Posted by LBB | May 8, 2009
The Anthropogenic Global Warming Cultists Shift Gears, Expecting That Will Fool A Public They Consider Stupid
According to this article in the NYT, it's time for the nuts in Al Gore's cult to give up the term "global warming." The agenda will be pushed using other names. You know, it's like the Nazis calling their mass murder "the solution to the Jewish question," or the Roman Church calling execution of heretics an "affair of faith." It's rank dishonesty based on the belief that people are morons. The cynical sophists advising the nutty cultists are telling them to…
Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up "moving away from the dirty fuels of the past." Don't confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like "cap and cash back" or "pollution reduction refund."
Of course they have to start ignoring carbon dioxide now — they have been lying about that chemical for years, and the truth is getting out.
EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group's latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.
So now "global warming" is called "climate change," and the enemy is "pollution." The aim is to accomplish the old goals, namely smuggle in all the draconian governmental restrictions that used to be pitched as ways to prevent the sea levels from rising and drowning millions. All that rubbish — loaded with outright falsehoods and hoaxes like the hockey stick graph — has been debunked, so here comes the next big lie.
The Penguin Post will continue to attack AGW as the fraud it is, no matter what its fanatical proponents call it. The truth about carbon dioxide remains at the core of the case. The more people know about the facts, the less powerful this new push to reduce "pollution" will be.
And the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the rational will be the untimely exposure of the cynical plot to give AGW a new name so it can be peddled to the gullible. This article goes into the PenPo's archives, both as a series of screenshots and as ordinary text. Trust Google to cache it? No!
The Problem With Ethnic Politics
First, some links to provide background. The situation began with what should have been a narrowly-reported event that was of no significance.
Here is the commentary the PenPo originally intended to publish:
What in the world is this all about?? "…Prejean's stance has nothing to do with her 'boobs,' or with Olbermann's undying need to denigrate women's intelligence and joke about women's bodies." Unh, well, it's all about politics and the newsmedia and it slops over into the culture war. Disgusting.
Ask yourself this: who is being honest and civil here, and who is being vicious and gratuitous? One weblogger remarks that "…Ingraham's exasperation, in this instance, worked quite well, highlighting, as it did, the stunning movement away from principles to political allegiance that Ms Feldt, as part of the establishment feminist orthodoxy, represents." Quite.
Note that Prejean is savaged as a "homophobe" because of her definition of "marriage." She's in agreement with President Obama and the majority of the US citizenry, so that means most people hate homosexuals, doesn't it? How decent is thatdeliberate misinterpretation of reality?
Recall, please, that a phobia is a fear, not a hatred. The meaning has been extended, and improperly so. An acrophobe is terrified by heights; he does not hate them. The presence of hatred is expressed in words such as misogamist, misanthrope, and so on.
Now if homosexuals insist on defining all those who disapprove of same-sex marriage as "haters," there may be genuine reason to fear a segment of the homosexual community. That would be a disaster. It would encourage violence, make people fearful, and set back the diffusion of understanding and brotherhood.
A homosexual's feelings of attraction and love are no reason to despise him; if you disagree, you are an incomplete human being, immature at best and malformed at worst. Bigotry is a genuine flaw.
Now one must ask whether the vilification of Prejean is an act of bigotry. Her politely expressed and very common political/jurisprudential opinions do not make her a moral leper. Yet she has been targeted in a bitter campaign to defame and disgrace her. Is that bigotry, or zealous political commentary?
The USA already has to cope with its "Aryan" white supremacists, "Aztlan" revolutionary racists, and militantly intolerant Muslim enclaves. Now it appears there is a hard core in the homosexual communities whose vile rhetoric matches the hatred spewed by those bigots. What a shame that is!
Conclusion: everyone is well advised to leave this hapless beauty contest competitor the hell alone. She's been candid and civil, while her critics have been deliberately obnoxious, spiteful and illogical (click on those links and watch the videos!). Too, any continued calumny directed at her must also be directed at the President and most people on Earth. Its consequences will be welcomed by no one.
