Monday, June 6. 2005
Truth about Hillary Pile on Dean, pile on Hillary. Gee whiz, guys - it's summer. Well, gotta break their momentum and their spirits, I guess as soon as convenient, especially if they deserve it. And Hillary does need a little truth applied to her. Here it comes, in Vanity Fair and in Klein's book. We will see whether she is covered with teflon or not. Doubt it - she is charmless, visibly calculating, and a left-wing nutjob regardless of her camo-of-the-week. Tip to Repubs: show her rabid Wellesley graduation speech and she's a goner. Maybe Dan Rather will show it on 60 Mins. - aw, no, I guess he is off the air. Otherwise, no doubt he would have wanted the story. Well, someone can show it 4 days before the election...and it's real.
Friday, June 3. 2005
Don't give it away until you've got it.
Alberto Vilar, the major Cuban American Philanthropist who donated large sums of money to his favorite causes has been charged with fraud. Mr. Vilar traveled the world to see Operas in the famous Houses like Covent Garden and provided funds to save many of them. I recall walking into the Hospital for Special Surgery and seeing his name plastered all over the walls. Perhaps it was delusions of grandeur or he just wanted to see his name on a few walls but his narcissism or generosity got the better of him and his clients. His fiance left him and he is sitting in jail trying to make the $10 million bail.
Thursday, June 2. 2005
Most readers are probably already aware of the recent proposal by Sen. Ted Kennedy and (nominally Republican) Sen. John McCain to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and create a massive new immigration category allowing an additional 400,000 unskilled workers to enter each year to take those pesky jobs that "no Americans want to do." This proposal is already reminiscent of the catastrophically failed 1986 amnesty, which legalized millions of illegals without providing the promised border or employment enforcement afterwards, resulting the massive, uninterrupted influx since that time. The biggest red flag, however, should be the name of the Massachusetts senator attached to the bill. For our readers' benefit, here is a little excerpt from remarks delivered by Kennedy in 1965 prior to the passage of the Immigration Act of that same year (which ushered in the current age of mass immigration): "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.) As many people have noted elsewhere, Kennedy's description of what would not happen in fact provided a brilliantly concise and accurate picture of what actually did happen, right down to the letter. Let's compare those remarks with some he recently gave in reference to the bill currently on the table: "This bill is not amnesty. This bill does not provide a free pass to anyone. This bill does not give an automatic pardon to anyone. This bill does not put those that have been illegal that are here in the United States at the front of the line," Mr. Kennedy said. As one might say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Now, Kennedy may be technically correct when he says there is no "free pass" involved, but it hardly sounds better to tell the truth, that American citizenship is now on sale for the low, low price of $2,000 (the fine that illegals must pay to be eligible for a green card and citizenship). In any case, while this is the sort of thing we might expect from Kennedy, McCain has truly sold out his nation and his Arizona constituents, who just a few months ago overwhelmingly passed a ballot referendum denying certain social services to illegals. Stay tuned for more on this story.
Wednesday, June 1. 2005
The Top 125 Political Blogs Surprising list, compiled by Right Wing News. Don't look for Maggie's there - we are an "eclectic" blog, not a political blog. In fact, we are kinda bored by politics unless something stupid tees us off. Which it does, all too often, alas.
An Observation on Thompson's Piece Keith Thompson's piece, Leaving the Left: a Free Liberal's Manifesto, which we posted last week, seems to have rapidly made the rounds of blogs world-wide. I guess it resonates. Most of us are ex-liberals who finally realized the truth about the Left. Read these two sentences - (it's my bold print): I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I’m separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
Is he describing ordinary political views, or a false religion? It's honest of him to put it this way, and I think very revealing of whence the ferocity and desperation of the left derives. If political views make up the core of your identity and "sense of the cosmos," you are both lost and dangerous. (Real politicians know it's a game they play to make a living and an outrageously good pension.) Thompson, a fine writer, got found. He also edited an interesting-looking book - To Be a Man: In Search of the Deep Masculine. Deep Masculine - that has a good sound.
