Ewen MacAskill has got to be kidding

Ewen MacAskill is diplomatic editor for the Guardian. In his August 2, 2006 blog entry entitled The Media Offensive, MacAskil implies that the Israeli government is being dishonest about the war compared to "the many western journalists in Lebanon cataloguing the horrors of the daily bombing." According to MacAskill,

"For journalists, it is easy to get a quick quote from an Israeli government spokesman. An article in the German-language Spiegel last week detailed a highly professional Israeli press and PR operation that sees accredited foreign journalists deluged every morning with lists of possible stories and emailed immediately after Hizbullah attacks with mobile phone numbers of victims, witnesses and grieving relatives. The proffered experts and interviewees speak a range of languages; transport to press conferences is laid on, and there is always coffee and sandwiches for those attending. Access couldn't be easier.

It is far more time-consuming getting even a quote from the Palestinians and even more difficult from the highly secretive Hizbullah, even though it has a press spokesman. Hizbullah may not care: its messages are aimed not at the west but the rest of the Arab world, which can easily be reached through its own television station.

It is not Hizbullah that the Israeli government has to counter, but the many western journalists in Lebanon cataloguing the horrors of the daily bombing. The Israeli PR machine may be slicker, but that does not mean it is winning."

This position is simply incredible.

On the one hand, you have the Israeli government spokesmen making a case that its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon is justified. Agree with them or not, that is what the Israeli government is doing, and it is what you would expect any other government to do in the same situation. They are not trying to pretend to be disinterested observers in the conflict.

In contrast, you have much of the western media pretending to be disinterested observers, reporting the facts, when in truth the opposite is true - they are acting as propagandists for Hezbollah. Specifically, according to a report at National Review Online by Tom Gross, a former Jerusalem correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph,

"CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson admitted that his anti-Israel report from Beirut on July 18 about civilian casualties in Lebanon was stage-managed from start to finish by Hezbollah. He revealed that his story was heavily influenced by Hezbollah’s “press officer” and that Hezbollah have “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations.”

When pressed a few days later about his reporting on the CNN program "Reliable Sources," Robertson acknowledged that Hezbollah militants had instructed the CNN camera team where and what to film. Hezbollah “had control of the situation,” Robertson said. “They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath.”

Robertson added that Hezbollah has “very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. You don’t get in there without their permission. We didn’t have enough time to see if perhaps there was somebody there who was, you know, a taxi driver by day, and a Hezbollah fighter by night.”…

Another journalist let the cat out of the bag last week. Writing on his blog while reporting from southern Lebanon, Time contributor Christopher Allbritton casually mentioned in the middle of a posting: “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

Read the whole thing.

Palestinians 'pro-kidnapping'

You just have to hand it to the Palestinians.....they are THE Culture of Terrorism and Death in the Middle East.

Having been raised from childhood on a daily diet of Jew hatred and 72-virgins-in-paradise death worship, what else would one expect of the Palestinians?

A News Story or an Editorial?

...And this is what passes for objective journalism these days....Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress - Yahoo! News

At least the AP could try using an objective headline, e.g., Critics Charge President Bush Ignores Certain Laws He Inks.

How Talking About Talks with Iran is Going to Get Us Killed

Amir Taheri in the New York Post discusses the parallels between the English/German negotiations of the 1930's and the current negotations between the U.N. Security Council and the Iranian regime: IRAN: THE WORLD PUNTS By AMIR TAHERI - New York Post Online Edition: Postopinion.

It is clear that the Iranians are simply trying to buy time to build nuclear weapons so that they can become a regional and worldwide Islamist (i.e., Jihadist) super-power.

In the words of Michael Ledeen (to the Bush Administration), "Now, please."

Philosophy: Who Needs It?

A person at the Yahoo! Answers asks, "Why must we have religion?" I think that my reply is worth posting here:

People don't need religion. However, they do need philosophy; they do need a fundamental view of existence and values in order to live their lives. Unlike other living creatures, human beings are not born with any values to guide their choices and actions. All the values they hold, they must aquire either by conscious decision or by unconscious acceptance.

To quote philosopher, Ayn Rand, "As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define you philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation--or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown." - Philosophy, Who Needs It? http://gos.sbc.edu/r/rand.html.

According to Rand, religion is an early form of philosophy which arose before humans could develop a scientific approach to the fundamental questions of life that philosophy must address. Today, religion is still the only form of philosophy most people know about. Furthermore, many people feel devotion to the religion they were taught as children since they associate that religion with the love they feel towards their parents. And while religion can have important values to teach and many worthwhile lessons to learn, it does not fulfill the human need for an objective comprehensive view of life, since it is based upon the pre-scientific and invalid approach of faith and the ancient destructive moral code of self-sacrifice. Moreover, modern academic philosophy has, over the past two hundred years, become a mostly useless psuedo-science that does not deal with the questions and problems human beings actually face in life.

I recommend Ms. Rand's philosophy called Objectivism as a rational alternative to religion, academic philosophy, cynical hopelessness, and unserious self-imposed blindness. There is a tremendous amount of information on the internet about her writings and philosophy that you can investigate. I recommend starting out at the Ayn Rand Institute: http://www.aynrand.org. And if you become interested, you can look into purchasing her novels and/or non-fiction works. Another accessible introduction to her ethics is called, Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It by Craig Biddle. This book is available at Amazon.com.

