Note to cut-and-run Democrats; this is what happens when you don't finish the job the first time...overheard at The Corner, from a resident of Moshav Avivim in northern Israel:
It appears as though the Hezbollah is preparing for Round 2. Up our way, the entire border is now dotted with Hezbollah flags and moving figures. There is not a single Lebanese army flag in sight. In my opinion, this is NOT okay. A flag is not only a symbol that represents concepts and ideals, but also used to stake claims. Does this mean that the Hezbollah have reclaimed Southern Lebanon? While driving home form work one evening, will I encounter terrorists who have infiltrated through tunnels they have dug under the border-underneath the noses of the UN base that lies opposite my house?
For years these UN troops have been observers. They observed the way the Hezbollah prepared for the last war and armed themselves to the teeth, so why should anything be different now? And BTW, where IS the Lebanese army that was supposed to keep the border clean...
Speaking of being armed to the teeth, DEBKA reports that:
Hizballah’s missile threat to Israel has reverted to its pre-Lebanon War level...In his report to the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee Tuesday, Jan. 16, Shomron criticized as a serious blunder the decision by prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni to relegate to UNIFIL and the Lebanese army the task of preventing Hizballah’s rearmament.
The ex-general also found that the chief of staff Dan Halutz and the general command had no clear objective in their conduct of the war.
And while we don't know where the Lebanese army is, we have an idea of what the Syrian army is up to:
The Syrian army has begun striking out in new directions for the first time since Bashar Asad succeeded his father as president seven years ago...Two new mechanized divisions are under construction. When they are completed in the coming spring, the Syrian armed forces will consist of 12 divisions – five deployed opposite Israel on the Golan, of which 3 are in forward positions facing Israeli troops and tanks and 2 further back on call as reinforcements should war erupt.
Makes me wonder about rumors of Syrian-Israeli "peace talks" - is Assad trying to lull Israel to sleep, so as to make them more vunerable to a Yom Kippur '73 - type attack? Likely bankrolled by Iran, Baby Assad grows more bold, while a gullible Ohlmert looks more and more like a sucker in the shuk....
And speaking of gullible, cowardly suckers, let's take a final look at the people the Democrats and related peaceniks want us to run away from:
Bombers killed 70 people, many of them young women students, at a Baghdad university on Tuesday..
Killers of unarmed women and children. If we run from them, boy, we have earned what will come our way next. Just ask the Israelis, who appear to be ready to duck and cover, again...
วันอังคาร, มกราคม 16, 2550
Al Gore - Hollywood Hypocrite!
'ol Al will feel right at home among the self-rightous attendees at the Acadamy Awards next month; where Roger Simon expects him to take home a statue:
Whatever its ideological virtues, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is a highly conventional business, part over-blown campaign film replete with puffery about the candidate and corny jokes about the opposition, part earnest Discovery Channel-style documentary with the usual didactic visual aids and animations. It is light years from the cutting edge of the documentary form. In fact, it borders on the stodgy.
Yet—in a year with few clear Oscar favorites—with the exception of Helen Mirren’s title performance in The Queen, Gore’s global warming flick stands alone as a lock for an Academy Award this February 27th.
It won’t deserve it.
An Inconvenient Truth will be judged almost entirely on its ideology and hardly at all on its cinematic value or lack thereof....
But like all Hollywood phonies, Al talks the talk, but expect others to walk the walk. Remember, extreme personal sacrifice is the duty of the proletariat! Anyway, from today's NY Post:
...some political types are laughing at the hypocrisy of Al Gore, who prides himself on his environmental righteous-ness, yet serves on the board of Apple, which has been singled out by Greenpeace because it uses un-recyclable toxins in its products...
More on Gaseous Gore:
Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself...
...Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock.
Can't wait to hear his self-rightous speech, and see the nodding heads and smug faces of the obscenely rich and famous in attendance as they applaud like caged monkees for a "cause" they have no desire to shoulder the load for...
Whatever its ideological virtues, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is a highly conventional business, part over-blown campaign film replete with puffery about the candidate and corny jokes about the opposition, part earnest Discovery Channel-style documentary with the usual didactic visual aids and animations. It is light years from the cutting edge of the documentary form. In fact, it borders on the stodgy.
Yet—in a year with few clear Oscar favorites—with the exception of Helen Mirren’s title performance in The Queen, Gore’s global warming flick stands alone as a lock for an Academy Award this February 27th.
It won’t deserve it.
An Inconvenient Truth will be judged almost entirely on its ideology and hardly at all on its cinematic value or lack thereof....
But like all Hollywood phonies, Al talks the talk, but expect others to walk the walk. Remember, extreme personal sacrifice is the duty of the proletariat! Anyway, from today's NY Post:
...some political types are laughing at the hypocrisy of Al Gore, who prides himself on his environmental righteous-ness, yet serves on the board of Apple, which has been singled out by Greenpeace because it uses un-recyclable toxins in its products...
More on Gaseous Gore:
Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself...
...Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock.
Can't wait to hear his self-rightous speech, and see the nodding heads and smug faces of the obscenely rich and famous in attendance as they applaud like caged monkees for a "cause" they have no desire to shoulder the load for...
วันจันทร์, มกราคม 15, 2550
MLK-Day Special!
Maybe I should call it a ".38 special"? How the forces of political correctness, acting in Dr. King's name, are directly involved in the killing of blacks...from today's Newark Star-Ledger, which of course could never see the irony:
Weapons seizures plummet on Turnpike
Uproar on racial profiling spurred State Police shift
Cops and politicians call Interstate 95 the "Iron Pipeline" because it is a popular route for criminals smuggling firearms from the South into Newark and other Northeastern cities where gun violence abounds.
A big link in that pipeline is the New Jersey Turnpike, where the State Police used to seize scores of guns every year.
But they don't anymore.
Gun arrests and gun seizures have plummeted on the Turnpike in the last decade, according to data provided by the State Police in response to a request under the Open Public Records Act. Since 1995, the number of gun-related arrests by troopers on the Turnpike dropped 91 percent, to 17 last year, and the number of seized guns fell 87 percent, to 15.
The decline comes at a time when homicides and shootings are on the rise in Newark, the state's largest city, where cops are taking record numbers of firearms off the streets. When those illegal guns are traced to their original sale, the most common source states turn out to be along the I-95 corridor in the South ...
"Any time we can interdict guns coming into the city, whether it's us or another law enforcement agency, it's going to prevent violence here," Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said.
For many years, troopers made a priority of pulling over Turnpike motorists and searching their cars in hopes of catching drug traffickers and gun runners. That effort was abandoned in 1999, after a state investigation found troopers were stopping drivers based on their skin color, a civil rights abuse known as racial profiling.
Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Police were put under the oversight of federal monitors and forced to change its patrol tactics....
So the forces of political correctness are appeased, and the folks in Newark grieve - over the bodies of their dead, killed by guns run up the I-95 pipeline, killed for sneakers, bling, petty grievances, or just because they were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I wonder where Dr. King would stand?
Weapons seizures plummet on Turnpike
Uproar on racial profiling spurred State Police shift
Cops and politicians call Interstate 95 the "Iron Pipeline" because it is a popular route for criminals smuggling firearms from the South into Newark and other Northeastern cities where gun violence abounds.
A big link in that pipeline is the New Jersey Turnpike, where the State Police used to seize scores of guns every year.
But they don't anymore.
Gun arrests and gun seizures have plummeted on the Turnpike in the last decade, according to data provided by the State Police in response to a request under the Open Public Records Act. Since 1995, the number of gun-related arrests by troopers on the Turnpike dropped 91 percent, to 17 last year, and the number of seized guns fell 87 percent, to 15.
The decline comes at a time when homicides and shootings are on the rise in Newark, the state's largest city, where cops are taking record numbers of firearms off the streets. When those illegal guns are traced to their original sale, the most common source states turn out to be along the I-95 corridor in the South ...
"Any time we can interdict guns coming into the city, whether it's us or another law enforcement agency, it's going to prevent violence here," Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said.
For many years, troopers made a priority of pulling over Turnpike motorists and searching their cars in hopes of catching drug traffickers and gun runners. That effort was abandoned in 1999, after a state investigation found troopers were stopping drivers based on their skin color, a civil rights abuse known as racial profiling.
Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Police were put under the oversight of federal monitors and forced to change its patrol tactics....
So the forces of political correctness are appeased, and the folks in Newark grieve - over the bodies of their dead, killed by guns run up the I-95 pipeline, killed for sneakers, bling, petty grievances, or just because they were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I wonder where Dr. King would stand?
วันอาทิตย์, มกราคม 14, 2550
Wrong!
The Washington Post editorial pages are normally so rife with inaccuracies, outright lies, and unjustified assertions that I ususally avoid it the way an allergic avoids flowers in the spring. Nevertheless, let's take a brief dip into the murky sea of stupidity - today's fool de jour is one Robert K. Brigham (author of "Is Iraq another Vietnam?" Gee, I wonder how that suppposition turns out?), who feels "the time to negotiate is now". Let's look at some of his gems:
As it did in Vietnam, the time has come for the United States to announce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Well, that worked well in Vietnam! The timetable was the beginning of the end for the South, a free nation now condemned to communist rule. And how many millions perished after the fall of Siagon? Doesn't matter to Brigham, the shame of an American retreat is what he is glorifying in, and he wants to repeat the spectacle, no matter how many Iraqis must die to satiate his desires.
Nonetheless, it seems that diplomacy is the best hope for the future.
Can someone tell me when diplomacy has ever worked in the middle of a war? How many peace treaties have been written between Israel and her neighbors (Brigham argues for more, incidentally), only to be destroyed in a blitz of suicide bombings and Iranian-built rocketry? A better example might be Korea - a UN brokered ceasefire led to the permanent partition of the pennisula, where half now live in freedom and prosperity, and the other half live in slavery and famine. Oh, and did I mention that one side is ruled by an unstable meglomaniac who is literally playing with nuclear weapons? Such is the result of diplomacy within wartime...
Wars need to have winners, and losers. One side needs to know that the fight is over, and lost; otherwise the fight will never end. "Diplomacy" in Iraq would leave one side seething, feeling it had been shortchanged - civil war would rage for years, economic growth would be stunted, various Iraqi governments would be toppled, and a power vacuum would develop that would lead to an autocratic (or terroristic) government eventually taking control. In other words, decades of chaos and death - just like after we fled Vietnam! Again, Mr. Brigham shows that this is the outcome he favors - otherwise he would argue against the "diplomatic" option.
Last reason to run and hide from anything that comes out of Brigham's mouth:
If it needs political cover to engage in regional negotiations, the Bush team could simply refer to the Iraq Study Group report. Many old-fashioned realists were pleased...
If you need a clue about how far off-base and untenable the suggestions from this group of policy "realists" ( read: Sandra Day O'Connor, Alan Simpson,Vernon Jordan, and other foreign-policy mediocracies) are, note that calls to implement its provisions have disappeared from the both the liberal media and their lackeys in Congress (the Democrats); even these clowns know they can't pull a farce of this magnitude off on the American people. I dissected the stupidity of the ISG report here; I don't have the stomach to do it again.
