Category: Uncategorized

From Escape Artist magazine

The US media is now admitting that more people are currently leaving the United States of America than at any time in US history. Those familiar with this website can probably surmise that I am not very much surprised by this admission – – I did however have an experience the day before yesterday that very much surprised me.

I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe here in Buenos Aires enjoying a lunch with some friends when a young lady walked up to the table and said, ‘You’re Roger Gallo, aren’t you?’

I confessed that I was and asked how she knew. She replied that she recognized me from my photograph on the website, and that EscapeArtist.com is the ‘in’ website on campus at Chapel Hill. She explained that she was from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she was in Argentina to buy an organic farm.

I was dumbfounded. Chapel Hill, a college with high academic standards, has been involved in the process of preparing its students for law, medicine and communications since 1795. It was the first public university in the United States to open its doors and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century. Why would some of America’s best and brightest students from one of America’s oldest and most respected universities be looking at a website that focused on international relocation? …and then it came to me.

The students were trying to figure out how to move overseas after their graduation.

I noticed this beginning to happen in the software industry about ten years ago. You’d be surprised at how many successful American entrepeneurs live in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and other economically freer locations. The Internet is destroying the ability of national tax authorities to prey on those stuck living where they work, which is one reason why there is such a determined focus on creating supernational entities with supernational powers.

There is a natural tendency to say “good riddance” to such people, but the flight of the best and brightest, even if one considers them to be disloyal rats, is not a healthy sign for a nation.

Zink, (President, VQPF), wonders when it will be over:

Will America just pull up stakes and leave the Iraqis to sort their mess out?

Yes, I believe that once Iran tests its nuclear weapon, we will have to pull out. If the neocons had been successful in winning deep and wide support for the Iraqi Occupation, then we would have widened the war into Iran already. Once Iran has nukes, that option is lost as the North Korean example shows that we will not risk conflict with a nuclear power.

The fact that Kristol and his world democratic revolution crowd are attempting to throw Rumsfeld under the train suggests that they are growing increasingly desperate and fearful that the president will declare mission accomplished after the Iraqi elections – as it is and he should – and pull most of our troops out leaving nothing but a face-saving rear guard behind.

But if our purpose is to instill democracy, then the elections will indicate that our job is done. If the Iraqi people will not fight to keep their “freedom”, then they should not keep it. Certainly, we have not fought to keep the many freedoms we have lost. As for the would-be love children of Leon Trotsky and Woodrow Wilson, dismiss Pat Buchanan’s criticisms at your own risk. His analysis of the death of Europe is the most cogent out there and it is possible that as with his assertion of the culture war in 1988, what looks like insanity is more often than not early recognition. I often don’t agree with him, but I am always careful to have another look at my own thinking when I find it directly in conflict with his.

From Debka:

Blair bowed head and paused before Arafat’s grave when he arrived in Ramallah for talks with Palestinian candidate Abbas. This was compromise after he refused to lay wreath at tomb.

One has to give Blair a little credit for refusing to kowtow to the late murderer’s memory. But how great would it have been if Blair had shown Arafat the only form of commemoration his history commands… zzzip

Ah well, a man can dream….

For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country’s growing violence and its effect on reconstruction.Contrack International Inc., the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, cited skyrocketing security costs in reaching a decision with the U.S. government last month to terminate work in Iraq.

You don’t hear a lot of comparisons to Germany and Japan anymore, do you. With the neocons starting to scramble around to make sure that Rumsfeld takes the blame for the situation in Iraq, big contractors pulling out and the level of violence failing to abate, I find it difficult to believe that Americans are going to maintain even the lukewarm level of support for the Iraqi adventure that they have hitherto expressed.

Burt Prelusky tells it like it is:

One of the very few points for which I was specifically taken to task was for referring to America as a Christian nation. To those people, I pointed out that Christians of one denomination or another compose 94 percent of America’s population. That is 14 percent higher than the percentage of Jews in Israel, but I am willing to wager that none of my critics would deny that Israel is a Jewish state.

The sad fact is that the American Civil Liberties Union is made up in large part of Jews, and it is that organization and its lawyers who are leading the assault against Christmas. What makes it particularly unfortunate is that most Jews are not only opposed to the policies of the ACLU, but are embarrassed and ashamed of the organization.

As one of my respondents put it: “An anti-Semite used to be someone who hated Jews, but it’s become someone whom Jews hate.

It’s true, the current definition of anti-Semite no longer means Jew hater, but rather someone who is opposed to a political position supported by an American Jew. If you oppose the Wilsonian nation-building demanded by the neocons, you’re an anti-Semite. If you question the billions of dollars sent to Israel, you’re an anti-Semite. If you point out that the least important of the seven major Jewish holidays is in no way the equivalent of Christmas, you’re an anti-Semite.

Are the Jews so popular that they need to invent enemies?

The point about Israel being a Jewish nation, (or India being a Hindu nation, or Turkey being a Muslim nation) is particularly salient. Either the United States is a Christian nation or there is no such thing as a nation modified by a religious adjective except the Vatican and those countries where sharia reigns supreme.

Zink can’t find the plot:

How can you say the socialists/homosexuals/secularlists are winning in America when Bush and the GOP have just had HUGE victories?

Because the president and the GOP leadership are neosocialists who believe in big government – albeit only for the right purposes (rolling eyes) – who are generally more comfortable with secularists despite their toothless religious proclamations and are more concerned with appeasing ACT-UP than advancing any conservative Christian agenda.

I find it strange to have to repeatedly remind adults of this, but it is not exactly uncommon for people, especially politicians, to say things they do not mean. George Bush actually speaks more truthfully than most, which is why his conservative supporters are often explaining to people like me that he DOESN’T mean what he says.