To give you a quick introduction to her philosophy, I will quote Ayn Rand again, "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Supreme Court All Wet on Wetlands Ruling

Today’s Supreme Court ruling’s on wetlands (Rapanos v. United States, 04-1034, Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers, 04-1384) came close to overturning years of arbitrary and unjust property regulation by environmentalists via the Clean Water Act.

According to the Associated Press,

“Justices decided on a 5-4 vote, split along ideological lines, that regulators may have misinterpreted the federal Clean Water Act when they refused to allow two Michigan property owners to build a shopping mall and condos on wetlands they own.

“But on a separate 5-4 vote, they refused to block the government from restricting access on distant wetlands.”

“Instead of ruling in the property owners' favor, as they requested, justices said lower courts must reconsider whether ditches and drains near wetlands are waterways.”

This means that the Court, particularly Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (see below), had neither the courage nor understanding to overturn the clear abuses of the Clean Water Act themselves. Instead, they passed the buck to the lower courts to make decisions without any guidelines, which will result in indeterminant and contradictory rulings on the wetlands issue for years to come.

“The court's four most conservative members wanted a more sweeping ruling, clearing the way for development of land unless it was directly connected to waterways.

“The court's four most liberal members said that such a ruling would reject three decades of practice by the Army Corps of Engineers and threaten the environment."

So here, according to the AP account, the liberal members of the Court acted as legal conservatives, i.e., they ruled to conserve precedent when it conveniently fits their ideological biases. To put it a different way, four liberal justices are content to use precedent to uphold the despotic practices of the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) - on the basis that ACE had been taking the same actions for 30 years – not because the ACE practices are consistant with the Clean Water Act (nor with rationality).

“In the middle was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

“Kennedy wrote his own opinion to explain why he was not joining the main opinion. "Important public interests are served by the Clean Water Act in general and by the protection of wetlands in particular," he said. Scalia's opinion, Kennedy said, "seems unduly dismissive of the interests asserted by the United States in these cases."

Kennedy’s above-quoted opinion captures exactly what is wrong with evironmentalist’s views on “wetlands”. Specifically, environmentalists regard nature or certain areas of nature (anything untouched, or - as they would say - “uncorrupted” by human productive activity) to be valuable to “public interests.” This, they argue, necessitates that the government infringe upon the rights of individual citizens by blocking them from rightful use of their own property.

The fallacy here is twofold: 1) there are no public interests above and apart from the interests and rights of individual citizens. For that matter, there is no amorphous entity called “the public” which mystically appears whenever you gather togther people in a group. The concept “the public” is just that – a concept – which designates a collection of individuals.
2) There are no values apart from individuals who do the valuing. Thus, the wetlands in contention in these cases have no value to individuals who want to develop condominiums or apartments on their property. Nor do these wetlands have value to the people that want to purchase or rent from these property owners. Neither do these wetlands have value to most rational people. What nowadays goes by the politically correct name of “wetlands” are in fact what people used to call swamps. These areas used to be regarded as a nuissance, which needed to be dried out and reclaimed, e.g., the cities of Washington, D.C. and Seattle. No one has any rational interest in preventing these particular property owners, or property owners in general, from developing their land. Only those with an irrational interest in preventing human beings from rearranging nature to fit their needs want to use the force of government (particularly, that institution hated so much by the Left – the U.S. Army) to infringe upon the basic most fundamental rights of American citizens to use and dispose of their own property in the pusuit of their own rational self-interests. Environmentalists consider individual rights as a nussaince infringing on their goal of "protecting" nature from mankind.

At least Justice Scalia understood part of the unjustice on the part of the environmentalists:

“Scalia had said the Corps of Engineers misinterpreted the term "waters of the United States."

"In applying the definition to `ephemeral streams,' `wet meadows,' storm sewers and culverts, ... man-made drainage ditches, and dry arroyos in the middle of the desert, the Corps has stretched the term `waters of the United States' beyond parody," he wrote.”

Unfortunately, it is not a parody to those individuals whose rights are trampled. Nor is it a parody to every other American whose freedom is jeapordized by the arbitrary power of government bureacracy.

Michael Ledeen on the Zarqawi Letter

Michael Ledeen is featured again here at Facts and Logic. This time, he is confirming my suspicions that the document released by the Iraqi authorities - purportedly written by Zarqawi (may he suffer in hell) - is probably a fake produced by the Iranians to fool Americans into thinking that Iran has nothing to do with the insurgency and sectarian millitias in Iraq: Michael Ledeen on At War on National Review Online

Proof That Campaign-Finance Reform Endangers Freedom of Sppech

During the long debate that eventually led to passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, opponents argued that the bill would lead to limits on free speech - particularly on the class of free speech that matters most: political speech. Proponents of McCain-Feingold pooh-poohed these arguments as red herrings put forward by special interests that wanted to keep their power in Washington.

Well, the following article from NRO shows that the proponents were wrong and the opponents of McCain-Feingold were right: The Editors on Campaign-Finance Reform on National Review Online.

Now, can we repeal McCain-Feingold before the situation gets worse?

Jihad Watch: Hamas Murders Children in Palestine, Blames Israel

Jihad Watch: Hamas Murders Children in Palestine, Blames Israel

So what else is new?

Of course, the left wing MSM has failed to avoid a rush to judgement and are still crying that the Israelis are cold, heartless, SOB's, who don't care where their bombs fall. You'd think they would have learned the modus operandi of the Palestinian propaganda machine by this point. Alas, not.

