Fitna, Fits And Basra

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Dr Sanity, Shrinkwrapped and ourselves will be discussing Geert Wilder’s movie “Fitna” (see below) and the ongoing campaign against the Sadr militias in Basra.

And, if you haven’t seen “Fitna” yet, take 15 minutes to watch it. It really shows nothing new (i.e., that readers of Sanity Squad blogs haven’t heard about), but it shows it graphically and with very little comment. Watching it is an act of freedom and defiance against those forces that want nothing more than to destroy the very values upon which western civilization is based.

The podcast can accessed from the Sanity Squad BTR Homepage.

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116.

Doors open at 8:00 PM sharp.

If you haven’t seen “Fitna” yet, take 15 minutes to watch it. It really shows nothing new (i.e., that readers of this blog haven’t heard about), but it shows it graphically and with very little comment. Watching it is an act of freedom and defiance against those forces that want nothing more than to destroy the very values upon which western civilization is based.

More at the Terrorism Awareness Project.

What Is It About Golf, You Ask?

The following is not intended to offend the fans of tennis, basketball, hockey, football, NASCAR or baseball. It is rather, an attempt to put everything in it’s proper perspective.

Was it about golf that inspires such fierce passion?

Have you ever wondered why golf is growing in popularity and why people who don’t even play the game go to tournaments or watch the game on TV?

Have you ever wondered why golf courses have 18 holes?

The following truisms may shed some light.

Newspapers rarely have stories of golfers in jail.

Golfers do not kick dirt on or verbally assault officials or fans.

Professional golfers are paid in direct proportion to how well they play.

Golfers are not paid a per diem or assigned two seats on a charter flight when they travel from one tournament to another.

Golfers do not hold out for more money or demand new contracts because of another player’s deal.

Professional golfers do not demand that the taxpayers pay for the courses on which they play.

When a golfer make a mistake, no one is there to cover for them or justify the error.

The PGA raises more money for charity than the NFL does in two.

You can watch the best golfers in the world in any tournament, all day long, for $25-$30.

Super bowl tickets can cost between $300- $1,000 or more.

Golf fans are free to bring their own refreshments. If you bring a soft drink or even bottled water into a tax payer funded ballpark, you have one of two options. Get rid of the soft drink or leave.

In golf, you cannot fail 70% of time and make $9 million dollars a year. Think about that the next time you consider the best hitters in baseball with a 300 batting average.

Golfers keep their clothes on when being interviewed.

You can hear birds chirping on a golf course, even during a tournament.

At a golf tournament, you don’t have to worry about your kids hearing a steady stream of four letter words, foul language or worry someone will spill beer on you.

Tiger Woods can hit a golf ball over twice as far as Barry Bonds can hit a baseball.

Golf courses do not ruin neighborhoods.

One more thing. In 1858 a discussion was had by the membership committee at Saint Andrews, the Cathedral of Golf in Scotland. A senior member noted that it took exactly 18 shots to finish a fifth of scotch. A round of golf was finished when the scotch ran out.

Now you know.

“What We Have Here Is A Failure To Educate” And Other Kinds Of Child Abuse

One of the most accurate reflections of the state of health and fitness of a nation, culture or society is the state of health of it’s educational system. The more education a nation, culture or society affords it’s students, the more healthy that nation, culture or society. The more a nation, culture or society demands good education, the more advanced that society and culture are. Education is also a barometer of the state of freedom within a a nation, culture or society. The more freedom a citizen has to learn and explore, the freer that society is.

Education is not about ideologies or specific beliefs. Education is about the freedom to explore, be it of the armchair or field variety. In a healthy society, education exists along side ideology and specific beliefs. There are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Jewish universities where religious beliefs and instruction go hand in hand with the experience of learning and the exploration of new ideas. This is no small distinction. Religious institutions have contributed mightily to the great body of knowledge that has benefited all mankind.

Conversely, in an unhealthy or undeveloped societies, education devolves and becomes becomes less about learning and exploration and more about indoctrination.

Dr Sanity, in The Evolution Of Education Into Indoctrination:

…Hegel, building on Kant, Rosseau and Fichte, would go on to write, “It must be further understood that all the worth which the human being possesses–all the spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State…”

If you can convince children that objective reality is an illusion; that A does not equal A; that black is white; and that good is bad; if you can make them accept that everything is subjective and relative; then you have successfully breathed new life into doctrines that by all objective measures and standards led to the death and misery of millions of people. Through the careful manipulation of language, everything can be distorted, without the messy need to resort to facts, logic, or reason.

For the children of postmodernism, what matters is not truth or falsity–only the effectiveness of the language used. Lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks; attempts to silence opposing views–all are strategies that are perfectly satisfactory if they achieve the desired effect–i.e., furthering the collectivist agenda. Ideas and reason make way for reification of feelings; and freedom is replaced by thought control and preservation of “self-esteem” at all costs.

The postmodern assault as it is used by the new totalitarians of the 21st century is a four-pronged attack to undermine

- Objective reality
- Reason and the rational debate of ideas
- Individual freedom and freedom of thought and speech
- Progress and capitalism

The strategies used are:

- The distortion of language and meaning to undermine the individual’s perception of reality;
- The use of direct or threatened physical violence to suppress speech and individual freedom;
- Politically “correct” thought control and cultural relativism to undermine reason and rational debate;
- The promotion of environmental hysteria to undermine progress, industrialization and capitalism

Most of ‘who we are,’ as a nation, society and culture is determined by the kind of education we receive. If the education we receive serves freedom and equality, then we are a free people. If the education we receive undermines freedom and equality, then were are slaves, no more than chattel for those who would use and abuse us for their own needs and agendas.

Freedom cannot coexist with conditions that reinforce or tolerate oppressive and repressive behaviors, ideologies or beliefs. It is because we have allowed for and tolerated behaviors that are abhorrent, all in the name of pluralism, that we find ourselves in a ‘clash of behaviors.’  What was once unacceptable in our society has now become tolerable because we have created conditions where oppression and repression are considered acceptable forms of political expression, equal to our own.

See also Dr Sanity, The Corruption Of The Curriculum:

Make no mistake about it, what many teachers today are doing is indoctrinating their students minds into an unquestioning obedience to the collective. This they cannot do unless they also can manage to corrupt even the hard sciences with their dogma.

There can be no area where a child is allowed to think freely and without the proper political perspective…

While our popular culture refrains sensitively from portraying Islamofascists as villains in movies out of political correctness (yet another aspect of socialism’s quest for “social justice”); it does not hesitate to make businessmen evil and malignant oppressors of the innocent. Individualism, the pursuit of profit, and private property is always bad and everyone must bow to the will of the collective…

One very harmful result of this sorry educational situation is that there are few people–even among those who stalwartly defend the free market, who understand and appreciate the essential morality of capitalism. Certainly our children, taught by ideological purists like the ones above who are leftover from the 20th century debacle of socialist/communist tyranny–never even have a chance to rationally consider any ideas not approved by their aggressively collectivist teachers, so intent at quashing those aspects of human nature they don’t like.

This is child abuse, pure and simple. It is indoctrination. It is the willful manipulation of young minds which cannot never be allowed to develop even the capability of thinking for themselves. And these perverts call it “social justice.”

The snowball effect has led to the inevitable. There exists now have a class of people who share the same views and ideologies as those we find repulsive, going as far as to call for  renunciation of the very things that make us free. They openly offer vociferous support of those who call for our destruction.

Immigration is redefining the kind of society we live in, That is not necessarily a bad thing. This nation was built by immigrants and would not be what it is today if were not for the ‘wretched refuse’ that blessed these shores.

It is also true that the immigrants that came before are very different than the immigrants who are arriving today. This is very true of Europe and that truth is often played out on the nightly news. The mass influx or Arabs world immigrants has changed the Continent forever.

