Tag: WND

WND column

Solving the Middle East

Helen Thomas has come in for an amount of criticism for her suggestion that the Jewish population of Israel should return to Germany and Poland. Setting the increasingly ineffective histrionics about anti-Semitism aside, (an accusation that has lost its potency since the professionally offended hate hustlers began slinging it at everything from Merry Christmas greetings to criticism of Wall Street felons), that criticism is well justified.

Encouraging Jewish emigration to Europe is an absurd idea for several reasons. The Europeans don’t want them, as was made eminently clear some 50 years ago. Nor do the New Ummayads, who make up a miniature and increasingly independent Umma within the creaky seculardom of the European Union. And most importantly, Israeli Jews don’t harbor any desire to return to a continent where they were banished from various kingdoms more than 30 different times over the centuries.

WND column

The Declining Value of College

For more than 100 years, college has been considered a sound and desirable investment in one’s financial future. But unlike other forms of investment, those contemplating dropping more than $100,000 to obtain a degree from a private university, or $28,000 for one from a public university, seldom stop to consider whether what made sense for a previous generation still makes sense today.

Although most middle-class parents regard the idea of not “investing” in their children’s college degrees about as positively as necrophilia and cannibalism, examining the current value proposition of higher education should not be a controversial concept. The fact that National Lead may have been a great investment in 1910 doesn’t mean that it is in 2010. Apple was a fantastic investment in 1990, but looks significantly less promising now that its $233 billion market cap has exceeded Microsoft’s.

WND column

Pulling the Pension Plug

The Founding Fathers understood the inherent risks of democracy. This is why they did not establish a proper democracy in America, but rather a strictly limited form of representative democracy in a republican structure. They did this in fear of the tyranny of the majority and to place a limit upon the momentary passions of the general public.

However, it has become clear that limited representative democracy has evils of its own that are arguably more pernicious than the vagaries of unlimited democracy. As American history demonstrates, representative democracy rapidly devolves into an system where various interest groups band together and form a kleptocracy wherein the government is little more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from the people to the interest groups.

Molotov the Mensan

This should send the IQ-insecure anklebiters into a tailspin. Molotov Mitchell questions why Obama, the supposed academic super-genius from Harvard Law, is hiding his report cards, and in doing so he reveals the fact that I am not the only Mensa member writing for WND. Which, of course, raises some interesting questions about those who think more highly of sites that regularly feature drooling cretins like Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, and Kurtis Blow or whatever the guy’s name is.

WND column

Tea Party Claims a Scalp

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown’s surprise election was not an actual victory for the tea party. While it was an important symbolic triumph for the small-government movement, electing liberal Republicans is almost precisely the opposite of what is necessary for the tea party to see any positive legislative action toward its goals.

The defeat of veteran Utah Sen. Robert Bennett in the Republican primary is another matter entirely. Despite being an 88 percent party-line voter and possessing an 84 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and a 98 percent rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bennett was soundly rejected by Utah Republicans. He was defeated by not one, but two candidates, which underlines the degree to which the primary voters have rejected not only the current administration’s approach to the financial crisis, but the Republican Party elite’s response as well.

WND column

The revoluciónary is right

Throughout history, when an occupying power has wanted to destabilize and destroy a nation, it has settled a foreign people in its midst. The seeds of the Balkan conflict were sown when the Turks planted Albanian Muslims in Kosovo to uproot the Christian Serbs who had long defended the borders of medieval Christendom and had more than once turned back the tide of an expanding Ottoman empire. The Soviet Union under Stalin methodically encouraged Russian emigration into the occupied Baltic states in a campaign of long-term Russification, to such an extent that nearly 30 percent of the populations of Latvia and Estonia were Russian.

Despite this, Americans did not worry about the massive migration of Mexicans and other third-world immigrants for many years due to their belief in equality and the idea of the American melting pot. Unfortunately, both concepts are complete myths, devoid of any support from logic, history or science. Despite the best efforts of the academic thought police and pop literary fantasists, such as Jared Diamond and Malcolm Gladwell, various scientific disciplines have quietly, but inexorably been demolishing the equalitarian hypothesis with regard to race, culture and sex.

