Category: Uncategorized

Remember, these are the same people who insist that immigration won’t change America for the worse:

Violence erupted at a Michigan law school Thursday when protestors tried to block a speech by Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. Police were called after protestors pulled a fire alarm prior to the speech on immigration policies. There were at least three violent incidents with protestors targeting student backers of the event, Tancredo, R-Littleton, said today.

“One was spit on, one was kicked, and one was punched,” Tancredo said in an e-mail. “Tires were also slashed.”

Michigan State University College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom sponsored the event. Tancredo went to Michigan State University College of Law as part of a visit to the state to talk about immigration. He leads the group that opposes legal status for illegal immigrants.

Pro-immigrationists believe it is racist to oppose the continued importation of Mexicans, Central Americans, Arabs and other non-Europeans. Maybe so, but even if that is the case, it’s obvious that racism can only be a small part of the equation because it is wildly nonsensical to imagine that allowing tens of millions of people from authoritarian, illiberal cultures will not change their new residence in ways that cause it to resemble the place from which they came.

This is why Washingtonians, Oregonians and Arizonians protest the Californication of their states. Are they being racist in resenting this predominantly white immigration? Of course not! It is the same reason that Southern conservatives despise liberal white Northerners who move South to escape the high taxes, high costs and intrusive government of the “blue states”, then in their inability to understand cause-and-effect, perversely seek to recreate the very conditions they previously fled.

It is obvious that immigration can only be a limited good. If it was an unqualified good, then who would complain if 300 million Chinese communists decided to emigrate and settle in California next year. The true question is this: how much is too much? Based on the evidence, the USA and Britain are far past the too-much point already.

The fact that those who prefer to argue through violence support Brown America is further evidence that the immigration invasion is a deadly threat to both the abstract idea of America and the continuance of its once-soliid social structure.

The logical equation is simple. Brown America will either be the same as White America, or it will be different. History and the existing evidence strongly suggest it will be different. If it is different, then this prompts the question if it will be stronger, wealthier and more free or weaker, poorer and less free.

I shall leave that to the reader to decide.

This sure sounds like free speech to me…. NWA had it right from the start:

Police and prosecutors are worried that a Web site claiming to identify more than 4,000 informants and undercover agents will cripple investigations and hang targets on witnesses.

The Web site, WhosaRat.com, first caught the attention of authorities after a Massachusetts man put it online and named a few dozen people as turncoats in 2004. Since then, it has grown into a clearinghouse for mug shots, court papers and rumors.

Federal prosecutors say the site was set up to encourage violence, and federal judges around the country were recently warned that witnesses in their courtrooms may be profiled online.

So, it’s fine for them to publicly post information about on everyone they’d like to cast in a negative light, but free speech must be destroyed in order to let them do their job of looking busy after the fact… I mean, “to protect and to serve”.

It is customary to add, “but of course, most police are fine individuals, blah blah blah.” Forget that. I’m sure there were nice individuals in the Red Guards too. The police are liittle more than a Praetorian Guard, corrupt, self-serving and lawless, slavishly devoted to the revenue-collection in all its perverse forms. The country doesn’t need them, private security guards do all of the actual protecting that is demanded and every community would be better off to fire them all and replace them with a combination of private security services and armed citizens.

Of course, without them, we’d also have to hire someone to assassinate guys about to get married and ninety-two year-old women in the comfort of their homes.

While there are no comprehensive statistics available on police shootings due to the stubborn refusal of these “public servants” to own up to the full extent of their fabulous, public-serving activities, if one assumes that the 1976 figure of 373 fatal police shootings in America has not increased, it still represents 3.3 percent of the 11,350 American gun killings in 2005.

UPDATE: Tim Lynch points out the different way in which police shooters and peon shooters are treated:

Yesterday, NYT columnist Bob Herbert observed (subscr. required) that the cops involved in the shooting death of Sean Bell have still not been questioned by internal affairs detectives. Compare that situation with a John Q. Citizen who claims to have shot someone in self-defense. The cops want to question John Q. as soon as possible — especially before he “lawyers up,” as they say on TV. By the same logic, internal affairs investigators should want to quickly question cops who are involved in questionable shootings.