Tuesday, May 31. 2005
SHOW ME THE MONEY Once again, President Chavez is in a pickle. The PDVSA (petroleum company of Venezuela) is missing billions. No one knows where the dollars are and Hugo's cousin is in charge. "Today in the Venezuelan blogosphere, writer after writer, some of whom do not even know each other, reach the same conclusion: Venezuela’ s state oil company, under the regime of Hugo Chavez, is being systematically looted by Chavez’s cronies so badly it’s affected production. And hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost. These sums are like Argentina’s default numbers, triple digit billions. It’s coming to a head as a powerful indictment of the Chavez regime, and try as he might to use diversions, like Posada Carriles, Bush, the Norwegians, the IRS, the foreign oil companies, it all comes down to the elephant in the room - the state oil company is bleeding money and Chavez is responsible. And Venezuelans are very angry, angry to the point that Chavez is trying to distract them."COLLAPSE OF VENEZUELAN OIL | www.vcrisis.com "Mr Chávez's hand-picked managers at Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, are facing an avalanche of questions about the location of billions of dollars in unaccountable export revenue."Where's the money?" asks César Rincones, president of the congressional comptroller commission. "We could be on the brink of a financial crisis because of the mismanagement of the oil industry."FT.com / Home UK - Chávez faces claims of oil revenue cover-up This for the Spanish speaking readers. Hugo Chavez' type of Socialism is the type that subjugates and makes poor its citizens. His socialism is of the Castro kind: the kind influenced by the former Soviet Union and Leftist European states, the kind incorporated by the decrepit Caribbean dictator. "Cuando Chávez habla de socialismo no se refiere al Estado Social de Derecho, como anuncia la Constitución del 99, ni al Estado de Bienestar, como existe en una parte importante de los países capitalistas europeos, no importa que quienes estén en el Gobierno sean liberales o conservadores. Se refiere al único socialismo que ha existido y se conoce. Al que ha empobrecido y sojuzgado a los pueblos donde se ha implantado. Su socialismo es el que lleva la etiqueta de Fidel Castro: combina los rasgos que tuvo ese sistema es la Unión Soviética y en los países de Europa del Este, con los que le incorporó el decrépito dictador caribeño." Opinión y análisis - Fatal ignorancia USA-1 and Venezuela-0 Posada Cariles is safe for the moment but should he be? It appears there will be some tight rope walking for the State department. MIAMI, May 27 -- The diplomatic tangle surrounding Luis Posada Carriles grew more complex Friday as the Bush administration rejected Venezuela's request to arrest him as a suspected terrorist, while a high-ranking State Department official questioned whether Venezuela sincerely wants custody of the accused Cuban militant.The Bush administration may be in a classic no-win situation because it may have to choose between extraditing Posada to a nation led by one of its most strident critics -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- or being labeled "hypocrites" for talking tough about terrorism but refusing to extradite a suspected terrorist, said Jennifer L. McCoy, an expert in U.S.-Venezuela relations at Georgia State University.
Romney for President I am old enough to remember supporting Romney's father when he ran in the primaries. The kid seems like a strong possibility for the Repubs. The other candidates will doubtless be vastly relieved to hear that I am not going on record as supporting him, though, yet. But McCain - forget it. A true wingnut. And it won't be Frist either - he lacks the common touch and he wears stupid neckties. NERepub has the story.
Barry Goldwater Maine: Bull Moose has some observations of what Barry might be saying were he alive: "In his later years, of course, Barry expressed his disgust and disagreement with the emergence of the religious right as a force. He colorfully collided with its leaders. For instance,
"When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye." "
Friday, May 27. 2005
Memorial Day and the Press Northwest Harbor, Me: Memorial Day is about military sacrifice, something the press seems to have no respect for, although they are happy to report death and trouble if it makes the US look bad. So it's not really news that our self-anointed intelligentsia, especially the press and academics, look down their nose at the military as an institution, if not at soldiers themselves. Surely this is something that developed since WW2 - maybe it's a post-Vietnam syndrome, combined with a leftist desire to the see the US as less powerful and less virtuous than it is - and the corresponding tendency to idealize those who want to harm us and our interests. John Leo in Town Hall reported on this subject this week, and it is a piece which only reinforces my feeling that a universal compulsory military service would do this country a lot of good. But that's a subject for another day. John Leo: It’s official. Conservatives are losing their monopoly on complaints about media bias. In the wake of Newsweek’s bungled report that U.S. military interrogators “flushed a Qur’an down a toilet,” here is Terry Moran, ABC’s White House reporter, in an interview with radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt: “There is, I agree with you, a deep antimilitary bias in the media, one that begins from the premise that the military must be lying and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong.” Moran thinks it’s a hangover from Vietnam. Sure, but the culture of the newsroom is a factor, too. In all my years in journalism, I don’t think I have met more than one or two reporters who have ever served in the military or who even had a friend in the armed forces. Most media hiring today is from universities where a military career is regarded as bizarre and almost any exercise of American power is considered wrongheaded or evil.
