Category: Uncategorized

From Debka: MI6, the operational arm of British expansion, historically opted for the Middle East camp opposed to Israel and cultivated a special relationship with Yasser Arafat going back decades. Strictly speaking, Egyptian intelligence invented the Palestinian national leader and used his services between the 1960s and well into the 1990s. Even today, the Egyptian official assigned to keeping tabs on him is intelligence minister General Omar Suleiman. It is less well known that during those decades, British intelligence ran a covert operation to build him up as a world figure. London saw in him a vehicle for planting British influence deep inside the Arab-Muslim orbit (which is why he was never received in Islamic revolutionary Tehran) and an instrument for keeping Israeli intelligence in check and limiting its influence in Washington.

These ties were somewhat loosened after the 1993 Oslo peace accord, when he relocated from Tunis to Gaza and Ramallah. But they were never abandoned. The British have performed two key services for the Palestinian cause:

A. They sponsored the concept of Palestinian statehood as a means of reducing the Jewish state to what London considered its natural dimensions, sitting behind Arafat’s shoulder and lobbying the international case for a Palestinian state year after year until it was taken up by President Bush. Few Israelis are aware of the pivotal role parts of MI6 through the British Foreign Office played over the years in developing and shaping Palestinian diplomatic and PR strategy, helping to make the Palestinian cause far more resonant internationally than the Israeli case – even when Arafat openly espoused and practiced terrorism.

B. They instigated the first Palestinian uprising against Israel in 1987; it was not provoked by Arafat then still in Tunis or even the PLO leadership, but MI6 agents operating in the Rafah refugee camp of the southern Gaza Strip. The trigger was a road accident in which an Israeli army truck ran over a group of Palestinian children. The local protest raised spread quickly and was presented opportunistically to the media as a “popular uprising.”

I have no idea if this is true or not, except that Arafat is an Egyptian and the nephew of the Nazi-loving Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. I found it interesting in that it illustrates the point that the public very seldom has an accurate picture of what is going on behind closed doors. Whatever the truth may be about various geopolitical situations, it almost certainly isn’t what is being discussed openly in the newspapers every day.

So, women are being encouraged to vote their genitalia this election. I hope my pro-suffragist critics will be conscientious about informing Eve Ensler that there’s no need for her latest project, since they’ve done such a wonderful job of demonstrating how women voting has no effect on anything whatsoever.

“The convention whereby the dollar is given a transcendent value as an international currency no longer rests on its initial base… The fact that many states accept dollars in order to make up for the deficits of the American balance of payments has enabled the US to be indebted to foreign countries free of charge. Indeed, what they owe those countries, they pay in dollars that they themselves issue as they wish…. This unilateral facility attributed to America has helped spread the idea that the dollar is an impartial, international means of exchange, whereas it is a means of credit appropriated to one state.”

Charles De Gaulle, 1965. I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to get away with it, considering that the Euro has now surpassed the Dollar in its percentage of internationally purchased bonds? It doesn’t do you much good to print more of what nobody wants.

The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847 around two propositions: one, all doctors should have a “suitable education” and two, a “uniform elevated standard of requirements for the degree of M.D. should be adopted by all medical schools in the U.S.” [1] In the days of its founding AMA was much more open–at its conferences and in its publications–about its real goal: building a government-enforced monopoly for the purpose of dramatically increasing physician incomes. It eventually succeeded, becoming the most formidable labor union on the face of the earth.

AMA created its Council on Medical Education in 1904 with the goal of shutting down more than half of all medical schools in existence. (This is the Council having its 100th anniversary celebrated in Chicago this weekend.) In six years the Council managed to close down 35 schools and its secretary N.P. Colwell engineered what came to be known as the Flexner Report of 1910. The Report was supposedly written by Abraham Flexner, the former owner of a bankrupt prep school who was neither a doctor nor a recognized authority on medical education. Years later Flexner admitted that he knew little about medicine or how to differentiate between different qualities of medical education. Regardless, state medical boards used the Report as a basis for closing 25 medical schools in three years and reducing the number of students by 50% at remaining schools.

Many people, even otherwise sensible conservatives, wrongly believe that having strict standards imposed by the state is a desirable thing. They are appalled by the notion that just anyone be permitted to practice medicine, and yet, the history of the AMA proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that it has nothing to do with the quality of healthcare and everything to do with protecting its members incomes.