And all of this poorly thought out psuedo-analysis passes muster for Sunday editorial page content in the primary newspaper originating from our nation's capitol. How pathetic, and what a sad statement on the lack of balanced opinion and intelligent discourse that we can expect from the mainstream media.
If people like Brigham, with their weak arguments and warped policies designed to forment more American failures, are the best that the Washington Post can offer in defense of their cut-and-run stance, perhaps there is more to the stay-and-fight school than we think. Too bad the Post is so rarely ever able to find room for that school of thought within their pages....
As it did in Vietnam, the time has come for the United States to announce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Well, that worked well in Vietnam! The timetable was the beginning of the end for the South, a free nation now condemned to communist rule. And how many millions perished after the fall of Siagon? Doesn't matter to Brigham, the shame of an American retreat is what he is glorifying in, and he wants to repeat the spectacle, no matter how many Iraqis must die to satiate his desires.
Nonetheless, it seems that diplomacy is the best hope for the future.
Can someone tell me when diplomacy has ever worked in the middle of a war? How many peace treaties have been written between Israel and her neighbors (Brigham argues for more, incidentally), only to be destroyed in a blitz of suicide bombings and Iranian-built rocketry? A better example might be Korea - a UN brokered ceasefire led to the permanent partition of the pennisula, where half now live in freedom and prosperity, and the other half live in slavery and famine. Oh, and did I mention that one side is ruled by an unstable meglomaniac who is literally playing with nuclear weapons? Such is the result of diplomacy within wartime...
Wars need to have winners, and losers. One side needs to know that the fight is over, and lost; otherwise the fight will never end. "Diplomacy" in Iraq would leave one side seething, feeling it had been shortchanged - civil war would rage for years, economic growth would be stunted, various Iraqi governments would be toppled, and a power vacuum would develop that would lead to an autocratic (or terroristic) government eventually taking control. In other words, decades of chaos and death - just like after we fled Vietnam! Again, Mr. Brigham shows that this is the outcome he favors - otherwise he would argue against the "diplomatic" option.
Last reason to run and hide from anything that comes out of Brigham's mouth:
If it needs political cover to engage in regional negotiations, the Bush team could simply refer to the Iraq Study Group report. Many old-fashioned realists were pleased...
If you need a clue about how far off-base and untenable the suggestions from this group of policy "realists" ( read: Sandra Day O'Connor, Alan Simpson,Vernon Jordan, and other foreign-policy mediocracies) are, note that calls to implement its provisions have disappeared from the both the liberal media and their lackeys in Congress (the Democrats); even these clowns know they can't pull a farce of this magnitude off on the American people. I dissected the stupidity of the ISG report here; I don't have the stomach to do it again.
And all of this poorly thought out psuedo-analysis passes muster for Sunday editorial page content in the primary newspaper originating from our nation's capitol. How pathetic, and what a sad statement on the lack of balanced opinion and intelligent discourse that we can expect from the mainstream media.
If people like Brigham, with their weak arguments and warped policies designed to forment more American failures, are the best that the Washington Post can offer in defense of their cut-and-run stance, perhaps there is more to the stay-and-fight school than we think. Too bad the Post is so rarely ever able to find room for that school of thought within their pages....
วันเสาร์, มกราคม 13, 2550
Quod Era Demonstrada...
Joe Kennedy writes an op-ed in the New York Daily News urging all good-hearted Americans to support Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez:
...in 2005, we began a partnership with CITGO — an oil company owned by the people and the government of Venezuela — to distribute heating oil. The program went smoothly. Tens of thousands of households were served without any particular controversy.
This year was another story. Our program attracted negative attention this season for only one reason: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's controversial speech at the United Nations last September. A lot of people didn't like Chavez's speech. I didn't like his remarks, either.
That speech led critics to suggest that the oil program to help the needy is somehow un-American.
How is aiding those less fortunate un-American?
Joe is lying here, twice. Once, by saying that CITGO is owned "by the people" of Venezuela - like all socialist countries, the "people's profits" never actually reach the people, only their representatives in high offices. Notice how well Venezuela took to Chavez declaration of a socialist People's State:
Venezuela’s stock market tumbled almost 19 per cent and its currency lost a third of its value in unofficial trading as investors took fright at President Chávez’s plans to nationalise utilities as part of his “Socialist revolution”.
The benchmark IBC index of the Caracas stock exchange plunged 11,574 to 50,439, dragged down by the shares of the power and telephone companies of which the Government intends to seize control.
So Joe Kennedy wants us to support a dictator who siezes private property to "nationalize" it, a policy that has failed and led to misery everywhere it has been implemented (see Cuba, USSR, et al.). Nice!
Joe's second lie was that it was just one little speech that turned America against poor, misunderstood HC. Fact is, there is a pretty big pile of evidence damning the principles of governing that Chavez was operating under; his open call for socialism just put it out into the open. I guess Joe doesn't believe in the principles of capitalism; just what does he believe in, then?
Let's follow along that path - now that we know Joe loves Hugo, let's see who Hugo loves - via Fausta:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Saturday at the head of a Latin American tour where he hopes to strengthen ties with leftist governments seeking to reduce Washington's influence in the region.
Ahmadinejad was given a red-carpet welcome at Caracas' international airport, where Vice President Jorge Rodriguez greeted him at the start of a trip that will also take him to Nicaragua for meetings with newly inaugurated President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, and to Ecuador, where President-elect Rafael Correa will be sworn in Monday.
The Iranian leader will meet Saturday with President Hugo Chavez, whom Ahmadinejad described as "brother" during his first visit to Venezuela in September.
Chavez and Ahmadinejad have been increasingly united by their deep-seated antagonism to Washington. Chavez has become a leading defender of Iran's nuclear ambitions, accusing the United States of using the issue as a pretext to attack a regime it opposes and promising to stand with Iran.
Let's see where we find ourselves now:
Ahmadinjed has called repeatedly for the destruction of the United States, and is building nuclear weapons towards that end.
Chavez has repeatedly called the U.S. a "threat", and is endorsing Iran's nuclear program, likely in the hopes that he will have an opportunity to partake in some of the spoils.
Ahmadinjed knows the US stands blocking his path towards total domination of the Middle East.
Chavez knows that the US stands blocking his path towards total domination of South America.
Both hate the United States, passionately.
Joe Kennedy supports Chavez, who supports Ahmadinjed, who leads chants of "Death to America" on a weekly basis.
Joe Kennedy supports America's enemies.
Joe Kennedy is a traitor to the American people, their government, and to the principles that it upholds.
Quod era demonstrada....
UPDATE: More on that wacky American, Joeseph Kennedy II:
Kennedy again considered running for the governorship in 2002, but opted out citing family difficulties: After his ex-wife, Shiela Rauch, published a book ("A Woman Scorned") criticizing the Catholic Church for granting their annulment, it was revealed the annulment was on the grounds of mental deficiency. Further, there were allegations made that on a family camping trip with him, his brother raped the babysitter. The final blow to his immediate aspirations may have come when he severely burnt his son by accidentally shooting him with illegal fireworks....
...in 2005, we began a partnership with CITGO — an oil company owned by the people and the government of Venezuela — to distribute heating oil. The program went smoothly. Tens of thousands of households were served without any particular controversy.
This year was another story. Our program attracted negative attention this season for only one reason: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's controversial speech at the United Nations last September. A lot of people didn't like Chavez's speech. I didn't like his remarks, either.
That speech led critics to suggest that the oil program to help the needy is somehow un-American.
How is aiding those less fortunate un-American?
Joe is lying here, twice. Once, by saying that CITGO is owned "by the people" of Venezuela - like all socialist countries, the "people's profits" never actually reach the people, only their representatives in high offices. Notice how well Venezuela took to Chavez declaration of a socialist People's State:
Venezuela’s stock market tumbled almost 19 per cent and its currency lost a third of its value in unofficial trading as investors took fright at President Chávez’s plans to nationalise utilities as part of his “Socialist revolution”.
The benchmark IBC index of the Caracas stock exchange plunged 11,574 to 50,439, dragged down by the shares of the power and telephone companies of which the Government intends to seize control.
So Joe Kennedy wants us to support a dictator who siezes private property to "nationalize" it, a policy that has failed and led to misery everywhere it has been implemented (see Cuba, USSR, et al.). Nice!
Joe's second lie was that it was just one little speech that turned America against poor, misunderstood HC. Fact is, there is a pretty big pile of evidence damning the principles of governing that Chavez was operating under; his open call for socialism just put it out into the open. I guess Joe doesn't believe in the principles of capitalism; just what does he believe in, then?
Let's follow along that path - now that we know Joe loves Hugo, let's see who Hugo loves - via Fausta:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Saturday at the head of a Latin American tour where he hopes to strengthen ties with leftist governments seeking to reduce Washington's influence in the region.
Ahmadinejad was given a red-carpet welcome at Caracas' international airport, where Vice President Jorge Rodriguez greeted him at the start of a trip that will also take him to Nicaragua for meetings with newly inaugurated President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, and to Ecuador, where President-elect Rafael Correa will be sworn in Monday.
The Iranian leader will meet Saturday with President Hugo Chavez, whom Ahmadinejad described as "brother" during his first visit to Venezuela in September.
Chavez and Ahmadinejad have been increasingly united by their deep-seated antagonism to Washington. Chavez has become a leading defender of Iran's nuclear ambitions, accusing the United States of using the issue as a pretext to attack a regime it opposes and promising to stand with Iran.
Let's see where we find ourselves now:
Ahmadinjed has called repeatedly for the destruction of the United States, and is building nuclear weapons towards that end.
Chavez has repeatedly called the U.S. a "threat", and is endorsing Iran's nuclear program, likely in the hopes that he will have an opportunity to partake in some of the spoils.
Ahmadinjed knows the US stands blocking his path towards total domination of the Middle East.
Chavez knows that the US stands blocking his path towards total domination of South America.
Both hate the United States, passionately.
Joe Kennedy supports Chavez, who supports Ahmadinjed, who leads chants of "Death to America" on a weekly basis.
Joe Kennedy supports America's enemies.
Joe Kennedy is a traitor to the American people, their government, and to the principles that it upholds.
Quod era demonstrada....
UPDATE: More on that wacky American, Joeseph Kennedy II:
Kennedy again considered running for the governorship in 2002, but opted out citing family difficulties: After his ex-wife, Shiela Rauch, published a book ("A Woman Scorned") criticizing the Catholic Church for granting their annulment, it was revealed the annulment was on the grounds of mental deficiency. Further, there were allegations made that on a family camping trip with him, his brother raped the babysitter. The final blow to his immediate aspirations may have come when he severely burnt his son by accidentally shooting him with illegal fireworks....
While New Jersey's economy fizzles...
