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March 31, 2006
Photos From The Revolution
Some photos of the pro-illegal-immigration protests (thanks to The Corner):
I wonder what the Mexican Indians think of this sign. It's interesting, though, that given the sentiment of the banner there's no flags but that of the US in sight.
You'd think they could at least get the swastika correct.
March 30, 2006
Mushroom Cloud Set To Rise Over Nevada
...a non-nuclear one, that is.
As The American Thinker notes, "The sound of the explosion will no doubt be audible in Tehran."
Posted at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)Wise Words From An Immigrant
A fourth-generation Mexican-American living in Texas conveyed to Jonah Goldberg her thoughts on the growing illegal immigration crisis:
To me, it's not about legal versus illegal immigration. It's about do they have any intention of embracing America as their own new country. If not, then they must be roundly escorted the hell out. Or kept out with big fences. The spirit of our immigrant past demands it.As an aside, I married a Mexican National many years ago. We married right after he received amnesty from Reagan's admin back in the 80's. He'd been working here illegally for about 10 years. He dreamed of buying a house and living here until he died. He taught himself English by watching the news every night. And a more proud man you never met when he was made legal. He still keeps a picture of Reagan up on his wall and proudly calls himself an American (and a Republican, too!) He cried at Reagan's funeral. He still speaks beautiful Spanish, although he's fluent in English; he owns his own company and pays his taxes and sends money to his ailing mother in Mexico. So is he what we want to keep out or encourage to come in? I think this country will always welcome immigrants like him. He's the difference between a pilgrim and a univited guest.
Emphases mine. I think she nails it: the real problem is the illegals' increasing lack of willingness to embrace US culture, which breeds the counter-belief in long time citizens that illegals consider the US to be a cash cow that exists only for their service. It's nice that the gentlemen in the story above honors Ronald Reagan, but that's not the point--for an older generation the hero would have been FDR. I am dead certain that a vast majority of US citizens hold legal immigrants in the highest regard; it's the fact of illegal entry (bad enough) combined with the growing rejection of US culture (even worse) by immigrants that has set legal citizens' teeth on edge.
More: Peggy Noonan has additional thoughts on the topic of unassimilated illegals using the US for its easily-tapped wealth (via Tapscott):
We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?Posted at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)Only a very great one. [...]
Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.
And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.
Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.
March 29, 2006
A Horrifying View Of An Alternate History
DJ Drummond at Polipundit presents a truly disturbing vision of what the federal reaction would have been if 9/11 had occurred during the Clinton administration. Drummond has discovered an actual GAO report from 1997 entitled COMBATING TERRORISM: Federal Agencies’ Efforts to Implement National Policy and Strategy. In short, the Clinton administration response to 9/11 would apparently have echoed its response to the first WTC bombing: the terrorist act of war against the sovereign US would have been treated as a domestic criminal act. Here's a couple of excerpts (hat tip to Mark Tapscott):
The Report has a flow chart of command authority on page 21. It’s worth noting that there are six layers of people between those making a decision and those who would carry it out, and that this Report puts the National Security Agency, CIA, Secret Service, ATF, and Customs at bottom rung of the ladder, with no authority of their own in a crisis or direct access to the President or the National Security Advisor, who is not even listed on the chart as a source or recipient of information in a terrorist crisis.
Staggering, but not surprising. What follows is worse:
The Report, on page 24, then revealed a true shocker – results of the Working Groups are included in reports developed into talking points, to be discussed with other members of the G-8. That means that concerns and policy development for the National Security of the United States could be and conceivably was discussed with members of the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Note that as of 2001, at least four of these seven countries were in contact and cooperation with enemies of the United States, and were opposed to American policy in several key venues.Emphases mine. Drummond is simply summarizing an actual report published by the US government--this is not idle blogger speculation. And the truly frightening thing about it is that Clinton is smarter and probably more decisive than Gore and Kerry combined. Posted at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Students Demand Respect For The "Rights" Of Illegal Immigrants
I think the pro-illegal immigration protesters have been studying the campaign tactics of one Howard Dean (via Michelle Malkin):
It will be increasingly hard to set any kind of reasonable policy if the reconquistas keep this up.
And check this out from the original article--it doesn't seem like school officials in California were too concerned about enforcing disciple:
But district officials and teachers walked with students who chose to leave. 'The No. 1 priority for us is student safety,' Thorstenson said. 'It's going to be more of the same tomorrow if this happens again. 'Our students are smart, they're engaged, and many are aware of policy that impacts the community,' she added.
My, my...she certainly does sound proud.
I heard the same mealy-mouthed stuff from a local school district official on the radio here in Houston this morning (we also had student walkouts). The official was using "the kids' safety" as a justification for the use of school buses to haul the kids back to school; never mind how they got downtown to begin with.
The buses were sent by the Houston Independent School District to drive students back to Austin, Davis and Sam Houston high schools. By 1 p.m., school officials announced that the students were back on their campuses."Our main concern right now is to make sure the kids stay safe and return to school,'' HISD spokesman Terry Abbott Abbott said.
How about keeping their students in class in the first place?
'06 Elections: Don't Forget The Economy
The Bush administration has been criticized by us on the right for not replying strongly enough to the scurrilous attacks of the Murthas and Kennedys on the US missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's been noted by the talking head policy wonks that this will negatively impact the Republican chances in the November elections. Since the average Joe doesn't spend his time reading Victor Davis Hanson or Steven Hayes, a lot of us think that more forceful use of the presidential bully pulpit is necessary to overcome the inherent liberal bias of the mainstream media--the only source that a lot of average Joes use to get their news.