AMA certification is fine. Private organizations should exist to identify those practitioners who meet certain standards. But putting the force of the law behind the trade union will help ultimately destroy quality health care in America as well as doctors’ incomes, as the state is compelled to get involved to reduce the cost of what, as is inevitable in the case of an artificially limited supply, has risen.

As Dale Steinrich points out, this is no different than if the government decided that no one should drive a lower quality car than a Lexus. The price of cars would rise, many people would be forced to go without, and the government would then step in to force Lexus to provide cars to those who can’t afford them. Much better to have a range of health cares available, distinguished by private organizations, so that those unable to afford the best health care would still have access to what they could afford.

As Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and the Soviet Union have proved, equal health care means nothing more than awful health care for everyone. There’s a reason they call it the LOWEST common denominator, after all.

Gypsy asks: Does anyone out there feel that marriage is worth it?

A marriage to the right person is worth it. A marriage to the wrong person is not. How does one decide who the right person is? Aye, there’s the rub.

This is not to say that the question is impossible to determine, only that it requires a certain amount of analytical detachment about the relationship that is difficult for most people. Some of the more important factors for a man to consider, in my opinion, are as follows:

1. Is she a woman of genuine faith? A woman who seriously believes that marriage is a sacrament, be she Christian, Jew or Muslim, will have a very different view of the commitment and the institution than a secular or casually religious woman. As a Christian, I would not consider marrying a non-Christian woman for a moment. For the irreligious men, I see no purpose in marrying whatsoever – why put yourself at serious risk for a sacrament in which you do not believe? If you’re doing it simply because she demands it, you’re starting the relationship off down two touchdowns already.

2. Does she accept the notion of personal responsibility? A woman who is constantly blaming others for her problems in life will soon begin to see her husband as the source of all her problems. These women always blame whoever they are around the most instead of themselves – if she’s constantly complaining about her coworkers or her family, don’t even continue to date her. If you do, you’ll soon find her bitching about you.

3. Are you comfortable with her? Space Bunny got a little annoyed with me when I once compared her to an old shoe, until she realized that I refuse to give up my old shoes until the soles have been replaced three times, they have holes everywhere and at least one is missing laces altogether. And even then, she has to throw them out over my protests. If the two of you can’t contentedly spend several hours in the same room together without talking or otherwise interacting, you may not be comfortable enough with one another.

4. Can she entertain herself? Men need their downtime. This becomes problematic if she sees your free time as a violation of her time with you. Space Bunny doesn’t want to see or talk to me before 10 AM and she always requires two hours alone in the evening. I am delighted to provide her with that time… it should be obvious when I get much of my writing done. The time we spend together is then mutually enjoyed, even if it involves watching a ridiculous chick show on E! or a diatribe about Greenspan’s latest idiocy.

5. Does she genuinely put the interests of others first? I love a beautiful, self-centered drama queen as much or more than the next guy, but I would NEVER want to marry one. They’re fun to watch… from a distance. Keep your distance.

6. Do your friends and family think she’s good for you? All of my friends were very pro-Space Bunny, even the ones who didn’t have much use for her personally. My mother shouted “I got my girl!” and pumped her fists when we told my parents we were getting married. Those around you are not blinded by the rose-tinted lenses of infatuation and will often have a better read on her true personality than you do. If you find yourself defending her by saying things like “oh, but you just don’t know her” you are flirting with long-term trouble.

7. Does she attempt to control you? This tendency will only get worse with marriage, so any sign of this in a dating relationship is a red flag. Women have a strong maternal instinct and have a hard time grasping that men loathe being mothered; can she back off when you need her to?

8. Does she treat you with respect, in public and in private? If she does, this is an excellent sign. If she’s always putting you down, just “giving you a hard time”, “keeping you in your place” “just in fun”, find someone else. Marriage is not a buddy cop movie.

9. Are you in agreement in the larger issues? If she wants kids and you don’t, forget it. If she wants to keep up with the Joneses and you want to save for the future, there is a seed of much future conflict already embedded in the relationship.

10. Finally, do you know her? Really, truly know her? Do you know why she overreacts to stupid little things, why she wrinkles her lip in contempt at the TV screen, and why her favorite movies – appalling though they might be – appeal to her? Do you know what she hopes her future will hold, even if she can’t articulate it? It’s not always about a mansion on the sea, it can be something so mundane that the mere knowledge that was her dream will devastate you.

