Wednesday, August 10. 2005
Pinch Me, I Must Be Dreaming The LA Times reports that illegal aliens are now receiving generous home loans from major national banks, despite their lack of legal status, credit, or Social Security number. This anecdote was particularly amazing: Silvia Avalos, a hairstylist, and her husband, Jose Luis Avalos, a busboy, are among the people Mancera is talking about. They were tired of spending their money on rent each month but didn't want to use fake Social Security numbers to buy a home.
After friends told them they could buy legally, they found a two-bedroom condo northeast of San Francisco for $280,000. They moved in as soon as escrow closed.
Two illegals working as a hairstylist and a busboy (!) can easily obtain a loan for a $280,000 condo? With an assumed lack of any credit rating or guarantee that they even plan to remain in the country? I would like to see the impression on my Citibank rep's face if I were to saunter in today and ask about receiving such a loan with my (probably higher than those above) salary as a young paralegal. Not only is this a clear abuse of the law and the public trust, this sort of mindlessly greedy behavior will end up penalizing American citizens as illegals inevitably default on their loans, driving up interest rates for all prospective home-buyers. Perhaps low-income American citizens who want to own a home should simply run across the Mexican border, toss away their passport and Social Security card, and re-enter illegally? At the very least, you'll be able to get a driver's license, free, taxpayer-funded education and health care, and if you can land a job washing dishes for six bucks an hour, maybe a house too!
Does the Left want us to Lose the War? Hitchins suspects so. He is getting wiser by the day. Do "moderates" exist? Right Wing Nation has the polls. What is an "evangelical"? Evangelical Outpost knows. Good blog. What's going on at the UN? Pennywit The Energy Bill - Or should they just call it the Pork Bill? More pork than energy. More planets? But what use are they? TCS Piano Man remains a mystery. Very odd. Only in England. Banning English in Denver libraries. Crazy, un-American, condescending, stupid, but right up the PC alley. Here. Are they saying the immigrants are too stupid to learn English, or are they saying that Denver is part of Mexico? One or the other... Cloning racehorses. Great. But what about great pointers? Or me? Clone me, please. I'll have the other me pay the bills, go to work, do the dishes, and I'll go fishin'. SDA Yahoo News Outs CAIR. Here: Click here: Profile CAIR - Yahoo! News Biological Pollution: Snakehead fish found in Queens, NY Opie made me post this: Discounted Ambriel Floyd Tees, here: Click here: Ambriel Floyd - Birds Tee Western Canadians are ready to consider separation. The Canadian Civil War? I do not blame them one bit - they are not represented to their satisfaction. Here.
Tuesday, August 9. 2005
Pool of Siloam Found - What a find! Drudge has story. Add this to the Department of Why Blogs are Needed: Who is reporting the story of the economy? Atlas
Thompson on "America First": To be sure, the majority of American immigrants — legal and illegal — come here precisely because they seek a better way of life. Contrary to left ideology, most immigrants understand that adapting to the cultural strategies of success in the United States is in their best long-term interests. Of all the tough immigration-related choices we collectively face, no imperative is greater than pulling out all stops to ensure that those who play by the rules in coming to America are clearly committed to the political and cultural norms of our national civic culture.
If Blair can sound like this, why can't our "leaders"? Read entire NYT is Dancing to NARAL's Tune: American Spectator In the Sunday Times (UK): "Even for someone who agreed with you about the war in Iraq and the deception perpetrated by our government to prepare us all for it — the latest stuff feels suspiciously close to treason. It is hard to know whether we should laugh at Galloway or hang him."
Scott Johnson on the ACLU's War on the Boy Scouts: Weekly Standard Iowahawk focuses on the culturally underprivileged in Crawford, seen through the eyes of reporters. A re-tread, still good: It was a scene that would be constantly repeated throughout the first weeks of the Bush retreat; dozens of panicked media professionals wandering the streets of Crawford, searching in vain for alternative weeklies, gallery openings and Peruvian-Vietnamese tapa parlors, only to be met with blank stares and offers of free beer. The experience stunned many.
Virtue breaking out all over? David Brooks Steyn on Almost Winning: Republicans may see the increasingly arthritic, corpulent, wheezing, flatulent Democratic Party as a boon for them, but I don't. Two-party systems need two parties, not just for the health of the loser but for that of the winner, too. Intellectually, philosophically, legislatively, it's hard to maintain the discipline to keep yourself in shape when the other guy just lies around the house all day.
Aker takes on the "mainstream moderates": Sometimes people call themselves moderates because they're not bright enough or interested enough to have positions on important issues. It's easy to see both sides, but it takes thought, knowledge and courage to decide which side is right.
And on the big questions, one side is always right. These are questions like whether we should have stopped the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia, whether to sterilize and lobotomize the mentally ill, and whether it's good for the economy to have an income tax rate over 50 percent.