To understand the transformation of Europe, one has to understand the Arab world and especially how the Arab world defines education, a key indicator of societal and cultural values. (This is no small matter. Previous generations of immigrants came to Europe and the New World and left their own behind, understanding they would embrace the new and forgo the old. Today,  the Old Country is a phone call, an email and a website away. You don’t have to leave the Old Country even if you leave the Old Country. Ever increasing cradle to grave benefits and not opportunities, are the incentive to relocate today. There are no reasons to embrace the values of a new culture).

For centuries, Arab world education has been at the bottom of the world educational barrel. Dysfunctional religious instruction is more easily and readily available than even the most basic of instruction.

The few Arab world colleges and universities that are not religious in nature are abysmal. There is an ever increasing ‘brain drain’ into Europe and the United States that will leave the Arab world playing ‘catch up’ for decades, if not centuries. Those who do remain in the region are caught in an educational environment that negate the history and culture of others and is obsessively focused on teaching the superiority of Islam, regardless of action or deed, instead of actually providing a real education. The Arab regimes have successfully manipulated yet another generation into oblivion.

Even prior to their arrival in the west, Arab world immigrants for the most part are really an entire class of people who have been deliberately short changed of a future because they have been indoctrinated and not educated. In place of a real education, designed to prepare an individual to be a productive and contributing member of society, this class of people are destined for poverty and failure, all by design. This of course, ensures a permanent, hate filled, lower class.

That isn’t to say all Arab immigrants are destined to fail. Clearly, that is not the case. There are doctors and lawyers and scientists and economists and the like, but in truth, they are a very small minority- and one that many say is shrinking.

Just as real education provides for unlimited opportunity and reward, Arab societal and cultural education closes every door in it’s proximity. The only real demands Arab societal and cultural education demand placed on students is permanent membership in the Fraternity of Hate. Instruction deliberately shuns modernity and advancement. Instead  students are taught to blame others and are inspired with ideals of regaining lost glory and superiority- by way of eliminating others. Real critical thinking is not applauded in the Arab World. Rather, it is feared.

There is an entire class of people who are being deliberately short changed of a future. In place of a real education, designed to prepare an individual to be a productive and contributing member of society, this class of people are destined for poverty and failure, all by design. This of course, ensures a permanent, hate filled, lower class.

Children are inculcated with the idea that God mandated hate will provide the ‘wealth’ that they have been deprived of- wealth stolen by the infidels, with their concerted conspiracy to keep Muslims from their rightful destiny. of course, these ideas are antithetical to the civilized values of hard work and equality.

The values that Arab immigrants to western shores must defend are the values of failure. It is no wonder the Arab immigrants are so enraged. To admit their values are failed is to negate everything they have been taught and the notion of their own superiority.

The Arab world goes to great length to deride and excoriate the Jews for being ‘The Chosen People.’ In fact, the well documented successes of the Jews as a group can be attributed to hard work, discipline and effort despite many obstacles they faced. All of that of course was preceded by the values Jews placed on education. It is the Arab world and not the Jews that demand to be recognized as ‘Chosen,’ simply by virtue of their existence. They believe they are exempt from the notion of equality, believing themselves to be superior.

It is the repudiation of real education that has been the ‘mother’s milk’ of Arab failure and discontent. That is the same ‘mother’s milk’ that has fed a generation of westerners and has bred a self loathing culture of discontent and hatred of all things Western, most especially the notion of equality. That they are equal to Christians, Jews, Buddhists and everyone else is a humiliation, as far as they are concerned.

Arab immigrants bring with them the dysfunction of the world they left behind- and they force that dysfunction on their children. The inability to succeed and participate as equals in the west only highlights their broken values. The stated desire and inclinations to commit acts of violence against anyone they please only highlights their failure and dysfunction- and these are values that are taught to their children, because these are the only educational values they know. They see the passing on of those values as education. We see them for what they are- child abuse. They are teaching their children to hate.

Shrinkwrapped, in The Arab mind, Part VI, describes the mechanics of the kind of child abuse found in the Arab world- and imported into the west.

There is a terrible psychic cost that accrues with child abuse. An abused child is a traumatized child. The traumatic situation, with its mix of terror, rage, passivity, pain, and confusion, is impossible for the child to fully grasp and incorporate.  The distance between the needed parent and the hated parent is impossible to bridge. The child dissociates during the traumatic experience and ultimately splits off part of the object…The Arab child, to preserve his safety and protect himself from further trauma, must accept the authority of the father and later father surrogates.  The alternative is dangerously destabilizing to the fragile internal mental constitution.  This predisposes the young person, as they grow up, to look for authority figures in whom to place their trust and thus engender a feeling of safety.  Imams, who represent the highest levels of authority in Arab culture, are then in unique positions to control and direct their followers.  Radical Imams, who profess extreme views with the certainty that inheres to extremism, use this dependency to ill effect. However, even those who do not fall into the orbit of the extremists have a great tendency to support and appeal to authority.  Freedom can be particularly frightening because it can unconsciously evoke the danger of rebellious thoughts and feelings which are inseparable from the traumatic response that they provoked during childhood.”

Shrinkwrapped’s series, The Arab Mind (archived here. Scroll down for earlier installments) is especially important, if for no other reason than he is making us aware of what is now influencing our society. We urge you to read the entire series.

The French playwright and philosopher Moliere once noted that ‘The less were are like our ancestors, the less we deserve them.’ If we want and value freedom and a free society, we will have to defend freedom- and that starts with real education, not just the politically correct kind.

Real freedom is both an art and science. Just as the limits of art may be tested and challenged, the science of freedom retains the truths and absolutes that are the building blocks of our society. That natural tension is fundamental to freedom.

Lying Truths

MHNN (Ann Arbor, MI)-Dr Pat M Santy (PMS), renowned psychiatrist, expert on chemical sedatives and author of weekly Carnival Of The Insanities, was approached by both Clinton and Obama campaigns to address issues they were struggling with.

Santy, who has experience in dealing political figures of all kinds, agreed. Accompanying the candidate were their  spouses. When told that Chelsea Clinton would be sitting in on the session, the Obamas demanded their spiritual advisor, Jeremiah White also be included in the group. At first, Santy was reluctant but gave in after Michelle Obama noted her discomfort ‘being in a room with so many white folks.’ She told Santy she would feel less intimidated if there were an ‘equal number of blacks and white, at the very least.‘ She wanted to be on record as saying that there ought to have been been more blacks than white present, ‘so as to undo the injustices of white folk and equal the playing field.‘

At first, Santy demurred but the preacher threatened to preach, she gave agreed. She also gave the controversial preacher some Haldol and Zoloft with his coffee.

What follows is transcript of the conversation.

PMS- Welcome.

JW (Jeremiah Wright)- Welcome my ass. Why are we here? You need some cleaning and cooking done? You need some manual labor taken care of?

MO (Michelle Obama)- Pastor, we asked for this meeting-

JW- You did? Why didn’t you just come to me? You don’t need a shrink- It’s the white man who did this to you-

BO (Barack Obama)- Pastor, would you just be so kind enough to remain quiet until I call on you?

JW- Of course, Barack. I’m just under big stress. We’re moving from God’s House into the Big House in a Lilly white neighborhood and we’re just not ready. I mean living with whites- I get a headache just thinking about that! There is so much to do. We’ve got to deal with the Nation of Islam Painting crew, the Nation of Islam Plumbing Company, the Nation of Islam Heating and Cooling specialists, the Nation of Islam Custom Closet Company, the Nation of Islam Decorating Services, the Nation of Islam Floor Coverings-

BO- We get the picture, Reverend.

JW- Yes. So much to do, so many choices to make. And we’re talking tradespeople- who do you trust?

PMS- Hillary, you called because you were upset at the way you have been treated by the media lately.

HRC- I am upset-

JW- You should be upset, you lying white bitch-

(Room erupts. Calls to shut up are audible.)

HRC- Look, I just misspoke, OK? So I got carried away with something I said-

BC (Bill Clinton)- Do have to be such a drama queen? Do you always have to take center stage? It wasn’t as if you looked into a camera and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” You did the same thing I did, you lied-

PMS- Let’s stay focused.