But Mark Coffey reminds us that there's another powerful force that might affect the elections: "it's the economy, stupid". And the economy has been rocking and rolling right along.
March 28, 2006
"Bone Deep Intellectual Bankruptcy"
Jonah Goldberg comments on some emailers' attempts to defend Helen Thomas:
This is a perfect example of how ideological ardor can color judgement. In Washington, Helen Thomas has been a bipartisan joke for decades. She's nasty, untalented and deeply, deeply biased. She was when she was a "reporter." And she is now. People defer to her because she's an "institution." That anyone could hate-Bush (or what I had to say in his defense) so much as to lionize Helen Thomas is a sign of bone-deep intellectual bankruptcy or just plain ignorance.
Once again, if the Dems could only realize how much better off they'd be without such clowns as Thomas speaking for them, conservatives would be in an even hotter frying pan than the one we're currently in.
Posted at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)March 27, 2006
Berlinski On Europe
John Hawkins at Right Wing News interviews Claire Berlinski on her book Menace In Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too. Berlinski makes the sharp observation that the important problem is not why Americans are so religious, but rather the why Europeans have embraced atheism to the extent they have. This leads Hawkins to his next question (emphases are mine):
John Hawkins: In the book, you said that anti-Americanism seemed to be at least in part, a religion substitute for many Europeans. Can you elaborate on that idea?Claire Berlinski: Certainly. The phenomena to be explained are the irrationality and the ardor of European anti-Americanism. Irrational, because entirely disproportionate to any real faults in American society. Of course America has flaws, and no, it is not lunacy to point them out. But in poll after poll, you see substantial numbers of Europeans, non-trivial numbers, who believe the September 11 attacks were staged, yes, staged, by an oil-hungry American military-industrial complex to justify its imperialist adventures in Iraq. In Germany, 20 percent of the population believes this. In France, a book arguing this case was a galloping bestseller. Now that is bughouse nuts. Totally bats in the belfry. Then the ardor: "My anti-Americanism," wrote one columnist in the British Telegraph, "has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness." If only we could harness all that outrage and transform it into a non-polluting energy source! You see this kind of thing all the time in the European press. (Meanwhile, if the French, say, wipe out the entire Ivorian air force, do you see protestors on the streets chanting "No blood for cocoa?" What a question.) When you have these two phenomena together-irrationality and this curious passion, this fervor-it seems reasonable to conclude that you are in the presence of something like a cult. So you consider it, sociologically. What role does this ideology serve in the European psyche? One answer: It fulfills many of the roles once played by the Church. It offers a comprehensive-if lunatic-answer to the question, "Why is the world the way it is, and why is there evil in that world?" It provides a devil to excoriate and then to exorcise. There is community and belonging in anti-American activism, ecstasy in protest. Again, a form of Christian heresy, and no more lunatic, surely, than anything the Cathars believed, if also no less.
Hawkins proves once again that he is an excellent interviewer, and Berlinski is a fascinating subject. The whole interview is well worth your time.
Posted at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)March 26, 2006
Fighting The Fascist Tenured Professors
David Horowitz ably responds to John K. Wilson's questions challenging Horowitz's (undeniably correct) assessment of the Leftist takeover of the liberal arts academy. Wilson's questions arose specifically in response to Horowitz's new book The Professors. Here's a typical exchange:
Wilson: Which of these 101 professors do you think should be fired, and why? Can you estimate how many of the 30,000 radical professors you would like to have fired from American colleges for expressing their political beliefs?Horowitz: Thanks for the loaded question, but I have never called for the firing of any professor on ideological grounds. Ever. I defended Ward Churchill at the height of the scandal. I did so in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, and criticized my friend Governor Bill Owens who was calling for Churchill’s head over his notorious Internet article. I would like to see universities enforce their existing academic freedom policies and professional standards. If faculty members continue to defy them, it is up to the universities to decide what action they will take. If any professor is fired for his political beliefs, I will be there defending him (or her).
Here's a little more of Horowitz explaining his book:
Q: Give us a quick synopsis of your book.A: It’s about [Marxist cultural anthropologist] Diane Nelson -- and 50,000 professors like her. My book is a collection of profiles to show a pattern that exists in the universities: the pattern of hiring radical extremists to faculties, the pattern in which they are powers in the profession -- department chairs, heads of professional associations, like the American Historical Association and, of course, the American Anthropological Association.
Another pattern I show is professors who are promoted beyond their scholarly output; they don't have the credentials for teaching what they teach -- a professor of saxophone who’s the director of peace studies at Ball State; an animal biologist, who has written the most widely used text in peace studies, on war and peace; people who are just completely unqualified. If you have the right politics, you get promoted.
As usual, Horowitz's enemies strive to label him as a right wing fascist, yet he is scrupulously careful in insisting that he wants no one fired for their beliefs; he wants simply to have both sides presented. And he knows full well that presenting an alternate view is poison to the Left.
