Maggie's Farm

Re-posted from September, 2005 (it seemed to be on topic)

A Sentry Gun

Is this cool? Website here. HT, Ace of Spades.

Put a couple of these
around my house and
we'd have venison to feed
the multitudes.

And plenty of raccoon, too, which, if marinated properly, is great on the grill if you can conjure up the right red-neck attitude. Plenty of rosemary and garlic.

The only thing more
effective would be a couple
of signs saying: "Protected
by Automatic Sentry Firearms."

Israel could use a few thousand of these, along their border. A good border perimeter tool.

I would say that the sentiments expressed in this Barone piece explain, in large part, why Maggie's Farm exists. We are sick of this crap, as is Barone. One quote:

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.

He writes gooder than any of us. Read it all.

Statement from CAIR today h/t, Atlas):

"The American Muslim community supports efforts to ensure the safety and security of the traveling public," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "We once again urge law enforcement authorities and elected officials to caution against stereotyping entire religious or ethnic groups based on the alleged actions of individuals."

Ya never know what those Dubuque grannys might be carrying on their trip to Altanta to visit the grandkids. Am I retarded? Check the Moslems, and leave my granny alone. We might be stupid, but we aren't insane.

Billy Graham mellows with age. He looks forward - and back. Very fine piece in Newsweek.  h/t, News for Christians

Churches that give you what you want, not what you need. A guide for the cineplexed, at Touchstone. Is marketing a church mission? Wish I knew.

What does "post-evangelical" mean to you? internetMonk, h/t, Smart Christian

Jonathan Edwards' "Blank Bible" for sale. Could be mighty interesting - it contains all of his Bible notes.

Photo from the Hudson Highlands, looking down at the Hudson, just north of West Point, yesterday. (Not photo-shopped. All I know about photos is how to push the little button.)

Revisited the sculptures at Storm King Art Center yesterday, up in the Hudson Highlands.

Mrs. Chairman remarked that "Isn't it funny how often, when people talk about abstract art, they tend to translate it into metaphors about representation - and when they talk about representational art, they talk in terms of line and shape and flow and abstract form and dynamics?"

This is one of their Calders, about 30-40' high:

VDH's latest on the War, in NRO -a quote:

... it is still surreal to reread the fantasies of Chamberlain, Daladier, and Pope Pius, or the stump speeches by Charles Lindbergh (“Their [the Jews’] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government”) or Father Coughlin (“Many people are beginning to wonder whom they should fear most — the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.”) — and baffling to consider that such men ever had any influence.

Not any longer.

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.

It is now nearly five years since jihadists from the Arab world left a crater in Manhattan and ignited the Pentagon. Apart from the frontline in Iraq, the United States and NATO have troops battling the Islamic fascists in Afghanistan. European police scramble daily to avoid another London or Madrid train bombing. The French, Dutch, and Danish governments are worried that a sizable number of Muslim immigrants inside their countries are not assimilating, and, more worrisome, are starting to demand that their hosts alter their liberal values to accommodate radical Islam. It is apparently not safe for Australians in Bali, and a Jew alone in any Arab nation would have to be discreet — and perhaps now in France or Sweden as well. Canadians’ past opposition to the Iraq war, and their empathy for the Palestinians, earned no reprieve, if we can believe that Islamists were caught plotting to behead their prime minister. Russians have been blown up by Muslim Chechnyans from Moscow to Beslan. India is routinely attacked by Islamic terrorists. An elected Lebanese minister must keep in mind that a Hezbollah or Syrian terrorist — not an Israeli bomb — might kill him if he utters a wrong word. The only mystery here in the United States is which target the jihadists want to destroy first: the Holland Tunnel in New York or the Sears Tower in Chicago.

A few interesting pieces:

First, from this new piece by Jimmy Carter, a man who has always been in utter denial of evil and detructiveness in the world and the easiest con target on earth. He blames the war on Bush (wasn't it great the way the "Peace Process" worked before Bush?):

The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal.

A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions. Direct engagement with the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority and the government in Damascus will be necessary if secure negotiated settlements are to be achieved.

All I can say is this: if these terrorist guys were calm, rational, and humane, the problem would have been solved by Jimmy Carter himself - if not by Nixon. No need to read it all - the guy is in LalaLand. He had his chance, and he kissed Yasir Arafat. Decades later, he still wants to drop love bombs.