The rules vary from one jurisdiction to the next, but police unions push to postpone the hour in which an officer-suspect must meet with detectives after a shooting. In Maryland, there is an incredible 10-day rule in effect.

If you visit the iTunes Web site right now and preview the first five tracks from The Game’s new CD, “Doctor’s Advocate,” you will hear the n-word about 15 times in a 2½ minute span. I bring this up because “Doctor’s Advocate” was the top-selling CD in the country last week. The same week Michael Richards was blasted for his “I’m not a racist” racist rant.

Now, I’m not trying to call out The Game. In fact, I’m sure I used the word a couple of times last week myself. And I’m certainly not cutting Kramer any slack either. But I do find it’s getting more and more difficult to intelligently celebrate a black man who repeatedly calls himself “n—–” and then chastise a white guy for saying “He’s a n—–.” It just seems like there’s a disconnect there.

It does seem a little strange that this is the one self-labeling that everyone is supposed to ignore. Normally, it’s considered polite to refer to another individual in the manner which he refers to himself, but apparently not in this case. I neither know nor care if Michael Richards is racist, but I do think the media hogpile is somewhat hypocritical considering the way in which it has studiously ignored Michael Irvin’s hypothesis regarding Tony Romo’s geneology.

The truth is that most of the media regards blacks, like women, as quasi-children, thus they can never be held entirely responsible for their words or deeds.

Someone, presumably tcw, writes:

What surprise…. Ban the only atheist on the board so that the echo chamber can resume and ideas aren’t challenged.

Nicely done, Vox.

Right, I’m directly taking on the three leading public atheists, but I’m quivering in terror before the lunatic meanderings of a solitary Internet pest.

While tcw was far from the only non-Christian on this blog, he was the only annoying one. I don’t care if someone is a Buddhist, a zetecist or one of the four last remaining Shakers, so long as he abides by the basic rules of this blog. Tcw was given plenty of opportunities to modify his behavior, unlike others who have received similar warnings and have not only remained but even gained the respect of the regulars here, he refused to do so.

Tcw wasn’t banned without cause, he was banned because he was repeatedly and demonstrably intellectually dishonest, continually evasive and finally, refused to provide direct answers to specific questions after being warned not to do so. I don’t care if people agree with me or not, but I refuse to tolerate that sort of behavior here. It’s not interesting, it’s not informative and it’s not going to happen here.

In which it is proved the idea that the godless care more about others is nothing but blind and unsupportable faith. When one actually applies science to the question and experiments to obtain real data, the empirical evidence clearly shows that the godless are twice as indifferent to others as the faithful:

To test what types of people give more, “20/20” went to two very different parts of the country, with contrasting populations: Sioux Falls, S.D. and San Francisco, Calif. The Salvation Army set up buckets at the busiest locations in each city — Macy’s in San Francisco and Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls. Which bucket collected more money?

Sioux Falls is rural and religious; half of the population goes to church every week. People in San Francisco make much more money, are predominantly liberal, and just 14 percent of people in San Francisco attend church every week. Liberals are said to care more about helping the poor; so did people in San Francisco give more?

It turns out that this idea that liberals give more…is a myth…. the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation. Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much.

There’s a choice we’re making, we’re stuffing our fat faces:

Africa, a continent usually synonymous with hunger, is falling prey to obesity. It’s a trend driven by new lifestyles and old beliefs that big is beautiful. Ask Nodo Njobo, a plump hairdressing assistant. She is coy about her weight, but like many African women, proud of her “big bum.” She says she’d like to be slimmer, but worries how her friends would react….

More than one-third of African women and a quarter of African men are estimated to be overweight, and the World Health Organization predicts that will rise to 41 percent and 30 percent respectively in the next 10 years.

Some years ago, PJ O’Rourke demonstrated that starvation in Africa was a political matter, not a matter of drought or a lack of agriculture. I wonder, though, what he would have made of how the fat gene and the overactive thyroid condition that causes obesity in so many Americans – through no fault of their own, of course – managed to migrate to Africa in the previous decade.

The greased pan frying in the night
As I grow restless waiting for some stuffed and deep-fried calamari
You’d think I had a parasite
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a flan above the Serengeti
I seek to eat what’s in my sight, washed down by a hot and buttered rum.

