Monday, March 31, 2008

ANOTHER CUTE LITTLE FILM BY HAMAS



While the incorrigible Muslim world is busy exerting itself with real threats of boycotts, recalling diplomats, apologies, and an avalanche of fatwahs against Geert Wilders and his film "Fitna" which features nothing but Muslims being Muslims, we are also treated to the following propaganda from Hamas teaching Arab children to grow up to be thugs just like themselves. Here is an excerpt from a puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 30, 2008. And the United States does nothing, but whine about it in blogs like this one. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY at the top seems to be listening. One thing is certain. The puppetmasters certainly have this weak president's number. More jizya, and lots of it, in human assets and treasure, is his only response to one Islamic outrage after another. We must STOP this appeasement madness!

Bush: Who are you? What brings you to my home? How did they let you in, boy? My guards! My soldiers! Get this boy out of here.

Child: Nobody will take me out of here.

Bush: Who are you to come here and threaten me?! You are on my own turf, you little child, you! Get out. My dear, bring your father, your grandfather, or your mother, so I can talk to them. Get somebody older and smarter than you. What, you came here on your own?

Child: You killed daddy in the Iraq war. It's true, you killed him in the Iraq war. As for my mom—you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!

Bush: What are you talking about? Where did you come from? Don't I have enough troubles already? Where did you come from?

Child: I have come to take revenge with this sword – revenge for my mother and my sisters. You are a criminal, Bush! You are despicable. You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword.

Bush: No... No, my dear. I give you my word that this is it. I repent, just don't kill me. Where are my guards? Where are my people? Help! Help! He wants to kill me. Help!

Child: There are no guards, and your people have surrendered, Bush. I have not come alone, Bush. I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you.

Bush: Okay, fine, that's enough. I will give you whatever you want from me.

Child: What can you give me? All I want is one thing. Bring back my father and mother. I don't want anything from you. I don't want anything from you, just bring back my father and mother. I place my trust in Allah. I need to kill you.

Bush: No, my dear. Enough. I will give you anything you want. I also... Enough with that. Come with all your friends to the White House. I will give you food and toys. We will sit in the White House and talk. You will get whatever you need.

Child: You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House.

Bush: What are you saying?! Why am I not allowed into the White House?

Child: Because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam. I will kill you just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab. I will kill you, Bush, because that is your fate.

Child stabs Bush repeatedly

Child: Ahhh, I killed him.

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE



There is the old story about a man whose family belonged to the German aristocracy prior to World War II, owning a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

“Very few people were true Nazis “he said,” but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by “experts” and “talking heads” that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Yet when we glance at at map we see Islam is on the march worldwide, and violence is in its step. Yet, even George Bush speaks of the religion of peace, as if the American people are too stupid to look around and note the discrepancies for themselves.

Although this unqualified assertion of majority of Muslims being peaceful may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, take the edge off our fear which is attacked as irrational, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history, and we are told to ignore our senses..

It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the “peaceful majority”, the “silent majority”, is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life. Here are some intuitions with regard to the coming strife of all-out war:

The Netherlands not long ago were, as was the entirety of Europe, underfoot and oppressed of the barbaric Third Reich. Not unlike their European counterparts, they, once again, suffer from a not dissimilar lack of foresight. The Islamists, along with their leftist aiders and abettors, cry out, demanding Fitna be banned—and the handwringing begins with frivolous earnest.

The airy Euros insist on digging the proverbial hole deeper and deeper. This has been an inherent mindset for a century, if not more. Then, without shame, they will beg the big, bad wolf called America to disinter them from the grave in which they, blindly, entombed themselves.

This is not to be smug—America, and without doubt, her neighbor to the north, also wobble when it comes to dealing with Islam, radical or not—finding themselves rooted in the insanity of political-correctness and gross expediency.

Question of the day: How many leftists and other Islamist apologists will view Fitna?

I fear far more of them are secreting personal Qu'rans and prayer mats under their beds for the day, they hope, of capitulation. After all, they rationalize, this hated capitalism will also fall in this false flag scenario.

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

NOT SO FAST, CONGRESSMAN

Wilders
THE NETHERLANDS IS BRACING for a new round of violence at home and against its embassies in the Middle East. The storm would be caused by "Fitna," a short film that is scheduled to be released this week. The film, which reportedly includes images of a Quran being burned, was produced by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and leader of the Freedom Party. Mr. Wilders has called for banning the Quran—which he has compared to Hitler's "Mein Kampf"—from the Netherlands.

After concern about the film led Mr. Wilders's Internet service provider to take down his Web site, Mr. Wilders issued a statement this week that he will personally distribute DVDs "On the Dam" if he has to. That may not be necessary, as the Czech National Party has reportedly agreed to host the video on its Web site.

Excellent, sir. All details comport to known intelligence. Those first two paragraphs of a letter penned by Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra state plainly the case against Islamic aggression and taqiyya. However, the good legislator then stumbles with typical Western appeasement in his next paragraph:

Reasonable men in free societies regard Geert Wilders's anti-Muslim rhetoric, and films like "Fitna," as disrespectful of the religious sensitivities of members of the Islamic faith. But free societies also hold freedom of speech to be a fundamental human right. We don't silence, jail or kill people with whom we disagree just because their ideas are offensive or disturbing. We believe that when such ideas are openly debated, they sink of their own weight and attract few followers.