Second, Tracinski at RCP, asks "If the Iranian strategy is so clear, why can't we deal with it?" Damn good question.

Everyone knows that Iran is using Hezbollah's war in Lebanon to distract attention from its nuclear weapons program. The Iranians were given a July 5 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment or face "serious consequences." The contemptuous Iranians declared that they wouldn't reply for another six weeks, on August 22. Then Hezbollah--a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran's Revolutionary Guards--initiated their war in Lebanon, and no one has paid attention to the Iranian nuclear program for the past three weeks. Now, finally, we are sending a new resolution to the UN Security Council--giving Iran until August 31 to agree to talks or face another months-long debate about whether we will impose sanctions against them.

The Iranian strategy to buy time is utterly transparent and not especially clever. It is simple to defeat: declare that Hezbollah's aggression against Israel is proof of Iran's evil intentions and that we don't require any further diplomatic justification to bomb Iran's nuclear sites and bring down its regime.

Instead, Western leaders fell for the Iranian strategy, and the Iranians have pretty much gotten what they wanted.

Third, a quote from Dershowitz in The Front Page:

Sunday was a day of great triumph for Hezbollah. Its tactics had worked. By launching rockets at Israeli civilians within yards of a building filled with refugees, Hezbollah had induced Israel to make a terrible mistake. Its defensive rocket had missed the Hezbollah launchers and hit the civilian building. That was Hezbollah’s plan all along. As Israelis wept in grief over the deaths of the Lebanese children, Hezbollah leaders celebrated its propaganda victory.

Yes, Hezbollah was happy that an Israeli rocket had killed Lebanese children. The children were now in paradise, martyrs to Hezbollah’s cause. Israel was being condemned throughout the world for “killing” children—“massacre” was the most common word used in the Arab media. The Israelis apologized, but that was not enough to put out the flames of anger or to quiet the shrill calls for revenge.

For salt-water flyfishing, everyone says the Seychelles are the best. Miles of flats, and no fishermen.

It's a bit of a trip, but Frontiers can arrange it all for you.

(This is a free advt. for our friends at Frontiers.)

The anti-Israel and anti-American trend of the mainline churches continues apace. In a disturbingly lock-step manner support for Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorists flows out of these churches, as listed here, with their recent statements, in Camera. And let's not forget the loony tendencies of the dying Anglicans.

Dr. Bliss wrote about the phenomenon here. The co-opting of the churches (along with all sorts of non-profit orgs) has been going on since the late 60s, but it hasn't run its course yet.  (We recently discussed the WCC here.) In the meantime, more people are attending livelier churches with more conservative approaches to life and politics.

Why is this a Left-Right issue? Beats me. I've read lots of explanations, but none of them seem to stick. Heck, Israel is basically a socialist country, while the Arab countries are paleo-capitalist and paleo-everything else. The only clue I have is that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." And America is their enemy, for some reason and, of course, Israel is just an American military outpost.

Or it could be that these ministers and priests listened to John Lennon too many times:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Maybe we should broadcast this song to the Palis and the Hezzies and Ahmadinejad and Osama 24 hrs/day - it is a good tune, but the lyrics are those of a wealthy, drug-addled infant. I tried to satirize this song once, but it satirizes itself too well.

Joe on the Trilemma and Thomas Jefferson:

As Christians we should reject the politically correct third way that allows non-Christians to escape the horns of the trilemma. The logic of the “liar, lunatic, Lord” argument forces a choice, one that Jesus himself requires every person to make. You can fall at his feet in adoration, dismiss him as a crank, or pity him as mentally deranged fool. You can even deny the evidence and historical consensus and claim that Jesus never existed. But what you cannot say is that he was merely a “good man” or a “wise teacher.” Jefferson’s Jesus—the moral philosopher that lies in a sepulcher in Jerusalem—can’t be found in the Gospels, in history, or in the anywhere outside the imagination of our founding father.

Whole thing here. Good comments.

Even a half-man would hit the jerk on the head with their camera and leave their brains on the floor. Or, at least, not return from this photo-op alive - but with honor intact.

These guys are a source of shame for all Americans, today - and every day. What would you - or I - do? I would GPS the address and call in air support - before I got there, of course. Lose a photo - save a life.