That does not, however, cover the matter adequately. There are connections….
So extension of the original text is required. The ramifications of this seemingly trivial event are more distressing than was obvious at first. To see that, one must consider the recent presidential election. Bear with the PenPo as it essays an explanatory tour of the alien landscape.
There is a political fact nobody wants to talk about: support for presidential candidate Obama was virtually unanimous in the black community. Almost no black folks voted for McCain, and that's the biggest single reason Obama won.
Support for the Democrats also came from homosexual and Hispanic voters, most of whom feel instinctively that the GOP's commitment to "family values," however insipid, is either inimical to their interests or linked tightly to hated immigration/secure border policy. McCain was unable to convince anybody that as a Republican in Name Only, he was not going to go after illegal aliens, tighten the border, and pander to the fundamentalist Christian right on issues of interest to homosexuals. That put three voting blocs with the Democrats, and crushed the GOP.
The anti-capitalist, neo-Marxist left, along with the Birkenstock Brigadiers and a variety of other smaller traditionally conservative-hating groups, were taken for granted. Not one of those folks would vote for a Republican, no matter how liberal, so the "maverick" label was useless to McCain. Hail Victory!
The coalition was, however, lop-sided. Its strongest member was the black community, whose interests do not naturally coincide with the other blocs in the winning team.
And on no issue is the Democratic tide more clearly, sharply and hopelessly split than same-sex marriage.
With the surprising — one might even say volcanic — spurt of raw hatred directed at, of all people, a polite young girl in a beauty contest, the homosexual community betrayed its disaffection. These single-issue voters are not solidly with the fundamentally race-based support that put Obama in office.
If anybody saw this coming, he kept quiet about it. Yet the factors that now threaten to sunder the Democratic majority were always present. Everyone knew the black voters were a solid phalanx behind Obama; the homosexual commitment to same-sex marriage was known to be rabid, and the black community never tried to hide the fact that it is overwhelmingly against changes in the laws that will allow men to marry men and women to marry women. Black and homosexual views on the issue are equally fervent. So why were the coming firestorm and schism not predicted?
Because the press did not delve into the issue. Why not? Because the facts are not just embarrassing, but could have hurt Obama's chances of winning the election. So what? Why would that matter to professional journalists? It mattered because professionalism had been abandoned in favor of advocacy journalism (propaganda). With few exceptions, the press was with Obama.
Accordingly the next link in the chain of logic has seldom been mentioned.
Candor requires the admission that if white voters had voted for McCain in the percentages black voters supported Obama, the election of a white president would have been universally denounced as racist. There is no avoiding that truth.
Had McCain won because more than 95% of white voters supported him, the perception would have been that it was a vote against a black man. Headlines: "Whites reject black president." "Racism not dead; Obama defeated." Yet Obama's support is never described as anti-white. Two standards are in use. That is a fact that simply cannot be disputed.
But it dare not be uttered out loud, because it exposes black Obama supporters to a credible charge of racism. To their great credit, the GOP and the conservative core of that party have let the fact of virtually universal black support for a black candidate go. What black voters do is not racist, in other words, while what white voters do certainly could be. That's an attitude that speaks volumes for the tolerance, wisdom and patience of the party and its ideological core, yet it remains unrecognized and unlauded.
There's that lap-dog press again.
Decent political discourse also requires that homosexuals not be described as overwrought, waspish single-issue voters whose commitment to overturning centuries of cultural and legal practice is disappointingly juvenile. No one wants to say things like that because it will inevitably be damned as "homophobic" and divisive. Never has the GOP been more accepting of its homosexual members, and never has the hard right been so unwilling to drive home the point that same-sex marriage is extraordinarily unpopular within its ranks. Polite disputation was favored. Again, the attitudes are in themselves praiseworthy.