MO- The white bitch lied. The white bitches always lie. I know what she’s doing. Shes’ making a play for my man-

CC (Chelsea Clinton)- Can it, you freakazoid, affirmative action hanger on. You are just like my mom- your going to ride the ‘good time express’  on your husbands coatails and sooner or later, that man of yours is going to have to admit he rode the Obama Girl’s ‘good time express.’ The only difference is that he’ll look into the cameras and say the white girl really wanted it and Michelle will say it’s just another example of how white people tempt black men-

MO- Hey, that’s pretty good, Chelsea. I like it.

JW (moving hips)- Bill Clinton is gonna to Hillary what he did to Monica-

(Room erupts. Calls to shut up are audible.)

PMS- OK, Everybody calm down.

(Room settles down in a few moments)

PMS- Why did you lie about Kosovo, Hillary?

BC- Because I told her to. I told how hot that gets me-

PMS- Mr President, your daughter is in the room-

BC- She is?

HRC- I lied because it makes for a good speech and good speeches make for good sound bites on TV.

JW- That’s right! I do that all the time!

BO- Reverand, I asked you not to speak-

JW- I’m sorry. Look at me- Listening to a half white boy! Only in America is that possible!

(Room erupts. Calls to shut up are audible.)

PMS- Hillary isn’t the only one who lied-

BO- Mea culpa! Don’t you just love it when a black man uses big words and sounds white-

MO- Do you have to say that? Do you have to refer to the white part of you-

BO- But I am half white!

MO- Listen to me, you clueless idiot. You aren’t from the ‘hood. You grew up Lilly white. I may have married you because I wanted to move up, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to be a victim, you dumbass. If you want everyone to believe that there can ever be a level playing field, what happens to the rest of us? We can’t be victims anymore and blame the white man for all our problem. Then what happens? You can move your half white sorry ass back to Kansas, but what about me?

JW- Tell him! Tell him!

PMS- Barack, you lied, too.You said you never knew about some of the more outrageous things Reverend Wright said. That clearly wasn’t true.

BO- Yes, but people have lower expectations of me. They get excited because I use phrases like ‘mea culpa‘- hardy ever heard in the ‘hood. That makes whites feel good about themselves, as if maybe the schools really aren’t failing-

MO- Would you just shut up with the ‘hood’ thing, you freaking half Hawaiin cracker?

BC- You’re awfully cute, Michelle.

MO- Thank you, Bill-

CC- Daddy! Not Now!

BC- You’re right, Chelsea. Let daddy fix it. Michelle, I take that back-

MO- You are such a white man, giving, taking, giving, taking-

PMS- Look, we need a lot more time-

JW- Just like you white folk! Keep taking time, lifetimes away from us blacks. It’s all your fault and it’s always the same. History repeats itself- Bill did to Monica-

(Room erupts. Calls to shut up are auduble.)

JW- I’m sorry. It’s the move into the white neighborhood that has me all stressed out-

CC- If the move into a white neighborhood is so stressful, why move there?

JW- Chesea, you foolish white child! Do you think I want to with all those n-

(Room erupts. Calls to shut up are auduble.)

PMS- OK, next week same time, same place-

(Room erupts. ‘We know! We know! Carnival Of The Insanities)

BC- Hey doc, you look pretty hot-

HRC- One more word, just one…

MC- You got Bill, I got Obama Girl. You know, we women are always victims…

The Newest American Vacation

Tired of the same old vacation? Are you looking for a new and unique holiday experience?

We’ve got the answer:

That’s right. Spend some time in jail!

From the website:

Have you always dreamed of “doing time” as a county jail inmate? Have you wanted to experience the thrill and excitement of “going to the walls”, but didn’t want the stigma or embarrassment a criminal record would bring you? 

Jail Camp is America’s fastest growing reality vacation alternative. Why spend thousands of dollars in fines, court costs, attorney fees, and more? With Jail Camp, you can skip right past the messy arrest and humiliating trial portions of the process and jump right to the pulse pounding sentence phase of the criminal justice system…

This is our popular 3 day package at a price that will fit into any budget. For a mere $50.00 per day, you can come in on Monday and leave on Thursday. Included in this package:

• A deluxe semi-private bunk in one of our suite pods.
  
• The opportunity to visit with an official jail nurse.

Jail Camp Felony:

At $75.00 per day, this 3 day package is a little more expensive, but offers so much more. You come in on a Friday and leave on a Monday. Included in this package:

• A semi-private bunk in one of our Penthouse’s located in the authenticate Casa Felonia.
  
• The thrill of an actual “visitation day” (weekends only).English Bible Study (Sunday only).
  
• Jail Camp movie night.
  
• A “complimentary” strip search during dress down.

Can it get any better than that? Additional info and pictures on this exciting holiday vacation!

More on entertainment and punishment.

From The Early French ESPN Archives

One Candle. Lots Of Laughs.

Laurie Kendrick is having a birthday.

While in itself that is of not really noteworthy (birthdays tends to be regular events and are more easily predicted than the weather. Oddly, this seems to be a real surprise to many people who believe their birthdays are events unique to them. These are the same people who pretend to celebrate other birthdays while believing that in fact that in the entire cosmos, it is only their birthday that matters and has special meaning), the birthday we are referring to is that of her blog.

Over the past year, Laurie Kendricks’ blog has made it’s mark (not unlike your pet) in the blogosphere, been nominated for more than a few blog awards, has been referred to and has been noted by various regional and national publications. Ms Kendrick’s blog has also achieved some notoriety in her hometown of Houston, where the former TV and radio personality lives and is a regular and major hitter in that pool of media talent in that oasis of all things humid.

Kendrick see the world through an interesting lens. Read Koncept Amerika and The Crisper. For a really fun time, see High School: I Remember When.

Laurie Kendrick is a wordsmith in every sense of the word. Although she is noted mainly for her humor writing, there is more to her blog than just the funny stuff.

Her post, I Know How This Day Ends, is a wrenching look at the kind of Christmas we barely know exists. She shares her own Father’s Day message so that others might be grateful for their blessings and she talks to God- really talks to God. See also Angel’s Unawares, written after the loss of a close friend. It is about, as she put it, Arrivals/departures; Beginnings/endings.

Happy Birthday, Laurie’s Blog. We wish you many more- not for you, but for us!

What Makes Shrinks Laugh: The Not So Politically Correct Edition

Some of these quotes were taken from actual Federal (US) employee performance evaluations.  All can be applied to people you know and all are familiar to mental health professionals. (h/t Shrinkwrapped)

“Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.”

“His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity”

“I would not allow this employee to breed”

“This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won’t be

“Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap”

“When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet”

“He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle”

“This young lady has delusions of adequacy”

“He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them”

“This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot”

“This employee should go far, and the sooner the better”

“Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together”

“A gross ignoramus – 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus”

“He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless”

“He doesn’t have ulcers, but he’s a carrier”

“I would like to go hunting with him sometime”

“He’s been working with glue too much”

“He would argue with a signpost”

“He has knack for making strangers immediately”

“He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room”

“When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell”

“If you see 2 people talking and one looks bored, he’s the other one”

“A photographic memory but with the cap over the lens”

“A prime candidate for natural deselection”

“Donated his brain to science before he was done using it”

“Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn’t coming”

“Has 2 brains, one is lost, the other is out looking for it”

“If he were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week”

“If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you’d get change”

“If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean”

“It’s hard to believe that he beat out 1,000 other sperm”

“One neuron short of a synapse”

“Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled”

“Takes him 12 hours to watch 60 Minutes”

“The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead”

Killer Biscuits

All About The ‘Conversation’

Barack Obama wants us to have a conversation about race in America (see The Audacity Of Hypocrisy and Barack Obama, Failures And Fairy Tales), call made many times before and for the most part, ignored. Early on and throughout his career George Bush made an effort to encourage the nation into just such a conversation and was rebuffed. When he spoke of the ‘velvet discrimination of lowered expectations,’ the leftist storm troopers yawned and ignored him.