This is The End, for the NYT. Full story, with details on Pinch "Let the American die" Sulzberger, and photos here.

There always seemed to me to be a contradiction to have small-government conservatives and libertarians in positions of power, because ideologically they supposedly dislike and distrust government power - especially Federal power.

Even Reagan was unable to get rid of the Dept of Education, which has no reason for existence as far as I can tell other than to announce, in FDR-style, "We care; we try," but of course at our expense, so we end up paying dearly for the BS that is fed to us. And I am a Dem, but not a Lib. I do not dislike George Bush - in fact, I sort of like his casual style. But he is neither a Repub nor a Dem - he's our Pres. - not an easy job, with the full force of the Lefty press against him and with plenty of big-mouths getting angry about every single decision the guy makes. He is only human.

The wacko Left, who damage us Dems badly, try to deify every Dem president, like the Romans did. False gods. Wrong approach for free-thinking Americans. Our pols, like most pols, are egomaniac smoothies with nothing better to do, or nothing else they can do. That's the deal. There is One God, and I hope He can find humor in some of our preoccupations.

Both Bush administrations disappointed conservatives deeply, not because they are tricksters, but because politics and governance seem to require at least the illusion of a "can do" Federal govt. And, since FDR, Americans have learned to look to Washington to "fix it," or at least to look as if they are trying. They (we) will never un-learn this, since it is built into human nature to lean on power for help and protection while, as Dr. Bliss has taught us, striving for personal goals and independence.

In democracies, where people can vote themselves free stuff - something the Founders never imagined in their wildest dreams because their culture of the time could not have imagined such weakness of spirit existing in a free new world of boundless, classless opportunity and freedom to own property - conservatives are at a disadvantage, whether "good govt" Dem conservatives like me, or conservative Repubs. Thus Buckley's   conservatism "stands athwart history, yelling Stop..."

Boston College Political Science Prof. Alan Wolfe has written a piece, Why Conservatives Can't Govern.  It is an over-heated, hyperbolic, and fact-twisting anti-Bush rant (for just one example, he makes it sound as if K Street were a Repub thing - it's not. K Street just follows the influence - they don't care who it is) rather than a calm, thoughtful essay, but he does have some good points. A quote:

If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government--indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government--is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.

Despite the partisanship and erroneous rhetoric, there is a point or two in this piece. What he omits is that the Liberals do no better - or worse.

(Clinton, and his abandoned wife, are, in my opinion, left-tilting, amoral pragmatists for whom power, money, and self-importance is the goal, not ideolology. Both have more cojones than they have wisdom, and not only am I smarter than they are, but they couldn't run the businesses I run for five minutes. Truman, at least, ran a haberdashery.)

I do believe that if our Liberal Dems had full power, the US would be a train wreck like France. (I have yet to see the Liberal "world-class boeuf bourguignon." World-class things - like great restaurants - are produced in the private sector.) But I will not donate the time to refute every Lefty talking point in this piece - just see if you can find the good stuff in it.

Which is more foolish: Antagonism towards government, or faith in government?
Answer: Both.

We have been rough on the New York Times since Maggie's Farm opened for business. I think it is because many of us grew up with this newspaper, and had come to rely on her.

But she done us wrong.

Things have changed, since Pinch took over. So many feel betrayed, and played for fools. And have cancelled, despite missing much of their unobjectionable, good, well-written material on non-political matters.

We, and others, have caught them many times with their pants down, but now they are caught dead to rights: Powerline

It's a damn shame that they chose this route.

If you have an opinion, send it to the public editor at public@nytimes.com, but do not expect any satisfaction. They have already drunk the kool-aid, and have left objectivity far in the past, with Abe Rosenfeld. Now, they are not only flagrantly partisan, but dishonest and anti-American.

You might almost think they were French, but, God knows, they might take that as a compliment.

 George M Cohan sent the following letter to a show biz paper on July 4, 1906 (borrowed from a Steyn piece):

I write my own songs because I write better songs than anyone else I know of. I publish these songs because they bring greater royalties than any other class of music sold in this country. I write my own plays because I have not yet seen or read plays from the pens of other authors that seem as good as the plays I write. I produce my own plays because I think I’m as good a theatrical manager as any other man in this line. I dance because I know I’m the best dancer in the country. I sing because I can sing my own songs better than any other man on the stage… I play leading parts in most of my plays because I think I’m the best actor available. I pay myself the biggest salary ever paid a song and dance comedian because I know I deserve it.