Well, the truce, the good manners, the desire to paper over highly divisive issues are about to shatter.
The peace may be sundered by the collision of homosexual interests with the black community's staunch opposition to same-sex marriage. The groups can not compromise. And the Hispanic community shares the black folks' views on the issue.
But isn't this a tempest in a tea pot, an issue that simply can't destroy the Obama coalition? Isn't the PenPo exaggerating?
Marion Barry: "All hell is going to break loose. We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this."
You must read the post. It explains why the PenPo's portrayal of the political facts is correct. Yes, this is a nightmare come upon us in spite of our instinctive desire to wish it away, and yes, it may be a very damaging diversion of US political energy.
How much better if the election had been fought on the real issues. There are plenty of them, and they begin and end with the struggle between individualism and collectivism. But no; the Democrats duct-taped together a coalition that depended first and foremost on race, and second on the fears of a scattered group of left-wing and alien blocs that the GOP might be too patriotic (the hated Patriot Act and its ilk) and insist that immigrants obey the laws of the land.
That may have been a tragic mistake.
Do read the post linked to above, and ponder the possibilities and probabilities. In months and years to come, the US electorate will have to decide who is civil, decent, conciliatory, ethically least soiled, and most capable of leading the defense of Western Civilization. Our enemies are legion, and above nothing. An effective response to them requires candor and wisdom. Without the former, the latter cannot be relied upon.
Take Solutions That Will Cause Greater Problems, Add Journalism That Panders To Bigots — And Get Another War In The Middle East
What a peculiar news article this is. Consider a few quotes:
(Biden said) the Jewish state should not build any more settlements on Palestinian territory, and should "dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement". … Mr Netanyahu (the Israeli PM) has dismayed American, Arab and European officials by pointedly refusing to back Palestinian statehood since taking office on March 31.
Aipac (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has demonstrated that it — and Israel — still exercise considerable muscle in Washington by persuading the US Justice Department last week to abandon the prosecution of two former employees on charges that they spied on America for Israel.
Last month, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
General James Jones, Mr Obama's National Security Adviser, is also said to have told a European foreign minister that — unlike the Bush Administration — the White House was now ready to be "forceful" with Israel.
Look at all the not-so-subtle messages here! It's possible to confuse the Obama administration's intent with the spin provided by the London Times, but several overall themes can be discerned:
First, the USA is willing to insist on changes in Israeli foreign and domestic policy. How that can be squared with preachments of national self-determination and multiculturalism for all remains a puzzle. Either Israel is the puppet or partner of the USA, or it is uninvolved — so which is it? Is it ethical for Washington to dictate to Israel? If so, that would imply that Israel is wrong. And if Washington is justified in mandating Israeli policy, why is it wrong to tell Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program?
Second, "Palestinian" statehood is to be imposed on Israel. Why? It is not the goal of the "Palestinians," who have had multiple opportunities to achieve it, and stubbornly failed to qualify as a sovereign nation. What is today called "Palestine" is a geographical area, some of whose inhabitants have no conceivable moral claim to independence or even to sympathy. Of all the ethnic groups on the Earth, "Palestinians" are least qualified to achieve nationhood. Their goal is not the foundation of their own state, but the destruction of another, and the extermination of that nation's population. They are would-be mass murderers.
Third, Israel is said to be in political control of the USA. This assertion is a hallmark of virulent Jew-hatred. Does it not seem contradictory that as the USA toughens its stance against an obstreperous Israel, Israel can bend the US Department of Justice to its will? Something is very wrong here, and it almost certainly is in the reporting of events, not in the events themselves. No explanation, however superficial, for the US decision not to prosecute is noted in the article. The implication of the newspaper is that prosecution was warranted, and that Israel dictated to the USA, preventing justice from being served. Knowing nothing of the facts of the case, this newsletter is nevertheless comfortable saying that there is necessarily a lot more to it than what the London Times implies. Keep in mind that propagandists are not just interested in imposing their slogans and mindset on the public, but also need to prevent many facts from being widely available. Not reporting is essential to effective propaganda, and propaganda is what this article is. The gap in its account demonstrates that fact.