Wait a minute. Not so fast, Congressman. Reasonable men in free societies have no trouble at all exposing the "religious sensibilities" of the Islamic faith, a supremicist faith which does not curry nor warrant the respect of the West. Neither does this so-called religion curry or warrant the respect of the West's concept of the freedom of religion because reciprocity is forbidden to them by their own holy books and traditions. This so-called faith is a complete totalitarian system and is itself the trouble. This totalitarian faith is a free society's declared enemy. And we are not fooled by your controlled acquiesence to this menace, sir. But let us allow the Congressman to continue:

Our country allows fringe groups like the American Nazi Party to demonstrate, as long as they are peaceful. Americans are permitted to burn the national flag. In 1989, when so-called artist Andres Serrano displayed his work "Piss Christ"—a photo of a crucifix immersed in a bottle of urine—Americans protested peacefully and moved to cut off the federal funding that supported Mr. Serrano. There were no bombings of museums. No one was killed over this work that was deeply offensive to Christians.

Criticism of Islam, however, has led to violence and murder world-wide. Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie over his 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses." Although Mr. Rushdie has survived, two people associated with the book were stabbed, one fatally. The 2005 Danish editorial cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad led to numerous deaths. Dutch director Theodoor van Gogh was killed in 2004, several months after he made the film "Submission," which described violence against women in Islamic societies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch member of parliament who wrote the script for "Submission," received death threats over the film and fled the country for the United States.

The violence Dutch officials are anticipating now is part of a broad and determined effort by the radical jihadist movement to reject the basic values of modern civilization and replace them with an extreme form of Shariah. Shariah, the legal code of Islam, governed the Muslim world in medieval times and is used to varying degrees in many nations today, especially in Saudi Arabia.

Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. In some countries, converting a Muslim to another faith is a crime punishable by death. While Muslim clerics are free to preach and proselytize in the West, some Muslim nations severely restrict or forbid other faiths to do so. In addition, moderate Muslims around the world have been deemed apostates and enemies by radical jihadists.

Radical jihadists believe representative government is un-Islamic, and urge Muslims who live in democracies not to exercise their right to vote. The reason is not hard to understand: When given a choice, most Muslims reject the extreme approach to Islam. This was recently demonstrated in Iraq's Anbar Province, which went from an al-Qaeda stronghold to an area supporting the U.S.-led coalition. This happened because the populace came to intensely dislike the fanatical ways of the radicals, which included cutting off fingers of anyone caught smoking a cigarette, 4 p.m. curfews, beatings and beheadings. There also were forced marriages between foreign-born al Qaeda fighters and local Sunni women.

There may be a direct relationship between the radical jihadists' opposition to democracy and their systematic abuse of women. Women have virtually no rights in this radical world: They must conceal themselves, cannot hold jobs, and have been subjected to honor killings. Would most women in Muslim countries vote for a candidate for public office who supported such oppressive rules?

Not all of these radicals are using violence to supplant democratic society with an extreme form of Shariah. Some in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are attempting to create parallel Islamic societies with separate courts for Muslims. According to recent press reports, British officials are investigating the cases of 30 British Muslim school-age girls who "disappeared" for probable forced marriages.

While efforts to create parallel Islamic societies have been mostly peaceful, they may actually be a jihadist "waiting game," based on the assumption that the Islamic populations of many European states will become the majority over the next 25-50 years due to higher Muslim birth rates and immigration. [Emphasis added and note: This is precisely what happened in Lebanon]

What is particularly disturbing about these assaults against modern society is how the West has reacted with appeasement, willful ignorance, and a lack of journalistic criticism. Last year PBS tried to suppress "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," a hard-hitting documentary that contained criticism of radical jihadists. Fortunately, Fox News agreed to air the film.

Even if the new Wilders film proves newsworthy, it is likely that few members of the Western media will air it, perhaps because they have been intimidated by radical jihadist threats. The only major U.S. newspaper to reprint any of the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons was Denver's Rocky Mountain News. You can be sure that if these cartoons had mocked Christianity or Judaism, major American newspapers would not have hesitated to print them.

European officials have been similarly cautious. A German court ruled last year that a German Muslim man had the right to beat his wife, as this was permitted under Shariah [emphasis added]. Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, stated last month that the implementation of some measure of Shariah in Britain was "unavoidable" and British Muslims should have the choice to use Shariah in marital and financial matters.

So explain to me again why we should respect this so-called religion?

I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence. We must not fool ourselves into believing that we can appease the radical jihadist movement by allowing them to set up parallel societies and separate legal systems, or by granting them special protection from criticism.

And why Congressman, are you not convinced that Geert Wilders in correct in his assessment of Islam? You sir, are more politically correct than you give yourself credit. We did not allow Nazis into this country in the years leading up to and during World War II. Why do we persist in allowing Muslim immigration into this country, knowing what we know, knowing what even you seem to know?

A central premise of the American experiment are these words from the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." There are similar statements in the U.S. Constitution, British Common Law, the Napoleonic Code and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. As a result, hundreds of millions in the U.S. and around the world enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and many other rights.

These liberties have been won through centuries of debate, conflict and bloodshed. Radical jihadists want to sacrifice all we have learned by returning to a primitive and intolerant world. While modern society invites such radicals to peacefully exercise their faith, we cannot and will not sacrifice our fundamental freedoms.

Mr. Hoekstra, who was born in the Netherlands, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

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BLEEDING HEARTS LIBERALS WITH TIGHT FISTS

charity
The following article is from the desk of conservative columnist George F. Will, who takes a swipe at the liberal constituencies in our midst. Before we stoop to fiscal stereotyping, a quick glance at the money-raising abilities of his year's presidential hopefuls show another non-intuitive trend as both of the current Democratic candidates continue to out-trawl Republican candidate John McCain. Now read about liberal charity:

Residents of Austin, home of Texas's government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."

Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

  • Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

  • Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

  • Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

  • Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

  • In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

  • People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

    Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government.

    Read it all.