The Mainstream Coalition was about as bold as you'd expect a bunch of moderates to be in crafting their list their principles. They're for human rights, religious freedom and quality education, against saying mean things about homosexuals and racial minorities, against candidates who lie about their beliefs, and against requiring office-holders to belong to a particular religion.
This would only matter if anyone with power or influence were taking the opposite position on these things, and none are.
The Mainstreamers should add a little to their statement that a quality education is the cornerstone of freedom and democracy. Along with quality education, you need guns, a constitution, ammunition, private property, citizens who know how to use guns, judges who follow the constitution, gun factories and a separation of powers. And maybe a few more guns.
You need one more thing. A moral population. A religious citizenry. Read entire, in Rapid City Journal
The Christian Left: One example here: Two thoughts about it: First, the Christian Right emerged in the 80s as a reaction against the Christian Left of the 60s, which seemed to have co-opted the religion and still dominates Protestant main line denominations. Second, interesting how the website is mostly about getting the govt. to do stuff - no surprise there. It's political, not religious, same as some parts of the Christian Right.
Monday, August 8. 2005
Why Blogs are Necessary, more Who in the MSM, including the NYT or even our friends, the NY Sun, is covering this? Click here: Pardon My English: Report Documents Massive Democratic Voter Fraud. And why not?
Border Patrol, Israeli Style Now that's what I call a well-guarded border: at right, the Israeli-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Though Israel is pulling back its settlers, it appears it will not loosen control of the border checkpoints around the territory. While terrorism is a day-to-day concern for many Israelis, Israel is equally cognizant of the even greater long-term threat posed by mass Palestinian and Arab immigration, which threatens to reduce Jews to a minority within Israel itself. Hence the need for strict border controls and rigid enforcement of immigration laws. If this country devoted one-tenth the effort to its own border, I suspect we'd see illegal immigration brought under quick control. Hopefully it will not take another terrorist attack to convince us of the necessity of securing our highly vulnerable borders.
Chrenkoff is retiring from blogging - a very great loss. It's about his new job - hope it's a good one. Presbyterians now being anti-Israel. What Fifth Column took over the Protestants? LGF Massive voter fraud found in '04 Election - Pardon My English is on the details. Push-polling against Roberts - someone is paying someone plenty of $ to do this. Volokh. Truly a filthy maneuver, unworthy. Two straight guys marry in Canada: hahahahaha. They get a tax break. SDA The Decision to drop the Bomb on Japan: from Gen. Tibbets, here Islam is a cult of death: Auster seems to have reached his limit of modern tolerance, here. Tony Blair is "growing in the job:" "We're angry about them abusing our good nature and our toleration," Blair said. "Coming to Britain is not a right. And even when people have come here, staying here carries with it a duty. That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life." Ummm, what about fox-hunting, Tony? Anyway, as a consequence, Brit Islamists accuse him of being Hitler- Jihad Watch. and Dhimmi Watch. And, by the way, Jihad Watch has become a 501-c3. There's an idea. The NYT has gone over the edge. As if attacking Mrs. Robert's dress wasn't enough, now they have gone after the Roberts kids. This is why I quit my subscription. Are they biased, or a Fifth Column? (Thanks, Atlas.) Watch Shape of Days lose it at the NYT, here. X-rated. And Captain Ed finds yet more propaganda in the Gray, I mean Red Lady. The Sudan: All you need to know - here. Not ready for tourism. Sailboat math. Great site. The winners know all of this stuff. Plus a "feel for the sea," which you have to be born with. The NCAA vs. the Indians. What PC idiots. Don't they realize that sports teams are the only compliments Indians get? Who wouldn't want their ethnic group to name sports teams? It's a compliment - sports are good things, with very positive connotations. We've have had enough of the sanctimonious scolds who never seem to be part of the so-called "victim" group anyway. Who are these jerks? Ridiculous. See our resident Redskin Bird Dog's post below on the subject, last week. He loves Redskins and Braves and Squaws and Hatchets etc. One Hell of a Stock...here. Opie got some...did you? She sold hers already. Will give you her next tip in advance - promise. We owe our loyal readers something. Will $ suffice? Flirting will no longer get you a raise. Here. What a shame. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. A very bad, very nasty movie. Do not look. Samizdata has details. Gun-hating jerks. How many logical errors can you find in this piece?
Friday, August 5. 2005
Why News Blogs are Necessary For just two examples, what major mainstream outlets are reporting these stories? 1. The Air America scandal 2. The truth about those oppressed, peace-loving Palestinians
How to make us safe: Surrender. Yes, that has worked just great through history. Galloway - thanks LGF Uncle Norm walks us through terror apologism, Part 2, including a quote from Primo Levi: ... to confuse them [the murderers] with their victims is a moral disease or an aesthetic affectation or a sinister sign of complicity; above all it is precious service rendered (intentionally or not) to the negators of truth.