Read entire piece here.
 Bible Talk
I don't care whether the Bible is taught as folklore, myth, revelation, literature, or whatever else. All I know is that, if you don't know your Bible - both Old and New Testaments - you can't understand much about the world we live in, or Western Civilization in general. In other words, you are ignorant. Heck, you can't even understand Bob Dylan if you don't know the Bible, much less anything else - even if it isn't your goal to know God. There are three legs on which our reality stands, and they are the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle. Most things since then are mere commentary. Bird Dog emailed me today to ask for help on a piece he is doing on a Civics and Citizenship Curriculum, another subject about which ignorance seems to reign. (And yes, I do understand that the Left reflexively likes to undermine the legs of that stool any time they can, with the hope of replacing the stool with some new stool. But I am not writing about politics here.) Willfully Ignorant This from the South Fla. Sun Sentinel: Fran Eppy was taken aback when she looked at her son's summer reading list. His only requirement was to read passages from the Bible. "Studies of the Bible are permissible under state law as long as it is studied as literature, not history. But the practice often raises eyebrows of some parents and liberal groups, who fear it may not be studied in an objective way.
The purpose of reading Genesis is to familiarize students with stories that likely will be referenced in works of American literature, such as Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark, Hierholzer said. Advanced-placement literature exams sometimes ask about biblical references in literature, she said.
"Most of early American literature is based on [the Bible]," Hierholzer said. "It gives them a foundation, so when they read other pieces of literature that make reference to it, they'll understand the allusions." Eppy doesn't buy that explanation.
"Maybe teachers should explain the stories instead of requiring students to read the Bible," she said.
Now I don't think that Mrs. Eppy is an ordinary person - what parent would object to their kid learning something important? She is doubtless a crank in other ways too. But still...what is she thinking?
Gelertner asserts that the Bible has created worlds
Indeed it has, and he puts it far better than I can: A REPORT JUST ISSUED BY the Bible Literacy Project (more on this later) suggests that young Americans know very little about the Bible. The report is important, but first things first: A fair number of Americans don't see why teenagers should know anything at all about the Bible. Scripture begins with God creating the world, but there is something these verses don't tell you: The Bible has itself created worlds. Wherever you stand on the spectrum from devout to atheist, you must acknowledge that the Bible has been a creative force without parallel in history. Go to the center of Paris and drop in on the apotheosis of the French Middle Ages--Sainte Chapelle, whose walls are made almost entirely of stained glass. It "has rightly been called," writes the scholar Shalom Spiegel, "the most wonderful of pictured Bibles." The King James Bible, says Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "has influenced our literature more deeply than any other book--more deeply even than all the writings of Shakespeare--far more deeply." The poet and painter William Blake calls the Old and New Testaments "the Great Codes of Art." America's foremost prophet offers his culminating vision in the second inaugural address--"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right . . . " Lincoln's speech "reads like a supplement to the Bible," writes the historian William Wolf, with its "fourteen references to God, four direct quotations from Genesis, Psalms, and Matthew, and other allusions to scriptural teaching." "The best gift God has given to man," Lincoln called the Bible. "But for it we could not know right from wrong."Ronald Reagan called America "a great shining city on a hill," three-and-a-half centuries after John Winthrop (sailing for Boston in 1630) anticipated a new community that would be "as a Citty upon a Hill"--invoking the famous verse in Matthew, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid" (5:14). Which harks back in turn to the prophets (Isaiah 2:2-3, Micah 4:2) and the book of Proverbs (4:18). John Livingstone Lowe called the King James Bible "the noblest monument of English prose" (1936); George Saintsbury called it "probably the greatest prose work in any language" (1887). Nearly two millennia earlier, the great Pharisee rabbi Hillel described the ideal life: "loving peace and pursuing peace; loving humanity and bringing it close to the Torah." Here is a basic question about America that ought to be on page 1 of every history book: What made the nation's Founders so sure they were onto something big? America today is the most powerful nation on earth, most powerful in all history--and a model the whole world imitates. What made them so sure?--the settlers and colonists, the Founding Fathers and all the generations that intervened before America emerged as a world power in the 20th century? What made them so certain that America would become a light of the world, the shining city on a hill? What made John Adams say, in 1765, "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence"? What made Abraham Lincoln call America (in 1862, in the middle of a ruinous civil war) "the last, best hope of earth." |
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Read the whole thing: Weekly Standard
General Illiteracy
So what is the subject here? Is it Bible illiteracy, or Civics illiteracy, or general illiteracy? What are the kids being taught all day?