Fourth, the very idea that Israel must forever live cheek by jowl with the "Palestinians" is a rank absurdity. No worse neighbor could be imagined. The history of the region is clear and unequivocal: "Palestinians" and Israelis will carry on their war as long as they are in close proximity to each other. Any other prediction is madness. Yet US policy is to push ahead as if the madness were somehow realistic and rational.
A close and critical reading of the London Times article shows it to be clever, subtle, and toxic.
Meanwhile the US Department of State seems to have lost its way. Note, for example, that the USA proposes events that can only result in death and destruction, pushing peace back into the next century. Finally, realize that the Israelis face multiple threats from jihadis, military foes, suicide bombers, and Iran. Why are their rights inferior to the rights of "Palestinians"? It appears to be because the "Palestinians" threaten genocide, while the Israelis struggle to keep the peace (which can never be accomplished as long as "Palestinians" have freedom of movement in the region; ask the Egyptians about that). The moral inversion is sickening.
More on Iran in two articles, one from the Washington Times (Moonie alert — report may be tainted by fake church that owns the paper) and one from Al-Reuters (credibility alert, journalism may be biased in favor of Israel's enemies).
Well. Is there no participant in this dance of death who interprets obvious truths sanely?
How to invest, given Obama? Nobody knows, which hinders economic recovery. More here. And — the PenPo considers this to becorruption; what do you call it? Well, whatever you call this mess, that's what a properly organized community gets you….
What is this guy talking about? He says, "None of this would have happened had I not videotaped my interrogation and uploaded the results onto YouTube." It's one of the most important stories about freedom of press and speech in the last few years. It deserves to be read, so don't shortchange yourself.
More on non-freedom of speech in the USA here and on this weblog as well. It's increasingly a matter of Democrats and "progressives" clustering, rumps together, horns out.
Further on the politicians' hatred of free speech: Great Britain makes a huge mistake, and the USA threatens bloggers with legislation that Hitler (or Mao, or Castro, etc.) would love. The electorates really, really need to rise up, throw the rascals out, and secure Liberty.
Taxes as a civic responsibility, and as a source of embarrassment.
Mark Steyn is one of the wittiest writers we have today. He can turn a truth into a funny phrase as easily as Paris Hilton glides from a sneer to a pout. So we expect this sort of thing from him: "That uptilted chin combined with the left-right teleprompter neck swivel you can set your watch by makes (Obama) look like an emaciated Mussolini umpiring an endless rally of high lobs on Centre Court at Wimbledon." But that's pretty much all the humor Steyn can muster when he regards The One. Steyn can just smell the dedicated Neo-Marxist ideologue in that expensive suit. Deep down, Steyn is scared, really scared.
This is prima facie evidence of governmental criminal malfeasance. Either you protect records of this sort, or you find another line of work. The people listed in the stolen records should sue everybody in sight….
There's yet another study of Homo floresiensis out. This tale is far, far from told. The suggestion that some kissing cousin ofAustralopithecus left Africa for Asia (on a journey totally undocumented by evidence) remains a ghost in the background, haunting anthropology.
There are real reviews, and then there are junk reviews like this one in the NYT. Touted by the headline as "Visual Proof That Windows 7 Blows Mac OS X and Linux Away", the review tells us almost nothing about Windows 7's improvements over the astonishingly bad Vista, and utterly fails to show that 7 blows anything away. Most of all, there is no suggestion that for once, Microsoft has created an operating system that can shrug off malware one-tenth as well as can Mac OS X and Linux. Of course 7 should be an improvement over all previous versions of Windows; but whether it is superior in every way to all other operating systems has yet to be demonstrated. The reviewer, one Kevin Tofel, is inefficiently employed: give that man a broom. And do NOT surf the 'net with any version of Windows.