Imams in Australia urge young to go to Iraq to kill Aussie solders, Jihad Watch A blog we just found, which we like, from GRRRRLLL BLOGGER
A Request to our Readers from Bird Dog We have been looking for serious Democratic or "progressive" blogs for the past month, (and have even tried to enlist some liberal writers that we know for Maggies, without success thus far). We do not want to be part of a giant echo chamber - we modestly want to be a small part of a discussion about America and the world, among other things. Here's the problem: Everything we find is either ranting, or tin-foil hat paranoids, or hyper-emotional angry, or old-fashioned 30s-era knee-jerk anti-American lefty pacifists (ie, pacifism for the US, while apologizing for the warlike inclinations of others), or Kool-Aid drinkers, or Christian-hating, or just plain fountains of predictably transparent partisan spin and calculated rhetoric. So if you know of any blogs which represent different viewpoints, but which are thoughtful, intellectually honest, substantial, not afraid of guns (Yikes! Scary! Guns go boom!), and serious, please let us know. Not kidding. Email or post comment. Thanks!
Thursday, August 4. 2005
Five weeks of cutting brush. That's my idea of a good vacation too, GW. I guess the MSM just doesn't get it. Nothing clears out the fog like hard manual labor. Bolton's First Day on the job - very funny The Tolkien Geek Blog is underway. Pollster: Dems stand for nothing. (Yes they do, but they won't say it outloud.) Here. The News in France - can you believe this? No Wonder. Samizdata. One in two million lobsters are blue. Lobsterman in NH got one on Saturday - photo here Can't help wondering what color they turn when cooked. Georgetown Women's Tennis - How can you not be a fan? Go, Hoyas! The UN to run the internet? Not a chance, with the Repubs. Can you imagine? Spenser's book (from Jihad Watch). Good Amazon reviews. Click here: Amazon.com: Books: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) Brit Tory says Leave it you don't like it here. Damn right. Dhimmi Watch Beyond Kyoto: Kyoto is dead. I doubt it was ever alive. Glassman at TCS The report from Saudi Arabia - what a mess. Daily Demarche
Dear Old and New Readers, This is our seventh month of blogging, and we are realizing that our worry about running out of things to write about was way off. We are a centrist, rational, eclectic, and fearless blog but we very much enjoy covering non-political topics of interest to us because politics is fun escapist entertainment, like baseball, but it ain't what Life is about. But politics is like life insurance, too - you have to do it for your heirs. There are at least two rewards from doing this blog: First, having to write forces you to clarify your thinking and, second, it gives us motivation to look into some topics, such as dog's vision last week, that we would ordinarily be too lazy to do. So we try to keep a mix of stuff on our page, but much of it is not hot news - review our posts under The Analyst, or The Culture, or Medical, or Religion, or The Song and Dance Man (Dylan) to see what I mean. Since we have been asked, we assume our readers check Powerline and Instapundit regularly, to stay informed, but we cannot help linking those guys anyway. As far as newspapers go, we read (online) the NY Sun and the Christian Science Monitor. Plus the Tues. NYT Science Times and the Sunday NYT in the driveway. We quit the daily because who wants to begin the day p-ed off at a pile of paper? Except maybe a puppy. As promised, to the right is a photo of The Analyst on Cape Cod last week. (She has courage to be body-surfing in that outfit - likely to end up with the top around her waist, and the bottom around her knees. But if you've got it, flaunt it. Yes, she has had three kids.) If you like our blog (or like The Analyst), please forward it to your email list with a recommendation. We care about the quality of our readership, but we care about quantity too. It's vanity. Best Summer Wishes, Big Chief Bird Dog
Wednesday, August 3. 2005
A quote from Oliver Stone, via No Oil: "In Cuba, I observed an openness and freedom that I had not found in any other country in the region, the Caribbean or Central America. I . . . have never seen the kind of spontaneous affection for a leader expressed on the streets as I have seen in Cuba towards Fidel." Shiny side out, Oliver. A quote re Condi, in Lib. Leanings: "Colleagues have dubbed Rice the "velvet hammer." Philip Zelikow, State Department counselor and a close adviser, said that "one of her gifts is that she knows how to say very direct things to foreign governments in a way that is not confrontational. She is very assertive, very firm, but doesn't leave them feeling sullen and resentful."
 14 Million
Instapundit reports that there are 14 million blogs now, doubling every five months. Is this a fad, or something real? My guess is that it's a fad, but more fun than hula-hoops and beanie babies.