The victories that Bush and company have had are electoral. The victories the socialists and secularists have had are substantive. The first can lead to the latter but the two should not be confused and the relationship is not necessarily causal.

AJ cracks me up:

I completely agree with you that children are not meant to be missionaries. Does God sometimes speak through the mouth of a babe? Yes, but he has also spoken through the mouth of a donkey and no one has suggested using donkeys for missionaries. To go with your meat-grinder analogy – I could play Russian roullette with my child…but why would I want to?!?

If you publish future columns regarding home schooling I would love to see some personal testimonies used. My husband always discounts statistics as being easily manipulated, but perhaps he’d put a little more stock in actual experience.

If anyone has short vignettes of their own personal experiences in the public schools and doesn’t mind them potentially seeing print sometime in the future, put them here in the comments. Keep them short and within one comment. Alternatively, I’m interested in hearing from kids who are either presently being homeschooled or were prior to finishing school.

Here’s mine: In sixth grade, I rode the bus to public middle school. One day, Geraldine, the blonde class beauty of the ninth grade, was sitting two rows behind me trying to explain to my friend Joey’s older brother that she did not wish to have sex with his best friend, as he had requested, but only wanted to have sex with him. (At the time I thought he was being uncommonly generous, but in retrospect, I suspect he was simply trying to dump her off on his friend so he could pursue another girl.)

Her exact words were: “I don’t want to fuck with him, I only want to fuck with you.” And I have to say, this socialization was not only eye-opening, but very helpful in learning how to become a respectably successful predator in time.

John Derbyshire relates a personal experience:

Interesting new angle on this at the weekend. Boris was taking me for my daily walkies when, coming towards me, I saw three persons. Two of them were “nodding neighbors” — I mean, we smile and greet each other, know each other’s names, but have no other intercourse. The husband is a college professor, the wife I don’t know. They are very “blue” and their car bumper still sported a Kerry sticker last time I looked. The third member of their party was a guy I do not know, but whose turn-out fairly screamed “ACADEMIC!” Beard, long hair, open plaid shirt, fuzzy sweater, jeans pitched at just the right level of college-teacher scruffiness, sneakers ditto.

Well, as they came up to me the husband & wife both smiled & said “Hello!” I chirped back: “Hello! Merry Christmas!”

Stony silence. Smiles vanished.

All I have to say is this: make the Holly Haters work. You hate Christmas, then you get to work that day. And Christmas Eve. And the day after Christmas… assuming they’re all weekdays, of course. You don’t have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas, but how can anyone expect time off for something they’re not only not celebrating, but downright oppose?

“Happy Holidays” is not a polite and inclusive gesture, it’s simply the latest PC fascism brought to you by the thought police.

Diane West quotes Eric Hoffer:

“It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around … As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.”

This is what is happening and why the otherwise minor aspect of “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” is significant as a visible symptom of the cancer devouring the remnants of America’s moral foundation. There is a term for when a minority has the power to impose its will on the majority, it is “oligarchal dictatorship”.

Only a fool could deny that something strange is going on when Christian demonstrators who are doing nothing more than exercising their right to free speech in a public place are being arrested and threatened with potential jail terms of 47 years while radical homosexual activists regularly trespass and destroy private property without being charged with anything. Now that Christianity – NOT religion – has been eradicated from the government schools, government property is the current zone of conflict. The next step, it is clear, will be private actions in public.

Those who are skeptical and cite the large majority of Christians in America need only look to Europe, where two generations ago, there were once large Christian majorities as well. This is no longer the case and now their populations are dying… one need only look at the birth rate of Christian women in America versus non-Christian women in America to see where this is going.

Of course, secularists can console themselves with the reminder that they can always import large numbers of Muslims from the third world, that seems to be working really well in Denmark, France, Holland and the United Kingdom.

Last week: 13-3. Overall: 135-71. Fantasy: 8-5-1 (3rd place regular season)

W-Pittsburgh Steelers over New York Giants

New England Patriots over Miami Dolphins

W-San Diego Chargers over Cleveland Browns

W-Indianapolis Colts over Baltimore Ravens

W-New York Jets over Seattle Seahawks

L-Denver Broncos over Kansas City Chiefs

W-Washington Redskins over San Francisco 49ers

W-Philadelphia Eagles over Dallas Cowboys

W-Minnesota Vikings over Detroit Lions

W-Houston Texans over Chicago Bears

W-Oakland Raiders over Tennessee Titans

L-Green Bay Packers over Jacksonville Jaguars

W-Buffalo Bills over Cincinnati Bengals

W-Tampa Bay Buccaneers over New Orleans Saints

W-Arizona Cardinals over St. Louis Rams

L-Carolina Panthers over Atlanta Falcons

I don’t like my chances in the first-round fantasy playoff game this week. My matchups are simply terrible, with Ahman Green, Rudi Johnson, Julius Jones and Onterrio Smith all going up against solid run defenses, and of all my receivers, only Lee Evans is going up against a sub-par passing defense. Sure, I’ve got a shot if Daunte goes off, but it’s a slim one. Still, it’s been an unexpectedly good finish to the season even if it ends this weekend.

And if I can somehow survive to the championship game, the matchups get significantly better next week….

UPDATE – No dice. I got off to a good start with Daunte and the Carolina defense, but my running backs and wide receivers, as I feared, were shut down. In retrospect, I should have played Eddie Kennison and Rudi Johnson instead of Brandon Stokely and Ahman Green, but even that probably wouldn’t have been enough if Corey Dillon has a decent game. Still, it was a good season nevertheless.