Speaking of using the 'net, you might find this way of using a search engine helpful. If you Google normally, you leave a lot of information about yourself behind and you pick up cookies from the sites you visit, as well as from Google.
How to give the jihadis what they deserve? What we need, quite obviously, is a lot of Hannah Dustons. Now there was a woman! (Caution: very vulgar language and primitive prose. But inspiring nonetheless.)
Multiple Moons? No, not a busload of college kids, but several satellites circling Earth long, long ago. Loony idea? Maybe not.
You know that a meteor impact wiped out the dinosaurs. You are probably wrong.
If you have a garden, you need some of this. Spread it around; it will smell bad, but your plants will grow like crazy.
Surgery: a fourteen year-old is showing docs how to sew a patient back together. BTW, it's not "peaked," it's "piqued."
Welcoming a turncoat is always a risky undertaking, because if he will do it to his former friends, he will do it to his new ones, as well.
You knew they would ignore the science and push the cult's lies and hoaxes.
And you knew this is how they will make government-run universal health care work.
Empty stomach news (you can't read it without losing whatever you just ate): Murtha. (Moonie alert.) And yet more on Murtha. Erp!
The Taliban has a goal. "…the higher the number of civilian dead the more swiftly that goal can be achieved." The push to increase the slaughter is aimed at people like the Red Cross and the Birkenstock Brigadiers, who in turn will pressure Obama, and, and…. Well, at least you know how it will play out. But does Obama?
The moral of this comedy seems to be that those damned Jews are behind most of it (read all the way to the end).
Gee…is there anything to be frightened of? Such as, maybe that lap-dog press that Obama has licking his fingers and begging to learn new tricks? (Related story here.) Well, what if…just speculating here, you understand… suppose the Obama team threatened to turn its propaganda machine loose on…oh, say a financial institution? Could that happen? Well, no…but, er, unh, transcript here. And…darn it all, we have corroboration, and even commentary on the situation. Ow!
The PenPo just set the world straight on torture, but things continue to develop.
No crowing and cackling from here. This was a near thing, and good luck played a big role. And it would be foolish to think that anybody's mind will be changed by this report; there will always be idiots who say, "See, see, if gun laws were in place, those guys would never have been able to break in that way!" Here it is anyway.
Do you like creepy genuine mysteries? Here's a spooky one: Pedro the mummified mush-brained midget.
A weblogger says: "…the press thinks it's good for Obama to demonize people who don't go along with the program. For a figure of hope and change, he's sure big on demonization. I hope that changes." There are two chances of that — slim and fat. The same probabilities apply to Obama keeping this promise. (The "serious conversation" will be a photo opportunity and fifteen minutes of grinning, head-bobbing brush-off.) Prove the PenPo wrong in both cases, BO!
The PenPo warned him! The CIA plays for keeps. And they are nasty bastards. Just ask W.
You start here, where a brief item tells you about the governor's latest PR effort. Then you see what the gov's critics do with it — on this weblog. Note the comments. So she's a trollop? That antique but still trenchant word means "whore," if you don't have a dictionary handy. Palin literally can't do anything that does not rile the "progressives," no matter how mundane and apolitical. The culture war continues. How rational and civil….
A report from Afghanistan.
This post will provoke barracks language in the White House. "For all his confirmation-hearing talk about learning his lesson from the Marc Rich debacle and being strong enough to stand up to a president who tries to politicize the Justice Department, Holder took the buck that Obama decided stops at the Justice Department." Ow, that's gotta smart! What are the odds that there is a Nixon-style "enemies list" either in existence or in the offing? Overwhelming.