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  • Tuesday, March 25, 2008

    SUSPICIOUS MATERIAL FOUND IN DC

    hazmat
    ONE MAN IS DEAD in an apparent suicide, and 13 people, including 11 fire personnel, were taken to hospitals after a hazardous material was found in a single-family dwelling in Northwest. D.C. fire department spokesman Alan Etter said authorities were called to the home in the 4300 block of 36th Street about 4:40 p.m. Monday. A dead man was found with a small vial of the substance lying next to him.

    Fire officials said police left the home and summoned the hazmat crew, which is standard procedure. Etter said 11 fire personnel, one police officer and one neighbor were taken to local hospitals as a precaution, adding, that because a police investigation is under way, the fire department will not identify the dangerous substance.

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    KEVORKIAN TO RUN FOR CONGRESS

    Kevorkian
    JACK KEVORKIAN, the assisted-suicide advocate who served eight years in prison for second-degree murder, announced Monday he's running for Congress as an independent. Kevorkian, 79, is jumping into a competitive congressional race, challenging a Republican incumbent for a district in suburban Detroit.

    "I'm not a politician," Kevorkian said, adding he is not tied to anybody or anything. "My mind is free. So I can say what I think." Although he has been nicknamed "Dr. Death," Kevorkian didn't say much about assisted suicide at his news conference. He alluded to it, though, saying: "What I did was my right."

    If elected, he said his main priority will be promoting the little-known Ninth Amendment, which protects rights not explicitly specified elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Kevorkian said he interprets it as protecting a person's choice to die through assisted suicide or to avoid wearing a seat belt. He said the government is tyrannical. "You've been trained to obey it, not fight for it because the tyrant doesn't like that," Kevorkian said.

    Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, claims to have helped at least 130 people die from 1990 until 1998. He said he was proud to serve his prison term for helping Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease, die in 1998. He was convicted of second-degree murder the following year.

    Just 10 months removed from prison, Kevorkian said he does not plan to actively raise money but said he will accept it if someone donates to his campaign. Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg, who is seeking re-election, ended the year with more than $1 million in his account. Gary Peters, a former state senator and state lottery commissioner who is seeking the Democratic nomination, had more than $360,000 in the bank.

    Read it all.

    Whatever happened to the rule I believe I learned in junior highschool civics class about convicted felons forever forfeiting their right to the vote? And if one can no longer vote, surely one is no longer eligible to hold public office. A bit of online homework clarified this issue for me. True—I had heard of other felons holding office, even running for office from jail, but somehow I suppose I thought that those convicted of murder somehow still did not qualify.

    I was wrong. The black voter disenfranchisement issue that began its sweep through the old regime to now allow convicted felons a fresh opportunity to join the process of participating with the free citizenry happened right there in my own lifetime, and I had never taken notice. Of course. What was I thinking...

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    WAR MACHINE AIMS TO CURTAIL FREE SPEECH

    No silly. I'm not referencing the Bush administration. All bellicose references to Nazi-like affectations directed at Bush and company, despite its monumental failures of judgement, are ridiculous cacricatures at best, filthy projections of a distorted and mismanaged mind, in numbers too strained to recant, in their worst form. Thanks, but no thanks. Rather, on this fine March day, I am referring once again to the war machinery of soiled thugs husting over hill and dale at the IOC.

    Jihad Watch is vigilant, as Robert Spencer reports:

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    Sunday, March 23, 2008

    ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND THE WAR

    In speaking to the global energy question Morgaan Sinclair writes that the Middle East Forum had a Middle East Briefing in New York with Jim Woolsey in November 2005. Woolsey explained the situation this way:

    Every time in the past that America has started making noises about environmentalism and getting off oil, the Saudis have flooded the short-term light sweet crude market, which then lulls Americans into a false sense of security about prices, and all the investment capital for alternative energies dries up.

    Now that the 4AR IPCC reports have come out—and climate science is no longer based on (really sage) models, but data, the Keeling Curve is absolutely incontrovertible in its implications. There is no longer any serious debate (except among those on the payroll of Big Oil and Coal) about what is going on. There is only debate about whether or not the bullet has left the gun or whether we have a little bit of time to top the Type Climate changes from hitting us hard.

    Hansen says the bullet has left the chamber; Holdren, McCarthy et al. claim that we have 5-10 years to reverse course.

    Now the Saudis know that the worldwide community is onto the global climate change problem ("global warming" is a very unfortunate misnomer, because it's about climate extremes of both hot and cold triggered by an overly warm general atmospheric condition). So now they're not bothering with playing around with short-term resources.

    THEY ARE TRYING TO BANKRUPT THE WEST WHILE SHARI'A COMPLIANT BANKS ARE FUNNELING THE MONEY OUT OF THE USUAL INTERNATIONAL MARKETS INTO ONES THEY CONTROL SO THEY CAN BECOME THE WORLD'S LENDERS.

    GET OFF OIL. It's much more serious on both fronts than most people image. Coal is not the answer. Corn is a disaster. But back-end switch grass ethanol is a good solutio. Switch grass grew on the American prairie before the US was settled (except by Indians) and it is what we grow on agricultural fallow years to replenish the soil. So we MUST grow it, and with switch grass ethanol the farmers can make money off something that is usually not productive, and it doesn't interfere with the production of food.

    Nix on coal. And liquid coal carbon sequestration is an outright LIE. It's bullshit.

    If you feel you need more education on global climate change, click here. This article is a couple of years old, but the situation looks even worse now than it did then. But this is a superlative article to get a TRUE overview of the problem. D. Holdren (immediate past pres of AAAS) explains it extremely well for the non-scientist.

    To get a picture of why Woolsey says that Republicans who realize the war on terror is real, and Democrats who realize that the environmental problems are real SHOULD BE NATURAL ALLIES. So we must get off oil for a plethora of reasons:

    (1) We are paying our enemies $1 billion a day for oil, and they are making bombs with it.

    (2) That kind of balance of payments problem bleeds the jugular of the American economy.

