Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Obama's ties to ACORN go back much further than his presidential bid. In 1992, Obama worked as executive director of ACORN's voter-registration segment, Project Vote. Obama, along with two other South-Side Chicago community organizers, led the voter-registration drive that played a part in the election of Carol Moseley Braun to the U.S. Senate.
To tighten the connection, in 1993 Obama joined the civil-rights law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where he sued the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN. Then-Governor Jim Edgar argued that the Clinton National Voter Registration Act ("Motor Voter" law) would invite voter fraud, and refused to implement it. Consequently Obama and ACORN sued the state. Edgar was proven right about the "Motor Voter" law. Fund says it has "imposed fraud-friendly rules on the states by requiring drivers' license bureaus to register anyone who applies for a license, to offer mail-in registration with no identification needed, and to forbid government workers to challenge new registrants, while making it difficult to purge" voters who have died or moved away.
Despite all the documented evidence tying Obama to ACORN and the overwhelming stench of impropriety, Barack Obama has the unmitigated gall to deny his connection to this far-left, socialist organization.
ACORN is the same group that pressured banking institutions into making the toxic loans that are at the heart of our current financial crisis.
Central to the successful working of our republic is honest elections. If citizens believe that politicians are winning elections by committing fraud, our entire governing consensus will break down. Cynicism and despair are the inevitable outcomes.
Paul Johnson goes into detail about how the 1960 election may well have been stolen and about how Richard Nixon decided, nobly and in spite of the evidence, not to contest the results. (Thank you, John McCain, for not choosing a similar path and being gallant and humble like a latter-day Abraham Lincoln.) Apart from that, Paul Johnson notes that
The gradual but cumulatively almost complete transfer of opinion-forming power from the owners and commercial managers of TV stations to the program-makers and presenters was one of the great new facts of life, unheard of before the 1950s, axiomatic by the end of the 1960s. And it was gradually paralleled by a similar shift in the newspaper world, especially on the great dailies and magazines of the East Coast, where political power, with few exceptions, passed from proprietors and major stockholders to editors and writers. Owners like Hearst and McCormick (of the Chicago Tribune), Pulitzer and Henry Luce (of Time-Life), who had once decided the political line of their publications in considerable detail, moved out of the picture and their places were taken by the working journalists. Since the latter tended to be overwhelmingly liberal in their views, this was not just a political but a cultural change of considerable importance. Indeed it is likely that nothing did more to cut America loose from its traditional moorings.
…The change could be seen in 1960, in the way the East Coast media (the New York Times and Washington Post, Time and Newsweek), handled the contest between Nixon and Kennedy. By all historical standards, Nixon should have been an American media hero. He was a natural candidate for laurels in the grand old tradition of self-help, of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. He came from nowhere…
Yet, from start to finish, the media, especially the 'quality' press, distrusted him, consistently denigrated him, and sought to destroy him, indeed in a sense did destroy him. At every crisis in his career — except the last — he had to appeal above the heads of the media to the great mass of the ordinary American people, the 'silent majority' as he called them…
The Hiss case did Nixon even more damage with the media, which, against all evidence, tried to turn this undoubted Soviet agent and perjurer into an American Dreyfus in order to portray Nixon as a McCarthyite witchhunter…
By contrast, the media did everything in its power to build up and sustain the beatific myth of John F. Kennedy, throughout his life and long after his death, until it finally collapsed in ruins under the weight of incontrovertible evidence. The media protected him, suppressed what it knew to be the truth about him, and if necessary lied about him, on a scale which it had never done even for Franklin Roosevelt. And this was all the more surprising because Kennedy had most of the characteristics of an American anti-hero…
The man who got it right at the time was the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. He grasped the important point that electing a Kennedy was not so much giving office to an individual as handing over power to a family business, a clan, almost a milieu, with a set of attitudes about how office was to be acquired and used which at no point coincided with the American ethic. Having paid his first visit after Kennedy's election as President, Macmillan was asked on his return what it was like in Kennedy's Washington. 'Oh,' said he, 'it's rather like watching the Borgia brothers take over a respectable North Italian city.'
So, a financial institution decides not to lock on to the governmental teet and expose taxpayers to even more risk, and they are the bad guy?
(Barclay's), which last month turned down the Government bailout offered to the sector, announced yesterday that it will raise £7.3bn from investors in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Existing shareholders in the bank still need to approve the proposal on 24 November – and that may not go through without protest judging by yesterday's fall in the bank's share price. The stock fell by as much as a fifth before closing 13 per cent lower.
Some politicians also waded into the bank's business, with the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable branding the deal a "scandal of mammoth proportions".
The shareholders can choose whether to maintain their holdings or not, that is how it works. But how is Barclay's the bad guy in this viginette?
For years the professional hand-wringers have told we the proles how we need to remove our collective selves from the go-go ideals of greed and consumption. Whether the particular greed be that of credit card spending, gorging ourselves into obesity on food 24/7, or just plain old enjoying ourselves too too very much thank you, the hand-wringers bemoaned, gnashed teeth, rendered clothing, and wrapped themselves in hair-shirts of "when will the madness ever end?"
Well, the go-go ideals have not ended but slowed heavily. Are the hand-wringers happy? Of course not:
Now people cut up credit cards, banks recall overdrafts, food sales figures show the biggest drop since records began, and retail analysts predict the worst Christmas in 30 years.
Should be cause for joy amongst the sack-cloth crowd, no?
Oh, and in case you thought you might be a normal person who enjoys yourself whilst shopping, think again. This is the kind of thing a responsible and concerned citizen in the "social justice" mould is supposed to think of and do while picking up those knick-knacks for Auntie Bess:
Westfield's own cleaners and security guards are guaranteed the living wage, over £7.45. I checked to see, and sure enough the toilet attendant was on £7.60, a guard on £8. The cleaner I found scraping gunge off the escalator who was on £6, worked temporarily for an agency. Sadly most people working here are not covered by Westfield's promise, hired by retailers who rent space.
These professionally aggrieved types make Morrissey look like a candidate for "Optimist of the Year". What a miserable existence the professional hand-wringers must have.
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.
Though there was a reading of freezing or below throughout northwest Marion County, Wednesday morning's official low temperature was 33 degrees.
It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850.
....
The death toll has risen to seven, and one person remains missing, as a result of the worst snowstorm on record in Tibet, the local authority said on Thursday.