Memo from the Department of Silly Balks: Maybe we ought to get out of Iraq right now. After all, the death toll for the USA was eighteen killed in the month of April! That's horrible, intolerable, because it is the most killed in seven months. …Huh? You say things are worse in Chicago?? Look, you can't compare, because those deaths in Chicago don't count. They are all criminals, or low-lifes, and like that. Besides, we gave up on Chicago generations ago; everybody knows those people can't sustain a decent democratic government, and now they are just eating their young. We need to give up on Iraq, too. All this trying to restrain the Bad Guys is just a distraction so Halliburton can make a lot of money. There's oil in Chicago, right?
A definition of "cap and trade" is available here. Call it whatever you want, it's really just a tax. (Yet again: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" "Unh, well, five." "Wrong! Four. You can call a tail a leg, but it's still a tail.") It's all part of Obama's election promise to destroy the coal industry. See this seminal weblog. Then this fellow says, "President Obama is waging war on investors. He's waging war against businesses. He's waging war against bondholders." That broadens the picture, doesn't it? Cap and trade is just a small part of the overall plan, which looks like an attempt to overturn capitalism.
Here's a perspective on the culture war with which this newsletter does not entirely agree. Do check it out.
What have we here — a popular uprising against the arrogance of power, or an abuse of the system by ideological nutcases? Click on thelink and decide whether Gov. Palin is a rascal. (Sucker bet: "What odds will you give me if I claim that nobody's mind will be changed by reading the post? Meaning, no matter what anybody thought of Palin before he read it, he will say the article supports his view.")
Are you still using Microsoft Windows, even though you go on the internet? There are lots of good reasons why you should not. Good luck!
The Obama administration counts among its enemies "extremists" defined as "…those worried about the usurpation of the Constitution, illegal immigration, and the threat of gun control legislation. …also they have the perception that illegal immigrants were taking away American jobs…." OK, but those beliefs define many in the USA who are absolutely not extremists. So what's going on? "Obama himself, far from the bipartisan spirit promised — indeed, even the respect expected from the officeholder — mocks opposing opinions." True; read it all, and see that there is no paranoia involved. The One is defining targets. It's all part of the consequences of "We won!!"
Fake, fraud, hoax! It can't be true — the LAT would never publish anything like this!! Well, all seriousness aside, it does feel good to be surprised by this "news"paper. Aaaaaahhh.
Here are a few short and medium-length items that were published in The Terrapin Gazette of August 22, 2005.
A Lot Of Powerful Thieves Hate This Woman
We begin our list of stories that don't see enough of the light of day with more of the work of an under-appreciated author. Right, it's our favorite print journalist, a lady with the heart of a lioness. At times we wonder whether we should worry about her safety. As you know, the political correctness of the major media prevents a lot of her reports from ever reaching the majority of the newspaper-reading public. Here's a teaser from her latest:
Oil for Enron
Guess who was a player in the U.N. scandal . . .
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Thursday, August 18, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
Since the Oil for Food program came to an end in 2003, it has been described–accurately enough–as oil for palaces, oil for terror and oil for fraud. Now it turns out the U.N. relief program in Iraq was also oil for Enron.
Among the great scams of our time, there's a near-poetic inevitability to the convergence of the twain. When I first wrote about Oil for Food on these pages, almost three years ago, the analogy that came instantly to mind was Enron. Lo! Much scandal and many questions later, investigators for Rep. Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee have unearthed documents showing that shortly before Enron imploded in late 2001, the company, among its other deals, was shelling out millions, some of it into Swiss bank accounts, to buy Iraqi crude exported by Saddam under Oil for Food.
Not that Enron did business directly with Saddam's regime in violation of U.N. sanctions, or even did anything clearly illegal. Rather, the tale of its guest appearance in Oil for Food illustrates why in some ways the U.N. scandal dwarfs even Enron. Under cover of Oil for Food, Saddam's system of bribes, payoffs and kickbacks, ultimately totaling billions, ran through chains of often obscure middlemen in places such as Cyprus and Switzerland. Enron shows up on one of the outer spokes of Oil for Food's global web, dealing with a trans-Atlantic crew of companies and characters engaged not only in fraud, but allegedly linked to arms traffic, payoffs to the Kremlin and kickbacks to Saddam's regime. Along the way, this gang did its bit to comply via Oil for Food shipments with Saddam's policy of enforcing the Arab League boycott against Israel.