Notwithstanding the derision of the left and other political opponents, Mr Bush must have been doing something right. In his reelection bid for governor of Texas, blacks and Hispanics voted in unprecedented numbers for Mr Bush because of markedly improved schools in their districts. At the 2000 Democrat Convention in Los Angeles, the Texas delegation threatened to walk out as speaker after speaker derided the level of education on their state, as a criticism of George Bush. The delegates may have been Democrats, but they weren’t happy hearing the word ‘stupid’ in association with education in their state.

Yesterday, Gateway Pundit published Dear Democrats: A Letter From Lt Col Francis Rice. A sampling:

We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:

Whereas in the early 1600′s 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development…

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today…

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them…

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist…

Whereas Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, made a 14-hour filibuster speech in the Senate in June 1964 in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was heralded in April 2004 by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd as a senator who would have been a great leader during the Civil War…

Whereas in the House of Representatives only 61 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act as compared to 80 percent of Republicans, and in the Senate only 69 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, compared to 82 percent of the Republicans…

Read the whole thing.

It also bear remembering that the original district ‘gerrymandering’ was used by Democrats to disenfranchise the black vote in the south.It also bears remembering that the laws Rosa Parks challenged were enshrined by Democrat politicians.

It was the Republican Party in Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. That forward legislation guaranteed the rights of all African Americans equal access to all public services and facilities. This was not an earth shattering or remarkable effort. This was the vision of the Republican Party from it’s very inception dating back to 1854. The party was founded as the anti-slavery party in direct opposition to the Democrats.  The Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights.

Slavery was not restricted to the Southern States. After Charleston, SC, the largest number of slave owners per capita was in New York City. The most enthusiastic opposition to Lincoln and his efforts to rid the nation the evil of slavery was most vicious from northern Democrats.

La Shawn Barbour has her own take on what is real racism-yet another real conversation unaddressed by leftists. Like all leftists elsewhere want no part of any conversation they cannot control. La Shawn eloquence belies her passion:

Perhaps Congress should apologize for decades of bloated socialist programs that caused the black family to disintegrate. Paying unmarried women to have babies is obscene, immoral, and the reason so many (too many) black children have no fathers to speak of. Treating blacks like dummies who require separate (LOWER) standards than every other race is offensive. I’m offended. Where is my apology?

Generations of blacks have been lulled into feeding from the government trough, and the damage it caused will reverberate for generations. And those numbskulls down the street are apologizing for failing to pass anti-lynching laws 100 years ago. Lord, give me strength.

I’m sick of politicians wasting time and money pandering to blacks, treating us like empty-headed children, spoon-feeding us putrid pabulum, and prostrating themselves for every perceived slight. Don’t apologize to “Black People.” Apologize to individual blacks who actually care about this mess.

Apologize for failing to protect Americans against foreign invaders. Apologize for taking our hard-earned money and giving it to people who don’t want to earn it themselves. Apologize for constantly referring to me as “African American,” implying that I’m a lesser American than everyone else. Apologize to all Americans for pushing racially divisive entitlements and preferences and insane “hate crime” laws. Thanks to your misguided paternalism, racial tension will always be front and center.

Freedom is more important than all the apologies, handouts, and excuses Congress could ever come up with. I’m living in the best country in the world, and I’d never be freer anywhere else. To blacks who grew up believing America was the most racist place on earth, if you no longer believe that and realize freedom, the right to be left alone, is the only apology you need, demand that from your senators.

Gagdad Bob resides in the real world as well. In a superb post, the master observer notes

…highlights this absurdity of the left, in that it hews to faux-eternal principles which can never change irrespective of what actually happens in what they ironically call “reality,” being that reality for them is reduced to the flatland, material world. For example, Walker asks, “How many ‘civil rights’ leaders talk as if racism is an immutable, eternal characteristic of American society? How many feminist leaders talk as if sexism is an immutable, eternal characteristic of American society? The mere passage of years, the mere enactment of statutes or adoption of polices, the decades long public relations campaign against bigotry — none of this can be allowed to make a difference” (emphasis mine).

But why does the left embrace a kind of bitter and reactionary anti-theology, in which they hold to such a negative view of the world despite what actually occurs here? As Walker writes, “the sins of America are a religious article of faith to self-appointed black leaders and to self-appointed representatives of the female sex.”
You’d think it would be uncontroversial to utter a simple truth, but you’d be wrong, wouldn’t you? I am reminded of Obama’s shamelessly opportunistic and manipulative “dialogue about race,” when the whole reason we cannot say anything useful or productive about race is that the left will brand you as racist if you do. It seems that to carry Truth is to pick up a cross and paint a target on one’s back.

…the leftist must always fool you (and, more importantly, himself) into believing that he is defending eternal principles, principles in which he doesn’t actually believe. For example, the left universally believes that it is proper for the government to discriminate on the basis of race, “gender” and “sexual orientation”, and that failure to do so should be illegal. Not surprisingly, the party of trial lawyers loves these kinds of laws, because trial lawyers are the group that most benefits from this crass power grab in the guise of a principle.

The left once unanimously maintained that we should judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. But the fact that they so readily abandoned this principle shows how they are always rooted in tactics, not principles. Likewise, up until the late ’60s and early ’70s, the left was a vocal supporter of Israel, whereas now all of the wholesale anti-Semitism in the world emanates from the left (including, of course, the Obama campaign (cf here).

When it is all said and done is Barack Obama the person you really want to lead an American dialogue on race? Should his supporters, those who defended and apologized for his 20 plus year association with what is now a long line of bigots, be given any kind of credibility when it comes to talking about race?

George Bush and Republican legislators in Texas made a difference in the lives of blacks and Hispanics in Texas, especially when it came to education- so much so that they supported him in unprecedented numbers. He made sure what kids learned would make a difference in their lives.

Barack Obama stood by a preacher who taught racism, bigotry and hate for 20 years and made sure his children were in the same pews, learning the lessons from the pulpit.

Who do you think is better qualified to lead a national dialogue on race in America?

The Human Condition As Understood By The British

BRITISH NEWSPAPERS

Commenting on a complaint from a Mr. Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill, a spokesman for North West Gas said, “We agree it was rather high for the time of year. It’s possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house.”
(The Daily Telegraph)

Police reveal that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami in her underwear. When asked why, she said it was because she was missing her Italian boyfriend.
(The Manchester Evening News)

Irish police are being handicapped in a search for a stolen van, because they cannot issue a description. It’s a Special Branch vehicle and they don’t want the public to know what it looks like.
(The Guardian)

A young girl who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast guard spokesman commented, “This sort of thing is all too common”.
(The Times)

At the height of the gale, the harbourmaster radioed a coast guard and asked him to estimate the wind speed. He replied he was sorry, but he didn’t have a gauge. However, if it was any help, the wind had just blown his Land Rover off the cliff.
(Aberdeen Evening Express)

Mrs. Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience with her reminiscence of the German prisoner of war who was sent each week to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled -
“He’d always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out ‘Heil Hitler.’”
(Bournemouth Evening Echo)

HEARD ON THE LONDON UNDERGOUND TUBE

A list of actual announcements that London Tube train drivers have made to their passengers…

1) “Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologize for the delay to your service. I know you’re all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you’ll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction.”

2) “Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome: not knowing his elbow from his backside. I’ll let you know any further information as soon as I’m given any.”

3) “Do you want the good news first or the bad news? The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won’t reach our destination.”

4) “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay, but there is a security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here for the foreseeable future, so let’s take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now…. ‘Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall…..’.”

5) “We are now travelling through Baker Street… As you can see, Baker Street is closed. It would have been nice if they had actually told me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don’t think about things like that”.

6) “Beggars are operating on this train. Please do NOT encourage these professional beggars. If you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity. Failing that, give it to me.”

7) During an extremely hot rush hour on the Central Line, the driver announced in a West Indian drawl: “Step right this way for the sauna, ladies and gentleman… unfortunately, towels are not provided.”

8) “Let the passengers off the train FIRST!” (Pause ) “Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care – I’m going home….”

9) “Please allow the doors to close. Try not to confuse this with ‘Please hold the doors open.’ The two are distinct and separate instructions.”

10) “Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors.”