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A low of 40 degrees early Wednesday is expected to shatter a 1957 record for Oct. 29 of 48 degrees , said Mike Cantin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
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Judging by the number of column inches devoted to the subject in recent months, one would be forgiven for thinking that partner-swapping had become the noughties equivalent of the Tupperware party. But is swinging really Sweden’s new favourite hobby?
The problem with Barack Obama is not that he is an unknown quantity (or an unknown quality). We know enough about him to make this basic objective observation: Every time the veil is lifted on Barack Obama, it's to hear of yet another leftist radical that he has been fêting or who is fêting him.
All his life, the Illinois senator has associated with people and/or won the admiration of people — American and foreign — who blame America first (or America and its allies first), or, to be more precise, who blame America alone. The Reverend Wright, Billie Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, even Obama's wife (who said, famously, that she could, that she would, be proud of her country only if and only when her husband was elected president).
Beyond that, we have Obama — rightly characterized as "a creature of universities and churches and nonprofit institutions" by Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal — surrounded by the ACORN crowd and the corrupt Southern Chicago machine. Abroad, we have leaders of Iran and spokesmen for Hamas who are rooting for Obama as well.
If it isn't "God damn America", it is "America is a damn-awful place to live in." If it isn't "a damn-awful place to live in," it is "Allah damn America".
Again, this might be less of a problem if Obama were known to associate with other types of people. But he is not. If he were known to count, say, some average, run-of-the-mill businessmen among his associates. But he is not. If he were known to have some average friends who, without being loud full-blooded patriots, simply appreciate the country they live in. But he is not.
For example, prior to the election (in which one single general — a political general — came out for him — Colin Powell has been out of the military and into politics for 15-odd years), the man who purports to have nothing but admiration for the military never seems to have interacted with a member of the armed forces in any substantive way.
Obama came to all his — simplistic — viewpoints about the Iraq war (and its Afghanistan counterpart) from the apocalyptic imagery of the university professors and the mainstream media (also part — obviously — of the blame-America-first crowd). He never seems to have asked a member of the military, let alone a tactician or a strategist, about the conflict.
On the contrary. We know his repetitions of the media's apocalyptic imagery as well as the mantras such as soldiers murdered civilians (not to mention the very few times he visited Iraq). While speaking, during the presidential election (!), of the "splendid" and the "heroic" work performed by American troops overseas, prior to the race (!), Obama famously refused to condemn an abusive ad — and its puerile rhyme — in the New York Times, the one stating that General Petraeus would betray us. He refused to condemn MoveOn's ad that claimed that this splendid member of America's heroic armed forces was worthy of nothing short of scorn.
Barack Obama is not an unknown quantity. It is all too clear what he is. And it is all too clear what office he is not fit to fill…
If Barack Obama fails to win the 2008 election, does that mean racism "rears its ugly head" again? What if he wins with only a slight majority? Erik Svane discusses racism in the 2008 election…
Jamaican-born disco diva Grace Jones said she was sorry Hillary Clinton had failed to make the cut in the US election and that she "can't stand" folksy vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The 1980s style icon, now 60, told German magazine TV Spielfilm Wednesday that Palin stood for a backward vision of America laden with government restrictions of sexuality and social behaviour.
"I would have loved it if Hillary Clinton had pulled it off," Jones said, in an interview published in German marking the release of her new album.
"I can't stand Sarah Palin. I bet a woman like that has no sense of humour."
The androgynous Jones, who conquered dancefloors and runways from New York to Paris in the 1980s and had star turns in blockbusters alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Roger Moore, said she believed in her own form of sexual liberation.
She said she had fallen afoul of feminists for stunts such as "appearing naked in a cage" but insisted she had the right to determine what was artistic or simply exploitative.
"I believe a woman can present herself as a sex object if she has fun doing it," she said.
The statuesque Jones attributed her own dominant image to the influence of her grandfather, who served in World War I.
"He was strict, even frightening," she said. "Sometimes I think I am possessed by him."
Now, if we find out that Governor Palin is an aficionado of Ms. Jones' body of work one claim can be laid to rest, it will prove the Governor indeed does have a sense of humour.
(thundering voice)Our celebrity-betters have spoken!(/thundering voice)
Another item from the What America's Foreign Opinion Lovers Don't Tell You department: According to a Monde newsletter (not online), Obama is not only bad for France (and the world) but for Ireland as well.
Obama mauvais pour l'Irlande
A Denver, Obama a déclaré qu'il voulait pénaliser les sociétés américaines qui délocaliseraient les emplois. Peu d'Irlandais s'en souviennent, écrit le quotidien The Irish Times. On a dit non au traité de Lisbonne pour éviter l'harmonisation fiscale. Avec les Etats-Unis, il n'y avait aucun risque fiscal sous Bush. En cas d'élection d'Obama, il faudra que Dublin le prenne très au sérieux. Et comme il n'y a pas de plan B pour notre économie, nous devons espérer, si Obama est élu, qu'il oubliera cette idée. Car aucun pays en Europe ne dépend autant de l'économie américaine que l'Irlande.
Remember all the times in the first half of the 2000s that the Left and the Democrats warned us about not (only) about the danger of the Republicans but, more solemnly, about the danger of all the branches of government being in the hands of a single party?
That does not seem to be an issue — to no one's surprise, really — should the Democrats come to power…
What is the importance (or lack thereof) of William Ayers? Is it irrelevant that Barack Obama allegedly belonged to a radical party (gracias, Hervé y Luis Afonso)? Erik answers the questions that have been bothering Jixie Juny for weeks (nay, months) at end…
(PS: Ladies and gents, you are authorized to 5-star and to favorite this video and the Sarah Palin video, not for my sake — nor for Jixie Juny's sake (although the tiger did specifically ask that viewers — feline and otherwise — do so) — but to get these videos' message circulated as widely as possible…)
Regarding John McCain's initial reluctance to go after Obama for his associations (alliances, rather) with people like Billie Ayers or the Reverend Wright, is it correct to conclude that is is based on a "problem" akin to Abraham Lincoln's (one that served him well when and only when the Democrats were divided)?
"He is so honest himself," [Lincoln's friend Joshua] Speed lamented, "that he is slow to believe that others are not equal[l]y so."
Another parallel to the 1850s and 1860s is the Republican's message to the (Southern) Democrats. During the Cooper Union speech of 1860, that followed the 1858 debates between the Republican candidate and the Democrat candidate for the Senatorial election in Illinois, Lincoln had this message to address to the inhabitants of the South, a section that was dominated by the Democratic Party:
…when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to … "Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of … "Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all.