Michael Ledeen on Iran & Terrorism

I sometimes think I should call my blog "Michael Ledeen Watch" since I blog about this American Enterprise Institute scholar's work so often lately. Dr. Ledeen's writings are critical to understanding the bigger picture of the War on Terror; and his latest column at NRO, Iran Connects the Dots attests to this fact.

There are several illuminating nuggets of wisdom contained in this piece. Among them, the following stand out:

1. The terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed by coalition forces on Wenesday, was more important than most media reports have indicated:

"Zarqawi played on a global scale. Reports from Canada recount contacts between the ‘home-grown’ terrorists arrested by the Mounties and Zarqawi himself (See the ‘Mississauga News,’ June 7: ‘The arrest of 17 suspects...is said to be the latest stage in dismantling a terrorist network that’s linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...’). Those arrests seem linked to those carried out in Atlanta, Georgia, by the FBI, and to other arrests in Sarajevo, England, and Denmark. It will be surprising if we don’t find Zarqawi’s claw prints in several of those venues, as the Canadians have said."

2. The coalition operation that resulted in Zarqawi's death was more significant than much of the media reported:

"We have probably just lived through the greatest global counterterrorist operation in history. In Iraq alone, some 16 or 17 terror cells were attacked at the same time as Zarqawi was killed. And the wave of arrests — just yesterday the Swiss reported they had broken up a cell planning to attack an El Al passenger plane — is like nothing I have seen before, bespeaking an encouraging degree of international cooperation. It goes hand in hand with the devastating campaign in Iraq against the terrorist leadership. Zarqawi is just the latest to fall; most of his top associates had been eliminated over the course of the past several months.

"The global operation seems to have been prompted by the discovery that the terror masters had ordered a worldwide assault, and so far the West has proven equal to the challenge."

3. Most importantly, Dr. Ledeen points out Zarqawi's connection to Iran, the terrorist regime that is the ideological, tactical, and financial center of Islamic terrorism in today's world:

"I first noticed him some years ago, reading the German and Italian press. Several terrorist cells in those countries had been rounded up, and court documents showed that in both countries the network had been created from Tehran, by Zarqawi."

And:

"Despite his intonations against the Shiites, and his manifest efforts to promote civil war in Iraq, Zarqawi was happy to work with the radical Shiite regime in Tehran, and they were happy to work with him. It is quite wrong to view him as a leader of one faction in a religious war; his promotion of religious conflict was simply a tactic designed to destabilize Iraq and drive out the Coalition. He and his Iranian backers/masters were desperate to promote all manner of internal Iraqi conflict: Kurds against Arabs, Turkamen against Kurds, anything that worked."

And:

"Shortly after the liberation of Afghanistan, I wrote that al Qaeda had been effectively destroyed, and that we should stop talking about al Qaeda as if it were the most important component in the terror network. I argued that we should conceive of terrorism as a kind of galaxy, with numerous components — ranging from Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the rump of al Qaeda and, most importantly, Hezbollah — who worked together, organized a division of labor, and were held in their orbits and epicycles by the Iranian intelligence apparatus, from the official ministry to the specialized units in the Revolutionary Guards."

In summarizing, Dr. Ledeen, writes:

"A week ago Director of National Intelligence Negroponte gave a very interesting interview to the BBC in which he reiterated what everybody knows: ‘(the Iranians) are the principal state sponsor of terrorism in the world.’

"So how come we're not going after them?"

Indeed.

The Reality: No Way Out of a Conflict with Iran

Terrorism expert Dr. Michael Ledeen's column this week contrasts starkly with the mainstream media's view of the U.S. pre-negotiations with Iran's government. To the world diplomatic community, a conflict between the U.S. and Iran can be avoided if the U.S. stops aggressive posturing and instead offers enough "carrots" to convince the Iranians to suspend uranium enrichment. To Ledeen, a conflict is inevitable given the Iranian leadership's belief system:

"But these are fanatics, millenarian fanatics who believe that the world is headed for a final and decisive confrontation between the forces of Islam and the infidels and crusaders. They believe that the final days are at hand, and that they are the instruments of Divine power and glory. They have no doubt about their ultimate triumph, and everything they see in the West only reinforces their confidence, and leads them to redouble their murderous efforts."

Ledeen unequivocably compares the Bush Administration's new diplomatic tactics to those of Chamberlain when, in 1936, he appeased Hitler in exchange for a false promise of peace.

For the record, I agree with Ledeen 100%. And I would be willing to bet money that his prediction that we will have to fight a war with Iran will come to pass within the next 1-2 years. His characterization of both Iran's leadership and the Bush administration's capitulation to European's appeasement of the Iranian mullahs couldn't be more on target. The history of the Iran's theocrat's since they came to power in 1979 proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they are murderous religious fanatics bent on destroying Western civilization. Their publically espoused ideology and their financing and training of international terrorists is a matter of public record. You would think that people - especially the Bush administration - would have learned by now that you don't negotiate with terrorists.

Krauthammer's Folly - Negotiating with Iran

In his Washington Post column today (via FrontPageMag.com), Charles Krauthammer snatches defeat from the jaws of victory by pulling a typical bone-headed pragmatic conservative move. First, he correctly identifies Iran's devious motivation in demanding bilateral negotiations with the United States, i.e., to delay the West until Iran can produce deliverable nuclear weapons, and the Left's predictably mindless agreement with this demand:

All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait.