11) “We can’t move off because some idiot has their hand stuck in the door.”

12) “To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the second carriage — what part of ‘stand clear of the doors’ don’t you understand?”

13) “Please move all baggage away from the doors.” (Pause..) “Please move ALL belongings away from the doors.” (Pause…) “This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train: Put the pie down, Four-eyes, and move your bloody golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your arse sideways!”

14) “May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it’s only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage.”

Walmart, Guns, Dumb And Scams

Walmart sues victim. And that’s just the start.

Yet another victim: Arsonist firefighter sues to get his job back.

Another good reason to pull a gun: Keeping your shoes on.

Incredibly dumb.  Incredibly dumber.

The next Nigerian scam- coming soon to a lake near you!

European Dispatch, Tibet And Bill Clinton’s Legacy

Yesterday, we received an email from readers Expat, an American in Germany.

I was watching Sandra Maischberger [award winning German talk show host, journalist and writer- SC&A] do a talk round on the revival of religion. I won’t go into details, but one atheist, psychologist guest was saying that the bible is a form of child abuse. None of the other guests had an adequate reply. At one point, Maischberger (who is supposed to be a particularly good journalist–Helmut Schmidt really likes her) asked whether the bible was necessary today. Wouldn’t the UN Declaration of Human Rights an the Geneva Conventions suffice?

There was an opinion piece in Die Zeit about an incest case upheld by the courts. This involved a brother and sister raised apart who fell in love, married, and had children totally unaware of their blood relationship. When this was discovered, they were found guilty of incest. After the guy served his sentence, the pair got back together and had more children. It was a second guilty finding that the court upheld. Now, I am a firm believer that hard cases make bad law, so I won’t get into this case; however, the op/ed writer in
trying to be terribly consistent and liberal advocated getting rid of the old incest taboo.

Finally, Stanly Kurtz, at The Corner, mentioned a book by David L. Tubbs entitled Freedom’s Orphans, which talks about the way children are not considered in today’s social policies. I haven’t read the book–it costs 60 bucks. But it seems to raise questions about the kind of thinking displayed in my previous two paragraphs.

How can an adult like Maischberger believe that a legalistic document can replace the stories and humanity of the bible? Does she not see that it fails to address the meaning of life questions? Is she totally ignorant of how love plays a part in transmitting values?

How can an adult fail to see that the incest taboo is based on the entire experience of humanity, which recognizes that the family home must provide safety for children? How can she not see that intrafamily power structures and raging hormones of the young need
control?

I can only question whether today’s “thinkers” are all fucking nuts. Do they really think that kids pop out of the womb and enter law school? How come knowledge of child development has become so degenerated?

So, there you have thoughts for the week…

Expat isn’t really cherry picking Euro oddities. Sandra Maischberger is highly regarded and mainstream. The incest story referred to wasn’t under the radar. While most Europeans were clearly to be found on one side of the issues, many of the literati were hell bent on eliminating the taboo on incest.

We noted in an email reply to Expat that

The incest case was more problematic- not because of the details, but rather because there is an attempt to legitimize the conversation… [There won't be] legions of little boys fantasizing about their sisters…

What is equally important is that the ‘conversation’ on legalizing incest was no more than a vehicle to be exploited so that some people might be heard. Not unlike Madonna, in the early years of her career, these Euro avant garde types seek to shock others so that the spotlight falls on them. Like Madonna, they are willing to exploit just about anything so that their ends might be served. Like Madonna, they too will fall by the wayside and be forgotten.

The atheist/psychologist who suggested who referred to the Bible as a ‘child abuse’ and suggested that the UN Declaration of Human Rights an the Geneva Conventions ought to be the sacred documents of a new age, might want to reconsider her ill considered ideas. The morality of the UN and her precious declarations are probably lost on victims in Rwanda, Sierra Leonne, the Congo, Darfur and Tibet (although incomplete, see this list for a bit if perspective on UN success in dealing with conflict).

In addition, here’s a reminder (noted by Gagdad Bob): One of the most significant influences and contributions of the Judeo-Christian religions was the elimination of child sacrifice, wresting that atrocity from the more ‘natural’ or ‘universal’ religions. In the UN’s culturally and morally equivalent world view, child sacrifice (and cannibalism) might be perfectly acceptable practices. This is no pie in the sky theory- as it is, the UN has yet to decry the racism, bigotry, hate and calls to slaughter taught in schools, broadcast in media and preached from religious pulpits in many places in the world today. There are cultures that teach from an early age that the killing of innocents is the highest form of religious expression. Finally, let’s recall that the Nazis plied their evil in the shade of the well meaning and very useless League of Nations- the precursor to the United Nations and equally endowed with magnificent declarations of human rights and documents of ‘understanding.’

The League of Nations was an utter failure- and that organization had no ‘Israel’ or nation blocs of some the most dysfunctional and failed nation states in the world, that serve deflect attention away from the most egregious violators of human and religious rights in history.

Expat isn’t the only one questioning the bizarre realities of our world. In Morally Twisted, Dr Sanity considers an article by Dennis Prager, in which he asks, ‘Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans?

We’re going to jump around a bit. Later in her post Dr Sanity remarks that

Now compare and contrast the Palestinians with the relatively gentle culture of Tibet and the non-violent philosophy of its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. You can also compare and contrast the deliberate brutality of China and its Communist leadership with Israel. China’s brutality and oppression is almost always given a free pass by the left in much the same way they have extended to Fidel Castro and other despotic totalitarian and authoritarian regimes their devoted loyalty and sympathy. Israel, as a Democratic and morally conscious nation actually works hard to spare innocent human life is automatically condemned whenever they respond to Palestinian provocation simply because it represents Western values and is by definition of the neo-marxists of our day, an ‘official’ oppressor. The left always calls Israel’s response to the provocations “disproportionate“; but in reality, it is the left’s moral equivalence that is so disgustingly disproportionate.

Earlier in Morally Twisted, these unassailable truths are noted:

First and foremost is the fact that the Palestinians’ use of terror has captured the world’s attention, and, instead of bringing the condemnation such behavior deserves, it has brought them a continuous flow of money and sympathy. In fact, the resourceful Palestinians have managed to leverage their escalating terrorist tactics–murdering as many innocent people as possible–into the enviable status of gold-medal victimhood; all the while deliberately ensuring that their society remains as pathetic as possible to continue the con…

…leaders manipulate Palestinian “victimhood at the hands of Israeli oppression” so convincingly and with such great gusto, that they have conned the international community into believing that Palestinians have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the garbage dump their society has evolved into. The poor, oppressed suicide bombers of Palestine have become the “opiate” of the leftist masses…

For every professional victim, there are hordes of victimhood pimps urging them on to even greater heights of victimhood in order for the pimps to bask in a glow of moral righteousness and virtue. You can see this in the adoption of the Palestinians as “global chic” by the morally bankrupt and mindless intellectual elite of the left, as they glorify and worship Palestinian dysfunction and pathology.

These ‘victimhood pimps’ are the intellectual Euro-trash reader Expat refers to, soiling a cultural canvas of great breadth and soiling the Continent.

Dr Sanity, again:

The Palestinians are probably one of the most undeserving victim groups in history. With the help of their own leaders, in connivance with the enabling behavior of the international political left, they have evolved into a homicidal mob that is more of a death cult than a society.

With every invitation to rejoin the civilized world that has been offered up to them, the Palestinians have instead chosen cultural suicide. They would much rather kill Jews than work to create a life for their children.

In fact, they’d rather their children kill Jews, too…

…how can the Tibetans fail to notice the moral inversion and perversity; that characterizes the world’s attitude toward them? Tibet’s truly just cause for a return to its statehood; as well as the deliberate crushing of both their cultural and religious heritage by the communist Chinese have been virtually ignored by the rest of the world for decades; while Palestinian terror and violence; murder and genocide are constantly rewarded, applauded, and appeased.