Meet George Miller, US Representative in Congress, you know .... just folks:
Along with the rest of America, Rep. George Miller has watched the value of his retirement investments plummet in recent weeks.
"I've lost 30 percent like everybody else. This hits home with the Miller family, too," the California Democrat said in a recent interview.
Oh?
But the blow is softer for members of Congress than for most. Although lawmakers have lost value in their thrift savings plans -- the government's version of a 401(k) -- they are also offered a defined-benefit pension plan backed by the U.S. Treasury and largely insulated from Wall Street fluctuations.
That puts Miller and the other lawmakers into an increasingly privileged category -- workers with guaranteed retirement benefits that aren't subject to the vicissitudes of the financial markets.
Market meltdown or no, if Miller, 63, were to retire at the end of this year he'd take with him an annual pension of about $122,000, according to the National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit advocacy group in Arlington, Va. On top of that he could tap whatever remains in his 401(k)-like savings plan.
Lawmakers' retirement benefits start earlier and accrue faster than in plans offered to other federal workers, or by the average private company. Lawmakers also get cost-of-living increases, increasingly rare in the private sector.
Surely a group of individuals normally hell-bent on "doing something" are indeed doing something to rectify the situation:
Despite the financial crisis -- and the fact lawmakers' retirement benefits are out of step with most ordinary Americans -- Congress has made no effort to revisit its unusually sweet retirement deal.
Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., who has declined participation in either the congressional pension or thrift savings plan, said his efforts to scale them back have not been welcomed.
Bankers and brokers looking to escape the financial meltdown are scrambling to relocate their families, possessions and rarified talent far from Wall Street to places such as Florida, Chicago, Milwaukee, Virginia and Asia.
It's really like to have a little chat face to face to all of those lefties who have claim for decades on end something that just isn't true - that anyone who opposes them either buys elections by outspending them or steals them with magical voting machines and pinkertons.
Hardly.
What are those people who railed on and on about it doing now? Buying the US Presidential election by outspending by a factor of 300% on TV ads, laundering government grant money (for studies and education programs) into their campaign, engaging in credit cardfraud, race-baiting, and engaging in voter fraud.
Why have the left always lept to accuse others of theft? Because it's what they know. It's they've always done. LBJ even used to joke about "voting early and voting often" and "taking down names at teh cemetaries".
People are leaving the Netherlands and the other ‘prime cuts’ of the EUtopian rump, and in record numbers for peacetime.
National emigration figures for 1999 to 2006 show that men are twice as likely to emigrate as women, and it is mostly the young (under 30) who emigrate. Furthermore, it is the Dutch in the top decile of the income distribution who are most likely to emigrate. Sixty-nine percent of Dutch emigrants choose a European destination. It should not be a surprise that most emigrants move to one of the neighbouring countries Germany and Belgium. However, it is well established that this applies mainly to cross-border migration, where people live just across the border and still work in the Netherlands. High housing and land prices in the Netherlands drive many to move to Belgium or Germany, which offer spacious houses that are almost unaffordable for middle-income households in the Netherlands. When Belgium and Germany are left out of the equation, 31% of emigrants are headed to European destinations. The US and Canada account for another 15%.
Alas but why?
Examining the determinants of emigration intentions and subsequent actions reveals a clear picture. The determinants may classified into two groups: (a) the individual characteristics that one would expect to be relevant if emigration were a matter of private gains (like age, human capital, health, networks, psychological personality characteristics) and (b) the provision and perceived quality of the public domain of life in the Netherlands. Every individual depends on the actions and solidarity of others and perhaps more so in a crowded country such as the Netherlands which is also known for its extensive welfare state. The following elements were determined – based on a statistical analysis – to represent the public domain: (1) the Dutch welfare state and institutions which provide the public goods and services (law and order, social security, education, health care); (2) the quality of the public space (noise pollution, space, nature, crowdedness); and (3) the evaluation of social problems addressed by the government, like crime, pollution, and ethnic tensions. The results of our study reveal that both the private and the public domain of life are important to understanding emigration from a high-income country like the Netherlands. The more negative one is about the public domain, the more likely it is that one will actually emigrate (see Figure 1). Of course, the Dutch who stayed are also negative about large parts of the public domain, but emigrants (“movers” and “dreamers”, i.e. those who intended to emigrate but have not yet) are far more negative than those staying behind.1 The biggest difference between emigrants and those staying behind is the evaluation of the quality of public space. Without knowing how people feel about the quality of the public domain, large-scale emigration would remain a mystery.
In other words, a poor quality of life – and this is THE NETHERLANDS we’re talking about, possibly the most interventionist nanny state in existence. Deep intervention in social matters seems to show that those with a latent anger and an expectation that the rest of the population is structured to serve their aesthetic needs stick with it.
They go on to note that they are the more ambitious people who originate in the middle income and lower middle income brackets – those more likely to spur innovation. That they are largely male and in their prime also has a prospect of hitting the future in other ways. If social, academic, and economic activity are not robustly started or maintained by the bright ones of parenting age, what does that hold for a society’s evolution? In relative terms, not as much as it could, and what energy it does have will be a result of initiation, programming, funding, or managing by government, much as government supported art and music foundations are slowly overwhelming what used to be a private matter or the result of non-government-funded symphonies, operas, and the like.
Sooner or later, if ex-migration of the most dynamic isn’t matched by inward migration of the people with the same energy and commitment to the place, It thins out the herd, and leaves the culture on a trend toward dullness, inaction, selfishness, or disconnection from the idea that we all have a personal obligation to contribute our effort to make a good society. In its’ place goes government managed guidelines, rules, programs, etal – truly the stuff of dreams, non?
Our study suggests that the quality of the public domain is an important part of quality of life, and those Dutch who have moved are implicitly casting a vote of no confidence in those who govern the nation. This lesson may also be of some relevance to other European countries where emigration has taken off and crowdedness has become a concern. For example, England’s population density is similar to that of the Netherlands (394 inhabitants per square kilometre), and British surveys seem to register the same type of dissatisfaction witnessed in the Netherlands.
Which is hard to believe given that one of the big criticism Europeans harbor for the US, Canada, Australia, etc., is the lower apparent quality of things like parks, streets, the artfulness or otherwise of public structures. For the Dutch especially this doesn’t hold, especially for those moving to places that are more angry and cramped like greater London.