 Many people have probably read about the little flap that occurred recently over Vincente Fox's statement in a speech that Mexican immigrants in the U.S. take "jobs that not even blacks want to do." For a long time now, having failed to implement any meaningful domestic reforms at home, Fox's administration has turned into what is essentially one huge lobbying firm on behalf of illegal Mexican immigrants, reasoning perhaps that if one cannot placate a disgruntled, jobless citizen, what better solution than to simply ship him out of the country while scooping up the remittances that flow back home? Of course, Fox is forced to praise these undesirables as "dignified" and "hard-working" citizens who make a critical contribution to the American economy, which should raise the question (among Mexicans and American both) why Fox would want to see such valuable workers out of his country at all costs.
With his most recent remarks, El Presidente has inadvertently called attention to another unsavory feature of Mexican society: its endemic racism. Like almost every other Central and South American nation, Mexico is a racially stratified country, with the elite ranks occupied almost entirely by whites, mestizos in the middle, and blacks and indigenous Indians on the lowest rungs. Discrimination and outright violence against the lowest classes in Mexican society is a common feature of everyday life in that nation, yet Fox spends the greatest part of his time complaining about "mistreatment" of Mexican illegals in the USA, such mistreatment usually referring to gross injustices like the refusal to issue drivers' licenses or discounted in-state college tuition (!) to illegal aliens. Of course, such blinding hypocrisy is nothing new for Fox, who recently leveled harsh criticism against the volunteer Minutemen project, even as the Mexican army patrols its own southern border with Guatemala, routinely imprisoning and deporting Central American illegals. And where is the guy who is supposed to be on our side in all of this, George W.? Far from standing up to Fox's tin-pot grandstanding, Bush has gone out of his way to praise illegals in the highest terms, condemn the Minutemen as "vigilantes," and advocate mass amnesties, concessions which have earned him nothing more than further scorn, abuse and even threats from the Mexican government. Note to W: A nation which exports drugs and crime north of the border, vocally opposes the Iraq war, presses for "rights" for illegal criminals, meddles in our domestic policymaking and maintains a system of institutionalized racism to prop up a corrupt elite is not our "friend." If we can go halfway around the world to destroy a corrupt dictatorship (and one that posed no immediate threat to us), surely we can stand up to the one in our own backyard!
Thursday, May 26. 2005
Leaving the Left A fascinating piece from Thompson, with plenty of honesty: Nightfall: January 30, 2005. Eight million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I’m separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
I’m leaving the left – more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.
I choose today because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives — people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere — reciting all the ways Iraq’s democratic experiment might yet implode.
My estrangement hasn’t happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades; yet refused to truly see. Now it’s all too obvious. Leading voices in America’s “peace” movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World people because it hates George W. Bush more than it loves freedom.
Are Political Blogs a Waste of Time? To what extent do the conservative bloggers and readers just talk to each-other? And don't the DailyKos folks do the same? Is anyone influenced or convinced? Doubtful. But maybe at the margins. After all, Rush gave voice to millions of people who thought the way he did, but had no outside reinforcement for what they felt. The success of FOX news is the same - a crappy news program yet semi-entertaining if you have something else to do at the same time - but folks want to feel represented in the national dialogue. They need validation. Humans always want that - to not feel invisible. People enjoy information too, or they wouldn't be wasting time online - except for porn, or check-paying, or email, apparently. We are all yentas at heart. But people also want reinforcement - a feeling of community. The MSM takes care of the liberals, so the conservatives need all of these "alternative" outlets to feel reassured that they aren't out to lunch. There is no comparison between the numbers of traditionalist blogs and leftist blogs - and no comparison in their quality and intelligence (our blog excepted - it's not intelligent and is of low-quality...but ya like it, dontcha?). So I dunno. One thing I do know for sure - when new info is made widely available by blogs, it makes a difference in the "real news." Powerline has had true power, run as it is by three extraordinary Dartmouth fellows. But how do you reach other folks, to help them open up their closed minds? I do not have the answer to that one. Wish I did. One idea: Let's do an LBO of the NYT, and bring it balance! We will need a few very big players to do this deal...and the Sulzbergers must be bored with their toys by now.
