Previous month:
December 2004
Next month:
February 2005

Visit Michael

Jan 31, 2005

Michael Totten's blog has an adundance of rich posts from Jan. 25, 2005 to Jan. 31, 2005. This is the big reason why.

You should go read them all. The 4 posts that caught my eye:

#1
Mary Madigan writes on 01 . 25 . 2005 about the letters to the editor at TNR; they were just sad. For example, one lady said:

"...We did not need to fight communism then, and we do not need to embark on a world conquest of Islamic fundamentalism now."

If this remains the mainstream thinking of the Democrats, then the Republicans should win the next 4 or 5 presidential elections.

#2
Mary Madigan writes on 01 . 28 . 2005:

According to the German publication, Der Spiegel, the killer’s actual target was Dutch legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant. She and other legislators were so unable to ensure their security against extremist death threats, they had to leave the Netherlands to hide in the United States.

In short, a Western nation couldn't defend its own legislators against an  occupying paramilitary group.

Much darker days lie ahead for Europe.

#3
Jeremy Brown writes on 01 . 29 . 2005:

These people have been a living embodiment of the bitter reality of exile. Let's save the word 'expatriate' for a time when Iraqis, as we are seeing the start of now, have the freedom to choose.

Mr. Brown provides an image of the exile whose son didn't live to see a free Iraq. I linked to a different image of the same man before.

#4
Marry Madigan writes, or rather links, on 01 . 31 . 2005:

"These people [the human shields] are mad," said Awad Nasser, one of Iraq's most famous modernist poets. "They are actually signing up to sacrifice their lives to protect a tyrant's death machine."

To these useful infidels, President Bush is more evil than Saddam.

Posted at 05:28 PM in Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

The Gov't is Not Efficient

Jan 31, 2005

An excellent post at Catallarchy:

The following graphs [read the post] are an excellent antidote to the leftist economists who claim that governments provide net value by solving public goods problems and making up for market failure, or liberals who insist that government spending on health care and education has positive externalities which more than make up for its cost.

One of my economics professors mentioned this once in class: a few Western European countries (I forget the names) in the late 80s and early 90s decided to cut the size of their governments. Of course, there were predictions of doom, but later the economies of these countries grew at a faster rate. They helped their economies by reducing their government spending. Conclusion: a bloated government impedes economic growth.

Posted at 03:55 PM in Economics | | Comments (0)

Beautiful

Jan 30, 2005

A heart warming article at Billings Gazette, link via Michelle Malkin.

Because she is a 10-year-old Billings girl, Shelby won't be going to the polls. But she will be will be showing her support by wearing ink on her finger - just like those Iraqis who have voted.

"It will symbolize our support if we wear ink on our fingers," Shelby said. "We're not forcing them to vote, but they have a chance to do it and they should take that chance."

Shelby said Saturday afternoon she hoped to set up a stand at Rimrock Mall today where people could sign their names and roll their fingers on a stamp pad, but her plans were not yet inked.

I wish that my many relatives who've been brought up to think that Americans are inherently evil could see this, the real face of America.

Posted at 07:09 PM in USA | | Comments (1)

The Iraqis Vote &

Jan 30, 2005

Smirky has his fat ass handed to him by Jeff Goldstein.

&

John Kerry is bitch slapped by John Cole:

John Kerry, btw, was on Meet The Press this morning, and did everything he could to piss all over the administration and the election. According to him, we need to have a massive outreach to the international community in order to make sure the election is viewed as legitimate. And the Democrats wonder why they are the minority party. "This is the last chance for the President to get it right." Go fuck yourself.

Update: Wizbang provides the horse's ass again, literally. The first comment by Cybrludite is a classic. Come to think of it, the rest of the comments are good too.

Posted at 06:43 PM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

The Iraqis Vote V

Jan 30, 2005

Nooriya Al-Ebi, of Erie, Penn., casts her vote into a ballot box in the Iraqi election Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005, in Southgate, Mich., near Detroit:

An Iraqi woman votes

Yusif Arizy, left, helps his son, Halgur, 6, place Yusif's ballot in the box on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005 in Nashville, Tenn.:

An Iraqi votes in Nashville, Tenn.