It isn’t just Tibetans who are blinded by uber immorality of deliberate deceit. We don’t have to look far from home. As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama deliberately lie to the American people (she of the details of her Kosovo trip and he of his 20 year ‘unawareness’ of Pastor Wright’s bigotry and subsequent refusal to distance himself from the bigot. In Obama’s world, ‘selected’ preachings from a bigot are perfectly acceptable reasons to embrace the bigot- a rationale embraced by the Klan), it should come as no surprise that this kind of deceit has a firm foothold here.

When Bill Clinton pointed his finger at Chris Wallace of Fox News, we noted that

This week, Bill Clinton went down in flames- nobly, of course. The MSM and the left are all a twitter, because Bill Clinton, beautifully and articulately lied his pants off. It didn’t matter that Mr Clinton wasn’t telling the truth- the proud moment was achieved because he lied with polish, poise and earnestness…

Rather than be ashamed of a former President of the United States boldly lying on national television, much of the MSM and the left believe they can finally touch themselves in public, for a change. It matters little to them that a former president has anointed himself with credibility equal to that of Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and Bashar Assad. Clinton lied, with panache and style and so, he’s a hero to many.

Of course, Mr Clinton is a very smart man. Mr Clinton knew his record would be examined and he also knew that record would not bear him out- and it is precisely because of that, he felt compelled to lie.

Mr Clinton will not leave the legacy he so desperately wants to leave. His image will not be chiseled onto Mount Rushmore, awarded that lofty status by a national groundswell of love and admiration.

In lieu of that, Mr Clinton has chosen to be victim- the perfect victim. He wants to be seen as hounded by the right and Fox News, and denied his destiny by the evil of his persecutors. It doesn’t matter that he lied, to the nation, a Grand Jury, or Chris Wallace. Mr Clinton meant well, and that is enough. We do not need an honest president- we just need one who means well, defined as anyone that adopts an agenda of the left and articulates any disagreement as persecution.

The MSM and left are perfectly happy with those arrangements.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are free to deceive at will because they mean well.

And so it goes and will go- until Europe needs us again (and they will) and until the grandchildren of the baby boomers answer the call to serve the nation in the same way the grandchildren of the self absorbed Gilded Age libertines answered the call in 1941.

Few Words, Much Wisdom: “Stop asking children what they want to do, and start asking them who they want to be”

Few words, much wisdom.

From the Jerusalem Post:

In this election year it bears repeating that the major changes all of us seek will not come from politicians so much as parents, not from senators so much as teachers. Politicians change big things. But in America it’s the little things – our marriages, raising children, finding individual purpose – where we most fail.

With so many social ills afflicting our culture, it is time that we made fundamental changes to our values. Here is a list to revamp the values with which we raise our children:

• Stop asking children what they want to do, and start asking them who they want to be.

The first question speaks to occupation. The second speaks to character.

Our children see right through our hypocrisy. We pretend to be interested in the kind of people they will become, but seem upset only when they don’t get into Harvard. But whether your children become garbage collectors or president of the United States is subordinate to whether or not they are ethical people.

Let’s stop giving them mixed messages by always prodding them about the careers they will choose as opposed to the goodness they will live. The moral question always comes first. Dale Carnegie demonstrated definitively in How To Win Friends and Influence People that what people most wish is to be good. Our responsibility is to attune our kids to their inner voice of conscience.

• Focus children on a calling rather a career.

Once we parents deliver the message to our kids that we want them to be good even more than we want them to be “successful,” our educational system can follow suit by guiding our children toward a calling over a career.

Career focuses on self-aggrandizement and accumulation. It encourages narcissism and fosters insecurity. The child is encouraged into a life of self-absorption as he measures his success by how far along he is in comparison to his peers. He is trained to be outward-oriented, determining his self-worth by his position on the career ladder and viewing his companions as competitors.

By contrast, a calling teaches the child to fixate on his unique gift, the special contribution with which he is endowed to enrich the world, thereby developing his individuality. A child with a calling encourages the success of others, but a child with a career always feels threatened by another’s success.

• Value intellectual curiosity as opposed to grades.

Here is a paradox for you to ponder. How is that 60 percent of Americans have a college degree, but an equal number can’t find Iraq on a map? Americans are more educated and more ignorant than ever. Here’s why. They are trained to perform rather than to know, to ace exams rather than love knowledge, to specialize in particular subjects rather to be curious about life as a whole.

As a result, their existence bores them. After four years of higher education, they settle down to a life of Access Hollywood and People magazine. Kids who are attentive in class come home and sit with jaws agape as they watch the same mind-numbing videos over and over again. They don’t read books unless they are required to by school.

I would rather have a child who goes to a community college and is a sponge for information than a child who goes to Harvard but has no passion for history, ideas or current events.

Business success stories bear this out. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison all dropped out of school. They were successful because of their limitless curiosity, not their earth-shattering SAT score.

Our grades fixation is undermining our children and turning them into circus monkeys designed to perform. We have to start telling our kids that grades are only one barometer of a far more important issue: their curiosity about life. As I tell my kids repeatedly, “All I want to know is that you want to know.”

• Stress purpose as opposed to happiness.

Mothers and fathers telling their children “I just want you to be happy” is one of the silliest parenting mantras ever. What if being a lazy beachcomber makes the kid happy? What if womanizing does it for him, or drugs?

This is aside from the fact that the only thing that brings real happiness is a sense of purpose, as Viktor Frankl compellingly argues in his 20th-century masterpiece Man’s Search for Meaning. A child must be taught that his life has to be directional, other-oriented and purposeful. If he devotes his life to a worthy cause, then personal fulfillment and happiness will naturally follow. But if he squanders his potential, his life will be filled with misery.

The pursuit of happiness makes a child a burden to himself. The pursuit of purpose, however, liberates our talents and brings joy.

• Put family before friends.

Placing friends before family is yet another destructive modern value. Friends love you for your virtue, your sense of loyalty, your sense of humor. But family loves you for just being you. A child’s formative years requires the unconditional love that only family can offer, rather than the more tentative love that friendship affords.

This is not to say that friendship is not important, rather that the ratio of friendship-time to family-time in after-school hours must be at least five to one.

• Seek love as opposed to attention.

Everyone today wants to be famous, especially our kids. I am convinced that the lust for attention is a result of the death of love. Hollywood celebrities have the adoration of the cameras. But they can’t seem to stay married or keep themselves or their kids out of rehab.

That’s because the love of the masses is fickle and dependent on your ascendant or waning fortunes. It exploits human insecurity and leaves you feeling used.

Our children need to know that attention is a cheap forgery of love, a flimsy imitation of the real thing. They must learn to love people without expecting anything in return. To be the hero without the spotlight. To do right because it’s right, when no one is looking, and where no recognition will follow from their virtuous act. Lending dignity to others is the surest way to acquire it yourself.

Three Stages In A Man’s Life

The Kissing Test

The Doctrine of Proportionate Response

‘Disproportionate’ is a word that has come into vogue when discussing Israel and her response to terror and violence. We have reached the point where no matter what the Israeli reaction or response to terror might be, the discussion always centers around what is a disproportionate response, what was a disproportionate response or what may be a disproportionate response.

The media fascination- and obsession-  with the idea of ‘disproportionate response’ is understandable, because ‘proportionate response’ contributed to the deaths of millions in Rwanda, Sierra Leonne, the Congo and Darfur. These atrocities are allowed to go one because just about any kind of response and or intervention are considered ‘disproportionate’ by one side or the other. Somehow, proportionate response- even if that leads to the deaths of millions- must be seen as the moral response.

Proportionality (defined moment by moment) is the mechanism by which we can justify doing nothing as millions die. The Doctrine of Proportionate Response exist solely to shield us from taking moral stands and taking moral positions. If the Doctrine of Proportionate Response is applied equally, then the doing nothing becomes the moral thing to do.

Of course, proportionate response is precisely what makes war and atrocities acceptable ideas. As we have noted,

Europe isn’t a Muslim dominated continent today, because the Islamic invaders that were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, could no longer pay the price of advance. European defenders were extracting too high a price from the invaders. When it became clear to the invaders that war was no longer the smart way to go, the Muslim world found a way to live in peace with their Christian neighbors. The same thing happened when the Crusades failed. Christan Europe found a way to live with the Levant…

Wars begin and end because of the various costs of waging war. That is as true today as it has been in the past, and that will be true in the future.

