Why Democrats Raise Taxes And Why The Bridge To Nowhere Was A Bargain

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Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million?

Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president’s perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.

What’s more, the little remodel job that planners first thought would take three months has stretched into more than four years - and will probably mean the supervisors will have to move out of their hallowed hall for five months while the work is done.

“It’s crazy,” admits Susan Mizner, director of the mayor’s Office on Disability. “But this is just the price of doing business in a historic building.”

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick said Tuesday that the issue went to the heart of liberal guilt that often drives the city’s decision making. He also choked on the price tag, and asked that the board take some more time to come up with an alternative, like maybe just getting rid of the president’s elevated seat.

The root of the problem dates back to when City Hall got a $300 million makeover in the 1990s that made just about every hallway, bathroom and office accessible to the disabled. The exception was the board president’s podium, which is reachable only for someone who can climb the five steps from the chamber floor.

The understanding was that the room would eventually be made fully accessible. But no one worried about the podium until 2004 when Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who uses a wheelchair, joined the board.

City architect Tony Irons and representatives of the state Office of Historic Preservation - which had to be consulted to make sure the city was sensitive to the building’s designation as a state landmark - were called in to take measurements.

Then preservation architects from the San Francisco firm Page and Turnbill worked up no fewer than 18 design options - at a cost of $98,000 - with ideas ranging from an electric lift to abandoning the president’s lordly podium altogether.

No one could decide which design to use, so after a year of arguing, the Department of Public Works was ordered to make 3-D computer models of all the options.

The ramp won, which means lowering the president’s desk, which means eliminating three of the “historic” stairs and tearing out Manchurian oak panels that are no longer available, which in turn will mean finding a historically correct replacement.

And because the ramp was going to encroach on the room’s sound equipment, officials decided they might as well use the opportunity to upgrade the board chamber’s entire audio-visual system, to the tune of $300,000.

Here’s what else is going into the million-dollar ramp:

– $77,000 for the city’s Bureau of Architecture project manager, design and construction fees.

– $455,000 for the actual construction, plus asbestos removal.

– $28,000 for a construction scheduling consultant.

– $3,500 for an electrical consultant.

– $68,000 for the Bureau of Construction Management to oversee the construction and various consultants.

– $12,000 for Department of Technology and Information Services oversight.

– $16,500 for permits and fees. (Yes, believe it or not, the city charges itself.)

– And as much as $65,000 for bid overruns.

All for a total of: $1,123,000.

And counting.

The supervisors considered signing off on the work Tuesday but put it over for another week. Even if the board gives its final blessing, however, construction of the ramp won’t be completed before the end of the year - midway through Alioto-Pier’s second and final term.

“I deserve equal access to every part of the chamber,” Alioto-Pier told her colleagues, adding that ending discrimination is worth the $1 million.

Water war: The surprise discovery that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger provided funding for eight positions in his budget to begin work on the revived Peripheral Canal has state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata predicting the renewal of an all-out north-south water war.

“This is shocking - it’s the Dodgers vs. the Giants,” Perata said Tuesday after hearing rumors that the governor had also signed an executive order to start planning for a canal.

Bill Maile, a spokesman for the governor, said no such order had been issued. But he acknowledged that Schwarzenegger included $1.4 million in his budget for the environmental work in hopes of getting a water bond on the November ballot.

The centerpiece of the bond would be a canal that would divert water from the Sacramento River to Southern California, skirting the delta altogether.

Just last Thursday, the governor sat down with key legislative Democrats and Republicans - as well as Sen. Dianne Feinstein - to try to hash out a comprehensive water plan that would protect the delta and its quake-endangered levees. But no agreement was reached.

“It looks like there is a stealth deal going on now,” Perata said.

Hot wheels: State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata’s hot, hot, candy-red Dodge Charger - complete with its 20-inch chrome wheel rims - is up for sale on eBay.

Starting bid: $19,000.

Or you can pay $22,800 outright and drive it away.

Seems Perata lost his taste for the stud-rimmed look after he was carjacked at gunpoint over the holidays in Oakland in broad daylight.

At the time, it was thought the carjackers were after the rims, though no one knows for sure because no arrests were ever made.