Iraqi women show off their ink stained fingers after voting at a polling station in the Salhiyah district of Baghdad:

Iraqi Women

Iraqi expatriate Namet Al-Gazali smiles as her husband Dhurgham Al-Khizaie (L) gathers their three children and neice and nephew, after voting in Iraq (news - web sites)'s national election at a polling place with his family after voting in Iraq's national election, in Detroit January 30, 2005:

An Iraqi woman smiles

A group of Iraqi and Kurdish expatriates celebrate Iraq (news - web sites)'s national election at a polling place in Detroit, January 29, 2005:

Iraqis celebrate

Iraqi expatraite Wausan Nassaiy of Elkhardt, Indiana, shows off her inked index finger after voting in Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago, January 30, 2005:

An Iraqi woman shows off

U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) waves outside St. John's Curch in Washington D.C., January 30, 2005:

President Bush
Thank you, President Bush.

Update: Citizen Smash provides fine photos with impressive quotes.

Posted at 06:16 PM in Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

The Iraqis Vote III

Jan 30, 2005

Hugh Hewitt:

An Iraqi ex-pat who had voted early on Friday at the former Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, called my program which was broadcasting from the site of the voting as he drove home to Phoenix. He struggled through his emotion to thank repeatedly the men and women of the American military that had freed his country and especially those who had died doing so.

It is incredible that it is far easier to find Iraqis who understand how to salute the American war dead than it is American journalists.

MSM: Iraq is a mess regardless of any historical perspective or the facts on the ground.

Posted at 05:01 PM in Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

The March of Freedom

Jan 29, 2005

Donald Sensing:

I'm going to put on my Amazing Karnak hat and make two predictions:

1. The terrorist attempts to break up the election won't do so and will be actually less violent than expected. In fact, I predict that election day will be a bonanza day for suppressing the terrorists through capture or counterattack.

2. When the above becomes known among Iraqis, Sunday evening and Monday will bring forth the most widespread celebrations among the Iraqi people seen since the downfall of Saddam. There will be dancing in the streets and brief period in which these newly liberated people will be drunk on democracy, for a day or two anyway.

30 . 01 . 2005: Simultaneously the best day for Iraqis and the worst for Zarqawi and his butchers. Many thanks to the brave Americans and the Coalition of the Willing.

Posted at 11:47 PM in World War III | | Comments (0)

What is Left?

Jan 29, 2005

Recently, there has been lots of discussion in the Blogosphere regarding Leftists. I'll talk about 4 policies or views they hold dear that have made the Left politically poisonous. These views are mostly related to foreign policy.

#1
The hatred of the current US president. Ever since I remember the caricature of President Bush has been that he's dumb, ignorant, get's help from Daddy, and has a tricky relationship with pretzels. This is the standard operating procedure for comedy shows. However, this view has been widely adopted by practically every left-of-center commentator in the MSM.

After the Battles of Afghanistan and Iraq, this seething hatred just boiled over. Bush was now the eeevil genius and, for some demented Leftists, the American troops were equivalent to the SS. President Bush, a supposed doofus, had hoodwinked the majority of the US and taken the great nation to endless war and quagmire. The approval of Congress for the war, and the policy of regime change of the previous president don't register to these enlightened Leftists.

#2
The denigration of the Coalition of the Willing. Leftists consistently accuse President Bush of chasing away our 'allies'. If only that dumbass Dubya had shown more respect and consideration, then our friends would still be with us. Then, almost instantaneously, they slander over 40 countries in the Coalition of the Willing by such choice words as the bought, the coerced, the bribed, etc.

These countries have spent blood and treasure to come to our aid in our hour of need. The leaders of these nations have been brutalized by the MSM, and still most of them have weathered the storm and continue to support us. Leftists should note that leaders like Tony Blair who put their political fortunes on the line to help the US deserve our gratitude not your infantile contempt.