March 25, 2006
When Average Becomes Acceptable
I often rail about the decline in education standards; I'm a parent who pays through the nose for a school system that is unusable, so my opinion is somewhat informed. But when a working teacher reports from the trenches her words carry a stamp of authenticity that's hard to beat. Over at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, guest blogger Mamacita emphatically seconds my standing protest against the acceptance of the average as the standard (hat tip to AJStrata):
I do not apologize in the least for stating that I believe our schools should be catering to the HIGHEST denominator, not the lowest. If we continue to award kids for merely showing up, and continue to tell a kid he’s the GREATEST because he went for a whole two hours without hitting someone, and continue to give kids limo rides and restaurant lunches for remembering to bring a pencil to class, why should we expect our bright kids, who generally get nothing because continually performing well and behaving properly doesn’t get a kid any notice in a public school, to take education seriously? Nobody else seems to be.And self esteem, if it is to be worth anything, must be earned. I’ve listened to clusters of low-performing kids who made out like bandits on Honor Day, and they’re not humbly grateful or proud of themselves. They’re in the restroom laughing their asses off at the pretense, at the adults who actually believe these kids got something to be proud of. They’re LAUGHING at the beaming parents and the grinning principals who handed a certificate and a trophy and a special award from Kiwanis for improvement to a kid who should have gotten a big red F and a retention notice. Even the stupid kids aren’t THAT stupid; they know what they really earned. The awards should go to those kids who earned an award, with quality, above-average work and good citizenship.
Self-esteem is important, yes. But only if it’s genuine. Otherwise, it’s worse than meaningless; it’s condescending, and there is nothing worse in the world of education than condescension.
I recently met some parents of a classmate of my kiddo; they had sought out our modest, achievement-oriented private school after their public school district sacked their gifted and talented program. Their child was left sitting with nothing to do for long periods while other kids received extensive attention.
It's understandable that resources naturally gravitate to the less advantaged kids, but it's inexcusable that the standard be reset to reflect the average learning of the general population. The standard should be set on what a child needs to know, and if the kids aren't measuring up, so be it. It's not doing any of us any good to sweep poor performance under the rug.
March 23, 2006
Noam Chomsky: Trust Fund Daddy
Mark Coffey over at Decision '08 relays the story of how Noam Chomsky, the tireless warrior against American capitalism, evidently doesn't hate the profit concept enough to forego protecting his considerable wealth in a trust fund. Peter Schweizer, writing in Canada's National Post, details the lucrative business generated by the Chomsky brand:
Chomsky's business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at US$12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.Can't go and hear him in person? No problem: You can go online and download clips from earlier speeches -- for a fee. You can hear Chomsky talk for one minute about "Property Rights"; it will cost you US79 cents. You can also buy a CD with clips from previous speeches for US$12.99.
But books are Chomsky's mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O'Hare of Pluto Press explains: "All we have to do is put Chomsky's name on a book and it sells out immediately!" [...]
Chomsky's marketing efforts shortly after Sept. 11 give new meaning to the term "war profiteer." In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from US$9,000 to US$12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand. He also cashed in by producing another instant book. Seven Stories Press, a small publisher, pulled together interviews conducted via e-mail that Chomsky gave in the three weeks following the attack on the Twin Towers and rushed the book to press. His controversial views were hot, particularly overseas. By early December 2001, the publisher had sold the foreign rights in 19 different languages. The book made the best-seller list in the United States, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan and New Zealand. It is safe to assume that he netted hundreds of thousands of dollars from this book alone.
Schweitzer notes that copyrights of several of Chomsky's book are now tax-protected in trusts established in his children’s names, and that Chomsky waves away charges of hypocrisy by saying "I don't apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren."
Well, that's certainly understandable. It's a shame, though, that he had to settle for such a lousy return--I'm sure he would have done much better if he'd lived and worked in one of the peoples' paradises he's championed over the years.
Like the one in, oh I don't know--Cambodia?
Posted at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 22, 2006
We're Off..
...to Dallas for a couple of days.
See ya'll on Thursday.
Posted at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Grunts, Polls And The Tip Of The Spear
In yesterday's Houston Chronicle, Nathaniel Fick (author of One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer) explained yet another reason why Zogby's recent poll of Iraq soldiers' opinions is not to be taken seriously: the grunts in any war have a very limited view of the big picture. The whole article is well worth your time.
Fick writes about the age-old differences that arise between combat and support troops; between active duty and reserve units, and he makes this amusing but telling observation:
Culture matters: In the 1990s, the Marines toyed with the recruiting slogan "Nobody likes to fight, but someone has to know how." It was dropped after Marines started grumbling that they really did like to fight.
I'm glad those guys are on the tip of the spear.
March 21, 2006
Hollywood Superstars And Their Pernicious Ignorance
Tom Elia brings us the latest example of the mind-boggling disconnect between the average Hollywood superstar and the world in which they live (thanks to Polipundit):
A peaceful co-existence between the peoples of the Middle East is but a breath away, Hollywood star Sharon Stone said after a highly-publicised visit to Israel."It feels to me that we have an opportunity ... to choose understanding in a new way," she told a press conference in Paris when asked about her trip.
"And it really is just a breath. It's just an agreement that's just a breath. We are not far apart. We can choose to have this alternative kind of growth that is a collective nuance of understanding.
"We are just that breath away from a peaceful co-existence," she added after her visit to Israel as a guest of the Peres Center for Peace, a foundation run by Nobel laureate and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.
Sharon Stone is quite obviously ignorant of the nature of the problem. She could begin her education by seeing Michelle Malkin's report on how Islamic shar'ia law deals with those who abandon Islam for another religion, Christianity in this case. Sneak peek: The title of Michelle's post is "We will cut him into little pieces."
Just one breath, huh?
Debate Of The Century!
Well...maybe not quite the century, but David Horowitz vs. Ward Churchill ought to be mighty entertaining--in a Hellfire-missile-meets-terrorist-Opal-sedan kind of way. Via Free Republic.