But like we often see with surveys, the questions only address the questions asked, and that the way those questions were asked hint at a subtext. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the feeling of being fenced in, or the surprising unsociability of a place still characterized as libertine. Maybe what’s angry and cramped in this case is entirely social. When in the NETHERLANDS 30% of those who leave cite the health care system (of supposed global envy) as one of many reasons, you know that it’s isn’t just a matter of “doing more of it” to make them happy.
In any event, a loss of that sort can’t be sustained forever.
Q. Is it true that Barack Obama wants to charge reporters money to cover his Election Night activities, which are being staged in Chicago's Grant Part?
A. Yes. This is Illinois. Even reporters have to pay to play.
Q. Is this common practice?
A. No. Usually we tell the truth without having to give our credit card numbers to politicians.
A personal note: I am driving through Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky for research on my upcoming Lincoln biography. Anybody like-minded (or even contrarian-minded) wanting to meet up, would love to hear from you (email in the left margin)…
"Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences," the report said.
Who is the Dan Quayle of 2008? Is it Sarah Palin? Or is it...
Twenty years ago, the Republican candidate for president in the 1988 election (George Bush's father) had his sanity questioned about (and was ridiculed for) his choice of vice-president, a young, inexperienced, unknown pretty face with an alleged lack of credentials who would go on to embarrass him (George H Bush) with his allegedly inexcusable gaffes.
So twenty years later, the question is: is Sarah Palin the Dan Quayle of 2008? Or... is it another candidate in the presidential race?
FYI: This appeared as the very first video letter to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer…
(PS: Ladies and gents, you are authorized to 5-star and to favorite this video and the William Ayers video, not for my (and Jixie Juny's) sake, but to get these videos' message circulated as widely as possible…)
There are several sinister things concerning Barack Obama's complaints about Fox News, the full extent of which does not seem to have been noted. You remember the words:
"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told [Matt Bai]. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?
"I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you."
The first sinister thing about this comment of Obama's are the man's double standards. Like the rest of the leftists — as well as the (Fox-hating) mainstream media — the man has obviously no problems with ABC, with CBS, with NBC, with CNN. He has no problems with the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post. He has no problem with the fact that if there were no ABC, no CBS, no NBC, no CNN, and no New York Times, no Los Angeles Times, no Boston Globe, and no Washington Post, JohnMcCain might be two or three points higher (probably even more) in the polls; he has no problems with the fact that if there were no ABC, no CBS, no NBC, no CNN, no New York Times, no Los Angeles Times, no Boston Globe, and no Washington Post, Obama might be many points (hardly "just" two or three) lower in the polls. Never mind that: the only thing that irks him is that there is a media outlet — one! — that ensures that instead of being, say, 5 to 10 points ahead (that ain't enough), he isn't 8 to 13 points ahead.
The second sinister thing about the comment — obviously related to the first — is that it may not be be a complaint (whining or otherwise) at all: it may be a threat. It may be a warning to Rupert Murdoch to rein in his TV station (heck, all of his news outlets) if (when, in Obama's mind) the Illinois senator wins the 2008 election. Or else… Leftists cannot stand any criticism of their nigh-heroic measures. Fox News must be isolated, bloggers must be castigated, talk radio must be silenced with the Fairness Doctrine.
Now, let us actually transcend race for a moment. Apparently for Obama, "transcend" isn't a racial term so much as a euphemism for declaring victory. He says he wants to "turn the page" on the arguments of the '80s and '90s, by which he means conservatives should stop clinging to their guns and antiquated Sky God and join his cause.
He told Planned Parenthood he wants to stop "arguing about the same ole stuff," by which he means he wants people who disagree with his absolute support for government-funded abortion on demand to shut up already.
He doesn't want to argue about his pals from the Weather Underground who murdered or celebrated the murder of policemen and other Americans, he just wants everyone to agree no one should care.
In short, Obama and his disciples only demand one kind of transcendence from all Americans. We must, as Obama likes to say, unite as one people, one nation, one American family and transcend all of our misgivings about Barack Obama. Then, and only then, will The One fulfill his wife's pledge and fix our broken souls.
When the Democrats' Congressman, Keith Ellison, compares George W. Bush to Hitler, media outrage is noticeable by its absence. Media snorts and snickers, in fact, are notably directed at the Republican ticket for making too big of a fuss about William Ayers.
And yet, if fascism is about seething hatred and mass murder, Confederate Yankee has the info about exactly who it was who was for "plotting the extermination of … 25 million" people ("four times greater than the Holocaust" — and what for? "for daring to cling to the American way of life").
Remember, Billy Ayers is the man who states that he has few, if any regrets, his regrets being confined to not doing more.
Confederate Yankee also links to Zombie Time's excerpts of Prairie Fire (and comments thereon, followed by comments about what the connection, if any, with Obama is all about).
Ayers was not simply protesting "against" the Vietnam War. Firstly, he wasn't against war in principle, he was agitating for the victory of the communist forces in Vietnam. In other words: He wasn't against the war, he was against our side in the war. This is spelled out in great detail in Prairie Fire.
A fellow American living in Paris who (for some unfathomable reason) doesn't think that Barack Obama speaks for him — and who, indeed (for some unfathomable reason), thinks that Barack Obama may be naive — sent a letter to the editor of New Hampshire's Granite State News. (Don’t be confused by the small town appearance of the paper, it is part of Salmon Press, a media group with multiple papers, a daily print circulation of over 200,000 in a small state, and a major online presence.) What he asked to be printed was the following viewpoint:
At the World Policy Forum in France, Jesse Jackson said that Barack Obama would “apologize for our [American] arrogance”. He also said that our support for Israel would end.
As a proud American living in France, I am offended at how Barack Obama feels he needs to apologize for America as he did during his European tour. Europeans do not want apologies. They want a strong America. Obama is naïve. Kruschev looked JFK in the face and saw naiveté leading to the Cuban missile crisis. Jimmy Carter’s “love the world” approach led to the Iran hostage crisis.
Now Obama’s campaign has foreigners contribute financially and calling voters in “swing states” to influence their vote. That is wrong and it is un-American.
I want a president who insures that America is respected, not one that worries about being loved by the French. Barack Obama is frighteningly naïve and unfit for the presidency of the United States.
Now, as you probably know, editors virtually never respond to emails or letters, they either publish or toss them in the trash. However, our friend was fortunate enough (?) to get a reply. He was not fortunate enough to get his viewpoint published, but he got the consolation prize (?) of a long (sic), a well-thought-out (sic), and a courteous (sic) reply. A reply showing that Tom Beeler, editor extraordinaire of the Granite State News, understands the world, politicians, preachers, Republicans, Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, common courtesy, and, last but not least, the independence of the media better than anyone…
No one listens to Jesse Jackson, even if he did say those ridiculous things, and Jesse Jackson is not Barack Obama. And Obama is anything but naive.