#3
Germany and France are our real allies. Germany refused us any help in the Battle for Iraq. Period. Nothing that we did could have persuaded our lovely ally. As for the French, they were making deals with Saddam till the beginning of war. Remember, France’s TotalFinaElf, they were making lucrative deals with Baathist Iraq and in return promised to not support the US. Real allies, indeed.

It seems like that France is now dealing with Iran. So, in the future, the Leftists will come out in force demanding that we appease France before continuing to protect our interests. That sounds like a politically winning position, no.

#4
All the moral legitimacy on God's earth resides in the UN. This implies that the entire US offensive aspect of WWIV has been illegal. The US should have grovelled for support from nations like China, Russia, Mexico, Syria, and Pakistan. These countries should have been appeased in addition to the phantom allies like France and Germany.

Question: What if the UN Security Council had voted not in favor of war?
Leftist Answer: Well, then the US should not have gone to war.

Thankfully such 'global test' thinking was put six feet under by the American public on 11.02.2004. Oh, and about the moral legitimacy: how many moral people do you know who rape a nation of over 20 billion dollars and give money to Hamas?

To sum up:

  • Bush is not the re-incarnation of Hitler.
  • The Coalition of the Willing is not bought.
  • Germany and France are not paragons of virtue.
  • The UN does not have any moral legitimacy.

When the Left comes to terms with the above 4 statements, they might have a shot at higher office in the US. As long as it remains perpetually pissed, it'll be politically impotent. Think about it, the 4 views are not even 'left-wing'. There are many left-of-center folks who don't hold such nutty views. Totten and Jarvis, for example.

I realize that there is a common thread among the 4 views; veiled but rabid anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism has become the opium of the Leftists. My advice to the Left is now simple: get rehab, then we'll take you seriously.

Posted at 07:10 PM in Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

Another Useful Infidel

Jan 29, 2005

Gregory at the Belgravia Dispatch unloads on a Leftist imbecile:

...about those "little Eichmanns" that the aforementioned cretin [Ward Churchill, ironically] from U Colorado called the victims of 9/11. Here's one of them--from my high school class. I didn't know him well--but remembered him to be of generous spirit and with a kind heart. He worked his way out of the Bronx to a bright career at Cantor Fitz. The result of the "humanitarianism" of Mohammed Atta is that he is dead today. What was his crime?

Answer: He dared to live.

Posted at 07:04 PM in World War III | | Comments (0)

Supremacy of Freedom

Jan 29, 2005

On Wednesday last, at the end of this post, I said that 'Iraq will be reborn soon'. I didn't have to wait long:

In the United States, Iraqi expatriates defied frigid temperatures and long trips to the polls to enthusiastically cast their votes across the eastern United States.

“I’m 39, but today, I’m just born,” said Yaqoob Al-Awsa, a painter from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who was also celebrating his birthday. “This is the first day for me. I was almost crying.”

[emphasis mine]

The Americans and the Coalition of the Willing deserve full credit for this momentous achievement. Memo to Leftists: eat your heart out.

Posted at 01:58 AM in Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

The Modern Left

Jan 28, 2005

Glenn Reynolds very eloquently replies in this post:

When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is "screw 'em," well, this is the authentic face of the Left. Or what remains of it.

There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn't a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone.

What is most shocking to me is the moral depravity on the Left. I know many Leftists at my university who'll brazenly compare the American soldiers to the SS but say that Stalin has been improperly demonized. Practically ever single time they refer to democracy in the US or in Afghanistan it's like this: "democracy".

Once a friend told me that George W. Bush looks eeevil and that Saddam is a bad guy based on what I had told him. I was left speechless.

The Left today is de-facto pro-Islamist.

Posted at 08:48 PM in Life, Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

JFK's Legacy Rejected

Jan 28, 2005

If he were alive today, JFK would have been embarrased by the asinine remarks made by Ted Kennedy:

The nations in the Middle East are independent, except for Iraq, which began the 20th century under Ottoman occupation and is now beginning the 21st century under American occupation.