When the 2006 Charger turned up in one piece in Richmond a few days later, Perata had already decided his sporting days were over.

The state Department of General Services recently sold the Charger to an unnamed private buyer at its monthly public auction for $17,800.

And now the buyer is trying to make a couple of bucks with a quick turnaround.

As the sale posting notes, this car has “a great story (maybe not so great) to go along with it!”

The ‘Bridge to Nowhere‘ carried a price tag of $231,000,000.

At $100,000 a foot, there would have been less than half a mile of roadway- barely enough for the entry and exit lamps for either side the bridge.

It’s your money. Think about that when you enter the voting booth.

The 911 Call You Want To Make

Getting Tough And Getting Hit Where It Hurts

From The Times of London:

Employers who hire illegal immigrants can be fined £10,000 ($19,800 USD- SC&A) per worker from today in cases involving negligence, compared with a previous figure of £5,000 ($9,900 USD).

If the employer acts knowingly, the penalty could be an unlimited fine or jail. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, described the moves, which include a points-based immigration system for people from outside the European Union, as “the biggest changes to British immigration policy in a generation”.

Highly skilled migrants who wish to extend their stay will have to have suitable employment. The points-based system, based on a system already in place in Australia, will be tested for highly skilled migrants applying from India in April, and extended to the rest of the world by the summer.

The system will then be extended to skilled workers with a job offer, students, and temporary workers. A tier for low-skilled workers is not planned while vacancies can be filled by migrants from Eastern Europe.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: “The introduction of our Australian-style points system will ensure that only those with skills the country needs can come to work and study.

“Today’s proposals are part of the biggest changes to British immigration policy in a generation, which include a new deal for those migrants seeking citizenship here, a new UK Border Agency to strengthen controls at the border and the introduction of ID cards for foreign nationals.”

The system puts in question the scheme under which Commonweatlh citizens with a British grandparent are allowed to settle in this country. The Labour MP Austin Mitchell said that any proposal to scrap “ancestral visas” would cause anger.

Ministers also revealed that businesses which want to sponsor and employ migrants must be licensed by the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA). A licence will be required from the autumn, when the second tier of the points-based system is due to come into effect. Employers can begin applying for licences from today.

Sponsors will be rated “A” or “B” according to criteria set by the Home Office. Their activities will be monitored, and poor performance could lead to them being downgraded or removed from the register.

The points-based system replaces 80 existing migration routes to the UK. Tier One requires highly skilled workers to achieve a total of 75 points, with various amounts awarded for education, age and their level of previous earnings. About 40,000 people applied under the previous scheme for highly-skilled migrants in 2006, with about 20,000 being successful. Separately, about 14,500 highly-skilled migrants applied to renew their stay in 2006, of whom about 14,000 were successful.

Predictable Drivel

With a straight face and breathtaking stupidity, Arab News writer Walid Awad publishes a most extraordinary bit of drivel, Kosovo And Palestine: Why Different Standards? In a complete break with reality, Awad seriously considers the Palestinians to be equal to the Kosovars.

Apparently Mr Awad has that well known Middle East affliction, the ‘Allergy to Reality.‘

The Kosovars are not screaming ‘Slaughter the Jews!’ or calling for the eradication of anyone. They are not preaching racism and bigotry from the pulpits and they do not teach hate in schools or broadcast or print that kind of dysfunction in their media. The Kosovars are not led by murderous thugs who can’t even be bothered to hide their racist intentions. The Kosovars do not worship or idolize past leaders who were so corrupt that they were left bankrupt.

The Kosovars do not engage in suicide bombings that are celebrated by legions of people.

Now, that is not to say all Palestinians are vile creatures- that would be patently untrue. Survey after survey shows that a whole lot of Palestinians would rather remain under the rule of ‘pigs and monkeys’ than under the  rule of the enlightened ‘Paradise of Arafat’ or the ‘Paradise of Hamas.’

The list of what distinguishes the Palestinians (and in many cases, the rest of the Arab world) is long and varied. In the end what distinguishes them is civilized behavior.

Perhaps the realize that the Beast That Is Israel may be more beneficial to them than what they are being offered by their ‘leadership.’