Posted at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Jeff Jarvis To MSM: "Is That All You Got?"
Jeff Jarvis delivers a resounding smackdown to a commenter who came flogging the usual legacy media talking points. Jeff's post is logical, precise, and passionate--go read it all.
March 19, 2006
The Mullahs' Brownshirts
Although I've been strongly in favor of official US support for any democratic movement in Iran, there's been a dark pessimism in the back of my mind about the idea of a peoples' uprising, and StrategyPage puts their finger right on the problem (hat tip Instapundit). The author says that two conditions must be met if the majority wishes of a people are to take hold:
First, most of the population must want democracy. Second, the security forces must be willing to stand down in the face of mass demonstrations. The first condition applies in Iran, the second doesn't. While the Islamic conservatives in Iran have the support of, at most, a third of the population, they do have over a hundred thousand armed men who are willing to kill to keep their religious leaders in power.
Emphasis mine. One hundred thousand armed men is not eve 0.2% of Iran's population of 68,000,000. But if most of that one hundred thousand is loyal to the mullahs, any hopes for democracy are in big trouble.
March 18, 2006
Blogging...
...will be lighter than my usual sporadic rate. We've got family in town and activities will abound.
Enjoy your weekend.
Posted at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 17, 2006
Should I Clear This With My Local Imam?
Rachel over at Tinkerty Tonk notes that The Toronto Star has actually referred to Mohammed as "the Prophet". That's atrocious. Remember: No tolerance extended to those who are themselves intolerent.
Posted at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 16, 2006
The Legacy Media's Campaign: Incremental and Tireless
This morning after dropping the kiddo off at school I heard Laura Ingraham's recap of the MSM coverage of the opening of the Iraq parliament. I had to sigh with disgust at the utterly predictable treatment: Iraqi parliament opens to massive discord, adjourns indefinitely. Meanwhile Bush's approval ratings reach an all time low as Iraq tries to avoid the slide into civil war...
I made up this little example from memory, based on Laura's radio summary. Maybe I should go to work for Reuters; look at what John Hawkins over at Right Wing News found:
You don't even have to go beyond this short, first paragraph of a piece at Reuters to see exactly what's wrong with the way the media covers Iraq:"Three months after it was elected, Iraq's parliament was finally sworn in on Thursday but the 20-minute session was an empty formality that did nothing to break a government deadlock or halt a slide to civil war."The media has been claiming that Iraq is about to "slide (jnto) civil War" for three years and they've been wrong every single step of the way. [...]
Also, you've got to love the way they've slanted the news about the first meeting of the Iraqi Parliament. Here we have a historic event, elected Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds offically meeting for the first time to represent their constituencies and help guide their country towards freedom and it's just brushed off. "Oh, they didn't fix all of Iraq's problems in their 20 minute session, so who cares?"
They just wear you down by relentless incremental pressure--was it Goebbels who pioneered the technique of repeating a lie until it became accepted as truth? In this case it's not a lie that's being repeated--I imagine that the reports are substantially correct--but the omission of the rest of the facts necessary to make an accurate assessment. In that sense, the overall impression left with the news consumer is indeed a lie. In the event the MSM are caught in a factual error, the correction is buried in the back pages and the editors move on to another topic. If there's no factual error, then any outcome contrary to their story is simply ignored.
As John Hawkins acidly notes, if the MSM were actually hired by the jihadists to deliberately sabotage the US mission, they could do no more than what they are doing now.
Posted at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Hoo-Boy!
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg roused herself from her slumbers long enough to fly down to South Africa(!) and give a speech in which she opined mightily on the proper role of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution. Via Powerline (emphases mine) :
Ginsburg's speech was titled "A Decent Respect for the Opinions of [Human]kind." In it, Ginsberg argued explicitly for the relevance of foreign law and court decisions to interpretation of the American Constitution. Ginsburg did not try to hide the partisan nature of this issue; at one point, she referred to "the perspective I share with four of my current colleagues," [...]Ginsburg contrasted our Constitution (unfavorably, I think it's fair to say) with the Constitution of South Africa, which specifically provides for the use of foreign law in interpreting its provisions.
You really should read the entire speech, but its argument is most concisely stated here:
To a large extent, I believe, the critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions. We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald's words, of "common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed."This is, to put it politely, nonsense. In our system of government, the courts are not called on to determine what "basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed" requires. For legal purposes, issues of "basic fairness" were decided when the Constitution was authored and approved by the initial thirteen states, and when the document has been amended over the subsequent centuries.
John Hindraker is much more in control of his manners than I am right about now...he's also a very smart and accomplished attorney, and you should read his post for his thorough demolition of Ginsburg’s water-thin argument. But you don't need to be a lawyer to see the falsity that permeates Ginsburg’s speech; her deep contempt for the idea of the Constitution as the ultimate law of the land is obvious. As John points out, Ginsburg’s Constitution is merely a "roving charter" that allows the nine justices to interpret the law as they see fit. Bullcrap.
Has the Bush administration lost its way in domestic policy? Maybe. Is the war in Iraq headed for disaster? Could be. But no matter what happens, the ascension of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court is already a grand enough legacy for GWB's presidency. Thank God this woman is marginalized on the Court.