But believe me, kind reader, when I say, I am not an egotist.

Read Steyn's piece, You're a Grand Old Flag, which began as You're a Grand Old Rag  My image of Cohan is entirely mixed-up with Jimmy Cagney, who played Cohan in the 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Repost: originally posted on Oct 19, 2005

From piece by Zinsmeister at The American Enterprise:

"Nearly one third of Germans under 30 say that the U.S. government ordered the 9/11 attacks. In France, a book insisting that Americans carried out the assault themselves to increase defense budgets becomes a huge bestseller. In Britain, major newspapers carry headlines like "The USA is Now the World's Leading Rogue State."

Asked which countries are the biggest threat to world peace, Europeans name the U.S as often as North Korea and Iran (each are picked by 53 percent). Countries characterized by Euros as less menacing than the U.S. include Syria, Iraq, Russia, China, Afghanistan, Libya. As one American living in Britain, Anglican minister Dwight Longenecker, summarizes: "Our cultural ancestors have become unrecognizable, even hostile, to us."

Unlike some forms of bigotry, anti-Americanism is most virulent among Europe's elites. Everyday Germans and Brits and Italians tend to be more appreciative of American culture, economic achievement, and government than their political lords. But ordinary Europeans have relatively little influence on the direction of their societies. The thing about European governance most striking to American eyes today is its comparatively undemocratic nature. In much of the continent, elections mean little, unaccountable bureaucracies and elites commandeer the most important decisions, the same people hang onto power endlessly, and policies that would not survive the test of popular opinion are simply instituted by administrative fiat. To cite just one example, direct election of mayors has been blocked in many localities, with national authorities insisting on appointing local leaders themselves.

Because of this unrepresentative politics, lots of ideas supported by a majority of the European public--like the death penalty--have no chance of becoming law. The tradition of a peasantry ruled by its "betters" endures in numerous ways. Many of these habits are actually being deepened by the European Union, where decision making is dominated by unrecallable mandarins serving appointments in Brussels, who regularly ram through laws that could never pass by popular referendum. "

Read entire.

I'd like to acknowledge whoever linked to this piece, but
I don't know who did. Anyway, these are the
45 Communist goals for the US, as published in the 1963 Congressional Record.

Take a look, and see how they did, or are doing. Looks like their goals are doing just fine.

Diana West's Deluded America in the Wash. Times echoes our Run Away post this week (scroll down). I notice Powerline thought this was good, too. A quote:

The question is, did bombing Dresden to defeat Hitler or dropping two nuclear bombs to force Japan to stop fighting make the Allies into barbarians?
    I think most people would still say of course not and argue that such destructive measures were necessary to save civilization itself — and certainly thousands of mainly American and Allied lives. But if this argument continues to carry the day, it's because we still view that historic period from its own perspective. We view it from a perspective in which Allied lives — our fathers, husbands, brothers and sons — counted for more than Axis lives, even those of women and children.
     How quaint. That is, this is not at all how we think anymore. If we still valued our own men more than the enemy and the "civilians" they hide among — and now I'm talking about the war in Iraq — our tactics would be totally different, and, not incidentally, infinitely more successful. We would drop bombs on city blocks, for example, and not waste men in dangerous house-to-house searches. We would destroy enemy sanctuaries in Syria and Iran and not disarm "insurgents" at perilous checkpoints in hostile Iraqi strongholds.
    In the 21st century, however, there is something that our society values more than our own lives — and more than the survival of civilization itself. That something may be described as the kind of moral superiority that comes from a good wallow in Abu Ghraib, Haditha, CIA interrogations or Guantanamo Bay. Morally superior people — Western elites — never "humiliate" prisoners, never kill civilians, never torture or incarcerate jihadists. Indeed, they would like to kill, I mean, prosecute, or at least tie the hands of, anyone who does. This, of course, only enhances their own moral superiority. But it doesn't win wars. And it won't save civilization.
    Why not? Because such smugness masks a massive moral paralysis. The morally superior (read: paralyzed) don't really take sides, don't really believe one culture is qualitatively better or worse than the other...