Let’s look at some of the differences.

Two spectacular events crossed the horizon at the same time.

Firstly, Warren Buffet made the decision to make the largest charitable donation in history- 37 billion dollars, to be used for the good of as many people as possible. At the same time, the Palestinians made the decision to take that final step into the abyss of complete detachment and dysfunctionality as they escalated their confrontation with Israel.

The two events are closely related.

Warren Buffet’s decision will be remembered for a having changed the values of a nation. Sure Americans have been generous- more generous as a nation than any other nation in history- but the extent of Mr Buffets action will have tremendous repercussions, because Mr Buffet has changed the way rich people ‘do business.’ The actions of the ‘Oracle from Omaha’ will have an impact on the actions and attitudes of future generations. To those that might argue (wrongly) that it is only American economic interests are the reason for our generosity, it bears remembering and noting that unlike European monarchies and empires, our foreign aid and nation building included enormous investments in education, health-care and infrastructure.

Mr Buffet’s actions have reversed the course of history. In the past, great fortunes of money accumulated were used to build empires, wage wars and gain power and influence. Sure, money was left to charity, but that was a side matter, a few pennies thrown out to satisfy an ego and social standing. Mr Buffet’s money will not be used to further economic conquer or to fund monuments to his greatness.

It also bears remembering that when great wealth is gained through aggressive or criminal activity it will be used to perpetuate that crime and corruption. Those who earned that money earned by way of crime and corruption will never use that money to serve a common good.

When the accumulation and distribution of wealth and power are driven by self serving and short term needs and agendas, it is inevitable that those needs and agendas will be pushed aside by the next dominant group or individual. The cycle is continuous.

The fabulous wealth of Greek and Roman Empires has been lost. The weal the Incas and the Ottoman have disappeared. Each conqueror confiscated the wealth of the vanquished- and the wealth of each empire now, is barely remembered.

Warren Buffet’s material fortune will have a direct bearing and influence on generations not yet born. His money will not be used for political purposes or to further control of any ideologies or agendas (contrast Warren Buffet with George Soros!), but rather, his money will be used in the furtherance of life and opportunity.

We are witnessing a shift in history, culture, and sociology of man, in one fell swoop. We are witnessing the elevation and highest potential of man. Whereas yesterday, the most powerful men were takers, today, they are givers.

Contrast these higher ideals with the ideals of the Palestinians.

As this is being written, the Palestinians are demanding the release of prisoners in exchange for an kidnapped Israeli soldier. Why? Because they know that the Israelis value and cherish each life- not for the sake of life, but for the sake of the potential of each life.

The Palestinians and many Muslims mistakenly believe that the Judeo-Christian ethic loves life itself. This is a fatal error. We love life, not for the sake of living, but rather, for the potential of each of our lives reflects. The Holocaust is not only remembered for that period of slaughter, but also for the Holocaust that was inflicted on all of mankind. How many potential Nobel Prize winners were killed or weren’t born? How many diseases might have been eradicated through the research of scientists that were ‘experimented’ upon? How many more wonders and miracles might we have seen, had generations of children been allowed to have been conceived? Might hunger and famine have been eliminated?

Nevertheless, the Palestinians proudly proclaim they have fired chemical weapons into Israel (see Dr Sanity’s cold observations). As one culture elevates itself, another culture descends. Whether or not the claim is true, is irrelevant. That the Palestinians would claim Hitler’s legacy is yet another example of a failed and corrupt society. The Palestinians and their supporters claim a high morality, even as the publicly embrace an evil rejected by civilized societies and cultures.

As tens of thousands of Chinese in Hong Kong march for democracy, tens of thousands of Palestinians and their supporters marched in defense of a regime that espouses hate, bigotry and promises death.

While the Palestinians would have you believe they wanted peace, their actions say otherwise.

If the Palestinians and much of the Arab world wanted peace, they would teach tolerance and peace in their schools, not racism, hate and death.

If the Palestinians wanted peace, there would be no training camps for ‘militants’ teaching children how to kill, for the Israelis to bomb. If the Palestinians wanted peace, there would be no arms factories and development of chemical weapons.