No Comment Is Possible On This Headline And Story
French countryside hit by a massive invasion of frogs
Paris – A campaign in France to exterminate frogs may sound like the beginning of a civil war, but these are no ordinary frogs. Hunters working for the government's wildlife agency will be stalking ponds in south-west France this weekend, aimed with flash-lights, rifles, silencers and night-vision sights.
No, we did not make this up. It can be found here.
The Outrage Expands And Takes On Power
You recall that The Terrapin Gazette devoted an entire issue to showing you how terrible the Kelo decision is.
The aftermath of that abuse of judicial authority is proving downright Kafkaesque:
Those who believe in the adage "when it rains, it pours" might take the tale of the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London as a cue to buy two of every animal and a load of wood from Home Depot. The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.
Meanwhile California is trying to do something to correct the twenty-first century's Dred Scott decision. See this.
A Quote We Like
Those of us who support an interventionist foreign policy to spread democracy do so because the liberty of others is our own security. (Former US Secy of State Henry) Kissinger is a brilliant man who knows many things, but he never grasped this. If you were to read the interview with Tory leadership contender Malcolm Rifkind in The Telegraph last weekend expounding his opposition to the Iraq War ("If you destroy an existing regime – however evil it may be – you create a political vacuum"), you would note that Kissinger's failing is a recurring one among Western politicians. There is no more important task in mainstream politics than that it be resisted.
We stole that from Oliver Kamm's weblog.
Major Newspapers Vs. Webloggers, Part CCXI
If you think the webloggers are derivative and parasitical creatures who live off the major news media, you need to stop smoking that funny tobacco. Doubtless some webloggers are incapable of original thought, but then some Kindergarten teachers are secret vexillologists, we assume.
Well, read this web page, and see what you think. We consider this an example of the deliberate tardiness of a major newspaper. And that's worse than being derivative, in our book.
You Have To Read This
Here you have a response to Cindy Sheehan. It was written by an Iraqi. We refuse to provide a teaser; his sentiments deserve to be read in full.
Here's A Clever Speculation That Just Might Explain A Lot
Take two puzzles that people in the know don't want to talk about, put them together, and see whether they fit. If they do, ask yourself whether that linkage allows you to answer some questions about one of the puzzles. It could happen.
Now have a look at this (NO, we are not going to tell you more; click on the link)….
The Drumbeat
The UN is in a lot more trouble than is let on by the major media. A few members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy are gleefully attacking the organization, of course, but these people have been doing that since the 1960's. This time it's not a matter of "commies running the UN" but simple, everyday, ordinary greed…the way business is customarily done in most of the "Third World," in other words.
Decades of unethical management, diplomatic immunity and success have taught the UN bureaucracy (largely made up of connected people from the privileged elites of a number of nations that are quagmires of corruption) that it can get away with just about anything.
Now that some lights have been turned on in dark corners, the roaches are scuttling for their hidey-holes. Here's a quote from a recent editorial:
…Annan, who championed diplomatic moves that would have left Saddam Hussein in power, can't be let off the hook. Evidence continues to mount that he's been less than forthcoming about his role in the scandal…
It's The Demographics, Stupid
The West can deal with terrorism, but it can't deal with the rising tide.
For the first time since the establishment of Israel, the proportion of Jews living in territories under the country's control has dropped below 50 percent, standing slightly more than 49 percent…
The trend is clear in Israel, which will not be a Jewish state in a very few decades. It is less clear in Holland, France, Germany, Sweden…but the trend is still there: we are witnessing slow, steady conquest by immigration and high birth rates. Unlike most immigrants, Muslims do not assimilate and join the host culture. They remain apart, forbid anyone in their communities to drift away from the religion that unites them, and teach hatred of the surrounding unbelievers.