Wednesday, May 25. 2005
If at first you don't succeed, then 'trial, trial' again. Mr. Posada has been tried and acquitted twice in Venezuela and pardoned in Panama. This is a tricky one for Bush. Cuban Exile Is Charged With Illegal Entry - New York Times "Mr. Posada spent nine years in a Venezuelan prison during trials and retrials on charges that he conspired to bomb the Cuban airliner. He escaped in 1985 and went underground to join a C.I.A. operation in El Salvador in an effort to help anti-Communist Nicaraguan rebels.He admitted masterminding bombings at tourist spots in Havana in 1997 that were intended to destabilize Cuba and terrorize people. One of the bombs killed an Italian visitor in Havana.He was jailed in Panama in connection with a bomb plot against Mr. Castro in 2000, convicted, and then pardoned by Panama's president nine months ago."
Tuesday, May 24. 2005
It may have been only a crack, a small crack in the door of oppressive leadership but a glimmer of hope may have come through it. Castro was concerned enough to ship journalists and observers out before they had a chance to report on the Assembly held yesterday in Havana. In today's world of electronic media, and stringers blogging online, the days of an "iron curtain" are dwindling. "A reporter for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Francesco Battistini, was detained on his way to the meeting and put on a plane to Europe, the Italian foreign ministry said.Cuba expelled three Polish journalists Friday on a flight to Cancun, Mexico, a Polish diplomat said. They were among six Poles arrested at their Havana hotel Thursday night. The group, in Cuba to attend the dissidents' meeting, included a a photographer, a translator and an expert on Cuban politics.Two former Spanish senators were deported on Thursday, a day after arriving in Cuba for the meeting, and another legislator was expelled on Friday, officials said in Madrid.Police picked up Czech Sen. Karel Schwarzenberg and German Bundestag member Arnold Vaatz at their hotels on Thursday and drove them straight to the airport for flights home. Unbelievable as it sounds, Mr. Serrano of the Bronx claims that the New York delegation understands Cuban politics better than Florida."If there was no Jeb Bush in Florida, and no strong Miami community, we would perhaps treat Cuba differently."
PLEASE! Is he kidding? There is a strong Cuban community in Florida precisely because there is a Castro in Havana. Castro may have liberated Cubans from the oppressive dictator Batista but he has replaced one reprehensible government with another. The miserable Cubans who were left behind, who chose to stay behind have been swindled out of a future. "To encourage participants, the assembly has solicited and received expressions of support and solidarity from representatives of international organizations, including members of the European Parliament and members of the American Congress. Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 193, which, among other provisions, extends "support and solidarity to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting." The resolution, introduced by a Republican of Florida, Mario Diaz-Balart, passed by a vote of 392 to 22. The bill had more than 50 co-sponsors, including a Democrat from New York, Rep. Eliot Engel of the Bronx.New York was the best-represented state among the resolution's opponents, however, with six New York Democrats among the 22 nay votes. They included Charles Rangel of Harlem; Jose Serrano of the Bronx; Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn; Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn, and Gregory Meeks of Queens, as well as Maurice Hinchey, whose district stretches from Poughkeepsie to Ithaca."
Monday, May 23. 2005
 Dem Party on the Skids, from a Liberal in Recovery
I am past gloating about the success of the conservative movement, and I am not worried about the effects of the Dems being a long-term minority party. After all, the Repubs were in the wilderness for over 40 years, and during much of that time, a TV political debate consisted of two Dems with different views. Their problem, as I have pontificated here before, is that they have painted themselves into a Left-flavored, anti-military, morally-relativistic, elitist, anti-religion, anti-tradition, big govt, and reactionary corner, a corner from which vantage point the past seems large, and the future small. And the Lefty flavoring has become so pronounced that their candidates are reluctant to voice their vision openly, because it's a losing vision nationally. They are out in the ozone, breathing very thin air. That secret vision, as best I can tell, is to shape the US into something like France, or Sweden, or the old Soviet Union - or something like that. That's fairly crazy. However, their seeming delight in undermining traditional institutions and cultural icons is what seems to tick people off the most - no respect for the cultural, religious and historical foundations of the country that have served us so well, with the countless blessings that make us the role model and desired destination of the world, whether they admit it or not. No doubt a way will be found for the Dems to dump this antiquated Marxist baggage over time and to regain some power. There is no doubt that powerlessness does not become them. Sooner or later, they will get on the right side of history - or fake it. Or, more likely, the Repubs will blow it. This is especially relevant at a time when those nations which took the left fork in the road are scrambling desperately to change direction to get back on the highway to freedom from stifling, overbearingly maternalistic governments "that know what is best for us" - the very thing we had a revolution to get rid of. Who knows, maybe they did know best, but that was not the point. Americans would rather make their own mistakes than forfeit their power to politicans - a class of humans for whom they have little respect. Patrick Hynes has written a piece called The Nostalgia Party which I think captures the pickle the Dems find themselves in (from corner to pickle - yes, I see it - this isn't literature). He reviews an American Prospect symposium called "Tax and Spend! The Case for Big Government," and provides a series of excerpts from presenters, for example: Jack P. Shonkoff insists an expansive federal government is necessary to raising healthy kids.