How cute. Independent. Not dictatorships, or totalitarian monarchies, or terror-supporting Islamists but independent nations. Oh, I'm so glad that the American people didn't choose his partner-in-crime on November 2 last year.

I understand how Zell Miller feels when these Democrats call Americans occupiers not liberators.

Posted at 07:56 PM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

Like America

Jan 28, 2005

Security was tight at the abandoned store-turned-polling place in this Detroit suburb, with guards checking IDs at the parking lot entrance and using metal detectors at the doors. Inside, an oversized, homemade Iraqi flag hung from the ceiling. One poll worker could be seen weeping.

"We feel happy now. This is like America, this voting," said Zoha Yess, 64.

Indeed, it is. Via Glenn.

Update: Read this inspiring post from Mohammed at Iraq The Model.

Posted at 07:25 PM in USA | | Comments (0)

What Animates Muslims

Jan 28, 2005

I just read a long and exceptional article at City Journal. Theodore Dalrymple's descriptions of Muslim life in the East and West are perfect. Excerpts:

She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.
...
Except for a small, highly educated middle class, who live de facto as if Islam were a private religious confession like any other in the West, the Muslims congregate in neighborhoods that they have made their own, where the life of the Punjab continues amid the architecture of the Industrial Revolution. The halal butcher’s corner shop rubs shoulders with the terra-cotta municipal library, built by the Victorian city fathers to improve the cultural level of a largely vanished industrial working class.

The Muslim immigrants to these areas were not seeking a new way of life when they arrived; they expected to continue their old lives, but more prosperously.

[emphasis mine]

That one sentence describes the major motivation of Muslims in moving to the West. Many wish to move to a mini-Punjab in the West. Of course, some wish to create a mini-Taliban state as well.

Is there an essential element that condemns the Dar al-Islam to permanent backwardness with regard to the Dar al-Harb, a backwardness that is felt as a deep humiliation, and is exemplified, though not proved, by the fact that the whole of the Arab world, minus its oil, matters less to the rest of the world economically than the Nokia telephone company of Finland?

Ouch.

...until Muslims (or former Muslims, as they would then be) are free in their own countries to denounce the Qu’ran as an inferior hodgepodge of contradictory injunctions, without intellectual unity (whether it is so or not)—until they are free to say with Carlyle that the Qu’ran is “a wearisome confused jumble” with “endless iterations, longwindedness, entanglement”—until they are free to remake and modernize the Qu’ran by creative interpretation, they will have to reconcile themselves to being, if not helots, at least in the rearguard of humanity, as far as power and technical advance are concerned.

So very true.

Islam in the modern world is weak and brittle, not strong: that accounts for its so frequent shrillness. The Shah will, sooner or later, triumph over the Ayatollah in Iran, because human nature decrees it, though meanwhile millions of lives will have been ruined and impoverished. The Iranian refugees who have flooded into the West are fleeing Islam, not seeking to extend its dominion, as I know from speaking to many in my city.

Theodore Dalrymple is one of the sadly few Westerners I've read who's brutally honest about Islam and Muslims. Let's hope that more Westerners wake up and smell the humus.

Posted at 04:34 PM in Life | | Comments (0)

Europe Decaying

Jan 28, 2005

...the rise in anti-Semitism, chronicled in upward trend lines of European reports on attacks and threats against Jews, has prompted open concern in a continent whose history, from the Spanish Inquisition and medieval ghettos to the Dreyfuss affair and Hitler's rise, is riven with attacks on Jews. In the past few months a Jewish school has been firebombed in suburban Paris, Jewish gravestones have been painted with swastikas in Germany, France and Russia, and Jews have been verbally abused, spat on and beaten in England and France.
...
Nowhere is the trend more visible than in France, where numbers from the Interior Ministry show that anti-Semitic acts   —   attacks and threats   —   reached a high of 1,513 in 2004, up from 593 the previous year. And Jewish groups say most anti-Semitic acts aren't reported.

Ghozlan said it was understandable that France would be the focus of Europe's anti-Semitic tensions. It's home to both Europe's largest Jewish population, 600,000, and its largest Muslim population, about 6 million.