It is not rare to see a regime such as Iran's -- despotic, internally weak, feeling the world closing in -- attempt so transparent a ploy to relieve pressure on itself. What is rare is to see the craven alacrity with which such a ploy is taken up by others.

Then, even after having stated the obvious conclusion, i.e., no negotiations with the Iranian mullahs, Krauthamer abruptly undercuts his own case at the very end and offers the Left, the Europeans and the Iranians an offer that they could not refuse:

We should resolutely say no.

Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.

You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.

As I posted today at FrontPageMag.com, the idea of negotating with the world's #1 state sponsor of terrorism should never have come into consideration in the first place:

I agree with the first twelve out of fifteen paragraphs of Charles Krauthammer's article.

In that thirteenth paragraph, Krauthammer foolishly suggests that the U.S. negotiate with Iran if the Europeans give an iron clad promise to back U.S. millitary action against Iran should the negotiations fail.

First of all, Krauthammer already knows that the Iranian mullah's main priority is to delay the Western powers to give themselves enough time to generate deliverable nuclear weapons. Nothing would do more to generate delay than to get the U.S. tied up in a long negotiation process.

Second, Krauthammer should know that, if the U.S. were to ever claim negotiations failed, the Iranians and the Europeans can simply claim that the U.S. has not truly exhausted "all avenues of the negotiations process". The same thing sort of thing delayed the U.S. invasion of Iraq for almost a year and allowed Saddam Hussein to prepare his post-combat insurgency strategy and probably hide his WMD (with the help of the Russians).

We need to step back and look at the big picture:

1. Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism for eight of the past nine years according to the U.S. State Department's Pattern's of Global Terrorism report.

2. Iran President Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic, who thinks he is going to bring about the emergence of the Muslim messiah by initiating a war with the Great Satan United States.

3. Iran has been funneling IED's into Iraq that have killed American soldiers.

4. Iran is trying with all its might, via its surrogate Moqtada al-Sadr, to get a theocracy installed in Iraq.

5. Iran has supported Syria in its funneling of foreign terrorists into Iraq to kill American troops.

6. Neither America nor any free nation should negotiate with terrorists or terrorist-
sponsoring nations. Hello!

The longer the overthrow of the terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime is delayed, the greater the chances that they will be able to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon and prepare their terrorist network for a counter-attack against the U.S. and its allies.

The U.S. should attack Iran now - not negotiate.

Further I would propose that the U.S. investigate whether it would be more feasible to attack the Iranian leadership and the bulk of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, rather than attacking Iran's nuclear sites as the mullahs fully expect by this point. I am not a millitary expert, but I imagine the U.S. millitary has the weapons technology to effectively take out these two groups to a large degree. In other words, cut off the head of the snake, and then go after the nuclear facilities with the help of the Iranian people who support us.

The Folly of Israeli Disengagement

While I do not agree with all he says in his Opinion Journal piece yesterday, the words of James Woosley, the former Director of Central Intelligence, ring wise and true concerning The Folly of Israeli Disengagement:

"Three major Israeli efforts at accommodation in the last 13 years have not worked. Oslo and the 1993 handshake in the Rose Garden between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat produced only Arafat's rejection in 2000 of Ehud Barak's extremely generous settlement offer and the beginning of the second intifada. The Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 has enhanced Hezbollah's prestige and control there; and the withdrawal from Gaza has unleashed madness. These three accommodations have been based on the premise that only Israeli concessions can displace Palestinian despair. But it seems increasingly clear that the Palestinian cause is fueled by hatred and contempt."

Woosley succinctly points out that the Israeli and American governments need to wake up to the reality that al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard units are not going to disengage from Israel once Israel disengages from the West Bank:

"The approach Israel is preparing to take in the West Bank was tried in Gaza and has failed utterly. The Israeli withdrawal of last year has produced the worst set of results imaginable: a heavy presence by al Qaeda, Hezbollah and even some Iranian Revolutionary Guard units; street fighting between Hamas and Fatah, and now Hamas assassination attempts against Fatah's intelligence chief and Jordan's ambassador; rocket and mortar attacks against nearby towns inside Israel; and a perceived vindication for Hamas, which took credit for the withdrawal. This latter almost certainly contributed substantially to Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections."

When will reality start setting in? We can only hope soon. So far, the lessons of history seem to have been lost on Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Bush.

Iran and Hezbollah: America's #1 Enemies

It's time for President Bush to break down the intellectual barrier in his brain that separates anti-Israeli terrorists from anti-American terrorists. The N.Y. Post reports:

"The Hezbollah terror group - one of the most dangerous in the world - may be planning to activate sleeper cells in New York and other big cities to stage an attack as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up".

According to the story:

"The nationwide effort to neutralize Hezbollah sleepers in the United States, being spearheaded by the FBI and Justice Department's counterterrorism divisions, was triggered in January in response to alarming reports that Iran's fanatical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met with leaders of Hezbollah and other terror groups during a visit to Syria.

"Among those attending the meetings, according to reliable reports, was Hezbollah's chief operational planner, Imad Mugniyah - considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world - who is responsible for the bombings of the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and who, more recently, provided Iraqi guerrillas with sophisticated explosive devices."