I forget the exact quote (anybody have it along with a link?), but Howard Dean once was quoted as saying: "I will do anything, say anything, promise anything to get you elected" (you being whoever the candidate and whatever the race in question was).
As the patron saint of NP is of Argentine lineage we are duty-bound to take a peek from time to time at what gives south of that equator. Ugh:
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez has signed a bill that will nationalise the country's 10 private pension funds.
...
Ms Fernandez said that Argentina needed to protect those with pensions amid falling stock prices around the world.
However, expectations of the announcement sent Argentine shares 11% lower and critics said the government simply wanted its hands on the money ahead of a tough budget year.
As can be seen elsewhere, the lock-step vanguard of the hard-left is eager to use the current financial system turbulence as subterfuge for their insatiable statist thirst for ever more money, your money of course. Previously the monetarily-grabbing vultures on the hard-left had to use a wee bit of stealth to hide their propensity to pick your pocket. With financial turmoil the gloves are off and the current play on the hard-left is the straight-up smash, grab, and gobble, all in the name of "social justice" mind you.
Argentina's 2001 default at least was wrapped in the faux-plausible radical blasé-chic liberation rhetoric of "sticking it to the man!". The 2008 version of events is nothing more than a blatant confiscation on the part of hard-left statists.
In surveying the very possible hard-left wave breaking against the barricades the thought does arise regarding the need for a new anthem of solidarity amongst the statists. Forget about dusting off that old copy of the Internationale you may have found while looking for your autographed copy of the Little Red Book. This is a new time in need of a new anthem befitting our smash-grab-and-gobble comrades on the hard-left. Two possible, and very appropos, offerings: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Money, Money, Money.
The most important part in all of this is that the media and the left need you to be demoralized. They need you to think it's hopeless … not only so that they get the presidency, but so that they get a filibuster-proof Senate as well.
Thus writes Christopher Cook, who is optimistic and gives arguments and reasons for you to be as well, adding that
Everyone is forwarding stuff around on Ayers and FannieFreddieMaeMac and ACORN. And well we should.
But in a way, those poll numbers are the most important thing to forward right now.
Think of it: You've read these emails, and surely you've noticed that in some, there's touch of resigned desperation, as if to say, "can you believe this guy is this corrupt and he's going to win anyways?".
But that's EXACTLY how the media and the Democrats want you to feel.
No, scratch that. That's how they NEED you to feel.
Americans are being told, by their fellow citizens as well as by foreigners, that in order to prove that they no longer are racist, they must elect a black man to the White House.
That is good to know.
But one question arises. By how many percentage points must Barack Obama win for "America" to "prove" (to itself as well as to others) that it is no longer racist? It would seem that only something in the neighborhood of a 99% victory could effectively determine that. But that is the kind of "victory" only seen in dictatorships, so hopefully a victory in that kind of numbers won't be required.
What if the Illinois senator wins by, say, 60%? That's a pretty impressive victory by any standard. But does that mean that the other 40% must necessarily be racists? Must race be the only, or the main, reason for their voting against Obama?
What if it's a razor-thin victory? Should the former community organizer win by only, say, 50.02%, will that mean that Americans aren't that ready to give up the racism that has (allegedly) characterized them for so long?
And how about four years from now? Must Americans again prove that they are not (or that they are no longer) racist? Come the 2012 election, must Americans reelect President Obama to the White House to prove they are not fettered by racism? Again, by how many percentage points? And what if a hypothetically impressive 2008 victory turns into a hypothetically lackluster 2012 showing? Will we then be told, ominously, that that proves that racism "rears its ugly head" again?
And what if the results of the election aren't that straightforward? Remember 2000? What if Obama comes out ahead (barely), only to have John McCain — for valid reasons or otherwise — mount a campaign to recount the votes in some state(s) or parts thereof? What if Obama's victory is not ascertained until several weeks after November 4? Can you imagine the outcry that will cause? (Let's not even imagine the hollering, the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth among American leftists as well as foreign ones, should Obama be the candidate who loses after a year-2000-election scenario!)
And how about the future? Given that one in seven Americans is black (it's actually about 12.85% or closer to one in eight, but since we are talking about presidential terms, seven is an easier figure to handle), must Americans from now on elect an African-American every seven election cycles to prove they aren't racist? And must they not just have a black person run, but actually win the election — meaning that any white person's campaign (for the presidency or simply to be his party's candidate) is doomed ahead of time, meaning in turn, the parties may have no whites even thinking of being a candidate every seventh election cycle? By the way: must Americans elect an African-American exactly every 28 years — regardless of circumstances — or must they elect every seventh president a black man, i.e., taking into consideration the number of terms of the intervening six presidents, that is, counting a (supposedly white) single-termer's four years in the White House and a (supposedly white) two-termer's eight years as one each (i.e., as one each of the intervening six presidents)?
Maybe the solution is even more drastic: instead of electing a black man every seven election terms, Americans must make up for the 220 years without an African-American at the helm; meaning that the next six presidents (the total number of white males in the White House, 43, divided by 7) must be black. This, in turn, can only mean that no white politician may run for the supreme office (or even for the party's candidacy), whether in the Democratic party or the Republican Party, at least, until 2032 and possibly (should all candidates win reelection) until 2056.
And while we're at it, how about women? Must we elect a woman every second presidential contest? And again, must we start afresh (i.e., electing every seventh president a black and every second one a woman) or must we — again — make up for the previous 220 years — meaning we can only have blacks as president until 2032 and only females as presidents (one out of seven of whom is a black female, naturally) until the year… 2228?
What is the point about these questions? The point is as follows: Make no mistake about it. Should Obama win the election, the hand-wringing and wild charges about American racism — both at home and abroad — will at best cease temporarily. Any opposition to President Obama's policies will be construed as racism "rearing its ugly head" again.
And at best (at best, according to the — non-thinking — bean-counters, that is), in the faraway future, we will be told by the snickerers and the snorters: "Well yeah, a black American was elected in 2008 (even reelected in 2012), but that was a one-time travesty!"
Or they will say that oh, sure there is an African-Americans (there are African-Americans) whom Americans have elected president, but… his (but their) skin color wasn't dark enough. "Would they ever" — insert knowing ironic smile here — "elect a really dark Negro?"