Since when are families obsolete?
Robert Kuttner proposes a bizarro "Ownership Society" in which the government owns almost everything.
Russia and China already tried that. It wasn't pretty.
And Paul Starr opines that government rationed freedom is the only means by which to obtain true liberty.
Note that last line. Scarey. Where have we heard that kind of double-think before? This is not a joke, folks. From all of this, you might imagine that Liberals believe that the country is in deep trouble, if not in an emergency, rather than being the wealthiest, most powerful, most charitable, most Christian and most free country in the world - with the highest social mobility too. Hynes concludes:
The modern liberal movement, as characterized by the American Prospect's big government symposium, has devolved into a reactionary and unimaginative faction pining for the glory days of the early and mid 20th Century when government expansion was all the rage and "the future" was happening now in the old Soviet Union. But on top of recommending pessimistic ideas, there is considerable evidence the dreamy left is also just plain wrong. Consider America's forty-year-and-counting war on poverty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans below 125% of the poverty line was 21.3% when Lyndon Johnson's Great Society war began in 1966. It remained nearly that high until 1983, when Ronald Reagan's tax cuts kicked in. From then through 1989, poverty fell to 17.3%. It actually spiked again during the Bush (41) and Clinton presidencies, but it is once again receding during the Bush (43) presidency, where it currently stands at 16.9%. In these data, we hear echoes of Ronald Reagan asking "why would we ever want to go back?" Of course. Wise observers knew it at the time - Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" was a vote-buying scam perpetrated on a generous and naive nation, and nothing more. The goal of eliminating poverty remains a good one - but how? Anyway, read the whole thing at TechCentral.
Friday, May 20. 2005
Cuba Publius Pundit has more links on Cuba's "Ascendent Revolution." The photos, taken today, from Stefania are remarkable.
 Why Islamic Terrorism? The Yankee View.
We have posted on this subject numerous times, and doubtless will again. But I have to highlight the simple truth. If America is mostly still passionate about political and economic freedom, freedom of religion, the dignity of the individual, freedom of opportunity and freedom of self-expression, then think of the Jihadists and Terrorists ("Insurgents", to the NYT) and Islamofascists as being at least as passionate about imposing Islam, Sharia Law, the subjugation of females, and the elimination of Jews, on the planet Earth. That is what it is about. Period. It is a culture war and the enemy, in their pathetic ignorance of the world, actually believes that they can prevail - with Allah's help, of course. That cannot happen, and it will never happen. I relink this LGF piece. If it is important to be "understanding," then understand it. If it is important to be "tolerant" - forget it. Watch the video, too. Guess what? - We're on the right side....unless you have abandoned all sense of right and wrong at all, and would have wanted to also be "tolerant and understanding" of Adolf Hitler and his followers - after all, they had "feelings" too, not to mention a valid gripe about the Treaty of Versailles which screwed Germany in a humiliating manner. But that doesn't matter - up here in rugged Yankeeland, where we try to live according to a stern self-imposed code, we do not entertain excuses. Take it or leave it: Excuses are for babies, and emotion-based "explanations" are for teen-agers. Make a mistake, and pay the price. Very simple and easy for anyone to understand. Even me. The Western world has recently confronted totalitarian fascist movements, led by the defunct Third Reich, and again by the defunct Soviet Union, and those are thankfully in the dust-bin of history. Once again, we are reminded of the old saw that "freedom isn't free." Don't Tread on Me. (Colonial "Culpepper" flag thanks to Dave's Flag Site)
 Today brings a ray of hope into the hearts of the Cubans. Is Fidel letting his guard down or will the Assembly be another propaganda ploy?