Don't Be Very Worried

Some worthwhile facts to know about environmental issues in general and the global warming debate in particular can be found at OpinionJournal - Outside the Box

Inconvenient Truths Indeed

Some Inconvenient Truths to be aware of before seeing Al Gore's new shlockumentary. Hat tip: RealClearPolitics.com.

Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration

Highlights of Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration by Harry Binswanger -- Capitalism Magazine:

"One has rights not by virtue of being an American, but by virtue of being human."

"A job is a role in the production of goods and services"

"Before the 1920s, there were no limits on immigration, yet our standard of living rocketed upward. Self-supporting immigrants were an economic benefit not an injury."

"Immigrants are the kind of people who refresh the American spirit. They are ambitious, courageous, and value freedom. They come here, often with no money and not even speaking the language, to seek a better life for themselves and their children."

How to Stop Iran (Without Firing a Shot)

Current diplomacy isn't working. Here's Plan B
by Bret Stephens: OpinionJournal - From WSJ.com

Iranian President Declares War on U.S.?

Was Iranian President Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush last week a diplomatic overture or a declaration of war? Given Ahmadinejad's millenialist belief system and the Iranian leadership's de facto war with the United States since the 1979, it is not a stretch to conclude the latter is true.

Iran Mocks While Europe Talks

When will the sophisticates of European (and American) diplomacy pull their heads out of the sand and realize they are wasting their time trying to negotiate with Tehran? Hopefully, before the mullahs have the Bomb and it is too late. The Iranian president takes Western diplomatic overtures about as seriously as he takes the rights of his own people, i.e., not at all.

Less Health Care Can Be Better for Elderly - Yahoo! News

A good empirical argument for reducing the size of Medicare: Less Health Care Can Be Better for Elderly - Yahoo! News

Oil Industry Unapologetic for High Profits - Yahoo! News

Oil Industry Unapologetic for High Profits .....as well they should be given the facts presented in this article:

For their part, the oil companies have been emphasizing that they make far less money on each dollar of sales than many other industries that aren't being excoriated for their capitalism.
Taken together, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips made a profit of $8.19 on every $100 in sales. In contrast, Internet bellwethers Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and eBay Inc. collectively turned a $19.20 profit on every $100 of their combined revenue.

Calm at the Center of the Storm - New York Times

This excellent piece in the New York Times Op-Ed section today demonstrates how events in Iraq can go right by describing an area in Iraq where events ARE CURRENTLY GOING RIGHT, i.e., where terrorist groups and sectarian millitias are being handled effectively by the local Iraqi police.

Social Security, Medicare Trust Funds Are Running Out of Money

What myopic social security supporters refuse to see: Social Security, Medicare Trust Funds Sink - Yahoo! News

Connections Between Palestinian Terrorists and Al-Queda

Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post provides the facts & logic linking Palestinian terrorists with Al-Queda and Iran.

NBC: Chernobyl's uncertain health legacy - Chernobyl Disaster: 20 years later - MSNBC.com

When enviros start arguing against the resurgence of nuclear energy, the following article provides good intellectual ammunition against them: NBC: Chernobyl's uncertain health legacy - Chernobyl Disaster: 20 years later - MSNBC.com.

The key paragraph: "...a recent UN report found that of the millions of people exposed to low levels of radioactive particles spread by wind and in food following the accident, the health effects have proved generally nominal. The exception was a dramatic rise in thyroid cancer among children at the time. Thyroid disorders are widely treatable…."

WSJ.com Opinion Journal

United 93 The filmmakers got it right by David Beamer, father of Todd Beamer

Does Iran Already Have Nukes?

The American Enterprise Institute's Dr. Michael Ledeen thinks so.

As does Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post.

I am curious what our millitary intelligence thinks.

Iran: World's #1 State Sponsor of Terrorism

If most Americans agree with President Bush's statement following the September 11th attacks that, "We make no distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them," then it is time for Americans to lobby the Administration to live up to those words by removing from power the world's #1 state sponsor of terrorism: the current Iranian government. This radical Islamicist theocracy, with its religiously fanatical mullahs and its insane, apocalyptic, war-mongering, Israel-hating president Ahmadinejad, now appear dead-set on aquiring enriched uranium in order to produce a nuclear weapon.

What's worse (and beyond reasonable debate) is Iranian support for the world's most dangerous terrorists. The U.S. State Department, not exactly a hotbed of pro-Bush enthusiasts, has for eight of the past nine years, named the Iranian goverment as the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism in its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report.

Moreover, the terrorists supported by Iran are no longer just those, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, whose daily interest is in attacking only Israel. As summarized by counter-terrorism consultant Dan Darling of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Policing Terrorism, a report in the German political magazine, Cicero states:

"The author of this article was able to look at a list of the holy killers who have found safe refuge in Iran. The list reads like the Who's Who of global jihad, with close to 25 high-ranking leadership cadres of Al-Qa'ida--planners, organizers, and ideologues of the jihad from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, and Europe. Right at the top in the Al-Qa'ida hierarchy: three of Usama Bin Ladin's sons, Saad, Mohammad, and Othman.

"Al-Qa'ida spokesman Abu Ghaib enjoys Iranian protection, as does Abu Dagana al-Alemani (known as the German), who coordinates cooperation of the various jihadist networks throughout the world from Iran. They live in secure housing of the Revolutionary Guard in and around Tehran. "This is not prison or house arrest," is the conclusion of a high-ranking intelligence officer. "They are free to do as they please."