Why do I think this? Why do I know this? How can I be so sure of it? Because it has already come up. Every time Obama inches forward, we see a resurgence in the tales of Barack Obama getting assassinated.
So first, we get snickering and snorting that (of course) America will never elect a black man president. When the prospect of a black man acceding to the presidency becomes distinctly possible (and even probable), we get snickering and snorting that (of course) that president (or that candidate) will be shot dead.
Why does this come up? Because Americans — or certainly, conservative Americans from small town America — must be accused of something sinister.
It doesn't matter if the nation's sports stars are black, it doesn't matter if the nation's top film stars are black, it doesn't matter if a nation's top generals are (or have been) black, it doesn't matter if the largest cities' mayors are (or have been) black, it doesn't matter if the secretary of state is black, it doesn't matter if a main party has chosen a black man to run for the presidency (whether he wins or not). As for electing a black man president, I would happily vote for a person such as Michael S Steele, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Shelby Steele, and (until recently) Condoleeza Rice.
But, again: all that doesn't matter: Americans — or certainly, Americans from small town America (the conservatives who usually vote for Republicans) — must be accused of something sinister. If it isn't racism, it's fascism. If it isn't fascism, it's something else. Americans must be treacherous, they must be greedy, they must be warmongers, they must be reactionary, they must be clueless. And… they must be racist. (Incidentally, has it ever occurred to you — has it ever occurred to our Liberal friends that what they think — what they are convinced they "know" — about run-of-the-mill Americans from small town America might actually be perfectly representative of the alleged racism that they deplore in those run-of-the-mill Americans' sentiments towards the black race? Notice that what the leftists accuse white, conservative, Waspish Americans of — nay, what they are convinced represents those Americans' entire reality — is far more derogatory and denigratory than the alleged racism that those Americans allegedly feel towards a race such as the black one.)
This is why we have what Mark Steyn calls it "Obama assassination porn." If/When Obama is felled by a bullet, the liberals will have a field day (or rather a field, week, month, year, decade, etc…) bemoaning that "America", i.e., that conservative racist America is what killed America. (But nations do not commit assassinations, nor do unorganized racial groups; only individuals do.)
Incidentally, what is frightening to envision, with all these martyred Obama fantasies and all this alleged racism floating around, is that the theoretical murder of Barack Obama would be (far) more profitable to the Democratic Party than to any racist individual or, certainly, to anybody supposedly embodying conservative America. If a Democrat really wanted his party to win, having their black candidate assassinated a few days before the election (along with the ensuing outrage and commotion) would ensure the party's near-certain capture of the White House. (Difficult to envision? As Jerry Bowyer points out, most presidential assassins have been rather of a leftist bent.)
Whatever the case, the basic truth about racism is as follows: racism is far less an accurate description of an attitude prevalent in a given society, in a given individual, than it is a weapon that is wielded to demonize one's opponents while making oneself appear heroic by parroting (and by doing nothing else than parroting) politically correct platitudes. More often than not, in other words, the fight against alleged pockets of racism is nothing more noble than a self-serving act of self-praise.
Four of five years ago, a furious leftist in France lashed out at me, asking me (rhetorically) whether I thought it was democratic and whether America was a democracy when the Republican (the conservative) candidate outspent the Democratic (the leftist) candidate. The unspoken message being that when one candidate outspends the other, there is no democracy, such things ought not to happen, and that if a man with leftist ideals were at the helm, a measure of justice would be at work and such things would not occur.
Now, we learn not only that the leftist candidate is outspending the conservative one, but that Barack Obama alone (that is, the political machinery behind him alone) is spending as much as George W Bush and John Kerry did in 2004 together!
But do we hear any kind of questioning of this kind of inequality, from the usual purveyors of political correctness and social justice (and alleged electoral fair-play)? You know the answer, do you not?
For the past eight years, Americans have been bombarded nearly nonstop by cries of "Bush stole the White House," without a single proven shred of evidence, without a single indictment or conviction of Republicans on vote fraud, vote rigging or anything even close. Meanwhile the only group indicated and convicted in actual vote fraud cases in the last two elections -- ACORN -- is fully mobilized still, claims to have registered 1.3 million new voters this year, and is tied historically and inextricably to our front-running candidate for President, Barack Obama.
This third story is more than just another bimbo eruption for Domenique Strauss-Kahn.
Blog aggregation site Agoravox.fr reported late yesterday, having later changed it's more accusitory seeming headline, that a woman has come forward saying that the IMF chief and French Socialist Party big-wig attempted to rape her.
Is the DSK affaire is the tree hiding in the forest? At the worldly Parisian dinner parties, director of the IMF is apparently well known for his amorous conquests. His supposed affair with a Hungarian economist is in the headlines right now, but this relationship between consenting adults is, after all, as inconsequential as DSK himself, merely a banal exchange. It gets more serious. A video posted on the web explains how DSK tried to rape Tristane Banon, a young journalist and novelist. If the facts are proved, the charge would indeed be terrible. But the victim does not conceal herself, but rather accuses the director of the IMF of bullying.
It also seems that that the matter was hushed up in February 2007, even though it was well after the presidential election that early on gave him a good bit of exposure, and Strauss-Kahn was far from Paris with conciderably less exposure, having already been appointed head of the IMF.
After her segment on Tous le Monde en Parle hosted by the terminally anti-American Thierry Ardisson, she mentioned it to the muckraker investigative journalist, who didn't think much of it. In his arrogance, he suggested that "it not what I asked you here".
In other words, to Ardisson a senior politician attempting rape is perfectly normal, and unworthy of his attention. What do you expect from a man that treats political discourse on TV the way Jerry Springer used to cover bisexual midgets who are unfaithful to their spouses.
A German bank is tagged as "Germany's Dumbest Bank", see if you can spot the clue which may have tipped off any reasonable person long before any problems cropped up:
German prosecutors and police today raided the Frankfurt headquarters of state-owned bank KfW, looking into a case suspected criminal breach of trust.
Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into whether the bank's executives acted criminally in allowing KfW to transfer €319m (£251m) to US investment bank Lehman Brothers on the day it went bankrupt.
17 percent of French voters take a shine to a relaunched LCR as an anticapitalist party. It’s run by the boy-wonder mailman Olivier Besancenot who never worked. It should prove popular among idiots who seem especially disturbed in their unionized jobs, especially in these confusing times where one might have to add up numbers from time to time.
