeah, baby.

Should the people of China be breathing a sigh of relief that their brutal masters are feeling less pushy today? You betcha.

Should the little people of the world feel glad that the liberating spirit of Ronald Reagan has been vindicated today, at the expense of the "realists" who think that we have no "strategic interest" in their freedom and prosperity? And at the expense of the vile leftists who are in favor of tyranny and oppression?

It's no accident that Democrats and Euro-socialists and all the world's tyrants hated Reagan's vision of missile defense, and have fought it tenaciously from that day to now. They hate it because they hate the United States of America, at least when she is strong and proud and free. We are supposed to be humble and conciliatory and meek.

To which I say, Ha ha ha. You lose, sniveling worms. We shot a rocket—not from a stable platform—from a cruiser moving on the waves, and we not only whacked a satellite out of orbit, we hit one particular spot on the thing! To all the fake scientists and fake experts who have declared that this sort of thing is impossible, I spit upon your nihilism. It is ALL possible. Because we are Americans. We can do this stuff.

And thank you, President George W Bush, who made missile-defense and anti-satellite defense a priority.

The guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh launches an SM-3 during a ballistic missile defense exercise. (Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Navy)

Si, se puede!

This makes a lot of sense...(By Scott Ott)

(2008-02-19) — As Cuban President Fidel Castro announced today he would end his half-century of totalitarian rule, sources close to Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to tamp down speculation that they were on “the short list” of potential replacements for the ailing Communist dictator.

Rumors in Cuba carry the currency of mainstream media coverage in the U.S., and many Castro-supporters are eager to find new leadership that combines Castro-like charisma with iron-fisted leadership tactics and revolutionary support for government-run health care, education and industry.

“A Clinton-Obama ticket,” said one unnamed Cuba scholar, “combines the power and the glory that was Fidel Castro, with the unshakable commitment to collectivism, controlled economies, and virulent resistance to the United States as a superpower.”...

Either one would be a good fit for the job...

"A good synopsis of the current state of American politics"

When Bill Kristol was offered a spot at the NYT, I mostly just hoped he wouldn't goof-up and disgrace us conservatives. I think this piece, Democrats Should Read Kipling, does us proud...

....Orwell offers a highly qualified appreciation of the then (and still) politically incorrect Kipling. He insists that one must admit that Kipling is “morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.” Still, he says, Kipling “survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly.” One reason for this is that Kipling “identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition.”

“In a gifted writer,” Orwell remarks, “this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality.” Kipling “at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like.” For, Orwell explains, “The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.” Furthermore, “where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly.”

If I may vulgarize the implications of Orwell’s argument a bit: substitute Republicans for Kipling and Democrats for the opposition, and you have a good synopsis of the current state of American politics.

Having controlled the executive branch for 28 of the last 40 years, Republicans tend to think of themselves as the governing party — with some of the arrogance and narrowness that implies, but also with a sense of real-world responsibility. Many Democrats, on the other hand, no longer even try to imagine what action and responsibility are like. They do, however, enjoy the support of many refined people who snigger at the sometimes inept and ungraceful ways of the Republicans....

Well, it's true. Actually, I think that way myself. Of course you will think me a bit absurd, but when I blog I sometimes think of myself as sitting around with George and Condi, puzzling out real-world solutions to problems. And resenting keenly those who propose sweeping solutions or easy generalizations. It does make blogging more fun.

“Socialism works"

Michelle Malkin has a list of quotes by Hollywood drooling idiots about their favorite totalitarian tyrant, (compiled from Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant)

“Very selfless and moral. One of the world’s wisest men.” –Oliver Stone.
“Cuba’s Elvis.” –Dan Rather.
“Castro is at the same time the island, the men, the cattle, and the earth. He is the whole island.” –Jean Paul-Sartre.
“A dream come true!” –Naomi Campbell.
“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!” –Harry Belafonte.
“A genius.” –Jack Nicholson.
“Fidel, I love you. We both have beards. We both have power and want to use it for good purposes.” –Francis Ford Coppola.
“The first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.” –Norman Mailer.
“Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that.” –Chevy Chase.
“Castro is an extraordinary man. He is warm and understanding and seems extremely humane.” –Gina Lollobrigida.