Subways vs. Archeolology, in Instanbul. Preparation, Motivation, Discipline, and Interest - it seems simple to me. The silliness goes on about women and minorities in math and science. Why doesn't the National Science Foundation just come out and admit that, in effect, they want less Asians and less Jews in these fields? Some of the comments below the piece are interesting, too. Click here: Inside Higher Ed :: Women, Minorities and the Sciences PBS: A fair and balanced view, in New Criterion. (I personally do not feel that PBS offers enough, to enough people, to be worth subsidizing anymore.) Sample: Until public broadcasting signals that it can provide entertaining and demonstrably educational programming for television, the Internet, and the classroom, public broadcasting does not deserve to be treated as a sustainable enterprise. If it does rise to that challenge, reaching once again for the educational ideals that animated its founding, the public, corporate, and foundation monies it has been struggling to preserve for the last decade will be made available. And that, not partisan politics, is Patricia Harrison’s and public broadcasting’s real challenge.
Did the Indians kill off all of the big animals in North America? That's the latest theory, at TCS. Autism Debate: Epidemic vs. Better Diagnosis? Science Daily And SDA reports on the genetics of Autism.
Tuesday, August 2. 2005
Beautiful Italian Lawyer - Free Mkt Fairy Tales gets it, here. Yes, she is hot. Forever Wrong: from the Prof. He has a point, does he not? But the Prof. is loathe to admit is that they want America, as we know her and love her, gone.
Hispanics moving to GOP: Newsmax The Times Online says it straight: We (Brits) are "useful idiots." Here. An objective look at global warming, at TCS On Normblog: Human rights are an indispensable part of a morally decent society (though the eager embracing of victimhood is not, and there's no doubt that the discourse of human rights has, along with multiculturalism, encouraged many to regard the status of victim of rights-violation as the most attractive one going, and hence to reach for it at the slightest provocation). But protection from those whose direct intention is to kill the innocent is also indispensable. Such protection may require us to be more ready to accept defensive policies which constrain, or in emergency infringe, individual rights than we've hitherto been accustomed to.
Read the whole thing here. Tourism in Turkey surges: for good reason too - what a great country to visit.
Monday, August 1. 2005
 Tin Foil Protection for Mind, Brain and Soul
Right Wing Nation alerted us to the importance of personal AFDBS, and reminds us to always wear the shiny side out. Government psychotronics could be anywhere. Go to the AFDB website, and be sure to check their persuasive and scientific testimonials. Personally, I never leave home without one and I care not what anyone thinks or says, because I am protected. And my headgear makes the chicks look at me more than they ever used to - I guess they must be thinking that I am a hip, clued-in dude. Check out the site - you can make big ones for your whole house so your pets and kids and friends can take off their personal AFDBs when they are indoors. Be sure to check the MindGuard website too, for full software protection. Yep, that is yours truly, Bird Dog, modeling a stylish version, on the invaluable AFDB website. Wear yours with pride - let everyone know that you are a thinking, Red State conservative.
Mufti Akram Kashmiri wants me to inquire about what "root causes" we have created to arouse terror. I have a better idea: Ask the Mufti to figure out the root causes for our anger at terrorists. That might keep the Mufti out of trouble for a few hours and he might come up with an answer. Jihad Watch. Free Speech on campus? You won't believe this one...I must say, truly chilling and scarey that a request not to receive emails from a Lesbian Feminist group could be construed as criminal harassment. Intell. Cons. Of course, if you told her she looked hot you'd really be in trouble, but I'll bet ya five bucks she doesn't. The world has gone nuts, to take peevish hysteric females seriously. A world without flirting is like a day without sun. Similarly, a day without telling someone to jump in a lake. It is normal. What kind of litigious, hypersensitive people have we bred in America? Happy Birthday, Milton. Milton Friedman is 93. The Pirates of ... Malacca? Here. Privateers. Cool - I mean the private navies. Perfect for Jimmy Buffet. Hey, Jimmy, old pal, get a real job, grab an automatic, and get fightin. Martian Ice Cream. Not yet, but how soon? Hey, Ben and Jerry. Here. Naive, self-hating Christian organizations. No Oil How big would this story be if this were a conservative radio station? The scandal of the year, no doubt. Good point, MartiniPundit. Hispanic illegals in California want to change America. Jeez, I thought it was just Islam that wanted to change America. Stay home, people, and change your own country. We like it here the way it is. Immigration Blog. Lady Bloggers - Cotillion is not only good and clever, but they link lots of other lady bloggers. Surveillance cameras? Pro or con? Big Brother or a source of comfort? I'd hate to see them everywhere, but heck, they are already in stores and gas stations. Anyway, Heather McDonald likes them. I guess, except in times of war and terrorism, I'd like to see them limited to private orgs. and not govt. Creepy, even if you're honest.
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