March 15, 2006
Opponents To Farm Subsidies Are Broadening Their Base
There was an interesting article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
A movement to uproot crop subsidies, which have been worth nearly $600 billion to U.S. farmers over the decades, is gaining ground in some unlikely places -- including down on the farm. [...]There is a long history of mostly failed attempts to pare farm payments. But the current anti-subsidy sentiment, rising over the last year in the U.S., is stirring attention because it is unusually broad. [...]
The government created subsidies during the Great Depression to fight rural poverty. At the time, 25% of the U.S. population lived on farms. Farmers could get federal money for producing commodities including corn, cotton and wheat when market prices fell below certain levels.
Today, farmers represent less than 1% of the population. Yet, thanks to labor-saving technology, their operations have exploded in size. Since subsidies remain tied to production, subsidy checks have ballooned. The government caps annual payments to an individual farmer at $360,000, though loopholes allow higher payments.
Most subsidies go to farmers who are wealthier than the typical U.S. taxpayer. Little of it goes to poor farmers because subsides are tied to production. According to an analysis by Environmental Working Group, 72% of subsidy money goes to 10% of the recipients. The group opposes output-linked subsidies on the grounds that overproduction hurts the environment. Nor do subsidies do much for rural economic development. Most rural people are no longer engaged in farming and two-thirds of those who farm are growing nonsubsidized crops such as fruits and vegetables.
The activists range from those who base their support on humanitarian reasons (third-world debt-reduction, for instance) to working American farmers who believe that subsidies hurt small farmers since maximized production (which drive the big to get bigger) pulls the largest subsidy.
Whatever the reason, farm subsidies need to go.
Posted at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 14, 2006
Cracks In The Iranian Facade?
While we're talking about the Security Council: if that body would only utilize the power its charter explicitly grants it (it may take action based on "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression"), then there might be some hope for avoiding direct military action against Iran. From today's Washington Times (via Drudge):
Iran's clerical and business establishments, deeply concerned by what they see as reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign policies, are increasingly turning against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Within this context, many see the president's long-running confrontation with the United States and Europe over Tehran's nuclear program as an attempt to demonize the West and distract the Iranian public from pressing domestic problems.
A relatively small group of extremists "at the top of the government around the president" are seeking to benefit from a crisis with the West, because "that way they will be able once again to blame the West for all of their problems," said Mousa Ghaninejad, the editor of Iran's best-selling economics daily newspaper, Dunya Al-Eqtisad.
If the Security Council would agree to impose sanctions with some real bite, perhaps the internal factional stresses operating within Iran could be increased to the breaking point. But, as almost every article about Iran these days concludes, it may already be too late.
Posted at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 13, 2006
The UN Security Council: Same As It Ever Was
The New Editor notes an AP story (emphases mine):
Russia and China have rejected proposals from the United States and other veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council for a statement demanding that Iran clear up suspicions about its nuclear program, diplomats said Monday.The dispute raises the threat of an impasse in the Security Council and means that the U.S., Britain and France may not get their wish for strong action by the powerful U.N. body.
An impasse in the "powerful" Security Council caused by Russia and China? You don't say.
The structure of the UN Security Council has never fit the geo-political realities of the world it is supposed to help regulate. It was barely functional in 1950, when UN action to defend South Korea against Communist aggression was passed only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council (the USSR was protesting the exclusion of the People's Republic of China from the UN).
There have been few bright spots ever since.
Posted at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)A Nuclear Iran: Passive Resignation Won't Cut It
Pam over at Atlas Shrugs noticed this article in which former UN weapons inspector David Kay seems to resigned to let a nuclear-armed Iran dictate the future of the Middle East (all emphases mine):
"I'm afraid that we probably are past the point where there is any meaningful alternative other than military action to stop the Iranians if they are determined to go ahead. And I don't see that as a possibility," said David Kay, who led the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following the 2003 invasion."My great fear is indeed we will have to learn to live with Iran, and all its terrorist connections, with the bomb," Kay told NBC television's "Today Show".
Oh, boy. Well, Mr. Kay, aren't there other alternatives? Somehow I doubt that Israel is wasting a lot of time planning to "learn to live" with a nuclear Iran.
Calling the Tehran regime "toxic," Kay said on Sunday that the tensions over Iran's nuclear power program -- which the US believes masks an intention to develop atomic weapons -- differ from those which preceded the US attack on Iraq."This time we have a far more united multilateral coalition against Iran and we actually have the International Atomic Energy Agency condemning Iran for 18 years of cheating on its nonproliferation obligations," he said.
Now there's some moral foundation for a just war: the IAEA has condemned Iran. For 18 years. Eighteen. Years.
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I've been reading the memoirs of General Heinz Guderian, architect of the German blitzkrieg tactics in WWII. He commanded the Panzer corps that sliced up, with unbelievable speed, the numerically superior French and British armies in western Europe in May of 1940. Guderian knew his tactics were risky, but he had evaluated his enemy thoroughly and was therefore confident of success. His analysis of the French high command was especially chilling--the French had the largest army in Europe, and the largest armored force, yet their commanders were so hidebound and backward-looking that Guderian easily predicted their reactions. The French wanted absolute certainty before they would commit to action, and Guderian knew there is no such thing.
Nothing has changed in 66 years. While the Leftists actively work for the defeat of the US; liberals look only to oppose Bush's every move; paleoconservatives argue with neocons; and the Europeans continue to channel take the path of easiest resistance, I fear the Iranians are having an easier time with the West than Guderian did with the French.