There would be no concerted effort to glorify death. The Palestinians and much of the Arab world espouse death because they have been robbed of a future and potential by their own leadership and a religion that has been bastardized to serve and enrich the needs of a few. As long as the current regimes and attitudes will remain a reality in the Arab world, there will be no potential and no promise of a future. As long as western Muslim communities live in that same dysfunctional mindset and support the regimes and corruption that have served to denigrate and demean entire populations, those communities will never be a part of a western mainstream. See this as an example of that kind of disconnect (h/t Dust My Broom. Darcey’s post).

The Israelis will no longer allow themselves to descend to the level of the Palestinians.

If the Hamas government rejects them, they have every right- and many would argue, an obligation, to reject the Hamas government. If the Hamas government rejects past accords signed on behalf of the Palestinians with the Israelis, they have every right to reject members of that kind of government.

If the Hamas government makes clear that their intention is to eliminate Israel, they have made their choice clear. Had Hitler’s cabinet and high government officials been captured and taken prisoner, there would be no clamor for them to be released. In fact, they probably would have been justifiably executed. Just as Hitler was an obvious target marked for death by the civilized world, so too has Israel the right to mark Ismael Haniyeh to that same fate (it bears repeating that had Hitler and the upper echelon of the Nazi regime been assassinated, 50 million lives would have been spared). That the Arab world sees fit to associate themselves with Hamas and all that Nazi-like political entity stands for, speaks volumes.

We have written about some of the more visible differences between Israel and her detractors (see the articles in the ‘Pages’ section of the sidebar). Those differences are clear and unambiguous. That difference is as clear as the difference between philanthropists like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and the leaders of the regimes in the Middle East.  The vitriol of the ‘clerics’ and leaders of Hamas and Hizbollah speak for themselves.

The Israelis- and all civilized nations- are not obligated to descend into the Palestinian abyss and deal with Palestinian and Arab world dysfunction. Now that the Hamas government has made clear to all what the Israelis have known for years (the Hamas clean and unapologetic anti Semitism) , those supporting the Palestinians are now taking a new tack- they no longer talk about the political aspirations in term of the ‘will of the people.’ Now, they talk in terms of an ‘oppressed and psychologically traumatized people’- as if trauma were the cause of their hate.

The Israelis, we are told, are victims of hate because they have victimized the Palestinians- who, with their Arab world brethren, have declared open season on Jews long before the state of Israel existed.

Now, Palestinians have become children, in need of our protection. Well, consider this: Why are the Palestinians more emotionally wounded than the victims of Chechnya, Darfur or Rwanda? How come the Lebanese and Jordanians, who suffered far more horrendous suffering than the 3,000 deaths of the current Palestine intifadah, weren’t immobilized and driven into incessant conflict? Hafez Assad had ten to twenty five thousand butchered in Hama in one week- and yet Syria did not implode.

If the legions of sympathetic therapists rushing in to help the Palestinians ‘cope’ are to be believed and prove anything, it is that the Palestinian level of dysfunctionality is something the Israelis should not have to deal with. In any event, Palestinian trauma is not severe enough from keeping the Palestinians from having an infrastructure of hate in the media, schools and from religious pulpits. Nor is the level of psychological trauma enough from keeping the Palestinians from having a network of terror training camps, sophisticated weapons procurement programs and of of course, a chemical weapon program.

In the meantime, the UN is taking Israel to task:

Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria were among the resolution’s sponsors. Western countries, including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, voted against it.

Look at some of the countries voting for the motion- and then look at some of those voting against.

How many Warren Buffets do you think will come out of Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria?

Portions of this post have been previously published. The absolute stupidity and self serving deceit of Walid Awad is business as usual.

Please, Do Not Sing A Long

The concert experience in the UK, circa 1972. We did things, uh, a bit differently back then.

Whatever you do, please do not sing along.

Who Needs OnStar?

The Trunk Monkey. Better than OnStar.

Broken Mirrors

From the Jerusalem Post:

PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday said that he does not rule out returning to the path of armed “resistance” against Israel and took pride in the fact that he had been the first to fire on Israel and that his organization had trained Hizbullah.