WHAT IS THE ASSEMBLY TO PROMOTE CIVIL SOCIETY IN CUBA?
"The Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba is a coalition of more than 360 independent groups within the island, which objectives are to re-establish and strengthen civil society for the installation of a democratic system in Cuba." http://www.asambleasociedadcivilcuba.info/ Paxety Pages : Friday could be a turning point in Cuba's history.
The Cuban dissidents need the support of the Free World -- their dreams of freedom and democracy are the same as ours, and this support will shorten the struggle and suffering of the Cuban people.Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news Americans and Europeans condemn Castro's illegal incarceration of dissidents and their poor treatment.European Union Condemns Trials, Sentencing of Cuban Dissidents - US Department of State : Washington -- "The European Union (EU) has condemned the recent trials and sentencing of 13 more Cuban human rights activists and journalists, who the 25-nation bloc said were arrested "while peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, opinion, association, and assembly.Three of the Cuban dissidents were convicted May 5 of contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and were sentenced to up to five years in prison. Another 10 dissidents, who had been arrested more than two years ago, were given sentences of up to seven years in prison.Castro's regime ordered a crackdown on dissent in March 2003 that resulted in the 75 dissidents being sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years." If you would like to see what Cuba looks like today after 4 decades of Fidel in power click here.NEWS
 Cuba Lovers
We have a number of Cuba-loving readers - but not in the Hollywood political sense. I mean folks who love the island and the people of Cuba, but who hate the Bearded One, Fidelito, and what he has done to the island. However, despite Fidel, the spirit of these wonderful people endures and will rise again and blossom after he is gone. It is much easier and more common than I realized for Americans to visit Cuba now, via Mexico, but many do not wish to subsidize Fidel by adding their dollars to his economy. On the other hand, the people need money. Too bad more Cubans don't have internet service. Fidelito would be gone in a flash, and I am sure he knows that. But may the "Sugar Cane" Revolution come soon, very soon, to Cuba. Cuba Libre! Personally, I can't wait to visit. My grampa loved Cuba. In the meantime, there will be a taste of Havana in New York - Brooklyn specifically - this summer. Habana Outpost Food & Market.
Wednesday, May 18. 2005
 Why Kim du Toit Moved to Texas Quite an amusing account of how our favorite gun-loving blogger made his mind up about what state to move to. I am not sure why "work" never entered into his calculations - but Kim has more important considerations: I’m just one guy, and we should be careful about using a sample of one to make any kind of judgement; but when we decided that Chicago was too much of a totalitarian state for us (even though we loved the place, and leaving it would cause us severe financial hardship, not to mention emotional stress), we didn’t move to Michigan (our first choice), because Michigan requires that its citizens register their handguns. Not gonna do that. We didn’t move to Vermont, because the state required us to register as homeschoolers; we didn’t move to Pennsylvania because their state taxes were too high; and we went on and on through the states, checking to see which one incorporated the best mix of gun laws, homeschooling-friendliness, low taxes and low government involvement in its citizens’ lives generally. Needless to say, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, and New York were never considered at all. Ultimately, we were left with Arizona, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Idaho and Texas. New Hampshire and Idaho were too far from the Son&Heir (flights to DFW being both infrequent/inconvenient and expensive), and Arizona and Oklahoma were too desolate for our taste. I'm afraid that, except for NH, many of Kim's "evil states" are clustered in our Northeast. Well, and in the Northwest too - for sure. I think perhaps political attitudes influenced his final selection, but Kim writes in a very nuanced fashion: Of course I think that the politicians in the Evil States are a bunch of scum; of course I think that what they’re doing is reprehensible; and of course I think that they should be hanged from utility poles en masse, this prick Louis Manzo having the first place in line. But they were elected, and if the people of the Evil States keep electing them, then there’s not a whole lot I can say that will change that. So, to all my Readers in the Evil States (and you know who you are), I have only one thing to say, even though I’ve said it time and time before: Leave.
Fidelito, Hollywood's Favorite Politician Humberto Fontova, author of the definitive and detailed Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant, is interviewed in Front Page: HF: Let's start with its dimensions: Castro's gulag held more political prisoners, as a percentage of population, than pre-war Hitler's and --yes--even Stalin's. Also, the longest serving political prisoners OF THE CENTURY spent their hell in Castro's Gulag. Senores Mario Chanes de Armas, Angel de Fana and Eusebio Penalver all served thirty years in Castro's dungeons. To put this in proper perspective, Alexander Solzhenitsyn served 8 years in Stalin's Gulag. So here's men who served over THREE times as long-- and who's heard of them? They all live in Miami today. So where's the PBS documentary on them? Where's the 60 Minutes interview with them? Where were the rallies (outside of Miami's little Havana) for their release? Where were the U.N declarations for their release? (Instead their jailer's regime is appointed to the UN's Human Rights Commission!) Read entire, link above.