WND column

Bigging up failure

The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, told Forbes that global governance is extremely necessary if we want to prevent another financial crisis. … It is his belief that through global governance, the resiliency of the global financial system can be assured, noting that ultimately it was governments’ use of taxpayer’s money, equivalent to around 25 percent of GDP on both sides of the Atlantic, that prevented another catastrophic great depression from occurring.
– “ECB president favors global governance,” Forbes, April 29, 2010

It should come as no surprise to the informed observer that the central bankers of the world are now beginning to openly push for global governance. The current plight of the euro has amply demonstrated the untenability of monetary union without political union. Without the power to enforce government policy on Greece, the most the Franco-Germanic mandarins of the European Union can do is threaten to withhold bailout money from the International Monetary Fund and the EU member states. This impresses the Greek political and financial elite, but no one else in Greece, and violent protests are already erupting across the country at the mere mention of IMF-imposed financial austerity measures.

For, as one young Greek man correctly asked, why should the youth of Greece be forced to pay for the financial misdeeds of their parents and grandparents?

WND column

Offense Wins Politics

Defense wins championships. That is the mantra of the National Football League, and it is a valid concept. Last year’s Super Bowl was decided when one of the best quarterbacks in league history couldn’t take the ball downfield against a gambling New Orleans Saints secondary. Superlative defenses are why nondescript quarterbacks such as Trent Dilfer and Jim McMahon own Super Bowl rings while Hall of Fame passers such as Fran Tarkenton and Dan Marino do not.

But politics is not football. And in politics, it is offense that transforms the nation.

WND column

Too Evil to Live

While much of the world news at the end of last week was focused on the sky-borne ash that has brought international air travel to a near standstill, another volcano erupted that may have more significant ramifications for the future of the American people. At last, at long last, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it was going to take action against one of the bankster organizations responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, it was filing a lawsuit against the political capo dei tutti capi of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs.

WND column

Understanding the Numbers

“The American economy appears to be in a cyclical recovery that is gaining strength. Firms have begun to hire and consumer spending seems to be accelerating. That is what usually happens after particularly sharp recessions, so it is surprising that many commentators, whether economists or politicians, seem to doubt that such a thing could possibly be happening. … Why is good news being received with such doubt? Why is “new normal” the currently popular economic phrase, signifying that growth will be subpar for an extended period, and that the old normal is no longer something to be expected?
– “Why So Glum? Numbers Point to a Recovery,” the New York Times, April 8, 2010

There are three kinds of statistics. First, there are objective and verifiable statistics which are extremely difficult to fake due to the ease with which they can be independently measured and confirmed. These are most typically seen in sports. It would be very difficult for the Minnesota Vikings to falsely claim that Adrian Peterson ran for 3,000 yards in 2009 due to the NFL game logs and thousands of recorded videos of the 16 games in which he played. Second, there are objective and unverifiable statistics which are more easily faked due to the difficulty involved in measuring them. A movie’s box office take, for example, is not something that a third party can reasonably confirm without sending thousands of people to all of the various movie theaters and counting how many people entered the relevant screen rooms.

UPDATE: The National Bureau of Economic Research appears to be skeptical of the recovery too, considering its refusal to declare the recession over:

The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met at the organization’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 8, 2010. The committee reviewed the most recent data for all indicators relevant to the determination of a possible date of the trough in economic activity marking the end of the recession that began in December 2007. The trough date would identify the end of contraction and the beginning of expansion. Although most indicators have turned up, the committee decided that the determination of the trough date on the basis of current data would be premature.

UPDATE II: Did BoA, Citi, and JP Morgan/Chase just bail out Greece? Who borrowed $428 billion last week? I tend to doubt it was the American consumer.