Bias + Ignorance = The Need For One Very Large Mirror
Tim Graham writes today about New York Times writer David Sanger's ignorance of the conservative movement (Sanger cited William F. Buckley as an example of a "neoconservative"):
John, this sorry labeling episode by Sanger displays two problems of liberal bias at the NYT. First, as you describe, liberal reporters display their ignorance of distinctions of thought within the conservative movement, which also suggests they don't have any conservative friends, and have spent next to no time reading up on conservatism. They don't ask the question "Where is Buckley in relation to the rest of the movement?" They didn't read what Buckley said before the war for comparison, or anything else up to now. A reporter doesn't have to BE a conservative to know current conservatism. A reporter earns respect quickly on the right for knowing the fine distinctions. It shows they've been in contact, that they don't write from inside a liberal bubble. (This is especially funny for Sanger, whom Clay Waters has pounded repeatedly for loving the "Bush in the bubble" angle.)Sanger is narrow-mindedly looking for what liberal reporters are always looking for: signs of a "tipping point" against Bush's war. Anything that fits that tunnel vision is "news." Anything outside the tunnel are just neglected factoids.
Graham's second point, that their ignorance of conservatives is betrayed by their labeling bias, is summed up by Bernard Goldberg's observation about the MSM:
And it is this inability to see liberal views as liberal that is at the heart of the entire problem. This is why Phyllis Schlafly is the conservative woman who heads that conservative organization but Patricia Ireland is merely the head of NOW. No liberal labels necessary. Robert Bork is the conservative judge. Laurence Tribe is the noted Harvard law professor. Rush Limbaugh is the conservative talk show host. Rosie O'Donnell is simply Rosie O'Donnell, no matter how many liberal opinions she shares with her audience.And that's why the media stars can so easily talk about "right wing" Republicans and "right wing" Christians and "right wing" Miami Cubans and "right wing" radio talk-show hosts. But the only time they utter the words "left wing" is when they're talking about an airplane.
Just so. Confusing WFB with a neocon is on par with inviting Bill Gates to a conference of Linux programmers, or suggesting to Joe Lieberman that Markos Zuniga would be a good fit for his campaign manager.
To a liberal/Leftist, every "conservative" is a homophobic, Bible-quoting, sexually repressed cretin who is incapable of rational thought. It's astonishing how many well-educated and successful liberals make no effort to recognize the many variations present in conservative ideology; you'd think they'd at least have an interest from the standpoint of "knowing the enemy".
But when it comes to monolithic and intolerant dogma, it's clear that the liberal/Left wins hands down--witness the aforementioned Joe Lieberman and the treatment he received at the hands of the Kos Kids. Maybe the libs are simply incapable of imagining a conservative movement that's an ideological big tent sheltering healthy debate--because that's certainly not the case on their side.
March 12, 2006
Hitler, Stalin and...bin Laden?
Keith Burgess-Jackson highlights this excerpt from Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate : The Modern Denial of Human Nature (emphases are mine):
The ideological connection between Marxist socialism and National Socialism is not fanciful. Hitler read Marx carefully while living in Munich in 1913, and may have picked up from him a fateful postulate that the two ideologies would share. It is the belief that history is a preordained succession of conflicts between groups of people and that improvement in the human condition can come only from the victory of one group over the others. For the Nazis the groups were races; for the Marxists they were classes. [...] The ideologies, once implemented, led to atrocities in a few steps: struggle (often a euphemism for violence) is inevitable and beneficial; certain groups of people (the non-Aryan races or the bourgeoisie) are morally inferior; improvements in human welfare depend on their subjugation or elimination. Aside from supplying a direct justification for violent conflict, the ideology of intergroup struggle ignites a nasty feature of human social psychology: the tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups and to treat the out-groups as less than human. It doesn't matter whether the groups are thought to be defined by their biology or by their history. Psychologists have found that they can create instant intergroup hostility by sorting people on just about any pretext, including the flip of a coin.
And both National Socialism and Marxist socialism were united in holding a virulent enmity towards liberal democracy. Of course, the term "Nazi" is a favorite of the liberal arts academy--it's liable to be applied to anyone to the right of Noam Chomsky.
After reading this it occurs to me that there's a third, more contemporary group to add to PInker's unholy dyad: the term Islamofascism is pretty spot on. The struggle of one group over another, the moral inferiority of certain groups, the glorification of violence--all are characteristic teachings of the jihadists.
I'm just starting Mary Habeck's Knowing the Enemy and it promises to fill in some big gaps in my knowledge of the jihadists' motivation. I'll let you know if my assumptions hold up.
Military Technology: We've Come A Long Way
I've been in one of my WWII book reading modes lately (currently reading Panzer Leader, the war memoirs of Heinz Guderian, architect of Germany's armored forces and tactics), so I found this post over at Neptunus Lex very interesting:
From an interesting (unclas) brief I recently received:(A) World War II Strategic Bomber had a CEP (ed. - circular error probable, a measure of bombing accuracy) of 1,744 ft., which meant it took 2,794 World War II 500 lb. Bombs to kill a point target. This equates to the full bomb load of 175 B-17 Bombers.If one equates this to a modern fighter bomber (like the FA-18E/F, not so much the Tomcat) and the 4 precision weapons it carries: The modern fighter bomber works out to be worth 700 World War II B-17s in a strategic bombardment roll.
Better bombs, much better accuracy. The slideshow goes on to state that 1 FA-18E with four precision weapons is the equivalent of 163 F6F Hellcat dive bombers, and carries a striking force equivalent (by itself) of two World War II aircraft carriers.