In an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustur, Abbas said that he was opposed to an armed struggle against Israel - for the time being.

“At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different,” he said.

“I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965 and of being the one who taught resistance to many in the region and around the world; what it’s like; when it is effective and when it isn’t effective; its uses, and what serious, authentic and influential resistance is,” Abbas said.

“It is common knowledge when and how resistance is detrimental and when it is well timed,” he added. “We (Fatah) had the honor of leading the resistance and we taught resistance to everyone, including Hizbullah, who trained in our military camps.”

Matthias Kunzel:

How can a group determined to destroy Israel be a partner in the peace process?

A particular lack of attention is paid to the question as to why this group wants to obliterate Israel. People ignore the Nazi-style antisemitism which is the underpinning of Hamas’ policies. Yet all one needs to do is take a look at the Hamas Charter, which considers “the Jews” responsible for all the evil and misfortune in the world. According to this Charter, Jews “stir revolutions”, “destroy societies” and “colonize and exploit countries”. “They stood behind World War I…, they also stood behind World War II…, they inspired the United Nations and the Security Council … in order to rule the world. … There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it.” (3)

We should take every one of these assertions seriously. Anyone who accepts this monstrous image of Jews as the villains of the world must wish to kill them and must wish to see Israel – the “command centre” in antisemitic jargon – obliterated. For them a Palestinian state next to Israel can only be seen as a tool for achieving an Islamic state instead of Israel. Hamas can never be a peace partner as long as it holds on to this Charter…

The powerful effect of this ideology is underestimated in the West. Many either react as if hating Jews were a feature of the Oriental world, like hookahs or mosques. Or antisemitism among Muslims is glossed over as a kind of “anti-imperialism of fools”, and rationalised as an alleged response to the Middle East conflict. From this stems the hope that, with the solution of the Palestine conflict, hatred of Jews will have vanished as well.

This hope, however, won’t stand up to scrutiny. Anyone who is aware of the history of the Middle East will recognise that the escalation of the conflict has not been the cause of the antisemitic hatred. Rather, this antisemitic hatred, imported from Europe, has played a decisive role in the escalation…

Of course, not all Arabs were a part of the history Kunzel addresses.

Still, during the first decades of the 20th century, not a few Arabs considered these modernising effects of Zionist immigration in a favourable light. For example, the editor the Egypt’s daily al-Ahram wrote in 1913: “The Zionists are necessary for this region. The money they will bring in, their intelligence and the diligence which is one of their characteristics will, without doubt, bring new life to the country.” (10) During the 1920’s, prominent leaders in Egypt believed “that the progress of Zionism might help to secure the development of a new Eastern civilisation,” as Mr. Kisch who was at that time Chairman of the Palestine Zionist Executive noted in his diary after visiting Cairo in 1924. (11) In 1924, the modernising model of Kemal Atatürk had replaced the caliphate in Turkey and beginning in 1925, the Shah of Iran, Resa Khan, had embarked on the secularisation of his country…

And now, full circle and Mahmoud Abbas:

Hamas denies that Mahmud Abbas represents the will of the Palestinian people and has seen its position strengthened by the victory in the Gaza local elections at the end of January 2005. (15) It refuses to cease production of more Qassem rockets, let alone hand over its weapons. For the time being, it is not using those weapons, but only because in a counter-move Mahmud Abbas “has agreed to unfreeze Hamas funds held in a number of Palestinian banks.” (16) Last but not least, it is receiving massive support from Iran and its puppet, Hizbullah. On January 30, 2005 Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah, head of Hizbullah, and his Hamas counterpart Khaled Mashal issued a joint declaration pledging coordination of their military efforts. As Mashal put it, “we are partners in the march against Israel, the common enemy. We hope that the same path which led to the liberation of southern Lebanon will lead to that of the whole of Palestine”. (17) Hizbullah’s involvement has since reached such a level “that even the PA leadership is sounding the alarm and begging the world to help it cut off those throwing oil on flames that it is trying to douse.” (18)

From the Wall Street Journal on Abbas:

…His outright refusal to confront and disarm terrorists, in violation of the Road Map, hardly registers anymore in the Western media and where it does, it is usually excused and attributed to his relative political weakness. However, the media also give very little idea of the extent to which the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify terrorists…

…if Americans and Europeans are genuinely interested in promoting Palestinian-Israeli peace, it is time for them to take a realistic look at his record…

His outright refusal to confront and disarm terrorists, in violation of the Road Map, hardly registers anymore in the Western media and where it does, it is usually excused and attributed to his relative political weakness. However, the media also give very little idea of the extent to which the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify terrorists… Then there is the soccer tournament named in honor of the terrorist who murdered 30 people at a Passover celebration in Netanya, or the girls’ high school named by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education after a female terrorist who murdered 36 Israeli civilians and an American nature photographer. (The school was recently renovated with money from USAID, channeled through the American Near East Refugee Aid.)

Examples could easily be multiplied. A poetry collection published by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Culture, for instance, is named in honor of a suicide terrorist (dubbed “the Rose of Palestine” in one of the poems) who killed 21 at a restaurant in Haifa. (The collection was distributed this August as a special supplement in the daily Al-Ayyam. Most of Al-Ayyam’s editors are appointed by Mr. Abbas.)…

The Palestinian Authority sometimes goes so far as to stamp out even the most symbolic gestures of coexistence with Israel. Consider last month’s soccer match, organized by the Shimon Peres Center for Peace, in which Israeli and Palestinian soccer stars played together in a joint “Peace Team” against Barcelona. They played well, losing only 2-1 at Barcelona’s famous Nou Camp stadium in front of 31,820 spectators, including many dignitaries. Yet on the Palestinian Authority’s orders, the Palestinian Football Association announced that it would punish the Palestinian players for daring to participate in such a match…

More on Abbas, from Jihad Watch:

Abbas went on to praise late Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in March 2004.

He also used Quranic verses to claim Jews are corrupting the world.

“The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth,” Abbas said during a portion of his speech in which he criticized recent Israeli anti-terror raids in the northern West Bank.

Abbas anti-Semitic remarks and his call to arms against the Jewish state were not quoted in hundreds of English-language articles reporting on today’s speech or by most major Israeli dailies, which featured pieces on their websites about the Fatah commemoration ceremonies.

A widely-circulated Associated Press article, titled “Abbas calls for respect at Fatah rally,” states Abbas today called for rival factions to respect each other.

The AP quotes Abbas stating, “Shooting at your brother is forbidden,” but the article stops short of quoting the rest of his sentence in which he recommends Palestinians use their weapons against Israel.

Finally, see Hot Wired For Hatred, to understand the psychological origins of the behaviors that are so prevalent in the Arab world.

However frightening this propaganda and its effects might be, we must confront the possibility that an even more hideous engine drives the terrorists’ cruelty. Relative to the West, life in Arab countries has always been harsh. Corporal punishment of children is thoroughly embedded in the culture. No mainstream Islamic authority has yet spoken out against slapping children’s faces, dragging them by the hair, or any of the other disciplinary approaches that shock Western onlookers.

Survival in such a culture necessitates some numbing. But this psychological component might be insignificant relative to the neurobiological effects of being beaten and tortured in childhood. It was Harvard researchers who first revealed that stress hormones released when children experience physical and sexual abuse actually impede development of that part of the brain responsible for empathy and conscience.

Brain scans of those who suffered through events common in the childhood of Palestinian children reveal an underdeveloped hippocampus and vermis. Among the behaviors associated with this sort of brain damage: impulsivity, sadism, and suicide. It is almost too frightening to consider that Israel today faces a population many of whom are hardwired for the sort of violence we have been witnessing.

More terrifying is the long-term prognosis for Palestinian society. Martin Teicher, a lead researcher in the Harvard study, reports that sadistic parents neurobiologically infect their children with the same trait: Society reaps what it sows in the way it nurtures its children. Whether it comes in the form of physical, emotional, or sexual trauma, or through exposure to warfare, famine, or pestilence, stress can set off a ripple of hormonal changes that permanently wire a child’s brain to cope with a malevolent world. Through this chain of events, violence and abuse pass from generation to generation as well as from one society to the next.