Read the whole thing.

Lieut. Watada refuses deployment. This is a very serious matter, of course. The Lieut. surely would not be pleased when his team refused his orders on the battlefield. And he will not be pleased with the consequences of disobedience - just like any job, but in this case, more severe.

If this guy is so much smarter and wiser than his commanders, then why is he not a professor at West Point?

"Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character."  - Gen. Robert E. Lee 

War is a very good way to separate the men from the boys.

So we did find hundreds of chemical WMDs in Iraq, BUT....

- they aren't new
- they didn't find any nukes
- that's old news (it is?)
- the timing of the declassification is suspicious
- that still wasn't a reason to invade
- Saddam wasn't such a bad guy
- it doesn't count, because it doesn't fit the narrative
- Bush never really made WMDs his main excuse anyway
- it's really all about oil   Halliburton  imperialism  Bush's stupidity  the neocon conspiracy  the Israel lobby getting elected  whatever.

...and so it goes on. The US is always wrong. Oh, and there are no terrorists in Iraq.

It's tough to be a Dem these days, because Bush has squeezed us/them out of the center.

As they drift, or are squeezed, Leftward, they alienate voters both on the "social" issues and on defense. (Don't ask me what I mean by "leftward," since much of it isn't really "Left:" there is nothing intrinsically Left about Jihad-denial, for example.)

Or is there? Our bred-in-the-bone Repub Mrs. Chairman feels that it is always a tactical imperative of the Left to disparage the US, because they have an agenda of social change. Thus anything that smells of nationalism, patriotism, pride, or which focuses on external rather than internal evils, delays the movement towards their quasi-socialist agenda, which can only be based on the "What's wrong with America?" question. For the country that everyone in the world wants to come to, and to be like, it is a bit odd. When we Dems begin standing up for America, and abandon socialism, we can begin winning national elections again.

Most honest people who take risks to come here, and do so legally, want economic and political and personal freedom, not hand-outs, and not an easy lfe. Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent the Dems no longer tout the US as the bastion of individual freedom, opportunity, and good values, the way JFK always did. (Mrs. Chairman is smarter than me, but she will not blog.)

We need two lively parties to make a good game of "Capture the Flag." In the end, the struggle is always for the non-ideological "center," (which has always been fairly conservative outside of the MSM, academia, union loyalists, California, and New England/New York, and the ridiculously wealthy for whom redistributional taxes are no concern), but which has slowly drifted "rightward" - I think mainly in reaction to the alarming "Leftward" drift of the Dems since JFK - and the high visibility of their irrational and often wackily colorful fringe elements and "lens lice," as Curtis Sliwa terms them.

That "Leftward" drift is a major political error, especially in a time when the rest of the decadent and spoiled Western World is so visibly and desperately trying to undo their socialist errors of the past. I call it "trying to take candy from babies." You get a lot of "boo hoo hoo" from the dependency voters - but they are not the centrist voters the Dems need. Nor are the Mexican illegals. Shameful. We (yes) Dems should be a proud patriotic party - not sycophants and ass-kissers and vote-buyers for whoever wants a free ride on somebody else's nickel and effort.

And we should be the party of JFK and Truman - not limp surrenderists but tough against threat, and tough administrators at home. Not socialist - but helping to spread opportunity. Not negative - cheerful. Not hateful - appreciative and respectful - normal. I have little respect for JFK as a person, but as a politican, the guy was damn good for an amateur rich kid. In Vietnam, we all failed his vision of freedom. I was there, opposing desperate totalitarian Marxist loonies. But we were undercut by our surrenderist Marxist "hate America" loonies at home, and it has taken Vietnam many years, many deaths, much sorrow - to finally come around.

I should remind our readers that I worked for JFK's campaign, and made my mother come with me to drive an hour to the Bridgeport, CT train station to hear him on a campaign stop. I remember how red his hair was, in the sun, and how my Mom, and the other ladies, all said "He's so young and handsome." He was elected by women (if he was, in fact, elected: Daly had quite a powerful dead-voter Chicago scam going then, and I remember how he proudly "guaranteed" Illinois - "whatever it takes." I confess, at the time, I thought that was pretty cool. Not now, not funny.).

If anyone recalls, JFK "won" that election by appearing stronger on defense and anti-Soviet, and just as conservative and Federal tax-cutting, as Nixon - who won the guy vote. Yes, I remain a Dem - Bird Dog calls me a limo liberal - but I am not a liberal. I just want my party to give me candidates that I can vote for. Why still a Dem? Don't ask: it is personal.

Well, want I want to do is to direct you to an excellent and thoughtful piece by Shulman at American Future on the struggles going on in the Dem party. It deserves to be an op-ed in the NYT, along with another must-read which Shulman links - Beinart's piece A Fighting Faith in the always-interesting New Republic.

What do you do if you own a hedge fund, and your ship comes in? Well, if you have no taste, no modesty, and no sense of proportion, you build a 35,000 square-foot palace in Greenwich. (No, I am not envious: these places are about as homey as Versailles -  I just find this sort of thing to be an embarassment. The money they make is fine with me - they earn it.) Greenwich is not a Yankee-style town. Piece in Vanity Fair.

Speaking of hedge funds, if you have any interest, Barton Biggs' Hedgehogging is a good, quick, entertaining inside look at this new world of high-risk, high-reward investing.

As India and China crawl out from under the rock of their socialist ideas, they are beginning to rock the world. In time, the rest of Asia will follow. The old European/American Left and the old European-American Greenies are beginning to get it, but very slowly. The Berlin Wall fell in the 1980s.

As Capitalism, and hence individual freedom, goes global, the old social planning ideas are obsolete, and the massive state welfare systems destroy the human spirit. They do not work and do not matter. Thus Old Europe is slowly become a museum area, like Thailand used to be.

Perfect case in point - we will not drill for oil off the coast of Florida, but China will. Economics drive the world, and free-market economics drive freedom - eventually. Why? Because people in government are not as smart as markets. They have the guns, but they cannot control markets for long.

Markets are not God, but markets rule human economic interactions. Markets are facinating things, amoral, enormously powerful, but completely reflective of human interests.

I recently heard from a radiologist friend that his hospital has begun outsourcing their radiology to India on an experimental basis. In India, they have MDs working around the clock, for $20 US per hour, reading emailed American x-rays and CAT scans. They provide instant readings. Our guys make at least $500-1000/hour reading these images in their own good time. In a few years, our guys will be out of work or retired, but the new graduates here are doing Interventional Radiology, which requires a human presence. That is markets.

The Left of America just doesn't get it, and they would drag us down into the economic dark ages like Old Europe if they had the power. Socialism is dead. It is time to compete, and the era of decadent, self-satisfied and self-indulgent Euro-American supremacy is passing. It is time to use our brains again.

Image: MRI of someone's head, with a brain inside

We have plenty of beefs with George Bush (his open-borders idea, and his big-government country-club liberal Republicanism), but his persistence against Islamist Jihad is not one of them.

He secretly arrived at the Green Zone today, bless his heart. Good politics, too.

He is no Charles Martel, but we are re-fighting the Battle of Tours, today. I have not a single doubt that we are, or that they would happily kill you or me, with a dull knife, given half a chance - just for existing. Who needs more proof of that?

As John points out, a Mr. Rogers foreign policy is not the solution! And I have never been able to understand the Left's apologetics, if not sympathy, for the Jihadists, who are woman-hating, gay-killing, oil-intoxicated, religiously fanatical, theocratic, primitive-capitalist, Christian- and Jew-hating stone-age ignorant murderers. Except that they hate Amerikkkka too. No, being "nicer" to them doesn't seem to work too well, nor does being "liberal." They have contempt for that kind of simpy weakness. Clinton and Albright tried it, and it only encouraged them. The Jihadists are as liberal and as multicultural as Atilla the Hun, and as conniving as a rug dealer. The world is not a nursery school.

Politics makes strange burkha-fellows.

Image: The (first) Battle of Poitiers (732), with Charles Martel, mounted, leading the fight against Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi, in the heart of France. If you want to invade a country nowadays, LEAVE YOUR GUNS BEHIND - just ask the Moslems, or the Mexicans, for advice on manipulating the nursery-school teacher-politicians: they are easy, and they go down as quick as a prom dress on a warm June evening in the shrubbery beside somebody's pool in East Hampton.