...the rest of the nation's sizzles. Why is New Jersey falling so far behind the rest of the nation? Liberal economic policies and Democratic legislative control, perhaps? Steven Malanga reports on the sorry state of the Garden State in yesterday's New York Post - first up are Lies Our Governor Told Us:
The new governor spent his first year in office doing little to restrain taxes, to put it mildly: Instead, he enacted a billion-dollar tax hike. At the same time, he rejected proposals even from within his own party to whack away at state spending - the underlying cause of high taxes - by trimming public-employee health and pension benefits
New Jersey has more public employees per capita that any other state in the Union; and they and their benefits are untouchable. So the poor schmucks who decide to work in the private sector get whacked, and whacked again. Not to mention any business that would dare tempt fate and open up in New Jersey:
...a steady diet of New York-like tax increases and business-toxic legislation has now sent Jersey residents and jobs heading for the exits.
The state's economy was anemic again last year, adding private-sector jobs at less than half the national rate. Even worse, much of Jersey's recent job growth has been in low-wage service employment - not industries with higher-paying jobs, like telecom and finance....
Most surveys of the best places to do business in America now rank Jersey near the bottom, often right next to New York.
On average, every three $38,000- jobs that leaves New Jersey are replaced by two $23,000- jobs. That's economic growth, Jersey-style!
Just as disenchanted is the general public, weighed down by the nation's highest local property taxes and a bevy of steep state levies. T he number of Jerseyans moving out has tripled in four years, to about 72,000 last year, notes the Census Bureau.
Pretty soon, there will be nothing left but welfare reciepients, service-sector workers, public-union employees, and homosexuals looking to get married. Welcome to New Jersey!
Corzine has accomplished little in his first year in office that might staunch the outflow. After his $1.2 billion sales-tax hike last summer, he rejected proposals to offer property-tax relief funded by cutting sky-high public sector pension and health benefits, which are projected to consume a shocking 20 percent of the state budget by 2010.
The public-service sector will starve the state to death rather than trim the slightest benefit. They will bleed the carcass of New Jersey dry, with the help of their Democratic bitches in Trenton (who will continue to raise taxes on their behalf), in order to maintain their unrealistic lifestyles.
Alas, their selfishness will cost them dearly as well - for the day will come when the carcass will give no more, the state will be unable to meet payroll, and the whacks they will have to take will be much harsher than anything they may have thought to sacrifice earlier. Too bad they will take millions of innocents down with them, but hey ! They're not in the union, so I guess their lives don't count!
UPDATE: Typical sicko liberal philosophy: In an attempt to save money, the New Jersey State Legislature has passed a bill allowing schools to ignore, and thereby not teach about, Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. Think there is another agenda there as well? But don't question their patriotism!
UPDATE II: More data, this time from the Feds:
In a press briefing on the regional economy, the Fed's experts said New Jersey's economy grew 0.8 percent over the 12 months ended in November -- trailing the 4 percent gain posted by New York City. Although final figures are not out for 2006, New Jersey was on pace to create about 21,000 jobs for the year -- half the postwar yearly average and about one-tenth of the job-creation rate in Texas and Florida.
UPDATE III: Need to read more? How about price controls? They've failed everywhere else in the world, why not try them out on the people of New Jersey?
The new governor spent his first year in office doing little to restrain taxes, to put it mildly: Instead, he enacted a billion-dollar tax hike. At the same time, he rejected proposals even from within his own party to whack away at state spending - the underlying cause of high taxes - by trimming public-employee health and pension benefits
New Jersey has more public employees per capita that any other state in the Union; and they and their benefits are untouchable. So the poor schmucks who decide to work in the private sector get whacked, and whacked again. Not to mention any business that would dare tempt fate and open up in New Jersey:
...a steady diet of New York-like tax increases and business-toxic legislation has now sent Jersey residents and jobs heading for the exits.
The state's economy was anemic again last year, adding private-sector jobs at less than half the national rate. Even worse, much of Jersey's recent job growth has been in low-wage service employment - not industries with higher-paying jobs, like telecom and finance....
Most surveys of the best places to do business in America now rank Jersey near the bottom, often right next to New York.
On average, every three $38,000- jobs that leaves New Jersey are replaced by two $23,000- jobs. That's economic growth, Jersey-style!
Just as disenchanted is the general public, weighed down by the nation's highest local property taxes and a bevy of steep state levies. T he number of Jerseyans moving out has tripled in four years, to about 72,000 last year, notes the Census Bureau.
Pretty soon, there will be nothing left but welfare reciepients, service-sector workers, public-union employees, and homosexuals looking to get married. Welcome to New Jersey!
Corzine has accomplished little in his first year in office that might staunch the outflow. After his $1.2 billion sales-tax hike last summer, he rejected proposals to offer property-tax relief funded by cutting sky-high public sector pension and health benefits, which are projected to consume a shocking 20 percent of the state budget by 2010.
The public-service sector will starve the state to death rather than trim the slightest benefit. They will bleed the carcass of New Jersey dry, with the help of their Democratic bitches in Trenton (who will continue to raise taxes on their behalf), in order to maintain their unrealistic lifestyles.
Alas, their selfishness will cost them dearly as well - for the day will come when the carcass will give no more, the state will be unable to meet payroll, and the whacks they will have to take will be much harsher than anything they may have thought to sacrifice earlier. Too bad they will take millions of innocents down with them, but hey ! They're not in the union, so I guess their lives don't count!
UPDATE: Typical sicko liberal philosophy: In an attempt to save money, the New Jersey State Legislature has passed a bill allowing schools to ignore, and thereby not teach about, Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. Think there is another agenda there as well? But don't question their patriotism!
UPDATE II: More data, this time from the Feds:
In a press briefing on the regional economy, the Fed's experts said New Jersey's economy grew 0.8 percent over the 12 months ended in November -- trailing the 4 percent gain posted by New York City. Although final figures are not out for 2006, New Jersey was on pace to create about 21,000 jobs for the year -- half the postwar yearly average and about one-tenth of the job-creation rate in Texas and Florida.
UPDATE III: Need to read more? How about price controls? They've failed everywhere else in the world, why not try them out on the people of New Jersey?
วันศุกร์, มกราคม 12, 2550
Economy Keeps Rocking!
A new high in the stock market today:
U.S. stocks rose on Friday as energy shares rebounded with oil prices, and government data showed retail sales rose more-than-expected last month, underscoring a more robust economic outlook.
The Dow Jones industrial average made its 24th record close since October.
And the overall economic health of the nation continues to get stronger:
The federal deficit has improved significantly in the first three months of the new budget year, helped by a continued surge in tax revenues.
In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit from October through December totaled $80.4 billion, the smallest imbalance for the first three months of a budget year since The budget year ends Sept. 30.
Tax collections are running 8.2 percent higher than a year ago while government spending is up by just 0.7 percent from a year ago. Last year's spending totals were boosted by significant payments to help the victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
The Treasury said for December, the government actually ran a surplus of $44.5 billion, the largest surplus ever recorded in December and a gain that reflected a big jump in quarterly corporate tax payments.
And more jobs are being created, at higher wages (buried in last week's Washington Post, on Page D6 - would the President have been a Clinton, could we expect to see these type of stories on page one again?):
Employers hired new workers and boosted wages at a brisk clip last month, creating far more jobs than many economists had expected and causing unemployment to hold steady at a low 4.5 percent, the Labor Department said yesterday.
That report followed others this week showing that retailers rang up decent holiday sales last month, while factories churned out more goods and businesses spent more on offices, shopping centers and other types of commercial construction.
Points to ponder:
- how many other nations in the world could survive a catastrophic attack on its largest city, and the destruction of another key port city via natural causes (or was it Karl Rove's racist weather machine?), and emerge stronger? Wow, we are a great nation! USA! USA!
-notice how the amazing resiliant Bush economy gets virtually no press? Good for Bush = Bad for the Democrats = Good for America. The media only views the good economy through the distorted lens of it somehow being bad news for the new Democratic majority, so they do not report it. The truth is secondary to an agenda, just like in Iraq. Nice.
-and why do the Democrats feel they need to rework the economic system, when it is so obviously functioning so smoothly? If corporate tax reciepts are closing the federal budget gap, isn't the Democrat's dream of big business "footing the bill" actually being realized? If tax cuts have allowed businesses to reinvest in their facilities, expanding growth and job creation, do we really need to raise corporate taxes to fund government-run jobs programs?
Why turn the system upside down? Because you can? Because everything Bush has ever gazed upon is now sullied, and thus must be burned to the ground?
Gateway Pundit has more questions on where the Democrats think they can go with their "new direction"...
The best thing the government can ever do within the private sector is...get out of the way!
U.S. stocks rose on Friday as energy shares rebounded with oil prices, and government data showed retail sales rose more-than-expected last month, underscoring a more robust economic outlook.
The Dow Jones industrial average made its 24th record close since October.
And the overall economic health of the nation continues to get stronger:
The federal deficit has improved significantly in the first three months of the new budget year, helped by a continued surge in tax revenues.
In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit from October through December totaled $80.4 billion, the smallest imbalance for the first three months of a budget year since The budget year ends Sept. 30.
Tax collections are running 8.2 percent higher than a year ago while government spending is up by just 0.7 percent from a year ago. Last year's spending totals were boosted by significant payments to help the victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
The Treasury said for December, the government actually ran a surplus of $44.5 billion, the largest surplus ever recorded in December and a gain that reflected a big jump in quarterly corporate tax payments.
And more jobs are being created, at higher wages (buried in last week's Washington Post, on Page D6 - would the President have been a Clinton, could we expect to see these type of stories on page one again?):
Employers hired new workers and boosted wages at a brisk clip last month, creating far more jobs than many economists had expected and causing unemployment to hold steady at a low 4.5 percent, the Labor Department said yesterday.
That report followed others this week showing that retailers rang up decent holiday sales last month, while factories churned out more goods and businesses spent more on offices, shopping centers and other types of commercial construction.
Points to ponder:
- how many other nations in the world could survive a catastrophic attack on its largest city, and the destruction of another key port city via natural causes (or was it Karl Rove's racist weather machine?), and emerge stronger? Wow, we are a great nation! USA! USA!
-notice how the amazing resiliant Bush economy gets virtually no press? Good for Bush = Bad for the Democrats = Good for America. The media only views the good economy through the distorted lens of it somehow being bad news for the new Democratic majority, so they do not report it. The truth is secondary to an agenda, just like in Iraq. Nice.
-and why do the Democrats feel they need to rework the economic system, when it is so obviously functioning so smoothly? If corporate tax reciepts are closing the federal budget gap, isn't the Democrat's dream of big business "footing the bill" actually being realized? If tax cuts have allowed businesses to reinvest in their facilities, expanding growth and job creation, do we really need to raise corporate taxes to fund government-run jobs programs?
Why turn the system upside down? Because you can? Because everything Bush has ever gazed upon is now sullied, and thus must be burned to the ground?
Gateway Pundit has more questions on where the Democrats think they can go with their "new direction"...
The best thing the government can ever do within the private sector is...get out of the way!