Wars have economic costs and moral costs.

Peace among nations is arrived at when the cost of war becomes ovewhelming. Racism, bigotry and hate are overcome when the cost of racism, bigotry and hate becomes too great for a society to bear.

As long as nations and peoples perceive the cost of war as acceptable, then we will have war, racism, bigotry and hate.

It interesting to note that the hate directed at Israel is never referred to as ‘disproportionate.’ It is also true that the lopsided voting record against Israel by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (an assembly that includes some of the most oppressive and failed nation-states in the world) is never referred to as ‘disproportionate’ despite the admonition of three successive United Nations Secretaries- General. The same applies to United Nations General Assembly, now a forum for over the top racism, bigotry and hate- none of which seems to qualify as ‘disproportionate.’

None of the institutionalized hate and bigotry of the Arab world is ‘disproportionate.’ In fact, the Arabs will tell you that there are not enough calls to genocide and there is not enough hate and racism directed at Israel and Jews. In schools, media and from the pulpit, calls for genocide, bigotry and hate are considered ‘proportionate’ and reasonable.

The NGO’s for whom anti Jewish and anti Israel sentiment are daily bread, compete with other over who is more anti Jewish and more anti Israel, taking pride in their ‘originality’ or ablity to pass that hate as rational and reasoned.

The psychotic Arab media routinely  whip themselves and their readers/viewers into a frenzy, denying the Holocaust as a ‘Jewish plot’ on the one hand while promising another very real holocaust a few moments later, in the same breath.  Tales of outrageous Jewish conspiracies are sandwiched by pronouncements that Muslims are strategizing and will soon control the world and the destiny of all mankind.

The Doctrine of Proportionate Response and the belief that evil can be negotiated with failed to prevent the Nazi Holocaust and it has failed to prevent untold deaths since then. The racist angle of the doctrine cannot be overlooked. In speaking of Rwanda, Romeo Daillaire, UN military commander noted

They knew how many people were dying…the world is racist, Africans don’t count; Yugoslavians do. More people were killed injured, internally displaced and refugees in 100 days in Rwanda than in the whole eight to nine years of the Yugoslavia campaign…

Why didn’t the world react to the scenes where women were held as human shields so nobody could shoot back while the militia shot into the crowd?

Why didn’t the world react to the scenes where women were held as human shields so nobody could shoot back while the militia shot into the crowd?

Daillaire’s words are almost equally applicale to events in Darfur and elswhere today.

The media is as complict in today’s sorry state of affairs as are the adversaries. It was the media that gave the disasterous Doctrine of Proportionate Response a platform. It is the media that gives the spokespeople and advocated for racism, bigotry and genocide a proportional soap box. The media does not demand the eradication of evil because as we noted, ‘The Doctrine of Proportionate Response exist solely to shield us from taking moral stands and taking moral positions. If the Doctrine of Proportionate Response is applied equally, then the doing nothing becomes the moral thing to do.’

What a wonderful world.

The Laws That Govern The Cosmos

These are the immutable laws the govern the cosmos.

See Godwin’s Law below for the law that governs the blogosphere.

Amdahl’s Law: The speed-up achievable on a parallel computer can be significantly limited by the existence of a small fraction of inherently sequential code which cannot be parallelised. (Gene Amdahl)

Augustine’s Second Law of Socioscience: For every scientific (or engineering) action, there is an equal and opposite social reaction. (Norman Augustine)

Benford’s Law: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available. (Gregory Benford)

Brooks’ Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. (Frederick P Brooks Jr)

Church-Turing Thesis: Every function which would naturally be regarded as computable can be computed by the universal Turing machine.

Clarke’s First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. (Arthur C Clarke)

Clarke’s Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. (Arthur C Clarke)

Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C Clarke)

Conway’s Law: If you have four groups working on a compiler, you’ll get a 4-pass compiler. (Melvin Conway)

Cope’s Law: There is a general tendency toward size increase in evolution. (Edward Drinker Cope)

Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. (Scott Adams)

Deutsch’s Seven Fallacies of Distributed Computing: Reliable delivery; Zero latency; Infinite bandwidth; Secure transmissions; Stable topology; Single adminstrator; Zero cost. (Peter Deutsch)

Ellison’s Law: The userbase for strong cryptography declines by half with every additional keystroke or mouseclick required to make it work. (Carl Ellison)

Ellison’s Law: The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. (Harlan Ellison)

Ellison’s Law: Once the business data have been centralized and integrated, the value of the database is greater than the sum of the preexisting parts. (Larry Ellison)

Finagle’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will. (?Larry Niven)

Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem: The more highly adapted an organism becomes, the less adaptable it is to any new change. (R A Fisher)

Fitts’s Law: The movement time required for tapping operations is a linear function of the log of the ratio of the distance to the target divided by width of the target. (Paul Fitts)

Flon’s axiom: There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a programming language in which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs. (Lawrence Flon)

Gilder’s Law: Bandwidth grows at least three times faster than computer power. (George Gilder)

Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. (Mike Godwin)

Grosch’s Law: The cost of computing systems increases as the square root of the computational power of the systems. (Herbert Grosch)

Grove’s Law: Telecommunications bandwidth doubles every century. (Andy Grove)

Hanlon’s Law: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (?Robert Heinlein)

Hartree’s Law: Whatever the state of a project, the time a project-leader will estimate for completition is constant. (Douglas Hartree)

Heisenbug Uncertainty Principle: Most production software bugs are soft: they go away when you look at them. (Jim Gray)

Hick’s Law: The time to choose between a number of alternative targets is a function of the number of targets and is related logarithmically. (W E Hick)

Hoare’s Law: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. (Charles Hoare)

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter’s Law into account. (Douglas Hofstadter)

Jakob’s Law of the Internet User Experience: Users spend most of their time on other websites. (Jakob Nielsen)

Joy’s Law: Computing power of the fastest microprocessors, measured in MIPS, increases exponentially in time. (Bill Joy)

Kerckhoff’s Principle: Security resides solely in the key. (Auguste Kerckhoff)

Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns: As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up (that is, the time interval between salient events grows shorter as time passes). (Ray Kurzweil)

Law of the Conservation of Catastrophe: The solutions to one crisis pave the way for some equal or greater future disaster. (William McNeill)

Law of False Alerts: As the rate of erroneous alerts increases, operator reliance, or belief, in subsequent warnings decreases. (George Spafford)

Lister’s Law: People under time pressure don’t think faster. (Timothy Lister)

Lloyd’s Hypothesis: Everything that’s worth understanding about a complex system, can be understood in terms of how it processes information. (Seth Lloyd)

Metcalfe’s Law: The value of a network grows as the square of the number of its users. (Robert Metcalfe)

Moore’s Law: Transistor die sizes are cut in half every 24 months. Therefore, both the number of transistors on a chip and the speed of each transistor double every 18 (or 12 or 24) months. (Gordon Moore)

Murphy’s Law: If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it. (Edward A Murphy)

Nathan’s First Law: Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container. (Nathan Myhrvold)

Ninety-ninety Law: The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time. (Tom Cargill)

Occam’s Razor: The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct. (William of Occam)

Osborn’s Law: Variables won’t; constants aren’t. (Don Osborn)

Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. (C Northcote Parkinson)

Pareto Principle: 20% of the people own 80% of the country’s assets. (Corollary: 20% of the effort generates 80% of the results.) (Vilfredo Pareto)

Pesticide Paradox: Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineffectual. (Bruce Beizer)

Peter Principle: In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. (Laurence J Peter)

Red Queen Principle: For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the system it is co-evolving with. (Leigh van Valen)

Rock’s Law: The cost of semiconductor fabrication equipment doubles every four years. (Arthur Rock)

Rule of 1950: The probability that automated decisions systems will be adopted is approximately one divided by one plus the number of individuals involved in the approval process who were born in 1950 or before squared. (Frank Demmler)

Sixty-sixty Law: Sixty percent of software�s dollar is spent on maintenance, and sixty percent of that maintenance is enhancement. (Robert Glass)

Spector’s Law: The time it takes your favorite application to complete a given task doubles with each new revision. (Lincoln Spector)

Sturgeon’s Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap. (Theodore Sturgeon)

Tesler’s Law of Conservation of Complexity: You cannot reduce the complexity of a given task beyond a certain point. Once you’ve reached that point, you can only shift the burden around. (Larry Tesler)

Tesler’s Theorem: Artificial Intelligence is whatever hasn’t been done yet. (Larry Tesler)

Weibull’s Power Law: The logarithm of failure rates increases linearly with the logarithm of age. (Waloddi Weibull)

Weinberg’s Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. (Gerald M Weinberg)

Wirth’s Law: Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. (Nicklaus Wirth)

Zawinski’s Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. (Jamie Zawinski)

Chinese Buffet- FREE!