    (3) We don't dare tell 'em to shove it.

    (4) The Chinese, who bear us no good will, are holding our paper on that debt, as well as selling us cheap goods, which also bleeds the economy of $1 billion a day.

    (5) This situation makes it impossible for us to really stop anything. We can't tell the Saudis and Chavez to shove it with any authority. We can't tell the Bangladeshis to take care of their population problems. We can't help the starving of Africa. We can't demand that bad governments and religions stop abusing women.

    We invented the light bulb, the airplane, the radio, the television, and nuclear fission. We went to the moon. It's not a matter that we can't. It's a matter that we're too damned soft and lazy and arrogant to fix it.

    "No civilization was ever conquered from without that did not first destroy itself from within."
    —Will Durant

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    Saturday, March 15, 2008

    BOYCOTT MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

    An informed consumer is key is helping wean Americans off oil pumped by the corrupt Saudis and other OPEC nations. This information is available from the Department of Energy. Each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing. These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

    Shell.................. 205,742,000 barrels
    Chevron/Texaco..........144,332,000 barrels
    Exxon /Mobil............130,082,000 barrels
    Marathon/Speedway.......117,740,000 barrels
    Amoco....................62,231,000 barrels

    Citgo Gas comes from Hugo Chavez, the communists dictator from Venezuela, whose policies are running his country into the ground. Here are some large companies that DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

    Sunoco................0 barrels
    Conoco................0 barrels
    Sinclair..............0 barrels
    BP/Phillips..... .....0 barrels
    Hess................. 0 barrels
    ARC0. ................0 barrels

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    TRUMAN AND THE BOMB

    Revisionism seems to know no bounds these days. Much has been made lately by such people as Lyndon La Rouche, the Oddly Named Truthers, and certain other bleeding heart cartels about the nature of the lead-up to President Harry S. Truman's use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The lack of and the twisting of historical knowledge almost amazes me. People chatter about the decision to use the A-bombs as if Japan was just minding its own business and the evil USA suddenly decided to drop the bombs on them for no reason.

    WELL, THAT AINT THE WAY IT HAPPENED! Japan had been attacking China since 1937, and featured such atrocities as the Rape of Nanking. It was for this reason that the U.S. cut off supplies such as oil to Japan. That is what "antagonized" them into attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941 (anybody still remember that?). The Japanese then declared war after the attack. Did the USA force them to do that as well?

    And as far the caveat of knowing about the attack ahead of time, an attack was suspected, but just as in the case of September 11, there was no specific beat on what kind of attack to expect. "Experts" predicted one by submarines or sabotage, not by air (Sorry, Pearl Harbor Truthers). Once the war in the Pacific commenced, Japanese prison camps rivaled the Nazis in brutality, and even included beheadings (sound familiar).

    Certainly much worse than can be said about Club Gitmo. And contrary to revisionist belief, Japan was not ready to surrender as long as the Emperor was protected. That was the view of a few pragmatic politicians. The vast majority of the government and populace were ready to fight to the end, and were arming themselves for such. Estimates run that an invasion would have cost anywhere from to 10 million Japanese lives, and extended the war by several years.

    After suffering the devastating bombs, some Japanese military officers tried to stop the Emperor from making the surrender announcment. And after finding old Japanese soldiers still hiding in the jungles of isolated islands, who refused to surrender, this seemed to have been part of the early indoctrinization process of the Japanese people. These are not the peace-loving people that Western PCers want to believe they were.

    These two bombings initiated dreadful atrocities that one should vigilantly hope will never face mankind again. But so did ALL the warfare of the past century, the one before it, and the one before it, et cetera. War is hell. War kills, maims, disfigures, and disturbs. But the United States and its people continue to be labeled international monsters by the Hate America crowds when in fact it is certain of committing far less violence than what the WW2 Japanese actually was carrying out for far longer in its very active war of aggression.

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    Friday, March 14, 2008

    SENATOR THRASHES MEXICAN TRUCK POLICY

    Have you been following this outrage? A combative Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters was accused in a Senate hearing yesterday of defying a congressional vote to halt the Bush administration's controversial project allowing Mexican trucks to operate freely on U.S. roads.

    "I regret supporting your nomination to be secretary of transportation," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., told Peters. "Your legal counsel is giving you bad advice that unfortunately you have willingly accepted."

    Dorgan charged the Department of Transportation was "hell-bent on proceeding with this pilot program" regardless of safety concerns the agency's inspector general continues to document. "You believe you have found a loophole, but you are making a very big mistake," Dorgan warned Peters, adding, "This is a slap in the face of Congress," he declared, "and your arrogance will have consequences."

    Dorgan joined with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Reps. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn, and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., in a bipartisan, bicameral request for the General Accountability Office to investigate the DOT's decision to continue the cross-border Mexican truck demonstration project. The lawmakers charged DOT has violated the Antideficiency Act, which specifies both civil and criminal penalties when federal government officials spend money not appropriated by Congress.

    Still, Peters indicated the Department of Transportation was determined to persist with the Mexican project even if a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should order DOT to stop in response to a suit brought by the Teamsters. "We will appeal any adverse court decision to the Supreme Court," Peters told the committee, "but we have no plan right now to stop the current cross-border Mexican truck demonstration project."

    As reported, the Senate voted 74 to 24 in September to prohibit the DOT from using any funds in its fiscal year 2008 budget for the truck project, a measure signed into law by President Bush Dec. 26 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The Bush administration, however, has decided to proceed with the program, contending the congressional language prohibited only the creation of future pilot programs, not the current one.

    "This is sheer nonsense," Dorgan told Peters, opening what turned out to be a very tense hearing. "I have a letter from the Senate legislative counsel, who drafted this provision. The letter states very clearly that the amendment passed by Congress 'intended to preclude the carrying out of any demonstration program, including the pilot program put into effect in September 2007."