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from food
There’s nothing that could ever change my attitude
I bless the cooks down in Africa
Gonna take some time to eat the things we never had

Graphic support for Chesterton’s assertion that those who believe in nothing will believe in anything. It’s interesting to see that the most atheistic country isn’t one of the Scandinavian countries, as Sam Tzu would have us believe, but France, the republic founded on the Terror.

Although I’m not sure the notion of the Norse bringing back “the blood eagle” is the best idea, there ain’t no party like a Viking funeral party.

Yet one more reason to like the Cowgirl:

Late in the second quarter, linebacker Buster Davis laid out one of Florida’s most dynamic players, freshman receiver/running back Percy Harvin. I have never heard a stadium grow more silent. The visitor section sat there, stunned. Minutes passed as Harvin remained motionless on the ground, being tended to by numerous paramedics. Then, almost in unison, the entire Gator bench left their sideline, came out to the hash marks and knelt in prayer. What happened next, though, really shocked me.

Upon the Gators’ impromptu vigil, Florida State and Florida fans alike rose and applauded. Not in a “hooting and hollering” sort of way, but in one that said, “This is what the game is supposed to be about: camaraderie, sportsmanship and faith.” This moment, of course, was probably never televised, but it was one of the most pivotal and moving in the game.

I’m not exactly a fan of female sportswriters, but Miss Sterger is more than mere eye candy. Sure, she writes about herself, but she also grasps that it’s not actually all about her.

No doubt Michael “Pain in the Atheist” Newdow will soon be filing suit against the Florida football team.

While this is indicative of a larger problem, it’s also not a bad idea:

In his book Islam in Britain, Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says there is an “alternative parallel unofficial legal system” that operates in the Muslim community on a voluntary basis.

“Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions,” he says. These are based on sharia councils, set up in Britain to help Muslims solve family and personal problems.

Sharia councils may grant divorces under religious law to a woman whose husband refuses to complete a civil divorce by declaring his marriage over. There is evidence that these councils are evolving into courts of arbitration.

Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks, said this type of court had advantages for Muslims. “It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it’s less awesome an environment than the English courts,” he said.

Mr Siddiqi predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this sort of unofficial court providing arbitration, indeed, it’s more legitimate than any American immigration, family or tax courts, most of which are prohibited under the various constitutional separation of powers doctrines. (It’s easy to verify, first read your state’s constitution and then find out who writes the “judges” checks. If it’s an executive-branch agency, it’s a fake court. Abandon justice, all ye who enter….) But it is interesting that Britain hasn’t even finished its transition into post-Christianity before seeing an alternative religious structure being erected.

Like nature, the human spirit abhors a vaccuum, especially a vacuous one of the sort secularism has on offer.

Arnaud de Borchgrave plays word games:

The costly effort in blood and treasure to foster democracy in Iraq is clearly beyond our reach. Henry Kissinger, chief mandarin of geopoliticians, who negotiated the 1973 agreements that ended the Vietnam War, says Iraq is unwinnable. If by victory, he explained, we mean a viable democratic Iraqi state, able to sustain itself, forget it because it can’t be done. A far cry from “failure is not an option.”

The “go big,” “go long,” and “go home” options bear little relationship to the art of the possible. A broken military cannot afford to go big, unless, of course, the draft is re-enacted, which a Democratic Congress would reject. To go long would require domestic support, which has waned to 30 percent. And to pack it in and go home under Option 3 would be tantamount to surrender to America’s enemies throughout the Middle East. Borne out, too, would be Osama bin Laden’s predictions about America’s lack of staying power. This weekend, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned against the danger of civil wars breaking out in neighboring Arab countries.

While I would not say that the US military is broken – the fact that it’s having problems doing something that no military is designed to do doesn’t mean that it can’t fulfill its true purposes – the democracy project is impossible. I argued that it was a deeply stupid proposition from the start, only now has this become obvious to everyone but the most clueless of the neoconned.

What’s strange is the stubborn assertion that going home “is not possible”. Of course it is! In fact, it’s not only possible, as it has been since the beginninng, but is now thankfully probable. I really despise this sort of attempt to control the agenda by perverting the language, it’s sad to see how conservative commentators now write almost as deceptively as their liberal counterparts.