"Saif al-Adel, military chief and number three in Al-Qa'ida, also had a free hand. In early May 2003, Saudi intelligence recorded a telephone conversation with the organizer of the series of attacks in the Saudi capital Riyadh that claimed over 30 victims, including seven foreigners, in May 2003. Saif al-Adel gives orders for the attacks from Iran, where he operated under the wing of the Iranian intelligence service.

"For years, according to the findings of Middle Eastern and Western intelligence services, Iranian intelligence services have already worked together repeatedly with Sunni jihad organizations of Al-Qa'ida. "As an Islamist, I go to the Saudis to get money," the Jordanian GID man outlines the current practice of Islamist holy warriors. "When I need weapons, logistical support, or military terrorist training and equipment, I go to the Iranians."

Given the undeniable links of the Iranian regime to the world's worst terrorists, and its highly likely desire to produce nuclear weapons, the American people should be demanding that the Bush Administration do the right thing and initiate a regime change in Iran before it is too late.

A General Misunderstanding - New York Times

I have respected and admired Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld since I first came to "know" him via television during the early months of the first Bush Administration. My appreciation of his courage, his keen mind, and his tough outspokeness have been affirmed in this Op-Ed by retired Marine lieutenant general Michael DeLong, the No. 2 general at United States Central Command from the Sept. 11 attacks through the Iraq war: A General Misunderstanding - New York Times. This article also debunks the assertion of the Administration's critics that "it had a plan for winning the war, but not for winning the peace."

Speaking of winning the peace, this blog entry by a professional political statistician gives some hard numbers suggesting that we are, in fact, winning the peace.

The Millitary as Last Option Argument

Hugh Hewitt has done a (belatedly) good job of covering the dangerous Hojjatieh ideology of Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and the threat of Iran's mullah's obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, I fear he overestimates President Bush's intellectual adeptness in dealing with this dire situation in a timely manner. So, I wrote Hugh a letter, which I reprint here.

Dear Hugh,

1. Thank you for focusing on the danger of Iran’s mullahs on your show and your blog these last few days. I consider myself a student of Dr. Michael Ledeen who, as nearly the only prominent American intellectual to have urged regime change in Iran for the past three years, has been a modern equivalent of Winston Churchill during the "Alone" years. I would argue that the honor of this comparison belongs to Dr. Ledeen as much, if not more, than to anyone else on the American political scene (given that Dr. Ledeen is a professional intellectual, not a politician).

2. I am deeply concerned that, with the current Iranian situation, President Bush is falling for the same "let diplomacy take its course through the U.N." delusion, foisted upon him by Tony Blair and Colin Powell in 2002. Only this time, the pressure is coming from the Democrats and a perceived reluctance of the American people (as portrayed by the MSM) to undertake another military action against a second Middle Eastern regime. They are saying that the U.S. doesn’t have the will or the way. I do think that President Bush has the "will". I just don’t think he has the "way", i.e., the intellectual arguments needed to justify action against Iran outside the context of the U.N..

3. The main argument put forth by the Left against taking quicker action to overthrow Iran’s mullah’s is based on the same maxim they misused to argue for delaying military action against Saddam during 2002: "Military force should only be used as a last resort." As misused by the Left, this maxim is taken out of proper context, and it is used to trick the intellectually unsophisticated into thinking that military action must be delayed until literally the very last minute before the enemy strikes us. This is, of course, suicide. Waiting until the mullahs have nuclear weapons is waiting until it is too late.

4. We (and by "we", I mean anyone who has any chance to influence the policy of the Bush Administration) should be counter-attacking against this faulty argument by pointing out that, while military might may be the least desirable option to use in general, it should not be the last option to use when confronted by enemies, who we know in advance are end-of-the-world Islamist madmen intent on obtaining nuclear weapons..

5. Time is not on our side. Considering that the progress of Iraq’s WMD program was vastly underestimated prior to the 1991 Gulf War, I feel justified in writing that we do not know with sufficient certainty when the mullahs will obtain the ability to produce a nuclear weapon. We can rest assured that they would not hesitate to try fooling us into thinking that they are further away than is actually the case. And with President Bush apparently dead set on letting "diplomacy take its course" through the U.N. (where Russia and China will ultimately veto any Security Council resolution with teeth), I think all of us have cause to be deeply concerned.

Russia Spies Operated in Iraq Through 2003 - Yahoo! News

The plot thickens.....Russia Spies Operated in Iraq Through 2003 - Yahoo! News.

It is a good thing that the American public and the U.S. government are finally being forced to recognize that Russia is no friend of the United States.

Without the evidence of this story forcing Americans to recognize Vladimir Putin's antagonism towards the U.S., Americans and their goverment would let their fear of a return to the Cold War keep them from recognizing that Putin is an enemy of freedom, and that the Russian government, under his rule, has again become a dictatorship.

Pentagon: Russia Gave Saddam U.S. Intel - Yahoo! News

It seems our friends, the Russians, led by Mr. Putin, are not such great "strategic partners" for advancing freedom in the world as we would like to believe: Pentagon: Russia Gave Saddam U.S. Intel - Yahoo! News

Democracy vs. Freedom

The recent elections in the Palestinian territories, in which the terrorist group Hamas was voted into official political leadership, bring into focus a crucial intellectual issue undermining the Western world, especially in its fight with Islamic terrorist-supporting nations. Specifically, people throughout the world mistakenly think that "democracy" is the equivalent of political freedom.
However, this belief is a deadly misidentification of the true meaning of political liberty. "Democracy" is antithetical to liberty. Rather, as I will argue below, it is the recognition of individual rights that results in political freedom.