    DOT general counsel D.J. Gribbin, accompanying Peters at the hearing, asserted the exact legislative language prohibited the department only from spending 2008 funds "to establish" any new programs. Gribbin further argued that by not specifying "establish or implement," Congress did not prohibit DOT from implementing a project that already had been established when the Dorgan amendment passed, regardless of what Congress may have intended.

    In the following exchange, Dorgan expressed outrage, charging that Peters and the Bush administration were engaging in an exercise to parse words, when the legislative intent of Congress was clear. "You know better than that," Dorgan chided Gribbin. "I find it a creative way to read the statute, but everybody disagrees with you."

    Dorgan produced a chart quoting Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the floor of the Senate the evening the Dorgan amendment passed, saying, "Unfortunately, the Senate has voted 74 to 24 to prevent the pilot from going forward."

    "Everybody understood what we were voting for," Dorgan countered. "The vote was an overwhelming expression of the Senate to block the cross-border Mexican truck demonstration project, and everybody knew it."

    Also appearing with Peters was Calvin L. Scovel III, the DOT inspector general. Scovel's office issued an interim report Monday on the demonstration project which concluded that not every Mexican truck entering the U.S. was undergoing the safety checks Peters initially had promised Congress.

    "The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has yet failed to implement key quality control elements that the Department of Transportation assured Congress would now be in place," Scovel was forced to admit.

    "We simply don't know if every Mexican truck has been inspected every time it enters the United States," he conceded under intense questioning from Dorgan.

    In a statement issued Monday, Dorgan said the Transportation Department "is not above the law."

    "When Congress passes a law that says no funds can be used for this program, we mean no funds can be used for this program," he said. "The Department of Transportation cannot simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow and which laws they want to break."

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    Wednesday, March 12, 2008

    ISLAM: THE PILLAGING CIVILIZATION



    On the question of the Golden Age of Islam, we have replied to this many times. You should read Fjordman's essay on that topic. Even in Europe's "Dark Ages" one is lead by rationality to believe the Europeans were evenly matched if not farther along than the Muslims.

    To read postings by Muslims from the Middle East with all their spelling errors due to the lack of vowels in the Arabic language, one might question the whole "translation of texts" story that keeps getting repeated.

    To suggest that once Rome was defeated, that the books of the collpased empire, which by then had circulated throughout Europe, were suddenly not available until an Islamic rescue is a rather quaint and fictitious notion. Did Greek and Roman 'thought' cease to exist simply because the empire had outlived its usefulness? Unlikely. Anything emanating from the Middle East after Islam was the result of them plundering it and bringing it home, and from the graces of their captives being able to preserve it.

    Look to the Far East for the origin of the techniques of ceramics. Italy's own Marco Polo traveled through the Middle East on his way to China, and commented that there was nothing to be found but murderers, liars and thieves.

    Even the new world was discovered because the merchants could not safely pass through the Middle East on their way to the Far East and they were looking for a safer route. Not necessarily a shorter route—a safer route. Remember the Cape Horn was also a very dangerous route.

    Muslims take credit for far many things that, if one really investigates closely, just does't make sense.

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    Monday, March 10, 2008

    THE DONNYBROOK AT THE FBI

    The WorldNetDaily story below illustrates why I regularly point out how “political correctness” is aiding and abetting the advance of militant Islam in America and to an even far greater degree, in Europe. One line is especially revealing:

    “The [FBI] officials said terrorism is "not a new phenomenon" limited to Muslims, and they cited abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph as an example of a Christian terrorist.”

    The problem with this stilted reasoning is that very few terrorist acts worldwide are perpetrated by Christians, whereas since 9/11 over 9,000 verifiable acts of terrorism have been perpetrated worldwide by Muslims.

    Furthermore, nowhere in the New Testament are Christians exhorted to “smite infidels” or forcibly subjugate unbelievers, as is the case in the Qur’an and the Hadith. To gloss over or rationalize Islamic terrorism by pointing to a handful of “Christian terrorists” is a revealing example of political correctness run amok in the FBI, a political correctness that some field agents tell us they vehemently disagree with.

    Nevertheless, true to its directive from on high (Saudi blackmail), the FBI believes its agents still aren't sensitive enough to Muslims and their culture, so the bureau has extended by "a few weeks" its Islamic cultural "enrichment" training program, WND has learned. During a recent outreach event at a Washington-area mosque, FBI officials also reassured a large turnout of concerned Muslims that the bureau is not profiling Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and has made investigating alleged "hate crimes" against them and other minorities "the second-highest priority in the criminal division of the FBI."

    Among the officials who attended the Feb. 8 "town hall meeting" at the large ADAMS Center mosque were Timothy Healy, deputy assistant director for FBI intelligence, and Dave Bennett, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington field office. The officials said terrorism is "not a new phenomenon" limited to Muslims, and they cited abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph as an example of a Christian terrorist.

    While admitting that they are concerned about the threat from "homegrown terror" perpetuated by second-generation Muslim immigrants, the officials assured the Muslim audience they are no more concerned about such homegrown attacks than they are "about bank robberies," and are not targeting the Muslim community for special surveillance.

    Of course, I am also very concerned about recently immigrated terrorists, such as those who flew into the Twin Towers. Recent evidence provided by news stories suggesting both our southern and northern borders are under assault.

    One official offered that FBI headquarters has extended the bureau's Arabic curriculum, which includes Muslim culture, by "a few weeks" to expose agents to Islam and cultivate a better understanding of the faith.

    "We all need to learn and understand each other," he said, adding that the Muslim sensitivity program is part of basic training for agents.

    "One of the things that the FBI believes in is diversity," he said. "Diversity is important."