วันพุธ, มกราคม 10, 2550
Conservative-Bashing (literally!) in San Francisco
Now, anytime a person who is of the homosexual persuasion is assaulted in San Francisco, it is automatically labeled a "hate crime" that must be rigourously denounced by all civic and political leaders, and immediately followed by a thousands-strong anti-gay-bashing march.
However, if you beat the sh*t out of some folks of the conservative bent, well, apparently, the police will not even investigate the crime. From the website of KGO-TV:
Members of a renowned choral group from Yale University were attacked outside a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco, sending several of them to the hospital. Now the police department is coming under fire for its handling of the case....Yale sends its popular singing group, The Baker's Dozen, on a holiday concert tour. And San Francisco sends the young men away bloody, bruised, and several of them seriously injured.
The trouble started at midnight after The Baker's Dozen sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Witnesses say a few local young men didn't appreciate the attention the Yale students were getting, made fun of their conservative dress and began taunting them and making threats.
As The Baker's Dozen left the house, they were ambushed -- five, six, seven assailants attacking each member.
Their injuries ranged from scrapes, black eyes, a badly sprained ankle to concussions.
The most seriously injured was Sharyar Aziz. He was rushed back to New York for reconstructive surgery -- his jaws wired shut for eight weeks. He'll forever have two titanium plates in his face.
....when police arrived, they detained four of the attackers who were identified by members of The Baker's Dozen, but officers did not make an arrest. And a full week later, they still haven't made an arrest....Police investigators didn't even bother to photograph the injuries to The Baker's Dozen. The couple who held the party that night took pictures.
Mayor Gavin Newsom wouldn't address it when we caught up with him late this afternoon...
Where's your marches and pledges to stop the violence now, Mayor Newsom? Or is it OK to assault conservatives because they dare hold politcal views that differ from those of mainstream San Fransicko?
Kudos to KGO for staying on the case; once the police get off their duffs and make some arrests, I'll be curious to hear what explanations are given to explain away this conservative-bashing. Maybe they provoked it, you know, for being...different in liberal San Francisco, where all views are acceptable, as long as they are all the same.
Nice city you hail from, Speaker Pelosi....
However, if you beat the sh*t out of some folks of the conservative bent, well, apparently, the police will not even investigate the crime. From the website of KGO-TV:
Members of a renowned choral group from Yale University were attacked outside a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco, sending several of them to the hospital. Now the police department is coming under fire for its handling of the case....Yale sends its popular singing group, The Baker's Dozen, on a holiday concert tour. And San Francisco sends the young men away bloody, bruised, and several of them seriously injured.
The trouble started at midnight after The Baker's Dozen sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Witnesses say a few local young men didn't appreciate the attention the Yale students were getting, made fun of their conservative dress and began taunting them and making threats.
As The Baker's Dozen left the house, they were ambushed -- five, six, seven assailants attacking each member.
Their injuries ranged from scrapes, black eyes, a badly sprained ankle to concussions.
The most seriously injured was Sharyar Aziz. He was rushed back to New York for reconstructive surgery -- his jaws wired shut for eight weeks. He'll forever have two titanium plates in his face.
....when police arrived, they detained four of the attackers who were identified by members of The Baker's Dozen, but officers did not make an arrest. And a full week later, they still haven't made an arrest....Police investigators didn't even bother to photograph the injuries to The Baker's Dozen. The couple who held the party that night took pictures.
Mayor Gavin Newsom wouldn't address it when we caught up with him late this afternoon...
Where's your marches and pledges to stop the violence now, Mayor Newsom? Or is it OK to assault conservatives because they dare hold politcal views that differ from those of mainstream San Fransicko?
Kudos to KGO for staying on the case; once the police get off their duffs and make some arrests, I'll be curious to hear what explanations are given to explain away this conservative-bashing. Maybe they provoked it, you know, for being...different in liberal San Francisco, where all views are acceptable, as long as they are all the same.
Nice city you hail from, Speaker Pelosi....
วันจันทร์, มกราคม 08, 2550
More British Dhimmitude....
From Biased BCC, we learn a certain phrase has become de riguer when referring to certian articles of the Islamic faith:
Watching the BBC's coverage of the verdict in the trial of Umran Javed at the end of last week there were many, many Beeboid references to 'the Prophet Mohammed', as if Mohammed was generally accepted as being a, or even the, prophet.
The BBC would, quite rightly, never refer to Jesus in their coverage as 'the Lord Jesus Christ', so I'm at a loss as to whether it's plain laziness or multiculti-zeal that permits such reverential treatment of Mohammed.
Methinks we are forgetting another possibility for the BBC's reverent treatment of Islam....the element of fear. Certainly, there are very few instances of Christians rioting when their Lord's name is taken in vain (just as many, I suppose, as instances where packs of Jews leave a Sabbath service filled with rage from a fire-breathing rabbinical sermon, and throw stones at non-believers); however, we know British Muslims can be a bit...touchy...on the subject of their religion's infallibility. Hence the BBC's bowing to their...sensibilities.
And what can get you tossed out of work for "racial insensitivtiy" in Britain? The following humorous definitions, according to Clarity and Resolve:
Islamophobic: Anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work."
Palestinians: "Archetype 'victims' no matter how many teenagers they murder in bars and fast food outlets.
Funny in America; criminal in Britain. Sheesh.
Watching the BBC's coverage of the verdict in the trial of Umran Javed at the end of last week there were many, many Beeboid references to 'the Prophet Mohammed', as if Mohammed was generally accepted as being a, or even the, prophet.
The BBC would, quite rightly, never refer to Jesus in their coverage as 'the Lord Jesus Christ', so I'm at a loss as to whether it's plain laziness or multiculti-zeal that permits such reverential treatment of Mohammed.
Methinks we are forgetting another possibility for the BBC's reverent treatment of Islam....the element of fear. Certainly, there are very few instances of Christians rioting when their Lord's name is taken in vain (just as many, I suppose, as instances where packs of Jews leave a Sabbath service filled with rage from a fire-breathing rabbinical sermon, and throw stones at non-believers); however, we know British Muslims can be a bit...touchy...on the subject of their religion's infallibility. Hence the BBC's bowing to their...sensibilities.
And what can get you tossed out of work for "racial insensitivtiy" in Britain? The following humorous definitions, according to Clarity and Resolve:
Islamophobic: Anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work."
Palestinians: "Archetype 'victims' no matter how many teenagers they murder in bars and fast food outlets.
Funny in America; criminal in Britain. Sheesh.
วันอาทิตย์, มกราคม 07, 2550
Battlefield Update
I keep comforting myself by trying to remember we were getting our butt kicked in the early going of WWII, but today's war has already been going on for quite some time, and I don't see us gaining any ground at all...
Augean Stables tells what life is like under Muslim rule in England - some poor bloke was taking a bit too long to fill up his transit card; and his masters let him know it:
Apparently, I had taken longer than the ten seconds that they were prepared to wait and so three burly males forced me aside and, when I objected, pushed me to the floor and - quite literally - and took over the machine which I was attempting to use.
The eldest male in the group, dressed in the usual and ridiculous garb of mohammedans everywhere, looked directly at me amd said, in quite clear English, (and I quote verbatim) “Get out of our way infidel slave”.
Apparently, the British authorities consider this behavior to be acceptable:
I complained, some three hours later to the British Transport Police...no-one to whom I spoke was even prepared to initiate any paperwork whatsoever nor were they remotely prepared to find and look at the video recordings. Indeed, one Officer even said to me that I ’should swallow my pride’ and live with it because - and, once again, I quote verbatim ‘you are just being racist and you have to remember that it’s cultural with them’.
...the Officer of the BTP who was listening to me actually cautioned me and warned me that if I persisted with making a nuisance of myself I would be charged under the The Race Relations Act 1976 and the RRAA (Race Relations (Amendment) Act) 2000.
The Brits held up against the ferocious Nazi onslaught for years, but have possibly even beaten the French to the white flag this time...thus the power of ideas (multiculturalism, Western guilt) having greater ability to affect a society's will to live, even more so than a physical assault upon its person. Remember the endgame, every time the left puts the blame for the world's ills at our feet...
And exactly what type of scoiety are we surrendering to? Well, Western Resistance gives us a clue:
With the aim of strengthening business ties, two Riyadh business partners in their 70s have married their teenage daughters (17-19) to each other, reported Sayidaty magazine, a sister publication of Arab News.
"A man has the right to marry. When it comes to marriage, there is no stopping point," said Al-Dossary, a man in his 70s with silver hair, a gray beard and gray eyebrows. "We have followed Islamic principles in the way we conducted our marriages and we are both happy with our wives," he added.
Al-Dossary married his teenage daughter to his business partner and in turn married his partner's teenage daughter.
Well, I am sure they are thrilled with their teenage brides; anyone think about asking the girls how they feel? Where's NOW? Too busy salivating over Speaker Pelosi and endorsing the surrender plans of the 110th Congress to "men" such as seen above...similar atrocities are being committed here, but in the name of multiculturalism, you musn't whisper a word....
If anyone is still interested in fighting - and winning - a war, CDR Salamander has a tight and cohesive battle plan to get it done in 2007. But it fails to address building daycare centers for the children of the jihadis, so I doubt it will pass Speaker Pelosi's muster...
And speaking of actually fighting, many are abuzz over a report that Israel is planning a nuclear attack on Iran aimed at destroying their weapon-making capability:
The Sunday (London) Times for January 7, 2007 reports: “Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility [Natanz] using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
Others believe (same link as above) it is a British-MSM plot to embarrass Israel:
...one must consider the source of this story. The Sunday Times journalist in question Uzi Mahnaimi, is a controversial figure, who co-authored a book with Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat and PLO press officer.
While some may believe he has actual military sources in Israel who use him to leak stories that won’t make it past censors, others think he is used by foreign agents to push stories that embarrass Israel
One thing is clear: Mahnaimi makes a regular habit of reporting that Israel is about to attack Iran. If his reporting was accurate, Iranian nuclear facilities would already be a smoking ruin – not once, but multiple times.
Personally, I hope Israel has a solid plan to fight Iran (and a better one than was employed against Hezbollah this past summer), 'cause I think they are going to need it. I'd bet even the United States has a battle plan in place to fight Canada, should the need arise - still doesn't mean it will ever happen, but always best to be prepared...
ALTHOUGH -I have this theory - one tanker, filled with a thousand jihadis instead of oil, hits Newfoundland - they pour out, take over a few key port towns, allow other ships to come in with reinforcements, avert snowballs thrown by Canadian military, march down to Vermont - which welcomes them as "guests" - and American remains frozen as a Democrat-controlled government refuses to consider a cross-border strike. After all, think of the children !
Think I'm kidding? Today, the front in the war moves to Miami:
MIAMI - Three men were caught trying to slip past a checkpoint in a cargo truck Sunday at the Port of Miami, said authorities, who increased security at the busy trade hub.
Sleep tight.
Augean Stables tells what life is like under Muslim rule in England - some poor bloke was taking a bit too long to fill up his transit card; and his masters let him know it:
Apparently, I had taken longer than the ten seconds that they were prepared to wait and so three burly males forced me aside and, when I objected, pushed me to the floor and - quite literally - and took over the machine which I was attempting to use.