"Individual rights" are entitlements to freedom of action. Human beings are entitled to certain freedoms (i.e., rights) by virtue of their nature as sovereign thinking individuals. Examples of individual rights include: the rights to life, liberty, free speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to earn and own property.

To put it simply, freedom means you can do what you want with your own life, so long as you do not interfere with the lives of others. Jefferson eloquently wrote of freedom in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Within these few carefully written sentences, Jefferson suggests the relationship between individual rights and democracy; he implies that upon a foundation of individual rights, a proper government may be elected by popular vote. Moreover, he explicitly states that the purpose of such a popularly elected government is to protect those rights. Thus, this is how democracy - or more correctly, elections - relate to freedom: individuals possess certain unalienable rights, and to secure those rights, individuals elect a government for protection of their rights.

However, having political elections without the foundation of individual rights, i.e., "democracy", is nothing more than mob rule, i.e., collectivist dictatorship. Instead of a single dictator infringing upon his subject's freedoms, as in a monarchy, democracy substitutes several million voting dictators to infringe upon their subject's freedoms. But increasing the number of people who decide to violate your rights does not make the violation any more legitimate. To quote the philosopher Ayn Rand, "Under a system of Collectivism, a million men (or anyone claiming to represent them) can pass a law to kill one man (or any minority), whenever they think they would benefit by his death. His right to live is not recognized. Under Individualism, it is illegal to kill the man and it is legal for him to defend himself. The law is on the side of a right. Under Collectivism, it is legal for the majority to kill a man and it is illegal for him to defend himself. The law is on the side of a number."

For example, it was in a democracy that Socrates was put to death for supposedly corrupting the youth of Athens; it was in a democracy that the dictator, Adolf Hitler, was brought to power; it was in a democratic election that last week, the terrorist group, Hamas, was elected to rule the Palestinians and launch attacks against Israel.

In this context, it is important to note that within a truly free society, individuals cannot delegate to their government rights they do not possess themselves to begin with. In other words, if you, as an individual, cannot murder your neighbor and steal his money, then likewise, it does not matter how many of your neighbors you get together to vote to commit these same acts. To do so is to grant to the mob the right to take away the rights of anyone at any time simply by majority vote.

No, democracies are not free societies. Individual rights define and delimit what issues may properly be voted upon. Outside the context of individual rights, there is no limit to the power of the majority: anything goes. In a free society, we elect our government representatives, but we cannot rightfully elect leaders or vote to approve measures whose avowed purpose violates individual rights.

And yet, because we elect our leaders within constitutional republics, people in the Western world mistakenly call their countries "democracies", and sloppily mix together in their heads the concept of individual liberty with the act of voting as such, voting without regard to what is being voted upon. Thereby, as a result of intellectual laziness and imprecision, people allow their freedom to be slowly degraded without ever identifying exactly what that freedom actually consists of. Loss of freedom is the result of a fuzzy understanding of liberty.

The intellectual package deal of equating democracy with individual liberty is not simply a matter of semantics, it is not simply a word game. By referring to a constitutional republic as a democracy, people are allowing the enemies of freedom to justify the election of the most heinous of dictatorships (e.g., Hamas). In other words, by the simple act of calling America a democracy, people give the Palestinian mob's choice of Hamas to lead their government the aura of legitimacy since these terrorists were "democratically" elected. And the Hamas leadership knows as much; in a Feb 14, 2005 New York Times article, Hamas official Farhat Asaad is quoted as saying, "First, I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. But there is no way to retreat now. It's not possible for the US and the world to turn its back on an elected democracy."

Such governments are neither legitimate nor sovereign. They are simply dictatorships in which everyone infringes on everyone's else's rights, and the group with the most power wins. In other words, they are societies where "might makes right", in contrast to an individualist society, where "right makes right".

View the Muhammad Cartoons

See them here: MuhammadCartoons

Publish Those Cartoons

As Charles Krauthammer demonstrates in his op-ed Curse of the Moderates, Western media must publish the Danish cartoons of Mohammad to protect freedom of the press, a value that trumps sensitivity to people's feelings for anyone who knows anything about freedom.

Muslims Offended by Danish Cartoons on Yahoo! News Photos

The photo here: Muslims Offended by Danish Cartoons on Yahoo! News Photos sums up the insanity of those Muslims engaged in violent protests over the Danish cartoons of their prophet, Muhammad. Equating cartoons that offend with bombs that kill is about as totalitarian as you can get. They are quite insane.

Cold War II

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is conducting Cold War II against the U.S. and Israel: Israel fumes over Putin 'knife in back' - Yahoo! News. The Bush Administration so far refuses to recognize this fact.

Scientists Warn of Melting Ice in Arctic - Yahoo! News

Scientists Warn of Melting Ice in Arctic - Yahoo! News

The Earth's climate has always changed during its approximate 5 billion years, sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly. In most cases, these changes have led to mass extinctions of species.

Everything humans do affects the environment. Human beings survive by changing the environment. Every material value we have comes from changing the environment, from the most basic necessities: food, clothing, and shelter, to the most advanced technologies: medicine, space technology, and electronics.

The question for us is whether we will shoot our economy in the foot by limiting our oil supplies, or whether we will use our technology to adapt to and overcome global warming.