    To that end, he says the bureau is "under a hiring push this year" and is heavily recruiting Muslim agents. The FBI wants to hire 900 FBI agents and 2,000 professional support staff, including Arabic translators, by Sept. 30. [emphasis added and note: why does the FBI routinely reject Christians and Jews who are fluent in Arabic who apply to be translators?]

    "One of the things that we are critically seeking are special agents and support staff who are Arabic speakers," he announced to the audience at the ADAMS mosque, which was founded and funded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.

    "We also need folks who, candidly, are familiar with Islam," the official said. "We're learning, many of us. And I've had many conversations with Muslims, and I've learned quite a bit. I'm a Roman Catholic, and there are so many similarities I have learned between Islam and Christianity that was a surprise to me."

    ADAMS Center is not the only Muslim Brotherhood-tied organization where the FBI has recruited agents. In September, it also set up a recruitment booth at the annual Islamic Society of North America convention. Just four months earlier, federal prosecutors named ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror fundraising case, and listed it as a member of the U.S. branch of the radical Brotherhood.

    What's more, the agency is advertising for agents in ISNA's magazine "Islamic Horizons," as well as on the website of the Saudi-backed Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which has supported Hamas and other known terrorists.

    Last November, Lebanese former FBI agent Nada Prouty was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a Hezbollah espionage investigation. As WND first reported, the FBI summarily rejected some 90 Jewish Arabic speakers who after 9/11 applied to become translators and language specialists at the FBI's New York field office.

    As WND also first reported in 2003, national Arab-American and Muslim leaders have made presentations at an FBI training course on civil rights at the Washington offices of the FBI, and at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., as part of "Enrichment Training Sessions" for new special agents there.

    In addition, the imam of a large Manhattan mosque has lectured veteran counterterrorism investigators at the FBI's New York field office about misinterpretation of the meaning of jihad in the Quran, the Muslim holy book. The sensitivity training program, denounced by some active and former agents, was mandated after the 9/11 attacks by FBI Director Robert Mueller. FBI headquarters defends the program as a way to reach out to the Muslim community in America.

    "I hate the word 'sensitivity' training," said FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell. "I would call it an awareness training relative to cultural issues."

    Mueller has met several times with Arab and Muslim groups since 9/11. He even agreed to be the keynote speaker at the American Muslim Council conference in Washington—a move that drew fire from AMC critics, who note the group has sung the praises of Islamic terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, and was headed by al-Qaida fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi, now serving time in federal prison on terror charges.

    "Mueller should lead the FBI in this war, and leave the sensitivity sessions to the human resources department or CNN," complained retired FBI special agent Don Lavey, who served 20 years in the bureau's counterterrorism unit.

    "Let's just hope the director is leading the charge in this war against terrorism with an equal amount of zeal that he shows for cultural sensitivities," added Lavey, who claims Mueller is so politically correct he refuses to use "Islamic" and "terrorism" in the same sentence.

    Yeah, let's. Unfortunately nationality matters. If a scientist or engineer comes from China to the US for study or employment, there could be security concerns, while the same concerns would be less likely if the person came from Britain. In the 1940s aliens from enemy countries found their movement restricted. During the cold war those with Eastern European connections had difficulty getting security clearances. Today's enemies are motivated by Islam, by and large they come from Muslim countries. Many come from nations that are nominally allied to the US. Yes, this scrutiny causes problems but those problems are unavoidable in a dangerous world. End of story.

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    Monday, March 03, 2008

    PARSING TRADEMARK LAW, THE WRITTEN WORD, AND WOE TO THOSE DIMINISHING RETURNS

    Here is a disturbing email I received this morning. At first, I was stunned at the flagrant silliness of it all, but soon, the more serious soldier in me took hold, and I knew I had to earn my right to any two words I had begged, borrowed, stolen, or simply hustled into existence by the simple magnitude of "fair use" communication. But first, the email in question:

    Dear Ms. Thy:

    I just ran across an article you wrote on Idiotsheet entitled Most Important Art of the New Century, posted March 1, 2008, here, and I would like to raise an issue that is of concern to Selling Power magazine, which is the use of our trademark.

    The word "Selling Power" is sometimes erroneously used as a synonym for sales effectiveness. For example, your article states: “Rose, the Danish culture editor, saw the cartoons’ selling power." We do not condone such uses of our trademark.

    As a practical matter, when you describe sales effectiveness, there are a wide range of terms available such as: sales excellence, sales savvy, sales mastery, sales acumen, sales efficiency, and many more.

    The reason for this letter is to educate writers like yourself that we want to protect our trademark, since we don't want to risk Selling Power being declared by the courts a generic word. Therefore we ask you not to use Selling Power as a phrase since it is our legal trademark.

    We would like to receive a written acknowledgement of this letter stating that you will in the future identify Selling Power as a trademark if you should write about our magazine, and not use Selling Power as a phrase. If we do not hear from you, we will need to take further action.

    Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

    All the best,

    Gerhard Gschwandtner
    Founder and Publisher
    Selling Power
    1140 International Parkway
    Fredericksburg VA 22406
    Office: 540-752-7000 Cell: 540-273-2555

    P.S. Watch Selling Power videos online www.sellingpower.com/video


    Well, that was fun. So I started thinking about how to deal with this matter. I hadn't even penned the article, but here I was, a big man of little consequence, having to maneuver past a corporate threat to take further action against me. Here's the result:

    Dear Mr. Gerhard Gschwandtner,

    Thank you for your interesting letter, but you MUST be joking! I hardly think your "corporate trademarking powers" lend themselves to completely co-opting a rather common linguistic phrase (however tortured the phrase may appear to esteemed English professors everywhere), claiming sole ownership of the commonwealth of jargon, and thus effectively removing said phrase from the lexicon of ordinary speech, with the sole exception being to reference your magazine.