There will be another scintillating and filling buffet of brilliance as Sanity Squad prepares our BlogTalk Radio podcast, scheduled for this evening at 8:00 pm.

Dr Sanity, Shrinkwrapped, Neo and ourselves will be discussing a number of topics including the situation with China, Tibet, the Dalai Lama, the upcoming Olympics and the larger psychological and political implications of the events as they unfold.

The podcast can accessed from the Sanity Squad BTR Homepage.

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116.

Doors open at 8:00 PM sharp.

Arrive early, leave hungry for more.

Slumburbia?

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Every coin has its flip side. Last week, I explored how San Francisco and other centers of innovation around the globe are resisting the downward vortex of the housing market. These fabled super cities, Richard Florida contends in his new book, “Who’s Your City,” are attracting an increasingly disproportionate number of educated, creative knowledge workers who fuel the economy. In turn, these folks are keeping housing prices relatively high despite recurring appearances of the R-word on our front pages.

The dark side of this surreality is that the places far from these hallowed urban cores are experiencing unprecedented decline and, according to some experts, threaten to become tomorrow’s slums.

We’re not talking about mean inner city streets getting meaner, we’re talking about the pristine, newly built developments of four-bedroom, three-bath dream homes produced in the last housing boom becoming ghettos for the poor and the disenfranchised.

Slumburbia? After decades of middle class flight from the cities in search of safe neighborhoods and good schools — a flight that continues today even from gentrified cities like San Francisco — it’s hard to conjure the image of a truly derelict suburbia. Will all those manicured lawns sprout weeds and broken bottles like a Baltimore back alley? Will drug dealers take over the local cul-de-sac? Will squatters set up camp in the neighbor’s McMansion?

All this seems unfathomable, but it’s the prediction du jour for some urban planners who make it their business to track the larger sociological implications of our land use.

Of course, we’ve all heard about the tsunami of foreclosures that has descended on much of the country. But not all real estate disaster areas are created equal: This week RealtyTrac released new foreclosure numbers about cities that were hit the hardest in February. Stockton, with nearly 5 percent of all households at some stage of foreclosure, got the honor of ringing up the second highest foreclosure rate nationwide, after Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. Other sprawling California regions dominated the list: Modesto at No. 3, Merced at No. 4, Riverside-San Bernardino at No. 5, Bakersfield at No. 7, Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 8, and Sacramento at No. 9.

What do all these places have in common? Suburbs upon sprawling new suburbs. Does this suggest that the American dream of the large-lot single family home is doomed? Some experts think so.

“Over the last few decades we’ve structurally overinvested in fringe real estate,” explains Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute and a former developer. “Builders are experts in overbuilding, in terms of cyclical overbuilding, like lemmings to the sea. But this time it’s different. It’s not just a cycle. It’s going to take more than two or three years to recover from this.”

Last fall, Leinberger published “The Option of Urbanism,” a book about the changing sociology of the built environment. Like Florida, he sees the growing attraction to urban living as a matter of critical importance. This month, his essay in the Atlantic magazine provocatively asserts that McMansion developments would deteriorate into crime ridden, impoverished slums. In the piece he mentions several instances of suburban neighborhoods getting hit so hard by the recent downturn that they already exhibit the tell-tale signs of deep decline: Looters stealing copper pipe and siding from new homes, gunshots puncturing picture-perfect facades, squatters taking up residence in abandoned houses.

When asked if the edge suburbs are turning into slums, Florida concurs with Leinberger’s ominous vision, “Yes, they are already well on their way,” he says. “The knowledge workers can’t afford the time cost, they can’t afford the commuting time.”

But mostly Leinberger is predicting the future rather than describing the present, arguing that the pendulum has swung too far toward isolated, car-dependent single-family-home neighborhoods to be sustainable. (In his description of the city, he’s not including older inner suburbs like Berkeley or Palo Alto that have walkable urban neighborhoods and public transit; he’s talking about the hillsides of homes detached from urbanized towns.) Now with high gas prices, long commutes, a bad job market and a new attraction to walkable urban living, it’s just a matter of time before suburban fringes begin to absorb the people that can’t make it in the city.

If newly built suburbs in decline sound like a less formidable problem than the neglect and misery of our inner cities beginning in the 1960s, with their generation after generation of children raised amid violence, drug addiction and hopelessness, maybe our imaginations are failing us. In Europe, where the cities never died, the suburbs have long been the homes of last resort for the poor and the marginalized. Just last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced yet another plan to revive the suburban slums that erupted in riots in 2005 — the 16th such proposal in 31 years.

Florida and Leinberger say that retooling the suburbs is going to make urban renewal look like a walk in the park.

“Suburb development is really fragile,” Leinberger explains. “It’s going to be very complex to rebuild.”

As Leinberger notes, new suburbs tend to be situated far from public transport, social services and commerce, so they are particularly bad places for people who can’t afford cars. The housing stock isn’t terribly flexible. Compared to the sturdy older buildings in the city that got chopped up into apartments, it’s not easy to take a production-built house with three bedrooms and turn it into good multifamily housing. What’s more, the neighborhood infrastructure isn’t designed for higher density or commercial uses: The streets are often thinner, the pipes and drainage not built for heavier use.

Newer suburbs are also financially vulnerable: They depend on developers’ fees and property taxes to pay for the communities. “When the growth stops and the property values fall,” says Leinberger, “suddenly you’re going to have this wicked situation where social costs are rising as funding dries up, but without any other tax sources from commercial or industrial activity.”

This inherent fragility springs from some of the same regulations that make suburbs easier to build and therefore better bets for developers. By definition, suburbs are zoned for residential single family or maybe residential low density multifamily. They don’t require the complex planning or infrastructure building essential for commercial, industrial and high density housing. In many parts of the country — whether through state law or local ordinances — single family housing is the only new development that can be legally built. And because Fannie Mae will not finance rental developments that predict that more than 25 percent of the rent will come from nonresidential income, mixed use developments — like old fashioned main streets where apartments are built above the bakery and the butcher shop — are often perceived as more risky.

“It’s not the developers’ fault,” explains John Norquist, former mayor of Milwaukee, Wis., and president of the Congress for the New Urbanism. “They didn’t create this system, they just inherited it.”

Despite all this doom and gloom, the experts say we may be witnessing the evolution of the American dream toward a far healthier, more ecological vision.

“It’s an enormous opportunity,” says Norquist, “Thirty percent of the housing stock that will exist in 2030 hasn’t been built yet. Developers who are creating walkable neighborhoods are doing very well.” Indeed, the fact that Americans are embracing walkable neighborhoods is a good thing for their waistlines, their pocketbooks and the planet. “(Al) Gore talks about the inconvenient truth,” says Norquist, “I call this the convenient solution: living in a more urban way.”

To accelerate this trend, Leinberger is trying to work with cities that don’t have revived downtowns to help pave the way for the kind of walkable redevelopment that will attract jobs and residents. Building walkable urban developments won’t guarantee a city’s success, says Leinberger, but it is an essential first step.

“If you build, will they come?” asks Leinberger. “You just don’t know. But if you don’t build it, there’s not a prayer they will come.”