The Latin Beat
Mayhem in Miami. Click here: My Way News Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban Terrorist has been arrested. There will be a ruckus raised in Miami tonight and party thrown in Havana and Caracas. Certainly Chavez and Castro await to see which one will yell "FIRE" when Carriles faces the firing squad.Babalu Blog  | (In this photo made available by the Cuban Government's National Information Agency (AIN), Cuban President Fidel Castro speaks at the Conventions Palace in Havana, Cuba in this May 12, 2005 photo. Castro, who night after night goes before hundreds of government and Communist Party officials and millions of other Cubans watching him on TV, is heading a campaign which will reach its peak on Tuesday, May 17, 2005, with a massive march to demand that the United States arrest Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, who is sought in Venezuela on charges of helping bomb a civilian airliner in 1976, killing 73 people. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco/AIN)
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Bloomberg.com: Latin America Chavez plans on funding companies that empower workers:Venezuela's legislature, controlled by governing coalition parties, will soon consider a bill that would mandate joint management of all state and non-state companies, Chavez said before tens of thousands of red-shirted supporters who rallied next to the central bank in the city's center. The government's National Union of Workers' labor group introduced the proposal. Craziness exists everywhere. Newsweek, judicial filibusters and politics as usual in America provide conversation and editorial fodder but look out cause there is a war going on in places other than Iraq and Israel and Oil seems to be leaking all over the place.
Tuesday, May 17. 2005
Missionaries to the Islamic World Blame Newsweek, or blame the rioters and their inciters? Interesting thoughts from The Shape of Days: There's something wrong, dangerously wrong, in the Muslim world. When a society is so willing to commit widespread violence over such an inconsequential thing, it just makes me nervous about what they'd be willing to do with, say, a nuclear bomb. How can we fix this? The only answer I can think of will get me branded as an Ann Coulter-loving fascist racist homophobe who dresses funny: missionaries. I'm serious. I'm not saying that the only way to fix the obvious and terrifying problem with the Muslim world is by wiping it out and replacing it with Christianity, though there are certainly those out there who subscribe to that point of view. I think the answer could be less drastic. I think the cross-polination of cultures could do wonders for the Muslim world. Their language, customs, faith … these things are their business, and they're welcome to them. But the idea that God wants them to kill people, that it's okay to murder women, that Jews are the descendants of swine and deserve to be wiped out, these are dangerous, harmful ideas. Saying "that's just part of their culture" is the worst possible thing we can do right now. It would legitimize the horrors that are being committed all over the world in the name of Islam today, from these most recent riots to holy wars to honor killings and everything in between. Read entire (link above)
Patriotism Why would Newsweek have printed their toiletgate piece - even if they knew it to be true? In wartime, as in life, bad things happen and mistakes happen. But who would want to publicly air the dirty laundry, especially if it would damage America's cause and her fighting people? Who would think that Abu Graib was a bigger story than repeated beheadings and suicide bombings? Or Saddam's mass graves? It's as if a few incidents of American mistreatment of prisoners of war during WW2 had received more headlines than the slaughter of the Jews - and Saddam did operate a kind of holocaust of his own. If a journalist identifies themselves as an American, then it is their duty as a citizen to self-censor during wartime. It doesn't matter how you feel about the war: there were pacifists during WW1 and WW2 and Korea, but they weren't going emotionally anti-American during those wars, except for the Communists. I have come up with two possible answers to my question. The more benign is what Laura Ingraham said last night - they see themselves as "citizens of the world" and not of the US. (But which world?, I ask. It's a big world.) The second is to see more malevolence - to see a reflex to undermine any American cause especially during a conservative administration. In either case, I see it as immature, disloyal, dangerous, and destructive to the very country that gave you all you have, including the freedom to behave in traitorous ways. This isn't the 1960s, and it just isn't cool anymore. It is shameful. Grow up, get real, put down your cocktail and and take a good, hard look at yourselves, journalists. Please. Update from Ed.: Prager agrees with Barrister.
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