    And to make matters more difficult to curtail, this same article has been posted hundreds of times across the Internet, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Jihad Watch, and other prominent sites. Are they getting similar notifications from you? Probably so, but I am rather certain that they feel your claims are as unjustified as I do. I believe the article originated with the Wall Street Journal.

    Granted, I am not a trademark attorney, but I do believe common sense should easily rule out your own contentions, and leave the free association of words within language to common users, not to the speculators. While the courts do seem to rule in favor of trademark holders when a competing commercial firm tries to ease in on a valued branding, that precise scenario is not the case here.

    Think about it. Life Magazine's trademark status did not restrict the usage of the word life. People Magazine's trademark status did not limit usage of the word people. Time Magazine's trademark status did not forbid usage of the word time. And I hate to think how the Rolling Stones rock band and Rolling Stone Magazine finessed that sticky issue of trademarking. And while Apple Records and Apple Computer struggled for years with trademark issues, the word apple was not stripped from the tongues, pens, and crayons of men, women, and children everywhere. And what of Soldier of Fortune? Ditto for Consumer Reports, Family Business, SmartMoney, Good Housekeeping, Fair Play, Best Buy, and in these tough financial times, what ABOUT the Financial Times? And scratching further, we find the phrase "what's it like living in the USA today" would be verboten in your logic stream.

    Are people now being harassed for infringement of generic trademarks and slogans ripped whole and presented to the public from the common language, even without modification or branding reference, frequently found in fast food chain ad campaigns, trademarked phrases all?

    An example of one type of trademark limitation I have uncovered with a little research is that although Maytag owns the trademark "Whisper Quiet", makers of other products may describe their goods as being "whisper quiet" so long as these competitors are not using the phrase as a trademark.

    Items: You deserve a break today. Catch the wave. Have it your way. Where's the beef? Drivers wanted.

    Simply put, the phrases "selling power" and "buying power" are common phrases, and cannot simply be plucked off the tree for the sole benefit of corporations with an urge to monopolize lingusitic pursuits. I might be wrong, but I express doubts that the phrase "selling power" originated in the minds of your own public relations staff, and has arrived upon the contemporary scene as a result of your magazine.

    But of course, your entire case rests on this single point, does it not?

    Please don't misunderstand me, but ever since humanity has had to put up with politicians we've had to put up with people selling power. I heard just the other day that a thermal company in Ohio earns 20% of its annual revenue "selling power" to the city in which I live, Washington, DC.

    To address your possible rebuttal stance, here's a few pertinent passages from what I dug up on the Internet:

    b. Titles. Titles, while not protected under copyright law, are sometimes protected under trademark and unfair competition laws. However, one-shot titles, no matter how clever they are, are not automatically entitled to trademark protection. To be protected, titles must achieve "secondary meaning." Secondary meaning is akin to the commercial magnetism of a title. As a rule, to be protected, titles must be "broadly known." Series titles, unlike one-shot titles, make good trademarks candidates. In addition, a title in one medium, will be protected in another.

    Trademark Dilution (alluded to in your email)

    Trademark dilution refers to the whittling away of a famous trademark's distinctiveness through unauthorized use. Under federal trademark dilution law, the owner of a "famous" mark is entitled to stop another person's commercial use of its mark that dilutes, blurs or tarnishes its "distinctive quality." Unlike traditional trademark infringement, neither likelihood of confusion, nor competition between the parties' goods is required.

    What the federal trademark dilution statute does (15 U.S.C. 1125(c)) is make parody and satire, especially in advertisements and commercials, a high risk endeavor. For example, where there's a negative or unwholesome connotation about a "famous" mark, courts are likely to enjoin use.

    TIP: Trademark dilution only applies to strong marks. Dilution can occur when a well- recognized mark is parodied in an advertisement, even if there is no likelihood of confusion.

    At the top of the list are arbitrary or fanciful terms, which have no pre-existing association with the underlying product (e.g., CAMPY, 7-UP, XEROX, KODAK). As you move up on the trademark ladder, trademark owners receive additional trademark protection. For example, the mark McDonald, which has no association with fast food restaurants (other than that which they created through brilliant marketing), receives extremely broad protection. Indeed, they have prevented all sorts of "McFreeloaders" -many of whom do not even compete in the food service industries. In addition, fanciful marks are presumed to be valid trademarks.


    Yes, I recall the Xerox complaint. From the 1970s-80s, if mem'ry serves. Seems the population, myself included, used the tradename ubiquitously as a verb meaning to photocopy, and after years of aggressive PR, the company finally seems to have won the day in stopping the practice. But what is Xerox up to these days? Not so ubiquitous. Definitely not a household word anymore. I suppose that is a "good thing" to certain types of trademark lawyers.

    I still catch myself using the offending term on occasion in a slip of the tongue. Of course, I would never "write" it down in verb form today for fear of upsetting a few lawyers itching for a fight, and after all, it's such an antiquated term, now. So perhaps you have a point, although one might think that the unwitting consumer honors rather than tarnishes the corporate image with its verb-making homage to an electronic process, as well as boosting the product line.

    Not quite the same, but isn't this eerily similar to the mistake IBM made with Bill Gates when DOS was barely three lines of code?

    And yet, despite armed to the teeth with attorneys, and victories in a courtroom, a famous hamburger chain has helped spawn the term, McJob, which has entered the working vocabulary of an entire generation of authors and writers and wage slaves alike, in a word meaning a lowpaying, cog in the wheel job, a temporary job until something better comes around, a word I've seen published in novels and countless newspaper and magazine articles. A word used disparagingly, or simply as a statement of descriptive fact. Then there's McMansion, an instant hit among the chattering classes in depicting all these large, brand spanking new, but generic crackerbox houses popping up in suburban real estate developments everywhere...