The eldest male in the group, dressed in the usual and ridiculous garb of mohammedans everywhere, looked directly at me amd said, in quite clear English, (and I quote verbatim) “Get out of our way infidel slave”.
Apparently, the British authorities consider this behavior to be acceptable:
I complained, some three hours later to the British Transport Police...no-one to whom I spoke was even prepared to initiate any paperwork whatsoever nor were they remotely prepared to find and look at the video recordings. Indeed, one Officer even said to me that I ’should swallow my pride’ and live with it because - and, once again, I quote verbatim ‘you are just being racist and you have to remember that it’s cultural with them’.
...the Officer of the BTP who was listening to me actually cautioned me and warned me that if I persisted with making a nuisance of myself I would be charged under the The Race Relations Act 1976 and the RRAA (Race Relations (Amendment) Act) 2000.
The Brits held up against the ferocious Nazi onslaught for years, but have possibly even beaten the French to the white flag this time...thus the power of ideas (multiculturalism, Western guilt) having greater ability to affect a society's will to live, even more so than a physical assault upon its person. Remember the endgame, every time the left puts the blame for the world's ills at our feet...
And exactly what type of scoiety are we surrendering to? Well, Western Resistance gives us a clue:
With the aim of strengthening business ties, two Riyadh business partners in their 70s have married their teenage daughters (17-19) to each other, reported Sayidaty magazine, a sister publication of Arab News.
"A man has the right to marry. When it comes to marriage, there is no stopping point," said Al-Dossary, a man in his 70s with silver hair, a gray beard and gray eyebrows. "We have followed Islamic principles in the way we conducted our marriages and we are both happy with our wives," he added.
Al-Dossary married his teenage daughter to his business partner and in turn married his partner's teenage daughter.
Well, I am sure they are thrilled with their teenage brides; anyone think about asking the girls how they feel? Where's NOW? Too busy salivating over Speaker Pelosi and endorsing the surrender plans of the 110th Congress to "men" such as seen above...similar atrocities are being committed here, but in the name of multiculturalism, you musn't whisper a word....
If anyone is still interested in fighting - and winning - a war, CDR Salamander has a tight and cohesive battle plan to get it done in 2007. But it fails to address building daycare centers for the children of the jihadis, so I doubt it will pass Speaker Pelosi's muster...
And speaking of actually fighting, many are abuzz over a report that Israel is planning a nuclear attack on Iran aimed at destroying their weapon-making capability:
The Sunday (London) Times for January 7, 2007 reports: “Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility [Natanz] using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
Others believe (same link as above) it is a British-MSM plot to embarrass Israel:
...one must consider the source of this story. The Sunday Times journalist in question Uzi Mahnaimi, is a controversial figure, who co-authored a book with Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat and PLO press officer.
While some may believe he has actual military sources in Israel who use him to leak stories that won’t make it past censors, others think he is used by foreign agents to push stories that embarrass Israel
One thing is clear: Mahnaimi makes a regular habit of reporting that Israel is about to attack Iran. If his reporting was accurate, Iranian nuclear facilities would already be a smoking ruin – not once, but multiple times.
Personally, I hope Israel has a solid plan to fight Iran (and a better one than was employed against Hezbollah this past summer), 'cause I think they are going to need it. I'd bet even the United States has a battle plan in place to fight Canada, should the need arise - still doesn't mean it will ever happen, but always best to be prepared...
ALTHOUGH -I have this theory - one tanker, filled with a thousand jihadis instead of oil, hits Newfoundland - they pour out, take over a few key port towns, allow other ships to come in with reinforcements, avert snowballs thrown by Canadian military, march down to Vermont - which welcomes them as "guests" - and American remains frozen as a Democrat-controlled government refuses to consider a cross-border strike. After all, think of the children !
Think I'm kidding? Today, the front in the war moves to Miami:
MIAMI - Three men were caught trying to slip past a checkpoint in a cargo truck Sunday at the Port of Miami, said authorities, who increased security at the busy trade hub.
Sleep tight.
วันเสาร์, มกราคม 06, 2550
"Peace Train" - With a Wink...
From George Orwell's 1984:
The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure for ever? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Which leads me here....
Yusuf Islam, the radical Muslim singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, must certainly smirk when he sings "Peace Train". Is he thinking of the trains that took the Jews to the concentration camps, or maybe the ones that al-Qaeda destroyed in Madrid? 'Cause he certainly is not thinking about peace the way you and I understand it. Via the Brussels Journal, we can link to articles that let us know (as the media that pushed his "comeback" refuse to) that Yusuf Islam is notorious for having supported the Islamic death penalty for Salman Rushdie, and that he also refuses to denounce Hamas.
Seems pretty obvious he speaks of the "peace of the grave", no? Well, obvious to everyone except our intellectual superiors in Europe, who have just awarded him with some type of bizarre multicultural peace prize:
Yusuf Islam is to be awarded the Mediterranean Prize for Peace today January 4, 2007 in Naples, Italy. Yusuf is being awarded the prestigious award as a result of the work he has done to increase peace in the world. […] The prize is assigned each year to personalities of political, cultural, and artistic worlds that contributed with their actions to reduce tensions and begin an upgrading process of cultural differences and shared values in the area of the Greater Mediterranean.
Fjordman at the B-Journal comments further:
Our so-called leaders through the European Union are busy selling our continent and the freedom of our children down the river, and smile while they are doing it. The only way to stop this is to dismantle the European Union. All of it. If we don't do so, and soon, Europe simply won’t survive.
We learn a little more about our singer-songwriter, whom Europe somehow believes is a man of goodwill, from the Gates of Vienna:
In 1988, he authored the pamphlet “Eyewitness,” in which he claimed:
The Jews seem neither to respect God nor his creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who consider themselves to be ‘God’s chosen people.’...There will be no justice until all the land is given back to its rightful owners... Only Islam can bring peace back to the Holy Land.
In 1989, a week after Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa for the murder of “Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie, Islam agreed:
He must be killed. The Koran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, he must die.
And Islam’s views haven’t changed much. A map of the Middle East currently on his website doesn’t recognize Israel. There is only “Holyland” on his Map of Hate. In 2004, Islam told ABC News’ Elizabeth Vargas that he supports HAMAS.
Borders is actually pushing this Jew-hating, America-bashing, terrorist-supporting hatemonger, listing him as part of their "holiday guide", touting him with "Borders Exclusives " and calling him simply a "pop-singer" .
If Yusuf Islam is a pop singer, than Hitler was no more than a motivational speaker....
As if I needed another reason to boycott Borders....
The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure for ever? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Which leads me here....
Yusuf Islam, the radical Muslim singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, must certainly smirk when he sings "Peace Train". Is he thinking of the trains that took the Jews to the concentration camps, or maybe the ones that al-Qaeda destroyed in Madrid? 'Cause he certainly is not thinking about peace the way you and I understand it. Via the Brussels Journal, we can link to articles that let us know (as the media that pushed his "comeback" refuse to) that Yusuf Islam is notorious for having supported the Islamic death penalty for Salman Rushdie, and that he also refuses to denounce Hamas.
Seems pretty obvious he speaks of the "peace of the grave", no? Well, obvious to everyone except our intellectual superiors in Europe, who have just awarded him with some type of bizarre multicultural peace prize:
Yusuf Islam is to be awarded the Mediterranean Prize for Peace today January 4, 2007 in Naples, Italy. Yusuf is being awarded the prestigious award as a result of the work he has done to increase peace in the world. […] The prize is assigned each year to personalities of political, cultural, and artistic worlds that contributed with their actions to reduce tensions and begin an upgrading process of cultural differences and shared values in the area of the Greater Mediterranean.
Fjordman at the B-Journal comments further:
Our so-called leaders through the European Union are busy selling our continent and the freedom of our children down the river, and smile while they are doing it. The only way to stop this is to dismantle the European Union. All of it. If we don't do so, and soon, Europe simply won’t survive.
We learn a little more about our singer-songwriter, whom Europe somehow believes is a man of goodwill, from the Gates of Vienna:
In 1988, he authored the pamphlet “Eyewitness,” in which he claimed:
The Jews seem neither to respect God nor his creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who consider themselves to be ‘God’s chosen people.’...There will be no justice until all the land is given back to its rightful owners... Only Islam can bring peace back to the Holy Land.
In 1989, a week after Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa for the murder of “Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie, Islam agreed:
He must be killed. The Koran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, he must die.
And Islam’s views haven’t changed much. A map of the Middle East currently on his website doesn’t recognize Israel. There is only “Holyland” on his Map of Hate. In 2004, Islam told ABC News’ Elizabeth Vargas that he supports HAMAS.
Borders is actually pushing this Jew-hating, America-bashing, terrorist-supporting hatemonger, listing him as part of their "holiday guide", touting him with "Borders Exclusives " and calling him simply a "pop-singer" .
If Yusuf Islam is a pop singer, than Hitler was no more than a motivational speaker....
As if I needed another reason to boycott Borders....
Approval Ratings Continue to Sink...
...For Saintly Incoming FIRST FEMALE EVER House Speaker Nancy Pelosi??
Yup, that's right - although you wouldn't know it from the mastaburtory coverage provided to you by the mainstream media (some good examples and contrast from Gateway Pundit), Mr. Don Surber provides us with the most recent Rasmussen numbers:
45% approval for Bush
43% approval for Pelosi
So Pelosi is even less popular than Bush? How is that possible, with the papers telling me every day that Bush is the least popular thing since Jimmy Carter's gasoline rationing?
Where are the headlines about Pelosi "facing trouble implementing her aggressive liberal agenda against a rising tide of negative public opinion"?
Oh yeah...that would involve telling the truth...
Yup, that's right - although you wouldn't know it from the mastaburtory coverage provided to you by the mainstream media (some good examples and contrast from Gateway Pundit), Mr. Don Surber provides us with the most recent Rasmussen numbers:
45% approval for Bush
43% approval for Pelosi
So Pelosi is even less popular than Bush? How is that possible, with the papers telling me every day that Bush is the least popular thing since Jimmy Carter's gasoline rationing?
Where are the headlines about Pelosi "facing trouble implementing her aggressive liberal agenda against a rising tide of negative public opinion"?
Oh yeah...that would involve telling the truth...
Just wait until they try to defund the Iraq war....Remember how Bill Clinton smacked down Newt Gingrich in '95, despite a strong Republican mandate? Just think about how hard Pelosi's gonna hit the canvas, with a negative approval rating and an adversary like Bush, whom despite being a "chimp", still manages to outsmart the Democrats at virtually every turn...
วันศุกร์, มกราคม 05, 2550
A Dignified Death for a Dictator?
Of the 6 billion people on this Earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the preeminent monster on the planet.
That is how Charles Krauthammer starts his misguided column today on the death of Saddam Hussein. Charles goes on to fret that Saddam's death was simply, well....undignified:
For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy but a crime...
....The world has now seen the smuggled video of the shouting and taunting that turned Saddam Hussein into the most dignified figure in the room -- another remarkable achievement in burnishing the image of the most evil man of his time.
SADDAM HUSSEIN A VICTIM??? Read your first paragraph again, buddy. This guy instigated two wars that killed hundreds of thousands, slaughtered hundreds of thousands more within his country for simply being of another race/religious sect, and heavily financed Palestinian terrorism with his oversized $25,000- checks provided to survivors (notice how with the lack of a monetary incentive -and a wall - suicide bombings within Israel are down sharply?). And you feel he is now a victim because he was mocked in the moments before his necked was mercifully snapped? My God, the qualifications for victimhood seem to have dropped a tad, no?
Krauthammer used to have one of the sharpest minds in the print media; seems as if he's sipped from the anti-American liberal Kool-Aid again. May I remind him of two other inglorious deaths of well known dictators?
Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceauşescu, backed by the former Soviet Union, terrorized his people, using secret police to "disappear" tens of thousands, and forced the country into virtual starvation throughout the '80's (he ordered the export of all agriculture to pay off national debt). He was executed after a quick trial and left lying in a dirty ditch...photos here.
And yet - there are no statues of him in Romania! No public squares proclaiming his greatness! If Krauthammer was right, wouldn't Ceaosescu's image be "burinished"?
And let's look at the undignified end of Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini :
...the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were found hung upside down on meat hooks [nice pic here] in Piazzale Loreto (Milan), along with those of other fascists, to show the population the dictator was dead. This was both to discourage any fascists to continue the fight and an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader became subject to ridicule and abuse by many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's policies....
And yet - did this end endear him to the Italian people? Er, no - his name is still spat out like a bad olive up and down the boot of the Italy. Did his well-deserved end make him a Krauthammer victim?
Fact is, evil dies horribly in most cases (Yassar Arafat the unfortunate exception; the smelly terrorist was coddled to the end and never held responsible for his crimes against both Israel and the Palestinian people; just the way the Left likes it). A dignified death is a sacrifice you make when your hands are rich with the blood of others - even Tony Soprano understands that (he has mentioned many times how he expects to "retire" from the "business"); I am shocked that Krauthammer does not seem to grasp it.
Sneered at while you twist at the end of a rope, gasping for breath through a shattered neck? A just death for someone like Saddam, the personification of evil walking upon the earth....
That is how Charles Krauthammer starts his misguided column today on the death of Saddam Hussein. Charles goes on to fret that Saddam's death was simply, well....undignified:
For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy but a crime...
....The world has now seen the smuggled video of the shouting and taunting that turned Saddam Hussein into the most dignified figure in the room -- another remarkable achievement in burnishing the image of the most evil man of his time.
SADDAM HUSSEIN A VICTIM??? Read your first paragraph again, buddy. This guy instigated two wars that killed hundreds of thousands, slaughtered hundreds of thousands more within his country for simply being of another race/religious sect, and heavily financed Palestinian terrorism with his oversized $25,000- checks provided to survivors (notice how with the lack of a monetary incentive -and a wall - suicide bombings within Israel are down sharply?). And you feel he is now a victim because he was mocked in the moments before his necked was mercifully snapped? My God, the qualifications for victimhood seem to have dropped a tad, no?
Krauthammer used to have one of the sharpest minds in the print media; seems as if he's sipped from the anti-American liberal Kool-Aid again. May I remind him of two other inglorious deaths of well known dictators?
Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceauşescu, backed by the former Soviet Union, terrorized his people, using secret police to "disappear" tens of thousands, and forced the country into virtual starvation throughout the '80's (he ordered the export of all agriculture to pay off national debt). He was executed after a quick trial and left lying in a dirty ditch...photos here.
And yet - there are no statues of him in Romania! No public squares proclaiming his greatness! If Krauthammer was right, wouldn't Ceaosescu's image be "burinished"?
And let's look at the undignified end of Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini :
...the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were found hung upside down on meat hooks [nice pic here] in Piazzale Loreto (Milan), along with those of other fascists, to show the population the dictator was dead. This was both to discourage any fascists to continue the fight and an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader became subject to ridicule and abuse by many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's policies....
![here]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mussolini_e_Petacci_a_Piazzale_Loreto%2C_1945.jpg#file){kind=link}
And yet - did this end endear him to the Italian people? Er, no - his name is still spat out like a bad olive up and down the boot of the Italy. Did his well-deserved end make him a Krauthammer victim?
Fact is, evil dies horribly in most cases (Yassar Arafat the unfortunate exception; the smelly terrorist was coddled to the end and never held responsible for his crimes against both Israel and the Palestinian people; just the way the Left likes it). A dignified death is a sacrifice you make when your hands are rich with the blood of others - even Tony Soprano understands that (he has mentioned many times how he expects to "retire" from the "business"); I am shocked that Krauthammer does not seem to grasp it.
Sneered at while you twist at the end of a rope, gasping for breath through a shattered neck? A just death for someone like Saddam, the personification of evil walking upon the earth....
วันพฤหัสบดี, มกราคม 04, 2550
Raising the Minimum Wage = Tax on the Poor?
George Will writes an article on the folly of government-mandated minimum wage hikes in the Washington Post today; he sums his point up nicely:
...the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly.
Captain's Quarters does a better job clarifying the colossal economic ignorance of the Democrats here:
They [the Democrats] aren't giving away money, not from their checkbook, at any rate. They're distorting a market for a short-term political benefit that will do nothing to raise the standard of living for the people they supposedly want to help. Arbitrarily raising the prices of services and goods in a marketplace causes inflation, not an increase in real value. They're forcing consumers of labor to pay more for the same service, from which they will get no increased benefit -- and that means that they will have to pass the costs along to the consumers of their goods and services, all through the distribution chain.
Whose money is getting given away? Yours and mine, and all 479,000 minimum-wage workers, that's who. I can absorb the incremental loss of buying power, but the people at the bottom rungs cannot...More likely, some of their jobs will get eliminated as businesses have to support the cost increase in some other fashion than price hikes.
And it's not even the working poor that gets helped in the increase. The working poor may have started at minimum wage, but they move up as they progress in their jobs. It is an absolute fallacy to argue that minimum-wage workers have not gotten a raise since the last federal increase of the minimum wage; they get raises as they increase their value to their employer, not from Uncle Sam.
Economics 101, but the Democrats have always been best at keeping the poor, well, poor...that's how they keep them in the party, I guess. Another small businessman laid it out to me this way:
Small business - profits $100K/year
4 employees, minimum wage $5-/hr (I'm rounding a bit), 10 hours a day
New government mandated wage $7-/hr.
Extra cost $80-/day, $480/wk (assuming six days), $24,960-year
Profit declines to $75K/yr (incidentally, government revenues decline as a result of lower taxable income, but that's only a side disaster).
Does the business owner:
-take his loss, maybe sell his home, pull a kid out of college, put off buying new equiptment/car (that'll help the economy, Nancy!), or reduce his standard of living?
-raise his prices and hope he doesn't lose customers, thus further harming his business?
or
-Does he fire one of his workers, recovering $22K of $25K lost?
How will that help the poor, Nancy? Whatever benefit they see from an increase in minimum wage will be offset by price increases, layoffs, and limited job opportunities.
I guess that's why the Democrats are the party of the poverty stricken - 'cause they certainly are good at eliminating wealth, opportunities, and free-market trade - you know, all that stuff that makes people poor and keeps them poor!
And keeps them looking to the government for help, which allows the Democrats to raise taxes to create new "jobs programs" and other sundry handouts, which then winds the cycle up (or down, as far as the economy goes) anew...
...the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly.
Captain's Quarters does a better job clarifying the colossal economic ignorance of the Democrats here:
They [the Democrats] aren't giving away money, not from their checkbook, at any rate. They're distorting a market for a short-term political benefit that will do nothing to raise the standard of living for the people they supposedly want to help. Arbitrarily raising the prices of services and goods in a marketplace causes inflation, not an increase in real value. They're forcing consumers of labor to pay more for the same service, from which they will get no increased benefit -- and that means that they will have to pass the costs along to the consumers of their goods and services, all through the distribution chain.
Whose money is getting given away? Yours and mine, and all 479,000 minimum-wage workers, that's who. I can absorb the incremental loss of buying power, but the people at the bottom rungs cannot...More likely, some of their jobs will get eliminated as businesses have to support the cost increase in some other fashion than price hikes.
And it's not even the working poor that gets helped in the increase. The working poor may have started at minimum wage, but they move up as they progress in their jobs. It is an absolute fallacy to argue that minimum-wage workers have not gotten a raise since the last federal increase of the minimum wage; they get raises as they increase their value to their employer, not from Uncle Sam.
Economics 101, but the Democrats have always been best at keeping the poor, well, poor...that's how they keep them in the party, I guess. Another small businessman laid it out to me this way:
Small business - profits $100K/year
4 employees, minimum wage $5-/hr (I'm rounding a bit), 10 hours a day
New government mandated wage $7-/hr.
Extra cost $80-/day, $480/wk (assuming six days), $24,960-year
Profit declines to $75K/yr (incidentally, government revenues decline as a result of lower taxable income, but that's only a side disaster).
Does the business owner:
-take his loss, maybe sell his home, pull a kid out of college, put off buying new equiptment/car (that'll help the economy, Nancy!), or reduce his standard of living?
-raise his prices and hope he doesn't lose customers, thus further harming his business?
or
-Does he fire one of his workers, recovering $22K of $25K lost?
How will that help the poor, Nancy? Whatever benefit they see from an increase in minimum wage will be offset by price increases, layoffs, and limited job opportunities.
I guess that's why the Democrats are the party of the poverty stricken - 'cause they certainly are good at eliminating wealth, opportunities, and free-market trade - you know, all that stuff that makes people poor and keeps them poor!
And keeps them looking to the government for help, which allows the Democrats to raise taxes to create new "jobs programs" and other sundry handouts, which then winds the cycle up (or down, as far as the economy goes) anew...
Proud Nonbelievers Perish for Lack of Beliefs!
From Arnold Ahlert in the New York Post :
A HARRIS poll asked people in six countries: Do you believe in any form of God or any type of supreme being?
Percentage saying "yes," by country:
U.S. 73%
Italy, 62%
Spain, 48%
Germany, 41%
Britain, 35%
France, 27%
Memo to Europeans worried about the advance of militant Islam: You can't beat something with nothing. You believe religion is "passe" - even as a militant segment of one is overtaking your cultures and countries.
Good luck.
A HARRIS poll asked people in six countries: Do you believe in any form of God or any type of supreme being?
Percentage saying "yes," by country:
U.S. 73%
Italy, 62%
Spain, 48%
Germany, 41%
Britain, 35%
France, 27%
Memo to Europeans worried about the advance of militant Islam: You can't beat something with nothing. You believe religion is "passe" - even as a militant segment of one is overtaking your cultures and countries.
Good luck.
วันพุธ, มกราคม 03, 2550
New Jersey - Soon to be a Socialist Paradise!
With medical treatment just like they get in Cuba!
What, you think that is a good thing? What doctor worth his salt is going to want to practice in a state that regulates what he can charge?
New Jersey regulators are considering limiting how much doctors can charge insurers for treating people injured in vehicle accidents, a move meant to cut prices, but one foes argue will make it hard to get medical care.
The state Department of Banking and Insurance proposal would restrict how much medical professionals can charge for more than 1,000 procedures associated with auto accidents.
Of course, the leftist Star-Ledger throws in just a dash of editorial bias in its "reporting" on the same story:
The proposal, which would impose price limits on more than 1,000 medical procedures associated with auto accidents, is setting up another battle between the powerful interests that have a big stake in the auto insurance debate: insurers, lawyers and doctors.
Er..what about the government, jackrods? Don't you think they classify as a "powerful interest"?
Well, in the workers paradise of New Jersey, the government will soon preselect your doctors!
Michael Kornett, chief executive officer of the Medical Society of New Jersey, said blocking the price controls is the group's top priority for the coming year.
"This is probably the most devastating blow to physician-patient relations that New Jersey has ever imposed," he said. "This is a raging war against physicians in the state of New Jersey."
"It will limit a consumer's choice as to what doctors they can see, and that to me is a real problem," said Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Union), who has co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that would postpone the price caps pending further review.
So again, why would any good doctor practice in New Jersey? It's not like the state intends to pay them:
The new fee limits will be based on federal Medicare rates with adjustments for New Jersey's high cost of living. Medicare is the national health insurance program for people over 65 years of age and its reimbursement rates are considered low.
And it's not as if the insurance business is losing money in Jersey right now -
New Jersey insurers earned a 12.4 percent profit in 2004, making the state the 14th most profitable, according to Auto Insurance Report, an industry newsletter.
- they just have paid-off friends in Trenton.
Welcome to the People's Republic Of New Jersey! Where gay marriage is approved by judicial fiat, property taxes are the highest in the nation, and we drive out doctors who dare want to earn money! Sure, we have lost more high-paying tech jobs than any state in the Union, but who cares if those $36,000- jobs go south? We are replacing them with enlightened workers in service industries making an average of $23,000! And if that's not good enough, we'll put you on the payroll of one of the most bloated state governments in the world! Retire at 50 years old, with full pensions and benefits, paid for by those lousy rich residents daring to earn $100,000 in the private sector!
What? There's less and less of those "rich" residents to loot? The tax base is dropping? The infrastructure is crumbling? Residents are leaving? The public outlay is increasing? Oh, don't worry, in liberal New Jersey, there will always be another sucker to appropriate funds from!
Until, of course, there isn't, and that's when the liberal Ponzi scheme collapses, leaving the state morally and fiscally bankrupt. Just like pre-Arnold California....
What, you think that is a good thing? What doctor worth his salt is going to want to practice in a state that regulates what he can charge?
New Jersey regulators are considering limiting how much doctors can charge insurers for treating people injured in vehicle accidents, a move meant to cut prices, but one foes argue will make it hard to get medical care.
The state Department of Banking and Insurance proposal would restrict how much medical professionals can charge for more than 1,000 procedures associated with auto accidents.
Of course, the leftist Star-Ledger throws in just a dash of editorial bias in its "reporting" on the same story:
The proposal, which would impose price limits on more than 1,000 medical procedures associated with auto accidents, is setting up another battle between the powerful interests that have a big stake in the auto insurance debate: insurers, lawyers and doctors.
Er..what about the government, jackrods? Don't you think they classify as a "powerful interest"?
Well, in the workers paradise of New Jersey, the government will soon preselect your doctors!
Michael Kornett, chief executive officer of the Medical Society of New Jersey, said blocking the price controls is the group's top priority for the coming year.
"This is probably the most devastating blow to physician-patient relations that New Jersey has ever imposed," he said. "This is a raging war against physicians in the state of New Jersey."
"It will limit a consumer's choice as to what doctors they can see, and that to me is a real problem," said Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Union), who has co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that would postpone the price caps pending further review.
So again, why would any good doctor practice in New Jersey? It's not like the state intends to pay them:
The new fee limits will be based on federal Medicare rates with adjustments for New Jersey's high cost of living. Medicare is the national health insurance program for people over 65 years of age and its reimbursement rates are considered low.
And it's not as if the insurance business is losing money in Jersey right now -
New Jersey insurers earned a 12.4 percent profit in 2004, making the state the 14th most profitable, according to Auto Insurance Report, an industry newsletter.
- they just have paid-off friends in Trenton.
Welcome to the People's Republic Of New Jersey! Where gay marriage is approved by judicial fiat, property taxes are the highest in the nation, and we drive out doctors who dare want to earn money! Sure, we have lost more high-paying tech jobs than any state in the Union, but who cares if those $36,000- jobs go south? We are replacing them with enlightened workers in service industries making an average of $23,000! And if that's not good enough, we'll put you on the payroll of one of the most bloated state governments in the world! Retire at 50 years old, with full pensions and benefits, paid for by those lousy rich residents daring to earn $100,000 in the private sector!
What? There's less and less of those "rich" residents to loot? The tax base is dropping? The infrastructure is crumbling? Residents are leaving? The public outlay is increasing? Oh, don't worry, in liberal New Jersey, there will always be another sucker to appropriate funds from!
Until, of course, there isn't, and that's when the liberal Ponzi scheme collapses, leaving the state morally and fiscally bankrupt. Just like pre-Arnold California....
วันอังคาร, มกราคม 02, 2550
A Potpourri of Posts...
....since I am too bereft of ideas to offer any of my own tonight.
First, we give you Erica's Blog, in which we are told the tale of an idealistic young Jewish girl, ready to throw away fear, prejudice, and stereotypes in order to help a friendly young Arabic fellow learn some Hebrew, until.....
May I also present the Brussels Journal, who informs us that Bristish Muslims are refusing to wash their hands while visiting sick relatives in hospitals ( a precaution initiated in order to stop the spread of "superbugs" such as MRSA and PVL). Why? Well, see, they refuse to use the hand cleansers on religious grounds because they contain alcohol.
So we all risk a 21st century plague because of a 12th century mentality. Any wonder that the Middle East never moved out of the Middle Ages? What's next, leeches?
{NHS care assistant Theresa Poupa, 46, became aware of the situation while visiting a sick cousin at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.
She said: “I could not believe it - the signs are large enough and clear enough but they just took no notice and walked straight onto the ward"}
The European Union! Good God ! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
According to Western Resistance, anyway...
Jersey girl Fausta challenges the true believers of the Cult of The Global Warming, and gets an earful. She comments on her detractors:
One of the emails explained at length why it's important that there is consensus, as if science's main concern were to build consensus instead of accurately observing, measuring and replicating results. Indeed, if they can not be measured, quantified, and replicated, your observations will never amount to science, no matter how attractive your theory might be. Building consensus is the art of the politician, not of the scientist.
Meanwhile, expect sunny skies and 50+ degree temperatures in my neck of the Garden State tomorrow. Me, I love this little warming trend. Did you know that in the 13th century, areas as far north as Greenland became farmable due to a spate of global warming, allowing foodstuffs to become more plentiful, prosperity to become more widespread, and lifespans to be extended? Oh, the horror!
Baseball Crank compare the lives, and deaths, of two very different men whom did very different things for their countries.
And finally...pork lovers, unite! The Bacon Show's motto is "one bacon recipe per day, every day, forever".
I gotta make this a permalink.....
MMMmmmmmmmmmm......bacon. For your consideration, as the final ingredient in tonight's potpourii....
First, we give you Erica's Blog, in which we are told the tale of an idealistic young Jewish girl, ready to throw away fear, prejudice, and stereotypes in order to help a friendly young Arabic fellow learn some Hebrew, until.....
May I also present the Brussels Journal, who informs us that Bristish Muslims are refusing to wash their hands while visiting sick relatives in hospitals ( a precaution initiated in order to stop the spread of "superbugs" such as MRSA and PVL). Why? Well, see, they refuse to use the hand cleansers on religious grounds because they contain alcohol.
So we all risk a 21st century plague because of a 12th century mentality. Any wonder that the Middle East never moved out of the Middle Ages? What's next, leeches?
{NHS care assistant Theresa Poupa, 46, became aware of the situation while visiting a sick cousin at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.
She said: “I could not believe it - the signs are large enough and clear enough but they just took no notice and walked straight onto the ward"}
The European Union! Good God ! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
According to Western Resistance, anyway...
Jersey girl Fausta challenges the true believers of the Cult of The Global Warming, and gets an earful. She comments on her detractors:
One of the emails explained at length why it's important that there is consensus, as if science's main concern were to build consensus instead of accurately observing, measuring and replicating results. Indeed, if they can not be measured, quantified, and replicated, your observations will never amount to science, no matter how attractive your theory might be. Building consensus is the art of the politician, not of the scientist.
Meanwhile, expect sunny skies and 50+ degree temperatures in my neck of the Garden State tomorrow. Me, I love this little warming trend. Did you know that in the 13th century, areas as far north as Greenland became farmable due to a spate of global warming, allowing foodstuffs to become more plentiful, prosperity to become more widespread, and lifespans to be extended? Oh, the horror!
Baseball Crank compare the lives, and deaths, of two very different men whom did very different things for their countries.
And finally...pork lovers, unite! The Bacon Show's motto is "one bacon recipe per day, every day, forever".
I gotta make this a permalink.....
MMMmmmmmmmmmm......bacon. For your consideration, as the final ingredient in tonight's potpourii....
วันจันทร์, มกราคม 01, 2550
New Year's Violence Rages - in France !
The breakdown of civil French society continued apace into the New Year, as reported by No Parasan! :
New Year's Eve scorecard: 313 cars torched (plus 83 by ricochet) and 258 arrests despite a police presence of 25,000. The French are getting so touchy about these statistics that they are "breaking out" a separate category of torched cars as in "cars accidentally exploding because they were too close to cars that were intentionally torched" (voitures brûlée par propagation).
French authorities (who seem to have much more authority over bean counting regulations than over their own territory) confide that such levels of violence are well within what is now considered to be acceptable. They do express concern that the average age of festive French youths is ever younger as witnessed by incidents involving 8 to 10 year olds...
313 cars torched, 258 arrests, even with over 25,000 "policeman" ? Either the violence in France is worse than even these statistics can lead us to believe or French police are hopelessly incompetent (or they are operating with their hands tied behind their backs, which would not be a surprise in the liberal paradise that is Europe). Gateway Pundit has photos of the "revelry"...
On the other hand, over one million revelers descended into the belly of the capitalist beast itself, New York City's Times Square, and we have the following report:
More than 1 million people from all over the world gathered in Times Square for the celebration, sources said. They greeted the new year with cheers, kisses and hope...Police reported only one arrest -- on a charge of disorderly conduct, a violation -- connected to the celebration, which went on amid tight security.
The next time you see some snooty Frog with his nose high in the air, professing the superiority of his culture, ask him where he'd rather spend New Year's Eve....