Which I thought was kind of cool.
Me, too.
Posted at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Portrait Of A "Fascist"
So the "progressive" Left is supposed to stand for freedom, liberty and equality? Absolutely. Social justice and human rights? Oh, yes. Sophisticated and nuanced insight into the sufferings of the oppressed? But of course.
The Harbor Lights bookstore in San Francisco is famous as the nexus of the Beat poets in the '50s, and in general as a champion of the "progressive" ideal of freedom of expression--yet as so often happens with "progressive" ideals, the acceptability of one's expression is wholly dependant on the politics of the speaker.
Cathy Seipp reports that the books of Italian author Oriana Fallaci are nowhere to be found in City Lights (hat tip Real Clear Politics):
A freiend of mine took his daughter to visit the famous City Lights in San Francisco, explaining that this store is important because years ago it sold books no other store would - even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive. So, though my friend is no Ward Churchill fan, he didn't really mind the prominent display of books by the guy who famously called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns."But it did occur to him that perhaps the long-delayed English translation of Oriana Fallaci's new book, "The Force of Reason," might finally be available, and that, because Fallaci's militant stance against Islamic militants offends so many people a store committed to selling banned books would be the perfect place to buy it. So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet.
"No," snapped the clerk. "We don't carry books by fascists."
So...I guess if Fallaci, who is outspoken in her defense of the US liberation of Iraq, is a "fascist", then the Iraqi insurgents are...what, exactly? Freedom fighters? Comrades-in-arms? Or just plain comrades? Fallaci:
To avoid the dilemma of whether this war should take place or not, to overcome the reservations and the reluctance and the doubts that still lacerate me, I often say to myself: "How good if the Iraqis would get free of Saddam Hussein by themselves. How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini." But it does not help. Or it helps in one way only. The Italians, in fact, could get free of Mussolini because in 1945 the Allies had conquered almost four-fifths of Italy. In other words, because the Second World War had taken place.
As Seipp points out, it is a rather crushing hypocrisy that a "progressive" store clerk could dismiss as a "fascist" someone who actually lived amongst the Gestapo and had friends murdered by the Nazis. And moreover, Seipp notes:
Strangest of all is the scenario of such a person's disliking an author for defending Western civilization against radical Islam - when one of the first things those poor persecuted Islamists would do, if they ever (Allah forbid) came to power in the United States, is crush suspected homosexuals like him beneath walls.
This is all rather beyond rational analysis. Is the Left really so self-hating that they would prefer to ignore the brutal torture and murder of one of their own, than acknowledge the demonstrated good works of the country they so despise?
Posted at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 10, 2006
Don't Miss This
Michael J. Totten continues his superb reporting from northern Iraq. Forget the blogosphere, this is pure journalism at its best.
A must read.
Posted at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Islamofascism vs. al Qaeda
A new AP report says that the perpetrators of the 3/11/04 Madrid train bombings were not directed by al-Qaeda, as previously believed (hat tip: Captain Ed):
A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said.Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks — and aiding the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq — a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.
Ed Morrissey thinks this is bad news for both Spain and the rest of us allied against the Islamofascists: this latest finding reinforces the fact driven home by the London bombings that there are unassimilated Muslim citizens of all the Western European countries who are sufficiently alienated and militant enough to attack their own countrymen.
But in a strategic sense this could be similar to the recent electoral success of Hamas in that, although promising more intractable problems in the short term, it defines the long term problem more clearly. That is to say, it is not only al Qaeda that is our enemy, but worldwide Islamofascism.
Along those lines, I wonder what this discovery will do to the frantic efforts of the Left to disavow any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?
March 09, 2006
Our Very Own Third World (51st) State
John Hawkins at Right Wing News cites documented evidence of a condition most of us already know to be true:
"If the 24 counties along the nation's Southwest border were a 51st state, it would rank first in federal crimes, second in tuberculosis and near the bottom in education, per capita income and access to health care....The study found the region ranks last in access to health care compared with the rest of the states and 50th in number of residents with insurance. Yet the prevalence of people with tuberculosis is twice that of United States as a whole. Residents also have high rates of AIDS, hepatitis and adult diabetes.
Local hospitals are straining to cover the cost of treating uninsured patients, said San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox, the border group's president.
"You have seen a lot of our hospitals reach the breaking point," Cox said. "Some of them are on the verge of bankruptcy, and that's a very, very, very scary scenario." -- KRISTV
Commenters to this post raised a couple of interesting points: One wondered whether the statistics noted were due at least in part to the rural nature of the counties; but reading the whole story at the KRIST-TV link reveals the study included the large urban areas of San Diego and El Paso as well as the sparsely populated desert counties in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Another commenter quite rightly pointed out that this problem belongs to both Republicans (specifically the White House) and Democrats. That's exactly right: both sides have enabled this situation (for different reasons). The business-end of the Republican party along with the anti-American Leftist academics are resistant to radical immigration reform, and it might take a disastrous incident to break the deadlock.
Posted at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Teachers' Unions Erupt In Indignation
John Stossel reports that--gasp--the teachers' unions are mad at him. For why? For hosting an ABC News special called "Stupid In America", that's why. Among the many other items Stossel relayed in his "irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers", the following stood out:
The constant refrain that "public schools need more money" is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student -- $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money.
Emphasis mine. $10,000 per student! There are only a small handful of private schools in the Houston area that have tuition greater than that.
With $10,000 per student our public school systems are churning out kids who can't name more than two of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, or follow the arguments of a newspaper editorial.