    I'm sorry sir, but I find your position nothing short of a misconceived strategy of corporate bullying or simply some sort of backwards advertizing. But to your certain delight, I have removed the offending column, but only because I have abandoned the entire blog, coincidentally just yesterday, for reasons stated in the final entry. But while I comprehend your threat to seek further action as if this phrase "selling power" were some majestic or magical phrase with only one possible grammatical impact, and that is as the title of your magazine, the irony is absolutely hilarious to me. In every courtroom there oscillates at least two, and usually three lawyers with very strong opinions. So there is still hope that common sense and better sense may one day rule the land.

    Again, I thank you for writing. And while it is clear I'm not a fan of your PR tactics, and believe your case against my second hand posting of the two words is weak, I do nevertheless appreciate your enthusiasm in educating me on the finer litigation points of trademark law, that fine line drawn between common language and commercial language, where language once thought to be blissfully free of baggage is whisked away from the wonderful plasticity of itself, and somehow spun out of control to re-enter an atmosphere where every word has a price beyond the marketplace because someone else pays a license fee which bestows ownership, a public image, and a profit margin to maintain, even in contexts where the trademark is not remotely impinged.

    There are no advertizements on my blog, nor do I make a dime for my troubles. And while I applaud your root capitalism, there are limits to ownership theory, surely one must admit, even in a free and flourishing ownership society.

    Regards,

    Gabriel Thy

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    Sunday, March 02, 2008

    TRACKING THE FIRST AMENDMENT



    In light of a recent "libel tourist" piece of legislation passing one house of the state legislature in New York, I wanted to respond to a common supposition many Americans have with regard to the "American experiment" called democracy. To paraphrase the tribal wit of the fictional Forrest Gump, democracy is as democracy does. And given this critical time in our nation's history when economical, cultural, and military strains are weakening our resolve to fight the good fight in some many areas of life, I will start with these three sentences.

    No foreign law trumps American law.

    No foreign restraint of freedom of speech can over-rule the First Amendment.

    Period.

    In theory, this is true, but American law is often subverted by the assailing forces of political expedience. If we postulate that the Saudis own a big enough chunk of American assets or debt to force capitulation to terms antithetical to the spirit and letter of American jurisprudence, this is not much different than the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn property rights law in favor of commercial interests. So surely, we all recognize the ingenuity of certain fee-tweaked minds laboring in the business of hairsplitting to "reinterpret" our most cherished legal language under the banner of protecting the "public" good to make what "once was" now a "relic of the past".

    As a staunch culture nationalist first, and a peace-loving kitsch-sharing globalist second, we should indeed keep a watchful eye out for this type of treasonous behavior in our leadership, and even those in the street, our neighbors, our friends, our families, and fight if must be to keep our constitutional freedoms, especially those which strengthen us and protect us from those enemies who would threaten not just these liberties, but our lives and our destiny as a free decent people. Upon reflection of other pressing matters such as lax immigration enforcement of policy, faulty trade agreements acrruing massive deficits, foreign takeovers of critical ports and other security-related operations, we can easily see that something is rotten in Denmark, and it isn't Denmark, but it is the enemy within, both foreign and domestic, who would continue to chip away at common sense and responsible liberty, and threaten all we with proven philosophies hold dear.

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    Saturday, March 01, 2008

    SAD THOUGHTS, TRUE THOUGHTS



    A totally diverse nation is not a nation in any meaningful way, for the concept of a nation is a shared language and culture. For all practical purposes, a common culture means a common religion or national character.

    It is interesting but maudlin to note that the desire to socially engineer a "diverse nation" is only prevalent among the political elite of the West. Nowhere else is such a pedantic idiocy given any currency.

    Personal identity, and by natural extension, one's "herd identity" is one of the most arresting, and primary psychological compulsions of human consciousness. It functions as both keel and rudder for the personality when the seas are calm as well as rough. When this identity is fractured by opposing forces, the personality as a whole suffers, and the struggle of that personality oscillating within the now competitive but often unrewarding environments of the self and citizen tends to distort those common grounds promised to and now expected by the personality.

    In its aim to socially engineer a "diverse nation", the political elite in Europe and even here in America are debilitating the West, modern civilization, and in the near future in a neighborhood near you, creating the conditions for a global war.

    No doubt, many will cite "racist" attitudes for the preceding paragraphs. When all else fails, just accuse someone of being racist, the most feared and hence the most preferred albatross to hang around the neck of anyone willing to contradict one of the many dubious spirits of this sorry age. But as noted earlier, it is only the Western dreamy-eyed neo-Marxist rascals who come to this conclusion, and practice multiculturalism with vim and vigor without insisting on the slightest reciprocity by its enemies, as if multiculturalism were a punishing commandment from God, or perhaps, Karl Marx himself.

    "What's the difference between an old Marxist and a neo-Marxist?" asks the young eager to please student of his master.

    "Not much. Same idealism. Different lies."

    But let me be plain here. Global Marxism, or heaven on earth is probably in humanity's future, if man doesn't destroy the earth before we get there. But when? A hundred years from now? A thousand?

    That should not concern us. Instead, we must ask ourselves, how do we get from here to there? That is the major question of our times. Planet Earth is simply not ready. We cannot force "our own" idealism upon the world, no matter how righteous it appears to us. Limited force is all-corrupting. All out force is limited to the survivors of such idealism. Even in the 1920s artists and visionaries understood the wide chasm between the dystopian nightmare and any sustainable peace of utopian paramours. Today's ideologues, hell-bent on "serenity now" not just for themselves, but for their distant neighbor too, even if it takes all the force the state can muster, seem to have flung every caution to the wind, all the while muttering, "Peace, now!"

    As if thrusting a wish upon a bright star ever really resulted in ushering forth a tooth fairy...

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