New Year's Eve scorecard: 313 cars torched (plus 83 by ricochet) and 258 arrests despite a police presence of 25,000. The French are getting so touchy about these statistics that they are "breaking out" a separate category of torched cars as in "cars accidentally exploding because they were too close to cars that were intentionally torched" (voitures brûlée par propagation).
French authorities (who seem to have much more authority over bean counting regulations than over their own territory) confide that such levels of violence are well within what is now considered to be acceptable. They do express concern that the average age of festive French youths is ever younger as witnessed by incidents involving 8 to 10 year olds...
313 cars torched, 258 arrests, even with over 25,000 "policeman" ? Either the violence in France is worse than even these statistics can lead us to believe or French police are hopelessly incompetent (or they are operating with their hands tied behind their backs, which would not be a surprise in the liberal paradise that is Europe). Gateway Pundit has photos of the "revelry"...
On the other hand, over one million revelers descended into the belly of the capitalist beast itself, New York City's Times Square, and we have the following report:
More than 1 million people from all over the world gathered in Times Square for the celebration, sources said. They greeted the new year with cheers, kisses and hope...Police reported only one arrest -- on a charge of disorderly conduct, a violation -- connected to the celebration, which went on amid tight security.
The next time you see some snooty Frog with his nose high in the air, professing the superiority of his culture, ask him where he'd rather spend New Year's Eve....
Death Penalty Poseurs
I am beginning to understand, by the nature of some of the strident talk I hear in the media (and within some of my comments), that opposition to the death penalty is de rigour among those aspiring to the label "liberal", or "progressive". No different that a "free Tibet" bumper sticker, I suppose (and see how effective that has been in actually freeing Tibet), except of course in the case of Saddam it would mean letting a mass-murdering meglomaniac live to once again assume power and slaughter his naive pro-democracy opponents. Well, as long as it is bad for America....
Anyway - Toby Harnden informs me of a group I never even knew existed, called Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights. Apparently, the victims being referred to here are not those poor souls who simply wound up as innocent prey for sicko rapists and killers, no - the victims are actually the families of the perpetrators, and we should feel their pain, and take their feelings into consideration too.
It's the same moral equivalence, I suppose, that allows one to blame Israelis and Palestinians equally for the "cycle of violence" - after all, if the Israelis didn't retaliate every time the Palestinians blew up a schoolbus full of children, there would be no "cycle", right? And everyone would live happily ever after?
Anyway, Harnden makes his point with a few choice examples:
Billie Jean Mayberry's brother Robert Coe was executed in Tennessee in 2000. "There's no way to describe the hurt my siblings and I had to go through when we watched our brother die," she told the report's writers.
Maybe the relatives of Cary Ann Medlin, who was eight when she murdered by Coe would also struggle for words. She disappeared after he lured he into his car as she rode a bicycle near her home.
He confessed to sexually molesting and then trying to choke her. When that did not work, he stabbed her and watched her bleed to death.
He informed detectives that before she died she told him: "Jesus loves you." He never apologised for what he did.
How far back can one go in time and still be able to claim victim status? Apparently, never far enough for the loony anti-death penalty left:
Some of this new class of victims are even more remote from the execution but still, we are told, are severely affected. Janis Gay's grandfather was executed in 1924, when her mother was nine.
But she still feels a "survivor of this". She points out that "Mom's interior life was pretty absorbing to her" and she was distant during their childhood.
An execution "is a violence that has shattered the family", Janis says, and reports by way of explanation that "I'm not married, intimate relations are difficult for me".
Sure, blame your parents because you're a loser...how cliche, Miss Gay!
Toby Harnden hits home with one more:
Christina Lawson complains that when she went to see her husband executed people "wouldn't look us in the eye" and she realised she was being "punished for something David did".
This was among what the report describes (but does not detail) as a "litany of dignity violations" she experienced on execution day.
The victim of her husband David Martinez suffered some rather more, er, serious violations.
Kiersa Paul, 24, an art student from Minnesota was raped, sodomised, strangled, her throat slit several times and an "X'' carved across her chest. Her body was off a hiking trail in Austin, Texas.
Mrs Lawson is upset that her daughter feels she is surrounded by murderers at school because "the people of Texas had killed her father".
Kiersa Paul, of course, was never able to have any children to feel uneasy or otherwise at school.
And the world is better without Mr. Martinez in it, getting free meals, TV, and fresh air and exercise daily while enjoying conjugal visits from some attention-starved prison groupie.
Same goes for Mr. Hussien, incidentally....
Anyway - Toby Harnden informs me of a group I never even knew existed, called Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights. Apparently, the victims being referred to here are not those poor souls who simply wound up as innocent prey for sicko rapists and killers, no - the victims are actually the families of the perpetrators, and we should feel their pain, and take their feelings into consideration too.
It's the same moral equivalence, I suppose, that allows one to blame Israelis and Palestinians equally for the "cycle of violence" - after all, if the Israelis didn't retaliate every time the Palestinians blew up a schoolbus full of children, there would be no "cycle", right? And everyone would live happily ever after?
Anyway, Harnden makes his point with a few choice examples:
Billie Jean Mayberry's brother Robert Coe was executed in Tennessee in 2000. "There's no way to describe the hurt my siblings and I had to go through when we watched our brother die," she told the report's writers.
Maybe the relatives of Cary Ann Medlin, who was eight when she murdered by Coe would also struggle for words. She disappeared after he lured he into his car as she rode a bicycle near her home.
He confessed to sexually molesting and then trying to choke her. When that did not work, he stabbed her and watched her bleed to death.
He informed detectives that before she died she told him: "Jesus loves you." He never apologised for what he did.
How far back can one go in time and still be able to claim victim status? Apparently, never far enough for the loony anti-death penalty left:
Some of this new class of victims are even more remote from the execution but still, we are told, are severely affected. Janis Gay's grandfather was executed in 1924, when her mother was nine.
But she still feels a "survivor of this". She points out that "Mom's interior life was pretty absorbing to her" and she was distant during their childhood.
An execution "is a violence that has shattered the family", Janis says, and reports by way of explanation that "I'm not married, intimate relations are difficult for me".
Sure, blame your parents because you're a loser...how cliche, Miss Gay!
Toby Harnden hits home with one more:
Christina Lawson complains that when she went to see her husband executed people "wouldn't look us in the eye" and she realised she was being "punished for something David did".
This was among what the report describes (but does not detail) as a "litany of dignity violations" she experienced on execution day.
The victim of her husband David Martinez suffered some rather more, er, serious violations.
Kiersa Paul, 24, an art student from Minnesota was raped, sodomised, strangled, her throat slit several times and an "X'' carved across her chest. Her body was off a hiking trail in Austin, Texas.
Mrs Lawson is upset that her daughter feels she is surrounded by murderers at school because "the people of Texas had killed her father".
Kiersa Paul, of course, was never able to have any children to feel uneasy or otherwise at school.
And the world is better without Mr. Martinez in it, getting free meals, TV, and fresh air and exercise daily while enjoying conjugal visits from some attention-starved prison groupie.
Same goes for Mr. Hussien, incidentally....
วันอาทิตย์, ธันวาคม 31, 2549
A Nightmare, Ended?
From Gates of Vienna, life under the late Saddam Hussein (you know, the guy whom many Democrats and UN bureaucrats said Iraq was better off with):
...in every household that someone had already lost his or her mind; in other societies such a person would be in a mental hospital. I also realized that there wasn’t a household that did not mourn at least one family member who had become a victim of this police state.
I wept with relatives whose son just screamed all day long. I cried with a relative who had lost his wife. Yet another left home every day for a “job” where he had nothing to do. Still another had lost a son to war and a husband to alcoholism.
As I observed the slow death of a people without hope, Saddam Hussein seemed omnipresent...
Of course, some can only consider the "crime" of Hussein's execution; since a quarter-million deaths at an Arab hand pales before the execution of one tyrant by a Western hand:
Generally, said the columnist Tim Hames in The Times of London, the response to the execution would be different in Britain and Continental Europe from the reaction in the United States. “Even those of us who supported the invasion in 2003, and continue to do so today,” he wrote, “will harbor within their ranks, like me, those who find the notion of this crime offensive.”
“Mainstream middle-class sentiment in Europe now regards the death penalty as being as ethically tainted as the crimes that produced the sentence,” he added.
You are incorrect; and hopelessly out of touch, you pathetic liberal elitist. Take a look at Der Speigel's survey of European attitudes towards "swinging Saddam" before you speak for them, jackass.
But for how long will Saddam's evil resonate after his death? The gleeful slaughter that takes place in Baghdad on a daily basis seems to be orchestrated by a generation poisoned by Hussein's hateful and bloody rule. Can Iraq ever fully wake up from this nightmare, or will the killing go on until the last infected man falls, full of shrapnel and bullet holes? Or can the goodness that resides in all men rise up within the hearts of those whom have lived under the shadow of evil for so long? Can the Iraqis say "enough!", and finally, truly, put an end to Saddam's reign of terror?
Or will they share Saddam's fate, and consign themselves to a living grave? The aftermath of Hussein's rule only goes to demonstrate the pure horror of his regime - what a shame it is that he could only be killed once; while his nation dies a thousand deaths....
...in every household that someone had already lost his or her mind; in other societies such a person would be in a mental hospital. I also realized that there wasn’t a household that did not mourn at least one family member who had become a victim of this police state.
I wept with relatives whose son just screamed all day long. I cried with a relative who had lost his wife. Yet another left home every day for a “job” where he had nothing to do. Still another had lost a son to war and a husband to alcoholism.
As I observed the slow death of a people without hope, Saddam Hussein seemed omnipresent...
Of course, some can only consider the "crime" of Hussein's execution; since a quarter-million deaths at an Arab hand pales before the execution of one tyrant by a Western hand:
Generally, said the columnist Tim Hames in The Times of London, the response to the execution would be different in Britain and Continental Europe from the reaction in the United States. “Even those of us who supported the invasion in 2003, and continue to do so today,” he wrote, “will harbor within their ranks, like me, those who find the notion of this crime offensive.”
“Mainstream middle-class sentiment in Europe now regards the death penalty as being as ethically tainted as the crimes that produced the sentence,” he added.
You are incorrect; and hopelessly out of touch, you pathetic liberal elitist. Take a look at Der Speigel's survey of European attitudes towards "swinging Saddam" before you speak for them, jackass.
But for how long will Saddam's evil resonate after his death? The gleeful slaughter that takes place in Baghdad on a daily basis seems to be orchestrated by a generation poisoned by Hussein's hateful and bloody rule. Can Iraq ever fully wake up from this nightmare, or will the killing go on until the last infected man falls, full of shrapnel and bullet holes? Or can the goodness that resides in all men rise up within the hearts of those whom have lived under the shadow of evil for so long? Can the Iraqis say "enough!", and finally, truly, put an end to Saddam's reign of terror?
Or will they share Saddam's fate, and consign themselves to a living grave? The aftermath of Hussein's rule only goes to demonstrate the pure horror of his regime - what a shame it is that he could only be killed once; while his nation dies a thousand deaths....
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