Michael Gurfinkiel, writing the The Weekly Standard has more:
The Soviet empire disintegrated in 1991. The KGB networks, however, have continued to operate, both inside and outside Russia. And Havana continues to serve as a capital in exile for many of them. This accounts for both the spread of Castroite regimes in Latin America in recent years and the consolidation of a global anti-Western alliance, from Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. It may also explain the current attempts to resurrect hard left parties in Europe, whether Die Linke in Germany or the NPA in France. In any event, commenting on the recession in France last month, Besancenot expressed confidence that things were ripe once more for "good old revolution."
The party elite of the French far-left are genuine stooges straight out of the 1970’s who look to authoritarian prison states for inspiration – having learned nothing in the mean time, other than the parties themselves are a sort of meal-ticket for the ruling class that lead it. In Germany, Die Linke tried to promote in the last election to head the federal republic with the slogan “Luxus für Alle” or “luxuries for all” to appeal to the same mathematically deficient population that so many times before had made a name for Europe in the world as the continent of blood. Olivier Besancenot is surely aware of that he shares such a noble heritage with both the legacy of what the ideas he’s adopted have produced, and the simplistic methods by which it continues to peddle itself. The historical ignorance, as well as outright stupidity about economics are key. It’s why revolutionaries target the young and the educational establishment.
First, he has no working class background at all. His parents were solidly middle class (his father was a high school teacher and his mother a school psychologist). He went to college--Nanterre University in Greater Paris--and earned an M.A. in contemporary history. He is first and foremost a Revolutionary Communist League apparatchik who joined the working class at the party's request, first as a supermarket warehouse worker and then as a mailman, in order to acquire the politically necessary proletarian credentials. Tellingly, he was co-opted to the LCR's Central Committee in 1996, before he went to work for the postal service.
Besancenot, moreover, never actually worked much as a mailman. Under French law, workers are entitled to long leaves, on full salary, if they serve as officers of unions or political parties. Besancenot is both. And he knows how to make the most of it. He has been on leave almost continuously, either as a union activist or as an LCR figure--assistant to an LCR member of the European Parliament, party spokesman, or presidential candidate. This was his real job, and it was much better paid than his nominal job at the postal service. As a European Parliament assistant, he apparently made 5,000 euros a month.
Besancenot's private life is even more intriguing. His early rise within the LCR was due in large measure to the fact that he was living with a daughter of Alain Krivine, the group's founder and head, who himself ran for president as a Trotskyite in 1969 and 1974. Besancenot later separated from her, but remained Krivine's protégé. Then he met his current companion, Stéphanie Chevrier. A radical activist, Chevrier, 38, is also a top editor at the publishing house Flammarion and reportedly makes 10,000 euros a month with numerous perks. She owns an apartment in Paris on the exclusive Left Bank, where she lives with Besancenot. Her contacts in the French media have apparently been crucial in her common-law husband's meteoric rise.
To whom--one may ask, then--do Krivine, Chevrier, and Besancenot ultimately answer?
From its very inception in the 1960s, Krivine's Revolutionary Communist League was closely tied to the Castro regime in Cuba. Today, Besancenot describes Cuba as a "truly progressive" society. He coauthored a book in praise of Che Guevara in 2007. Last spring, shortly before launching the NPA, he visited his "friends" in Havana, where he "met with various militants." On May 6, in an interview with Rouge, the LCR magazine, he praised the "internationalist" dimension of the Cuban Revolution.
In truth, only in a corroded society where families are temporary things subject more to whim than love, and the state is one’s husband and breadwinner, could such a man thrive – one who, at 34 is considered a “kid” and given a pass on all of those things “kids” do:
The chief reason for Besancenot's popularity is that, like Barack Obama (to quote Michelle Obama), "he's cute." With his boyish face, broad smile, and big eyes, Besancenot appeals to his generational peers, women, and even older people, who tend to see him as their virtual son.
Change and hope, 60's style: Ayres Weather Underground planned to kill 25 million Americans in re-education camps
"I bought up the subject of what's going to happen after we take over the government. We, we become responsible, then, for administrating, you know, 250 million people.
And there was no answers. No one had given any thought to economics; how are you going to clothe and feed these people.
The only thing that I could get, was that they expected that the Cubans and the North Vietnamese and Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States.
They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education centers in the southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be re-educated into the new way of thinking and teach them... how things were going to be.
asked, well, what's going to happen to those people that we can't re-educate; that are die-hard capitalists. And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these re-education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill. 25 million people.
I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.
And they were dead serious."
Larry Grathwohl, former member of the Weather Underground.
Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.
Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.
But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.
One item of interest though. An oft-asked but never answered (not that we have seen) question: out of the 100% of GHG in the atmosphere, what % is man's doing?
An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."
We see if the science holds up. Much better to rely on science and data in these matters vs. religious feelings.
For no reason other than to grab any vote that they can, the way the loony left will suddenly start pretending to embrace military people whom they otherwise reflexively accuse of abuse and stupidity should prove amusing. Reserving their hatred for them until it seems politically expedient to "suport the troops", Powell's endorsement of a man with no executive experience or accomplishments.
It's as mercenary as the hypocrity that French politicians are trying to paper over Dominque Strauss-Kahn's abuse of his office in pursuing an affair with a subordinate at the IMF. They are biting the bullet for no reason other than their own advancement at the cost of anything they used to think was right an wrong, because like Powell, he's all they've got. All must agree to the exclusion of anything else. Even to the point where someone will censor the Wikipaedia page about the victim.
What, then, are the consequences? The perp's wife, Anne Sincair, is television political interviewer in a nation where repeating the fashionable superlatives is manditory to the exclusion of anything else and any other assertions even when they aren't true, is for now reserving her comments – much like Hillary Clinton after if became obvious that Bill couldn't suppress his appetite for any reason, is biting her lip for the sake of her own future value, and nothing more.
The hypocrity that the hardest core or Obama's supporters will have to engage in now, having over the past 7 years carried signs that say “Bush is te real terrorist” and the “Bush-Cheney did 9-11” should be amusing. What it will reveal is their lack of value and fidelity if their candidate actually wins.
Aren’t you glad the police are on the case? The quickest way to destroy a concept is to overuse the terminology associated with it. Ergo, anything in Europe is raised to the level of a right whether it really is or not. Blink twice and you’ll be able to kiss those rights goodbye.
Public homosexual activity in parks and public bathrooms must not be impeded by law enforcement officials except as a last resort, says a new set of draft guidelines for UK police.