Read the entire article about 'Enlightened' Europe at Jewish World Review.

Posted at 01:11 PM in World War III | | Comments (0)

Antisemitism in the West?

Jan 27, 2005

I can say the following because of over 15 years of first-hand experience: Most of the Muslims in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are virulently antisemitic. Now this ancient sickness is flagrantly spewed at an American university:

holocust schmolocost.....
that whole thing drives me nuts.
there arent that many holicost surviviers.
most of those guys havent experienced anything -- except possibly excess. its a tool the zionists use... but to be honest wonder how effective it is these days.

Read the deprave and spinless response of the university.

Posted at 03:59 PM in Life | | Comments (0)

Sixty Years Later

Jan 27, 2005

This LFG post is part of a blogburst by Joseph A. Norland at Israpundit; it's about the liberation of Auschwitz:

The mass gassings of Europe’s took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation before they were murdered or allowed to die.

Today, a new menace presents itself. Islamism possesses the violent will of the Nazis but doesn't have the means to implement it's atrocities. It must be thoroughly destroyed before it does.

Posted at 03:46 PM in History, World War III | | Comments (0)

Town Hall Goodness

Jan 26, 2005

Dennis Prager comments on the Larry Summers controversy at Harvard:

No wonder the Democratic Party is so keen on sending billions more dollars of taxpayer money to universities through tuition tax credits. They know that the university is a factory churning out leftists.

As readers are aware, this year I am writing a series of columns making the case for Judeo-Christian values. The secular university provides one of the most cogent arguments for those values: This institution, which is the most opposed to Judeo-Christian values, is also the least committed to truth.

Mr. Prager has written three in his series of columns. You can read them here: Part I, Part II, Part III.

Walter E. Williams writes an excellent column about the process of job creation and destruction.

We could probably think of hundreds of jobs that either don't exist or exist in far fewer numbers than in the past -- jobs such as elevator operator, TV repairman and coal deliveryman. "Creative destruction" is a discovery process where we find ways to produce goods and services more cheaply. That in turn makes us all richer.

Indeed. Over a 100 years ago, there were over 40 million farmers in the US, today there are less than 4 million. Had the government protected their jobs, we would've been worse off.

What should a person do when innovation or international trade costs him his job? Do what the iceman did when Frigidaire cost him his job. Instead of calling on Congress to enact job protectionist measures, he did what was necessary to find another job.

Yup.

Finally, Jonah Goldberg talks about how Zarqawi has very clearly shown that Sontag, Cohen, and Buchanan were wrong by articulating his totalitarian ideology. He continues:

...the best news from Iraq in a while is Zarqawi's forceful and forthright rejection of democracy and freedom as a principle. He doesn't want a more "authentic" democracy, he wants to kill it. This alone gives Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis he claims to represent, a stark choice: Accept the painful but promising path of elections, or side with the man most responsible for the car-bombings of mosques and markets, who would replace Saddam's nationalist totalitarianism for a new religious one ruled by foreigners like him and Bin Laden.

Iraq will be reborn soon.

Posted at 10:37 PM in Economics, History, Politics, USA, World War III | | Comments (0)

Something Good

Jan 26, 2005

From Iraq The Model:

This change in price was completely unexpected because the exchange price of Iraqi's currency has a long history of substantial drops prior to and during crises times. while having an overnight 10% increase in the exchange price indicates that the market is expecting something good to happen.

Something Good = Democracy, Whiskey, & Sexy!

Posted at 09:20 PM in World War III | | Comments (0)

Truce = Time to Rearm

Jan 26, 2005

History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme:

The terrorist organization Hamas is claiming that they'll agree to a "truce" if Israel releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

I wonder if the US would ever agree to a truce with Al Qaeda. Israeli politicians should be hawks instead of ostriches. They should push for the complete destruction of Hamas.

On the same topic, the point made by Francis Porretto is correct.

Posted at 09:07 PM in World War III | | Comments (1)

Older