Marriage and family are definitely good things. But they are important things, and not to be entered into lightly. If you are so fortunate as to find the right woman, don’t let shallow concerns get in the way, pursue her and see it through. If neither you nor those close to you have any serious doubts, it is likely the right decision.

One CV posts elsewhere: An increaase in the divorce rate some fifty-odd years later? Had they predicted a drop in the divorce rate they would have been correct as well. Just a matter of waiting for the correct moment in history to holler “aha!” Look, you are being deeply dishonest; you must know that. Why are you doing this?

This is so deeply stupid as to approach handicapable. The American divorce rate has declined since it peaked in 1979-1981 at 5.3/1000, but even at its lower rate of 4.0, it is still more than five times as high as it was in 1900, at 0.7, when the predictions of increased divorce due to women’s suffrage were being made. So, no, they would not have been correct to predict a drop in the divorce rate.

Now, how to explain this mysterious drop in the number of divorces since 1980? That’s not difficult either. The marriage rate was 10.6/1000 in 1980. Since then, many men have figured out that it doesn’t make much sense to take the risk of marrying the wrong woman and many women have decided that they need a man like a fish needs a bicycle, as the marriage rate has dropped 37 percent, to 7.8/1000. This is also 16 percent lower than the 9.3 marriage rate in 1900.

I’m not anyone’s master, but CV is my bitch.

Everything you need to know about the establishment’s view of Ronald Reagan can be found on Page 624 of “Dutch,” Edmund Morris’ weird postmodern biography. The place is Berlin, the time June 12, 1987:

” ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ declaims Dutch, trying hard to look infuriated, but succeeding only in an expression of mild petulance. … One braces for a flash of prompt lights to either side of him: Applause.

“What a rhetorical opportunity missed. He could have read Robert Frost’s poem on the subject, ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,’ to simple and shattering effect. Or even Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lines, which he surely holds in memory.

Only now for the first time I see

This wall is actually a wall, a thing

Come up between us, shutting me away

From you … I do not know you any more.”

“Tear down this wall!” is now a classic piece of rhetoric, booming Shakespearean thunder in its pure expression of righteous outrage. It is one of the very few quotes of the modern era that may survive the test of time. It inspired one of the great moments of human liberty. But what is all that compared with the opportunity to quote a poet named Edna?

The Dark Window not only comes up with a better name for the MP3 non-radio show – Voxic Shock – but after four days of grueling debate on an issue almost completely disconnected from the current political discourse, announces a verdict in the first annual Vox Challenge.

Tune in next year, when Vox will weigh in strongly on the controversial Roman occupation of Long-haired Gaul.

Ralph Wiley writes on ESPN: [Jim] Gray asked [Shaquille] O’Neal to characterize the Laker season; and O’Neal did, with the last word he used being “enigmatic.” Good word. O’Neal seemed to try to humorize his use of it by smiling and saying Jim might not feel the use of such a word was appropriate — if, in fact, he knew what it meant. O’Neal was sort of diffusing his own use of the word, as if Jim would take it as inappropriate, not as a word — it was exactly the proper word — but inappropriate for Shaq to use.

The word seemed to throw Jim Gray, who said to Shaq, “Spell that.”

I was stunned. Almost as stunned as when O’Neal almost defiantly spelled it perfectly. He’s lucky Shaq responded. Responded? He’s lucky Shaq didn’t drill him. Luckily for Iceberg Jim, Shaq’s not that type. Spell that? What is that supposed to prove?

So, it’s racist for Rush Limbaugh to correctly point out that the media cheers inordinately for an overrated black quarterback, but Jim Gray can get away with publicly making the assumption that Shaq doesn’t know what enigmatic means and can’t spell it either. Interesting. Apparently assuming that all black athletes are stupid is not racist, but making note of what the liberal white media writes and says is.

I’m not a fan of Shaq the basketball player. He commits an offensive foul almost every time he touches the ball and then, he plays for the Lakers. But he’s a good guy, and unlike most people, he actively works to expand his mind. Why would anyone be surprised by his use of a word like enigmatic – which is an excellent word to explain the Lakers’ season – from someone who once said that he wished to be called the Big Aristotle?

Next time, Shaq should drop some Metaphysics on Iceberg Jim. “There must be from the first a cause which will move things and bring them together.” Aristotle knew, all those years ago, that the Zenmaster was to blame.