Nonetheless, even though they are not to interfere, officers are told to go home and do their required reading in order to expressly not enforce any sort of public order.
The constable encouraged police to study sex websites for insight into the whereabouts of homosexual sex hot spots. Such websites show, among pornographic advertisements, dozens of public haunts for homosexual men seeking anonymous sex - among the most notorious being Dartford Heath, where public sex has been said to have spiraled "out of control."
Which is pointless, even if you are trying to “build trust” with 2% of the population, but enforcing the law on others.
The ACPO already enforces guidelines for police officers handling the public indecency claims against homosexual cruising, which emphasize "the value of building trust with local LGBT communities" to ensure that action against homosexual activity be "fair, necessary, and legitimate." The guidelines were authored by the ACPO Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Working Group in 2000 to provide "a comprehensive LGBT policing strategy centered around anti-homophobia."
Let SOME adults fuck in public, force people to explain this to their children, and there will be no more homophobia – I get it!
Islam should be treated more sensitively than Christianity: BBC
Mark Thompson claimed that because Muslims are a religious minority in Britain and also often from ethnic minorities, their faith should be given different coverage to that of more established groups.
As if the grand span of other world religions who are minorities in the UK don’t deserve preferential coverage, or that there is some reason to behave preferentially to any private group or institution.
Must pick your enemies to detest, must pick your fashionably oppressed to champion, even if you’ve got no clue: lefty moral vanity demands it. In that prism, some must always be more equal (or pitiable in a politically useful way) than others, especially if they represent the fewest people and the treatment itself manages to dispossess the largest number of people of equal treatment.
Why? Because hating normal, happy people makes them feel smart.
One may want to read this article from the EU Observer regarding the EU-15 indeed reaching those Kyoto emission targets:
The 15 'old' European Union member states are on track to meeting their targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that they signed up to under the 1997 Kyoto Agreement.
So, how did we do it? What is our secret? Greater use of technology? More nu-clear power generation? A bit of belt-tightening? More individuals walking? Thinking globally whilst acting locally?
Well, it appears ..... well, perhaps the reader should decide:
Most of the EU-15 are planning for reforestation to achieve much of their Kyoto target. However, the total amount of carbon dioxide that could be removed annually between 2008 and 2012 is relatively small (1.4 percent compared to 1990), according to the EEA, although it is somewhat higher than the projections made in 2007.
This means that the countries may have to purchase more carbon offset credits to make up the difference.
I thought most modern religious movements had done away with paying for indulgences.
In the interest of creating the most and best unhinged and unbalanced reporting, Radio-Tele-ganda France is employing serial liar Dan Rather to do their US election night coverage. I hope Dan can add: for his audience it will be the middle of the night, and they will come to hate whoever Americans elect.
Rather has been tapped by Canal Plus to cover the U.S. presidential election. Rather will appear live from New York on Nov. 2 in the program "Dimanche Plus," dedicated to the elections. He will then host an Election Day special on Nov. 4, and will be back on the air the following morning for post-election comments on the show "La Matinale."
Fire his ass and give us Schneidermann.
The former CBS News anchor is joining the list of Yanks who get more respect from the Gauls than they do at home.
Geez, if they only knew... I can't wait for them to try to translate some of his stranger gaffes and fake folksy expressions!
IMF head Domenique Strauss-Kahn is being investigated for going out of his way to initiate a romantic affair with a married employee of the IMF. The size of the severance package offered to her to quietly disemploy herself before someone blew the cover on the story is not known.
Nonetheless, the Gallic mind turns to only one thing: self-evasion. The essence of it is in this dimwitted comment featured on the unctuous Rue89 site:
The key in all this is that this will not be in our interest, because the tradition that it is a European (mainly French) who inherit the position of Director of the IMF is being challenged.
I am afraid that they will appoint an Englishman (as a "compromise" choice) instead of DSK. I see that the residents are well informed about the extra-conjugal escapades of DSK, which was not my case until this article! The IMF is not an American but international institution, we should not overexpose this story, because sexual adventures are usually not a determining factor for non-Americans. Americans do not appoint the director of the IMF, but that of the World Bank.
In any case, someone wanted to kill Strauss-Kahn in crisis, is obvious. For what purpose? Could it be that we wanted to torpedo a re-regulation "in shock" from DSK?
To “re-“ regulate something that wasn’t regulated to begin with? To revise the French manipulated Basel II banking rules? Which is it, papito? If all that matters here is that a Frenchman will be replaced by an Englishmen, despite his sexual greed wrecking a promising subordinate’s career and possibly her marriage, then it should have just gone unreported, right? Wrong. The world is not France. Very few parts of the world contain people who would brook no objection to that kind of abuse of a position, especially with a woman in a lower position in an organization. The very idea that it’s okay otherwise betrays all of the leftist howling and screaming about sexual freedom, womens’ rights, and their freedom from abuse. THAT kind of pliability might be common to you and most of the western left, but it is far from universal. Other people actually have principals.
The commenter is naturally worried that it’s those “money people” behind the hideous enforcement of ethics guidelines, all due no doubt to the heroic Asterix-like figure in Strauss-Kahn’s desire to “regulate” them. The ill informed buffoon forgets that when the Wall Street Journal broke the story, the investigation was initiated at the request of an Egyptian delegation with the backing of the Russian representative.
The really sad thing is that DSK is the only socialist party mucky-muck with a shred of common sense.
Obama's ties to ACORN go back much further than his presidential bid. In 1992, Obama worked as executive director of ACORN's voter-registration segment, Project Vote. Obama, along with two other South-Side Chicago community organizers, led the voter-registration drive that played a part in the election of Carol Moseley Braun to the U.S. Senate.
The gradual but cumulatively almost complete transfer of opinion-forming power from the owners and commercial managers of TV stations to the program-makers and presenters was one of the great new facts of life, unheard of before the 1950s, axiomatic by the end of the 1960s. And it was gradually paralleled by a similar shift in the newspaper world, especially on the great dailies and magazines of the East Coast, where political power, with few exceptions, passed from proprietors and major stockholders to editors and writers. Owners like Hearst and McCormick (of the Chicago Tribune), Pulitzer and Henry Luce (of Time-Life), who had once decided the political line of their publications in considerable detail, moved out of the picture and their places were taken by the working journalists. Since the latter tended to be overwhelmingly liberal in their views, this was not just a political but a cultural change of considerable importance. Indeed it is likely that nothing did more to cut America loose from its traditional moorings.
