Can You Believe the Nuts on these Folks?

DEEZ NUTS


Alpha Patriot posted a great roundup of all the craziness at the UN. This stuck out:

United Nations anti-torture body has criticised Britain for the "unsatisfactory" conditions in its prisons, including a "substantial number of deaths in custody", urging it to act at once to improve them.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, reviewing British compliance with an international treaty outlawing inhuman and degrading treatment, also expressed concern at parts of an anti-terrorism law which allows "potentially indefinite detention" of foreigners without trial.

It called on the British government to study "as a matter of urgency" alternatives to the sweeping powers to imprison any foreigner suspected of involvement in international terrorism given by the 2001 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act.

Read the rest here.

They're So Blue

[I offer this article for Mark Steyn fans from the subscribers only section of NRO. I encourage everyone to spend the measley $20 to subscribe online to NRO here.]

happy warrior
MARK STEYN

I've greatly enjoyed the post-election traumas of the Democratic party. I loved those few days when Nancy Pelosi was ostentatiously dropping a soundbite from "Matthew" into every media appearance. Who is this Matthew guy she's on such chummy terms with? Matthew Meadows, Florida state representative for District 94? Matthew P. Denn, the Democratic candidate in the race for Delaware insurance commissioner?

No, turns out it's Matthew as in the Gospel according to. Big name in Jesusland, to use the new designation. A little too big, indeed, to be cited plausibly as evidence of one's acquaintance with Scripture. Anyone can refer in a vague way to Matthew. Had Mrs. Pelosi managed to rattle off a couple of verses from Philemon or Habakkuk, all over the vast Bush-voting swamp, millions of stump-toothed rednecks would have briefly stopped speaking in tongues as their jaws hit the floor. By the way, it's only two k's in the middle of "Habakkuk" — not like Amerikkka or John Ashkkkroft.

Anyway, after a week of trying to turn the Democratic whine into holy water, the House minority leader decided to chuck the saint-dropping. As the whole Jesusland thing suggests, her base isn't entirely on board with the outreach. And frankly the Democrats never do well when they try to square contemporary liberal pieties with religion. For one thing, they recoil from the very word "religion." Al Gore prefers to say, "Well, in my faith tradition . . ." As a rule, folks with a faith tradition tend not to call it such. At Friday prayers in Mecca, the A-list imams don't say, "Well, in my faith tradition we believe in killing all the infidels."

Second, prominent Democrats seem to have great difficulty getting even the well-known bits right. Christmas, according to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1999, is when those in that particular faith tradition celebrate "the birth of a homeless child." Or, as Al Gore put it in 1997, "Two thousand years ago, a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child." For Pete's sake, they weren't homeless — they couldn't get a hotel room. They had to sleep in the stable only because Dad had to schlep halfway across the country to pay his taxes in the town of his birth, which sounds like the kind of cockamamie bureaucratic nightmare only a blue state could cook up. Except that in Massachusetts, it's no doubt illegal to rent out your stable without applying for a Livestock Shelter Change of Use Permit plus a Temporary Maternity Ward for Non-Insured Transients License, so Mary would have been giving birth under a bridge on I-95.

Had a Matthew principle
Michael Kleinfeld/UPI

Since everyone's tossing in post-election generalizations, here's mine. One of the features of the geopolitical landscape revealed by 9/11 was the widening gulf between Americans and Europeans. Some of us (ahem) noted that fact in the columns we wrote that very day. Nonetheless, the Democrats spent the next three years getting more European. That was hardly likely to improve their electoral prospects, though it got them great press across the Atlantic, and continues to do so. The Guardian's Timothy Garton Ash, returning from a tour of the blue states, says Europeans need to modify the famous expression of solidarity of September 12, 2001: "Nous sommes tous amÈricains." "Hands need to be joined across the sea in an old cause: the defence of the Enlightenment," writes Garton Ash. "We are all blue Americans now." That at least has the merit, unlike the phony-baloney Le Monde headline, of being sincere.

But I doubt whether it's terribly helpful to Democrats. American exceptionalism is better understood as the exceptionalism of Americans — the refusal of a (thin but decisive) majority of the citizenry to submit to the definition of "advanced Western democracy" as it's understood by Germans, Belgians, and Scandinavians. By contrast, the Democratic party for the most part believes wholeheartedly, as the Europeans do, in the great secular religion — the state as church. That's why when Al and Hill start talking about their faith tradition it somehow veers off into a lesson on the need for social programs. It's also why Democrats remain wedded to issues that have no resonance even in blue states. The Dems are the party of gun control not because Vermonters or Minnesotans are clamoring for it but because it's part of the transnational conventional wisdom.

I doubt very much whether a Europeanñblue state alliance is the horse you'd bet on to save the Enlightenment. The EU, with its over-regulated economy, unaffordable social-welfare liabilities, and shriveled post-Christian birth rates, is a glimpse into a Democratic future. If you're chit-chatting with blue-staters in your average Ivy League college town, they express disbelief at this prognosis: Why, everything seems so much better ordered and agreeable over there. The electoral prominence of Jean-Marie Le Pen; the murder of Theo van Gogh; the banning of Belgium's major opposition party, the Vlaams Blok — oh, but these are freakish disconnected events, of no wider significance.

I think not. Over the next few years the news from Europe will get worse. We're about to witness the messy implosion of the secular West's last surviving faith, the state church. And, when that happens, what will the Democrats have left?

AIDS: Disease or Political Issue

When I read this paragraph by James Pinkerton at TechCentral Station I grinned from ear to ear. Finally, someone else gets it. I am sure we are not alone, but the politics associated with AIDS often times prohibits doctors and scientists from treating the pandemic.

Part of this is the majority's fault. If the bigots in the US didn't label AIDS as the "gay plague" or "gay cancer" we might have been able to look at it from a pure medial standpoint that would have allowed us to treat the disease and treat its victims with dignity--but also allow us to have removed them from society as we would with any other communicable disease (e.g. if AIDS was airborn).

But now that AIDS is treatable, it has become a tool--a wedge issue--for gays and "sex workers" (aka, whores). They use the charitable nature of people who want to fight the disease (regardless of who has it) and use it to promote political gains (i.e. say that if you are against the spread of AIDS you are against "sex workers" and gays, per se).

Here's a paragraph from this great article:

My visit last July to the XV World AIDS Conference in Bangkok left me with the uneasy feeling that many AIDS activists were more interested, strange as it might sound, in preserving the sexually liberated status quo than they were in stopping the disease. Why? Because the activists approached AIDS through the prism of liberation and politicization, in which the great good was human freedom, and the great "bad" was Puritanism. Oh, and of course, the profit-minded drug companies were bad, too. Human freedom, the activists seemed to think, should be protected in the bedroom, not in the boardroom.

Excellent Population Analysis

From the LA Times? Looks like a lot of papers are sobering up on their analysis and getting past all the "Christian-right" mythologizing and looking at the actual voters. Seriously, this is an excellent article:

The Times analyzed the 100 counties that the Census Bureau identified as the fastest growing between April 2000 and July 2003, the latest date for which figures were available. Stretched across 30 states, these counties grew cumulatively over that period by more than 16%, reaching a total population of 15.9 million.

These are places defined more by aspiration than accumulation, filled more with families starting out than with those that have already reached their earnings peak.

They include Union County, N.C., 25 miles southeast of Charlotte, where poultry farms are being converted into new developments so quickly that nearly one-seventh of the population is employed in construction. In Douglas County, Colo., about 20 miles south of Denver, so many young families have relocated that the budget for the local Little League is estimated at $500,000 a year.

Delaware County, Ohio's fastest-growing area, is absorbing a torrent of families leaving apartments and townhouses in Columbus for big kitchens and their first backyards. New homes are sprouting on land that grew soybeans and wheat not long ago.

New York Times: Born Again

FINALLY! Some REPORTING! I love to read New York Times journalists when they are not trying to elect someone. This is a riviting piece pointed to by Hugh Hewitt. I'll begin with these exceptional photos of these brave heros who we we owe the most to second to our souls' salvation through Christ.



Read the article here.

Truth in Reporting Begins

From GOP & the City we get this (which would've been called the "Kerry Recovery" by the NYTimes and WaPo, but since no one will believe their lies for four more years...):

Economy Does Not Suck (says Newsday)

LI's jobless rate: How low can it go
As unemployment falls to 3.7 percent last month, some experts warn shortage of labor may be ahead

Long Island's Liberal rag, Newsday, admitted today that the economy is not as bad as it had reported during the election cycle. The Long Island unemployment rate fell to 3.7%. The daily's editorial/news stories painted a bleak picture just a few weeks ago. Now the paper reports that the lowest unemployment rate since October 2001 has actually produced "full employment" - which is the point at which the economy is generating enough jobs to accommodate nearly everyone who is looking. Now experts are cautioning that the expanding economy (which was called a recession before November 2nd) is going to create a labor shortage.

In other news, an audit showed that Newsday's circulation is down 98,000 from a year ago. The paper is cutting 100 workers from its newsroom. I wonder how they feel about that low unemployment rate now?

COWBOY!

Kerry: I Would've Broken a Nail

"Because It Is Hard!"

Ray Bradbury reminds us that its time to explore again. We need to amaze this world with our endeavors beyond nation building--we need to parallel Columbus:

In this time when our freeways are frozen in place, space travel suffers the same terrible winter. Years have passed since Apollo 11, with only faint cries for a lunar rediscovery, then Mars and beyond.