I think I'll write some new words to "If I Had A Hammer".
Posted at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 08, 2006
New Orleans' Pathetic Public Schools
A story in today's Houston Chronicle presents a shocking picture of the state of New Orleans' public schools:
Helen Faye McCollum brought along a roll of toilet paper on her first day of work at Taylor High School in the Alief school district [in Houston].After 34 years in New Orleans Public Schools, the veteran teacher just figured she'd still need to buy her own basic supplies. Instead, she found fully stocked restrooms and classrooms with telephones at her new Houston-area school.
"Here, the toilets are clean. Here, you can see your face in the floor. Here, there's no graffiti," McCollum said. "I always said I wanted to come to a school like this."
Eight miles down the road, teacher Ed Domecq was thrilled to find a clock that actually keeps time in his new classroom at Paul Revere Middle School. In 20 years, Domecq said he never had a working timepiece in his inner-city New Orleans classes.
The clocks were just the tip of what was broken in the 55,000-student New Orleans Public Schools. Long before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, the public school system was plagued by corruption, financial mismanagement, high dropout rates and low test scores.
This is sickening but not surprising given the pathetic performance of other critical New Orleans government entities, like the Orleans Levee Board or the City Council. There seems to be an air of incompetence that penetrates all aspects of New Orleans government. And as usual, the failure of the school system is most tragic of all because of the huge leverage exerted by a failed education: when a school fails to teach a child to read, those first two years of elementary school can seriously affect the rest of that child's life.
At the New Orleans West Preparatory Academy, about a dozen reading specialists have been called in to work with children. Almost all of the 390 students at the charter school campus were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.Patricia Allen, a certified academic language therapist with the Neuhaus Education Center, said some of the 8- and 9-year-olds there are still struggling to master their letters.
"They did not know the alphabet. They didn't know the sounds associated with letters. They didn't know the difference between vowels and consonants," Allen said.
Eight and nine-year-olds who still don't know the alphabet? Where's the NEA? Where's Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama/Nancy Pelosi/Edward Kennedy? Where's the Democratic Party--the party that's run public education for the last 80 or so years?
I guess this is all Karl Rove's fault, too.
Reagan vs. The Left: Same As It Ever Was
Back in the early '80s I was just on the cusp of developing any sort of political awareness; my parents were working class children of the Depression, classic FDR Democrats. Gradually, and mainly through the inestimable influence of the late Houston Post columnist Donald R. Morris, I realized that I was utterly ignorant about the real machinations of diplomacy and current events. I've been learning ever since.
I still remember Morris' series of articles in which he explored all the facets of the NATO deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe in response to the threat posed by the new Soviet SS-20 missiles. I was especially struck by Morris' dissection of the Leftist forces arrayed to stop the strong response that Reagan proposed.
This month is the twentieth anniversary of the publicity war over the US missile deployment, and Austin Bay has written an insightful article commemorating the event. Twenty years ago there was no internet, no blogosphere, no concept of the MSM as an enemy to the truth--the mainstream media was the truth for most Americans. Austin Bay writes:
Angry Euro-protestors attacking an American warmonger president?Yawn. In the American idiom, "Been there, done that." Translation for Euro-sophisticates: "Passe, pal."
It's 2003, and the president is George W. Bush, but the teeth-gnashing rhetoric is right of out 1983 and the "Euro-missile protests" against Ronald Reagan.
This month is the 20th anniversary of the Great Euromissile Crisis. Oh, the accusations! Reagan was stupid. Reagan was dangerous, a warmonger seeking the nuclear destruction of the USSR. Reagan was -- good heavens -- a unilateralist. Today, the mayor of London calls Bush "the greatest threat to life on the planet."
Twaddle. The current crop of Axis of Neville (Chamberlain) leftish pundits and leaders are thus exposed, recycling 20-year-old insults.
Bay continues with the story of how Reagan steadfastly refused to be swayed by the powerful anti-American propaganda unleashed against him, and the US. Bay makes the point--one that should be obvious--that just as in 1938 or 1983, there is only one way of dealing with repressive dictatorships:
However, themes from 1983 remain relevant in 2003, a key one being the absolute necessity that democratic leaders demonstrate to tyrants and thugs that the consequences of testing a free people's will to defend themselves are deadly sure and certain. It's a sad fact of human existence: There will always be another tyrant who'll need convincing.
Just so. It's staggering to imagine Reagan's single-minded vision from the distance of twenty years, knowing that he had no help from any kind of new media.
March 07, 2006
More On Rumsfeld v FAIR
Academic Elephant has an excellent analysis of yesterday's Supreme Court decision concerning military recruiters on university campuses. AE shares my confidence that the John Roberts-led court will concern itself with deciding matters of the law in question, to the best of their abilities--politics be damned:
FAIR has discovered that while invocations of "free speech" and "gay rights" go a long way in the lower courts, they are not a free pass on the Supreme Court. In this venue, it was decided that the government's case may not have been so fashionable or politically correct, but it had the weight of logic behind it. It is pesky when the law trumps your talking points.
Exactly. If we are going to find our way clear of the morally relativistic morass that we find ourselves in, we are going to need plenty of this kind of judicial "activism"--that is, activism in the sense of hewing to the old idea of impartial judgment based on the foundations of the law; activism in the sense that this kind of judicial practice needs to be returned to its place as the rule, not the exception.
March 06, 2006
Welcome News From The Supremes
AJStrata brings good news: