Monday, July 11. 2005
Terror Nukes Already in the US? Jihad Watch reports planning has been going on for ten years.
Those Seals in Afghanistan What were they doing? Times Online has a theory that they were after someone big. Thanks, Belmont. Did not know you could hit a chopper with an RPG. The prolific Brewton has a slightly new format - intro entries with "read more," the way Auster does. Looks good. View from 1776.
 The Folk Song Army and Stone-Age Economics
Unfortun-
ately, the people who need to read Kling's piece at TCS, dealing with Africa and poverty in general, will not. He reminded me of one of the few of Tom Lehrer's great songs which I don't have stashed away somewhere. By quoting Tom, Kling reveals himself as a highly intelligent, highly sophisticated, excellent fellow, and reveals his age too. Lehrer holds up remarkably well over time:
"We are the Folk Song Army.
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares."
His point is that the economically uneducated still believe in a stone-age, pre-currency and pre-growth economics - ie a zero-sum game economy. If you have it, then I don't. Bird Dog jumped on the story in this blog last week. Kling goes on to explain: In fact, redistribution can be counterproductive. It can serve to foster dependency while keeping entrenched bad leadership and harmful policies. An article in Der Spiegel notes that "today there are increasing numbers of Africans who call for an end to this sort of support. They believe that it simply benefits a paternalistic economy, supports corruption, weakens trade and places Africans into the degrading position of having to accept charity. 'Just stop this terrible aid,' says the Kenyan economic expert James Shikwati."
Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of South Africa's President, believes that abuse and exploitation by Africa's political elites plays a major role in the continent's underdevelopment. Mbeki recently wrote,
"Merely handing more aid money to African governments only reinforces the pattern of abuse. The key to development lies in a dynamic private sector. For a country to produce more, private individuals must generate savings and plow those savings back into the production process in the form of new and improved techniques, processes and products."
Read the whole thing, and forward it to your economically ignorant friends who also think they live in the stone age. (Photo of Lascaux art from the Lascaux website.)
The Brits : Harbourers of Terrorism I thought we were at war with terrorists and with those who harbor them. Isn't it clear that the UK is the main harbor for terrorists in Europe, and that London is Jihad Central? The Brits are "tolerant of diversity" unto suicide, but it's unto homicide to us since Brit citizens can so easily enter the US. Foxes welcomed into the hen-house. Their civility is being taken advantage of, and laughed at by their mortal enemies. I know this sounds just a teensy bit harsh and insensitive to say at this time of mourning, and especially about our dear cousins and allies, but...just some of many stories here, here and here. The Brits have made themselves Candide, in an evil world. Will they wake up to the existence of evil now? Let us hope and pray that they will. They have before, God knows. They are slow to anger, but watch out when you get their goat.
From fox-murdering Free Market Fairy Tales: "We were taught all men are brothers -
Who forgot to tell the others?"
From Paul Kelly in Weekend Australian: The London bombing is a reminder of the consensus reached by our intelligence agencies as outlined by former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson. These points are, first, that Australia has been "part of al-Qa'ida's strategic vision for some years" predating the September 2001 attack on the US and our role in Afghanistan and Iraq; witness the earlier attempted attack on our High Commission in Singapore. Second, we "have become a target in our own right" - witness our numerous mentions by al-Qa'ida leaders and on their websites. Third, that since 2000 "there has been at least one aborted, disrupted or actual terrorist attack against us each year". Witness Bali in 2002 and the Jakarta embassy attack last year.
Roger Scruton hypothesizes envy, in Times Online: The tendency to resent lies in all of us, and can be overcome only by a discipline that tells us to blame faults in ourselves and to forgive faults in others. This discipline lies at the heart of Christianity and many argue that it lies at the heart of Islam too. If that is so, it is time for Muslims to organise against those who preach resentment in the name of their religion, and who regard the crimes of last Thursday as virtuous deeds, performed with God’s blessing, in a holy cause.
The Global Domination Theory - Handlery in Intell. Conserv. (with whom I agree): Islamofascist actions might be tactically motivated by a real or alleged injury of the objects of their emotional identification. Strategically, however, these battles are only a detail of a war. It is aimed in its first stage at reestablishing control over whatever Islam might have controlled or had claimed historically. (Iberia, Central Europe, the Balkans. Add the area between Turkey and “Iughuria” -- which happens to be in China. In the second stage of the struggle comes the fulfillment of God’s mandate to unite the world under the aegis of the Prophet. Does it remind you of Hitler? Or Lenin & Sons? Sounds insane?
Auster bashes immigration: The one constant is that immigration itself must never be criticized, must never been seen as the cause of any serious problem. Indeed, according to this way of thinking, since the belief in open immigration, particularly the open immigration of non-Europeans, is the very essence of America, to turn against open immigration is to attack America, and thus to allow our enemies to win. "To refuse to surrender" therefore means to refuse to surrender the principle of non-discrimination toward non-Europeans. So, when Bush says, "We will not yield to terrorists," he means that we will continue to welcome the mass immigration of jihad-supporting Moslems into the West.
Bergen in the NYT - the UK's hospitality to terrorists is a threat to the US: Last year a British government report estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims are supporters of Al Qaeda or related groups. The estimate was based on intelligence, opinion polls and a report that 10,000 Muslims attended a 2003 conference held by Hizb ut-Tahrir, described by the Home Office as a "structured extremist organization." British authorities believe that between 300 and 600 British citizens were trained in Qaeda and Taliban camps in Afghanistan. For this reason, and because of Britain's relatively permissive asylum laws, Arab militants living in London sometimes jokingly refer to their hometown as Londonistan. Here's the problem for the United States: Under our Visa Waiver Program, residents of Londonistan who hold a valid British passport can board a plane for the United States without an interview by an American consular official.
Jihad Watch: Click here: Jihad Watch ...you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.
From Belmont Club: London is proof that we are winning: The inevitable question then is 'why could Bin Laden not find the means to attack 30 trains?' The answer it seems to me, must be Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and hundred other places where he is engaged without quarter by US forces. Resources, whether Jihadi or no are not infinite. They do not have some magical machine that allows them to be everywhere at once, to sustain losses yet grow. There's no free lunch, not even, and especially not for Bin Laden. If it were true that Islamism would shrivel faster were it pursued more passively, then pre-911 policy should have finished it by now. But what we empirically observe is that ignoring them allowed them to mount 911-scale attack. Hit them continuously and in four years they could scrape together enough to blow up a London bus and some subway trains.
And last but not least, our own Chairman from Maggie's Farm Britain's psychotically PC immigration policies: you cannot open your door to snakes who are hostile to your gentle culture, and then bitch when they bite you. Rome already tried that, and socio-politically, Italy has been a mess ever since. Remember, the barbarians did not so much attack as simply migrate into the empire. If you want a gentle, civil culture, you need tough borders and boundaries, a shell, just as we do in our personal lives. Freedom, gentility, and civility are not birthrights: some things in life must be fought for and defended. What is happening in Europe is properly called "invasion," not immigration. We have the battles of Tours and Lopanto, redux. Hey, cousins - save yourselves before it's too late. We are already calling it "Londistan" and "Euristan."
Sunday, July 10. 2005
Powerful Storm Dennis could be one of the most powerful hurricanes in our lifetime, says Storm Track.
Follow details with him. Update 6 pm: Woops. Lost power over the cooler northern Gulf waters while I was weeding my garden and munching on sun-hot early raspberries. Still a majestic storm, though. And now Emily might turn into something. We are due a good hurricane in New England - it's been too many years without one. Listening to: Faure Concerto for Piano and Strings.
Saturday, July 9. 2005
 Four Dumbest Things of the Week re Radical Islam
1. Terrorism is caused by poverty and hopelessness. Balderdash. Bin Ladin has - what - $50 million and how many wives with American Express cards? The NYT buys it, and even Blair seems to, and of course the Left buys any simplistic Marxist view. This terrorism is caused by a religious perversion which denies the humanity of, and indeed hates unto death, those of different faith - see prescient joke posted earlier this week, which seems less funny now. 2. The Crusaders were evil. Not really. They were sent by their clergy to re-open access to Jerusalem as a pilgrimage site, after it had been occupied by invading Moslem armies and closed to Christian pilgrimage. Put it in historical context - pilgrimages were a big deal back then, and everyone, from peasant to prince, dreamed of walking in Christ's footsteps. Many still do, but now we can. No ancestor-guilt, please - it is neurotic, as I am sure our Dr. Bliss would say. 3. Don't make them even madder by trying to get rid of them. Huh? Is that rational? Appeasing people who want to kill you? What do you do when rattlesnakes come into your house? Give them the house? Never try to "understand" people who want to destroy you - they have written themselves out of the civil realm and must be dealt with differently (unless you have behaved in deeply evil ways yourself - which we ain't done.). Think "Hitler". 4. Britain's psychotically PC immigration policies: you cannot open your door to snakes who are hostile to your gentle culture, and then bitch when they bite you. Rome already tried that, and socio-politically, Italy has been a mess ever since. Remember, the barbarians did not so much attack as simply migrate into the empire. If you want a gentle, civil culture, you need tough borders and boundaries, a shell, just as we do in our personal lives. Freedom, gentility, and civility are not birthrights: some things in life must be fought for. What is happening in Europe is properly called "invasion," not immigration. We have the battles of Tours and Lopanto, redux. Hey, cousins - save yourselves before it's too late. We are already calling it "Londistan" and "Euristan."
Friday, July 8. 2005
Compassion and understanding for the Nazis? It makes as much sense to me to have worried about the "root causes" of the Third Reich's desire to conquer Europe as it does to bring a social worker and a psychotherapist to meet with Al Quaida. It's enough of a "root cause" to see the joy and triumph on their faces when they murder innocent infidels - Christians and Jews. The root cause is the desire to kill and conquer for Allah and the cure is the same as the cure for cancer - you kill the cells. The below excerpted from Rick Moran at RWN: ... the left’s compulsion to ally itself with the radical Islamists – either knowingly or through stupidity, unknowingly – is the greatest challenge facing Western Civilization in its War on Terror. The very people who should be leading this fight; the intellectuals, the educators, the editorialists, the journalists, and the literati are absent without leave in this life and death struggle. Instead, we find a an overwhelming majority of the left trying to “explain the root causes” of terrorism instead of getting up on their hind legs and fighting it. And instead of drawing clear, unmistakable intellectual and moral battle lines – a function their ancestors fulfilled more than admirably during World War II and much of the Cold War – we’re treated to an exercise in moral equivalency so profoundly disturbing in its sophistry and intellectual cowardice that our enemies don’t know whether to laugh before they slaughter us or simply shake their heads in bemused silence.
"For God's sake, stop the aid to Africa" says Kenyan economist James Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid. Read entire in der Spiegel (thanks, RCP) And similar sentiments from Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai
Pejmanesque has a great collection of political cartoons re London. Quotes too. He also happens to have reviewed Chronicles of Narnia. Saved me the trouble - nice job.
From Blamebush: 37 innocent people suffered death without dignity in London today, and hundreds more were injured in a barbaric yet understandable attack by Michael Moore's Minute Men - retribution for Britain's complicity in Bush's illegal and immoral war on terror. But now is not the time for pointing fingers. In the wake of 9/11, progressives waited a good three minutes before blaming Bush, America, and Western Civilization in general, and we should be every bit as reverent now. Let the people of Great Britain mourn their fallen bretheren in peace. There will be plenty of time to exploit their grief for political gain in the weeks ahead.
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Intelligence Network
Map of all serious Islamic terrorism acts, to date, on Powerline. London transport update: getting back to normal ! The Left continues its descent into madness, on RWN Keith Thompson, at Moonbat Central: Today, there are two groups of people in the world: those who recognize the jihadists as a stark and fundamental threat to civilization; and those who reflexively seek ways to absolve the jihadists of responsibility for their murderous ways, by blaming Britain and America. The first group knows that civilization must win this battle. The second group urges caution and understanding. read entire.
Thursday, July 7. 2005
Four Thoughts First, I predict that the bombers will turn out to be "home-grown" London Moslems, linked to European Moslem groups, not terrorists who snuck into England directly from the Middle East. Hence their comment about hitting other European nations and not the US or the Aussies. They are locals, the Trojan Horse of radical Islam. See Mannes on NRO re the well-tolerated radical Islamic presence in London. Second, that Brit unsentimental, stiff-upper lip is really something, isn't it? In the US, there would be public weeping and wailing, days of mourning, mountains of candles and teddy bears, emergency prayer services, and teams of grief therapists. In contrast to the Brits, we look like a nation of over-emoting-obsessed, self-indulgent hysterics. Third, from Steyn: "the more you insist the Islamist psychosis is a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as the terrorists." Fourth, Churchill: "Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
Comment from Gwynnie Gwynnie likes Sky News: http://www.sky.com/skynews/home as she was annoyed at this mornings conclusion by BBC that the attacks were “in retribution for” Afghanistan & Iraq (like the Battle of the Bulge was “in retribution for” the Normandy landings). Perhaps the Beeb would like to withdraw from Iraq; would it pull out of Northern Ireland too? The Reuters “News” Service still can’t bring itself to use the term “terrorism”. Maybe it would like to refer to the bombings in London as caused by “insurgents”. From BBC: The organisation calls itself the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda [literally the base] of Jihad Organisation in Europe. The group not previously been heard of. The website has previously carried statements purporting to be from al-Qaeda. It is not possible to verify such claims published on the web. This is the full text of the statement.
 In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.
Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist Crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters. We have repeatedly warned the British Government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid. We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the Crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused. God says: "You who believe: If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly." 
Final Word from Bird Dog
Along with the anger in reaction to yet another ruthless attack by the barbarians comes the anger in listening to some BBC comments, and people like Galloway and other miscellaneous leftist Islamofascist sympathizers or America-haters as are spouting off today on Democratic Underround. Truly they do not believe that these attacks are retaliation - if they are, then what were WTC #1 and #2 in retaliation for? Was that Bush's fault too? It all seems very simple to me: Radical Islam declared war on the West in 1993, and we could surrender Iraq, we could surrender Israel, we could even surrender France, and they would still keep on coming.
BBC seems to be best source of minute-to-minute updated details. From Jihad Watch one year ago: Asked if a British Muslim was allowed to carry out a "terrorist attempt" in a foreign country, Muhammad said "That is another story." He added: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity."
 God Bless and Protect our Brit Cousins
That's all I have to say thus far...
The Ethanol Scam: It requires more fossil fuel to produce ethanol from corn, than there is energy in the ethanol. Fact is, the ethanol program is a farm subsidy and nothing more, under false pretenses. Wind Farms indeed are hugely destructive to migratory birds. Shut 'em down - what a dumb experiment. Digital Cameras - the latest update, in CSM Africa - Roger Simon sums it up, here. Iran - Hitchens does Iran in Vanity Fair Steyn's Requiem for Sunny Jim (the UK's Carter), and the 1970's in England Kennewick Man will be studied. 9000 years old - a very early American - will be studied before being re-buried. Sounds OK to me. What is hotdish? "On your visit to Minnesota, you will sooner or later come face to face with Minnesota's most popular native food, HOTDISH ... A traditional main course, hotdish is cooked and served hot in a single baking dish and commonly appears at family reunions and church suppers. Hotdish is constructed on a base of canned cream of mushroom soup and canned vegetables. The other ingredients are as varied as the Minnesota landscape. If you sit down to something that doesn't look like anything you've ever seen before, it's probably hotdish." - Howard Mohr
How to Talk Minnesotan: A Visitor's Guide
Penguin, 1 Here are some examples: Click here: Cooks.com - Recipes - Hotdish
Wednesday, July 6. 2005
Sympathy for the Devil: The Left and Terrorists, on Brainster The Angry Left finds religion, um, well...Opinion Journal: Click here: OpinionJournal - Taste Global Warming Junk Science: Gun Culture - Click here: Gun Culture Cosby under attack - guess his thinking needs a political adjustment. Town Hall: Click here: Brent Bozell: Cosby under fire Berkeley's Contract for America: This will go far. Right Thinking
Tuesday, July 5. 2005
Lock and Load: The Dems have their strategy, regardless of the nominee: Patterico Everybody Must Get Stoned: Moslem politicians in New Zealand. In LGF A Bullet hitting a bullet: That's how difficult it was to hit that comet, but they did. Video here - thanks, Instapundit. Cap'n Ed reviews Goldberg's new book: Sounds like fun
Bush's Biggest Failure: Managing the press and public opinion - I agree with the Prof. Thomas Sowell turned 75 and reviews the travails of those years. The US-India Defence Pact: Under-reported important event, in Winds of Change: Click here: Winds of Change.NET: The Alliance: U.S. & India Sign Major 10-Year Defense Pact The top 2% in income pay over 50% of the total US taxes. But some folks, like the Kerry's pay far less than their share. Why? Probably tax-free munis, right? Click here: Brainster's Blog The Red Tide recedes. Good. Why did New London need this Eminent Domain? (and why does Fox News keep calling it Imminent Domain?) Brewton in View from 1776: “Cities like Utica and New London, Connecticut, the subject of the Supreme Court decision, are in trouble, not because of lack of urban planning, but because of high taxes, excessive regulation, and a generally anti-business, socialistic public policy. What they need is fewer labor unions and fewer liberal-socialist citizens who have become addicted to massive, and ferociously expensive, public welfare programs that run the gamut from money thrown unaccountably down the rat hole of public education (read teachers’ union perks), to mandatory, all-inclusive insurance benefits to workers. In short, ongoing operating costs are just as important in determining business locations as their land costs. Indeed. Just like Africa. The politicians create the mess, and then call for help. The Kennedy Quagmire: Man, does he hope it's a quagmire. In my opinion, it's what you call "difficult." Lots of things in life are difficult, but being a politician isn't one of them. Sinecures for the brain-dead. Gelertner explains why Kennedy talk is so destructive to the country. "Hail Seizers." The NYT hails the government land-grabbers, with one astonishing quote: " a setback to the 'property rights' movement." Huh? Sullum at Town Hall. Replacing Sandra Dee: The blogs and news are full of speculation and tea-leaf-reading, so we will not add to the fog. It's all filler until we know what POTUS wants to do. Concept Albums: Vodkapundit reviews the concept and lists the 5 best...but unaccountably omits Blonde on Blonde and Sargent Pepper. The lovely, witty, but doubtless scary-to-date Ann Coulter explains how porn and religion have switched places in our culture, or at least in our legal culture. News=Propaganda, In Minneapolis - Capt's Quarters
Saturday, July 2. 2005
 This long weekend, we at Maggie's Farm will be blogging lightly, but we invite you to click on some of our Categories on the upper left column, to explore what we've been up to for the last five months on the Farm. Some good stuff is buried in there. Pick a category - any category.
And we all wish you a fine weekend of yard work, fishing, sailing, swimming, sunning without weenie sunblock, napping, ice-cream, watermelon, cold beer, relaxation and good times with plenty of American flags and fireworks in the good old beautiful summertime USA. We do love our Brits, but we'd rather have them as cousins than to be their children - many innocent, brave but terrified Yankee farm boys with slow-loading Kentucky flintlocks risked their lives or lost their lives to face tough Hessian lines of fire to make it so - and speaking of cousins... As Cousin Brucie (the great DJ Bruce Morrow) used to say on WABC in the summer, "If you're alone, go out and find someone to love. Because someone is out there looking for you, too." (Yes, of course that is Cape Cod - can you name that light?)...Listening to: Son House: Empire State Express.
Friday, July 1. 2005
Vermont Blogs We've been looking for interesting Vermont blogs - and found one - Alphecca. He labels himself as a gay Libertarian gun nut in Vermont. Unique? A sample piece of his on the rise in gun crimes in the UK. If anyone knows of a blog that addresses specifically or mainly Vermont politics and issues from a rational standpoint, please let us know. Same goes for Maine - we can't find a single one. Hey, Middletown, NY You folks ought to be all over your local newspaper - read about the Big Lie in Confed. Yankee's handsome new website. Derbyshire imagines the International Freedom Center Funny, but what he imagines is pretty close to what I imagined - lefty, America-hating cliches, I guess. In NRO.
Thursday, June 30. 2005
Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Bread Jimmy Buffett bemoaned the fact that he missed his true calling as a pirate by 200 years, but he apparently never thought to check out Somalia, where honest-to-goodness pirates recently hijacked a UN-chartered freighter bearing food aid for tsunami victims. Now, one could more easily sympathize with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who are known for plundering gold-laden Spanish galleons, but the theft by Somalis of food destined for their starving compatriots somehow strikes one as less daring and romantic. Do we now need to bring in food shipments to these people under full military guard to prevent criminals from stealing the whole lot of them? I seem to remember us trying something like that back in 1993 but somehow I don't think it ended up very well.
 How's the Economy Doing?
Could not be much better, with low inflation too, and about the best employment rates in modern history. Is anyone complaining? Hmmm, the angry-type Dems are strangely silent on jobs and the economy. Plus we have a little housing correction, which is good for young buyers. The incomes of married blacks equal those of married whites - and that is a big deal. We have come through a stock market blow up, and 9-11, stronger than ever, and subject to the ugly envy of the world for our freedom, our faith, our confidence, our prosperity and work-ethic, and for the opportunities we offer everyone. We have so much work that we're being unwillingly invaded on all sides by people seeking opportunity. Growth rates on Ex-Donk. Oh, I guess if someone is determined to bitch about something, you can bitch about gas prices, but in 5 years these will look cheap: the Chinese gave up their bikes, and took up oil-based capitalism. I am waiting for the NYT headline: "Things Are Good in the USA." Dem approval polls looking worse Duh. Wonder why? Thanks, Michelle. In UPI. It's a tough time to be a leftist Dem - they keep pushing on everything they can think up, but no door ever opens; there is never any traction - except in the NYT. The few "centrist" Dems - not many left around - are doing fine. Good times in the USA - except for the moonbat Supreme Court.
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