Our stark conclusion is that we see the need to do much more to ensure that child abuse does not happen in the first place, because once the key brain alterations occur, there may be no going back. (Scientific American, March 2002)

For source material, see Shrinkwrapped’s superb The Arab Mind series, archived at that link. The posts are a must read for any serious student of Middle East politics.

An Anniversary, Forgotten

February 13 marked the second anniversary of the murder of Ilan Halimi.

Halimi was the French Jew who was kidnapped and then murdered by a gang of young Muslims who referred to themselves as the appropriately named ‘Barbarians.’

For 3 weeks prior to his death, Halimi was kept hostage and tortured.

From the Washington Post:

…Last week, French police found Halimi — the son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants — near a railroad track in a southern Parisian suburb. His naked body was covered with cigarette burns and he was handcuffed. He died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital…

From the New York Times:

…The French police initially dismissed accusations by Mr. Halimi’s family and Jewish groups that anti-Semitism played a role in the crime, even after one suspect told investigators that Mr. Halimi had been a target because he was a Jew. The authorities changed their position after another suspect said Mr. Halimi had been burned on his forehead with a cigarette because of his religion…

Ruth Halimi, Mr. Halimi’s mother, told the Israeli daily Haaretz on Sunday, “If Ilan hadn’t been Jewish, he wouldn’t have been murdered.” She also told the newspaper that the police told the family to ignore the gang’s attempts to contact them…

From the Boston Globe:

In the bleak housing project where a young Jew named Ilan Halimi was held captive and tortured before being dumped in a vacant lot to die, there’s scant sympathy for the victim.

”It’s too bad this happened, because we immigrants are always blamed,” said Ibrahim Ag Ahmalou, a lanky man of West African heritage who shares his girlfriend’s apartment in the project. ”But Jews have all the money and power. Everyone knows this and resents them. That’s why they have these problems…”

In taunting calls to Halimi’s family, the abductors addressed his parents with anti-Semitic slurs and told them to get cash ”from your synagogue.” They also contacted a French rabbi, boasting, ”We have a Jew.” Even more shocking, investigators believe that many inhabitants of the project were aware that the youth gang was holding a Jewish captive, but none called police or urged the abductors to show mercy [emp- SC&A]

Wall Street Journal:

No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture…

The murder of Ilan Halimi invites comparison with the November 2003 killing of a Jewish disc jockey, Sébastien Selam. His Muslim neighbor, Adel, slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, and gouged out his eyes with a carving fork in his building’s underground parking garage. Adel came upstairs with bloodied hands and told his mother, “I killed my Jew, I will go to paradise.” In the two years before his murder, the Selam family was repeatedly harassed for being Jewish. The Selam case has not been opened by the magistrate. The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon.

See Gateway Pundit, Solomonia and Eurabian News for more.

Melanie Phillips:

This saga is an object lesson in the lethal state of European denial. Jewish victimisation, despite the Jews’ own factual evidence about their own victimisation, is not recognised as such until it becomes overwhelmingly and undeniably apparent. And that is because to acknowledge it is to acknowledge the murderous hatred of Jews by Muslims, which is unacknowledgeable for two reasons: 1) it destroys the governing fiction that Muslim rage in France is driven by poverty, discrimination and French racism and 2) it destroys the governing fiction that the Jews of Israel are the aggressors and the Palestinians are their victims. That is why Jewish victimhood is being expunged from the European mind.

Happy Anniversary.

Why People Move South

Husband Of The Year

Yesterday, we did a BlogTalk Radio podcast with Fausta and Shane, of Political Vindication. In the podcast, Shane, Fausta and ourselves talked about relationships and ‘the nature of men.’ We also talked about romance and what it means to be a man today.

Fausta blogged about the podcast, here.

We thought we’d lighten things up a bit.

Below are this year’s winners of the Husband of the Year Award.

This years Third Place Winner:

The Second Place  Award Winner:

Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for: This year’s Grand Prize winner of the Husband of the Year Award goes to man not afraid of PDA’s (public displays of affection)…

The Honorable Mentions up included a man who would rather sleep with bicycle…

And the guy for whom stability means everything…