Where Did We Hear Something Very Like This Before?? Oh, Yeah….
Oh people of the West, don't be fooled by the lies of Blair and Bush that you are free nations, for the only freedom that you have is the freedom to be slaves of your whims and desires. Your children are free to be deprived of their childhood and their innocence. Your women are free to be used as tools of business and entertainment, and all of you as a whole are the slaves of con men and women who rule you. They are your real enemies. If you only knew — they are the ones who drag your countries to the pit of America's group of scavengers, who seek to ravage the entire globe for the interests of a handful of gangsters and corporate companies. Democracy, human rights, and freedom are all but hollow illusions, with which they tranquilize inhabitants of the human farms which they control. The Muslim world is not your backyard. The Muslim world is not Germany, Japan, or South America. The honorable sons and daughters of Islam will not sit down, watching you spread your evil and immorality and infidelity to our land. The honorable sons of Islam will not just let you kill our families in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the Balkans, Indonesia, the Caucuses, and elsewhere. It is time for us to be equals — as you kill us, you will be killed, as you bomb us, you will be bombed.
What does this sound like? We say about 80% of it sounds exactly like the rhetoric used by the folks who denounce US-UK policy in Iraq.
A German View
Der Spiegel (The Mirror) is a weekly newsmagazine in Germany that got its start copying the style, appearance and editorial policy of the USA's Time magazine. Then it got bulkier and began experimenting with the fashionable "progressives" who generally hate the USA, capitalism, and Liberty, but won't admit it.
Here's what the German Mirror thinks of the USA these days, as introduced and the followed by comments from a weblog that specializes in the European print news media:
While SPIEGEL – with a few caveats – is almost enthusiastic about China's future, the main thrust of the cover story is the alleged economic and political decline of the U.S. in the face of an unrelenting competitor. (Of course, SPIEGEL uses numerous doom and gloom U.S. "experts" to prove its point – nothing new under the sun.)
Excerpts (translation and emphasis ours):
Products for the US market are increasingly produced in the cheap factories of the new Asian economic wonderland and jobs are increasingly being exported.
China's steep climb has left America in a collective state of shock.
The era of American dominance is heading towards its end, the century of Asia, with China as its central point, has begun.
For most experts, it is only a question of time until the Chinese economy surpasses the American.
Nearly everyday the Americans experience a feeling that was earlier unknown to them: They are being trumped.
Two unequal competitors are facing off in this struggle: There are the Chinese bursting with self-confidence — and there is the USA, economically and militarily number one by a long distance, but weary and increasingly plagued by self-doubts.
The Americans will still have to learn many surprising lessons in red capitalism.
America, the otherwise so self-confident nation, is thrown into deep self-doubts over such reports.
Fear is blowing through the offices of lobbyists and union headquarters of the capitol city and through the halls of Congress on Capitol Hill.
The US has fallen into a vicious cycle.
A downward spiral has been set in motion that leaves many experts cold.
Has America already lost the challenge from of the Far East? Are there no more options in the land of endless possibilities, is the long-term decline inevitable?
Doesn't matter which nations George W. Bush and Hu Jiantao visit: The man from Peking scores far more points with his ideology-free countenance.
China – you will win, hands down. Forget the miserable human rights record, the record setting executions, the profound lack of basic democratic rights, the abysmal wages, the dire living conditions for the vast majority of the people, the idiocy of central planning and the lack of a convertible currency. China has the formula for success. The U.S. is a failure – haven't we told you so before?
If this German attack on the USA and praise for the "ideology-free" face of China's leadership seems a bit familiar, that's because this sort of attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophesy expresses the suicidal tendencies of the West. It's a trendy pose often affected by the intellectual snobs whose cocktail party chatter sounds more like the recitation of a bibliography than interesting conversation.
PreviousNumber 81
NextNumber 83
Copyright 2016 New Terrapin Gazette
Designed by 3rd St. Web