How can we thaw this deep-freeze to unlock our vision so that we see the stars once more with the same fever that we knew that fabulous night we took the first Giant Step?

Let's look at the situation 500 years ago.

Columbus, financed by Spain's royalty, sailed for India. King Henry VIII, jealous, paid Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) to track Columbus. Francis I of France, thus provoked, hired Verrazano to do the same. Of the three, only Verrazano made landfall at what became Kitty Hawk. Incredible! Verrazano sailed west and five centuries on the Wright Brothers soared east to explore space and time.

There was, then, a confluence of kings who sent their ships for spice and gold. Today there is no such desire in our Congress or our president for similar goals.

Excellent justifications continue here.

Unilateralism at Work

I am sure the Brits did all this by themselves and it had nothing to do with shared intelligence from captured al Queda in Afghanistan and Iraq:

Britain's security services thwarted a September 11-style attack on targets including Canary Wharf and Heathrow Airport, according to reports.

The plot is said to have involved pilots being trained to fly into target buildings including London's famous financial centre and the world's busiest airport.

It is one of four or five al-Qaeda planned attacks, since 9/11, that have come to nothing, after the authorities intervened, reports claim.

The disclosure comes as the Government prepares to unveil a series of tough law-and-order Bills in tomorrow's Queen's Speech, setting out the legislative programme for what is expected to be the final session of the current Parliament.

Read the rest here. I wonder how many other terrorist attacks were thwarted that because of intelligence and secrecy we will never know about until 50 years from now watching a documentary on some holographic television on the futuristic equivalent of the History Channel.

Dutch Insight

Taking Europe to task! Thanks to Davids Medienkritik and David Kaspar for this great link:

Europe – Thy Name is Cowardice

Commentary by Mathias Döpfner

A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe – your family name is appeasement." It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so terribly true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our work for us. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians. Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam’s torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush. A particularly grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that we should really have a Muslim holiday in Germany.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies.
It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century—a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society’s values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China. On the contrary—we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy—because everything is at stake.

While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive. We’d rather discuss the 35-hour workweek or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach about "reaching out to murderers." These days, Europe reminds me of an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor’s house. Europe, thy name is cowardice. (emphasis added)

Andrew Sullivan: Only Kerry Supporter that Gets It

Andrew Sullivan was removed from my site several months ago when it became clear that he was using his cock as a divining rod--gay marriage trumped everything else (to the point he actually believed that Kerry would be a fiscal conservative and an adept military hawk). But he seems to be gaining his senses in the way a man does after he shoots his wad:

The new conventional wisdom is that the election results were not so much a triumph for right-wing Christians as a more general endorsement for George W. Bush's clear, reassuring cultural presence in a troubled time. How else to explain the nine million extra votes he racked up this time, when only a third of them came from evangelicals? How else to explain the one in five gay voters who went for Bush despite his determination to rob them of civil rights? Or the big gain in Bush votes in, say, New York City?

Well: here's another cultural explanation. A large part of the pro-Bush vote - especially among blue state residents - was a vote against the left elite and the cultural attitudes it represents in the public imagination. It was a vote not so much for Bush or his often religious policies (or even the war on terror), but against the post 9/11 left, against Michael Moore and political correctness and Susan Sontag and CBS News, among a host of others. I have to say that this was the most appealing thing about George W. Bush for me. If he hadn't so obviously screwed up the Iraq war and endorsed a constitutional amendment against gay rights, I would have succumbed myself.

Thanks to Alpha Patriot.

Those Ingrates!

From a soldier in Fallujah as posted on National Review Online about those DAMNED INGRATES in Iraq:

Rich,

I am also a professor at a military-related institution, and my little brother is an enlisted Marine (a sniper with 1-3) in Fallujah. This weekend he called for the first time since the battle began. He informed us that a large number of the residents of Fallujah, before fleeing the battle, left blankets and bedding for the Marines and Soldiers along with notes thanking the Americans for liberating their city from the terrorists, as well as invitations to the Marines and Soldiers to sleep in their houses. I've yet to see a report in the media of this. Imagine that.

Additionally, he said their spirits are high, but they would certainly appreciate any "care packages" that folks in the States would care to send their way (preferably consisting of non-perishable food items, candy, deodorant, eye-drops, q-tips, toothpaste, toothbrushes, lip balm, hand/feet warmers, black/dark undershirts, underwear & socks, and non-aerosol bug spray)

It would be great if you could pass this message along to anyone interested in helping out.

Why isn't this reported on the front page of the New York Times? Just the shooting of a terrorist, but not the outpouring of the citizens of Fallujah.