Environmentalists, many scientists included, seem to think that our technology is evil because it "harms" the environment. They think that nature, unchanged, and undisturbed by mankind, is a good in and of itself.

However, there is no intrinsic value to nature. Nature could care less about human life. Values only exist because human beings exist. Without someone who values, no values would exist. And because of this, human life is the very basis for values. Changing the environment for the benefit of mankind is the only way human beings can survive, and doing so is an act of loyalty to our values. It is a virtue, not a vice.

Bush Caves on Nuclear Power for Iran

In the following story, Bush Says Don't Expect Oil Price Breaks - Yahoo! News: President Bush says, "'We cannot afford to have Iran with a nuclear weapon' but 'We want them to have nuclear power but under the conditions that we describe.'

So, Russia's Vladimir Putin is pressuring Bush not to attack Iran because the Russians are selling nuclear reactor components and expertise to the Iranians. The Iranians clearly intend to obtain nuclear weapons (clearly, because with all that oil, they don't need nuclear power) and Bush is giving into Putin's pressure in a pragmatic move in which uranium would be processed in Russia and then given to Iran. Unfortunately, we cannot trust Putin - he is no friend of liberty. He would likely have no misgivings about another country obtaining nuclear weapons to counter the power of the U.S., Israel, and the UK. Furthermore, even if Putin has no desire to see a nuclear armed Iran, who can trust Russian arms inspectors? With a wink and a nod, they could easily pass the Iranians the highly processed uranium needed for a nuclear bomb.

Bush, why are you being so short-sighted?

Democracy vs. Liberty in Palestine

Democracy is not the same thing as liberty. Freedom comes only from the recognition of individual's rights to life, liberty, and property. If the majority in a democracy can vote to strip you of these rights, you are not free. If the majority in a society can vote to install a dictatorship, the society is not free - not only after the dictatorship is installed, but before the vote as well. If your rights are open to be voted upon, you are not free.

Applying this to a current event, if the Palestinians have voted to install Hamas as their leaders, the Palestinians are not free. Only when the Palestinians respect the rights of individuals in their own society and the rights of individuals outside their society, will the Palestinians be free.

Dictatorships are not legitimate sovereign governments.

There They Go Again....

This article Forum Spotlights Problems of Poor Women - Yahoo! News has got to take the award for Bullshit Socialist Propaganda of the Year Award.

Many in Congress Hawkish on Iran - Yahoo! News

It seems to be an article of faith, among so many politicians quoted in this article, that millitary action should be the option of last resort Many in Congress Hawkish on Iran - Yahoo! News. Yet, when we consider dangers at stake in this game, we must ask if it is so wise to wait until the religious fanantic Iranian mullahs may obtain a nuclear bomb before we act.

Iran's Quest for Atomic Weapons

The website of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private organization founded by CNN's Ted Turner and former Democrat senator Sam Nunn, is an excellent starting point for researching Iran's quest to develop atomic weapons.

RealClearPolitics - Commentary - The Iran Charade, Part II by Charles Krauthammer

RealClearPolitics - Commentary - The Iran Charade, Part II by Charles Krauthammer

Krauthammer criticizes the Europeans. But it is upon the Bush Administration he should focus his assault. The Administration sanctioned the Europeans self-delusional "negotiations" with a theocracy. Now, the world's leading sponsor of Islamic terrorism is probably months away from a nuclear bomb.

The Iranian Threat and How to Deal With It

Frank Gaffney at The Center for Security Policy gets it right about Iran in this article.

One Moment in Time: Our Age of Revolution

Trenchant historical analysis of the war against Islamo-fascism, as always, by Dr. Michael Ledeen at JewishWorldReview.com.

Iran: World's #1 State Sponsor of Terrorism

For the record, according to the State Department's most recent Patterns of Global Terrorism report (2004) Iran remains the world's #1 state sponsor of terrorism. And now, they are working frantically to produce an atomic bomb.

Time is running out.

Socialism Rears its Ugly Head in Maryland

It appears that the worldwide collapse of socialism has not only been ignored in South America, but also right here at home, specifically in the state of Maryland.

Especially stupid is the statement by State Sen. Gloria Lawlah: "Don't dump your employees that you refuse to insure into our Medicaid system"(!) As if Walmart, by offering Marlyanders some degree of healthcare coverage in addition to a means of income, is somehow forcing the citizen's of Maryland to pay for healthcare that they wouldn't have to pay for if there were no Walmarts in the state to begin with.

The sad thing is that Wal-Mart concedes the socialist premise that everyone has a "right to health care". According to company spokeswoman Sarah Clark, "This does nothing to accomplish this goal of providing everyone access to affordable health care insurance."

Instead, Walmart should be denouncing the idea that the state has the right to force companies to pay for benefits that are not voluntarily agreed to by the employer and the employee. In other words, Walmart should be upholding freedom of contract, and denouncing the collectivist notion that it is okay to sacrifice the rights of some individuals for the benefits of others.

For a thorough debunking of the idea of a "right to health care", see Leonard Peikoff's "Healthcare is not a Right".

Saddam's terror training camps

If anyone ever tells you that Saddam Hussein had no links to Islamic terrorists, and therefore, the U.S. should not have invaded Iraq, refer them to this article: Saddam's terror training camps.

The Banana Man Has Gone Bananas

Harry Belafonte: What an idiot. If he likes it so much in Chavez's Venezuela; he can go live there. Of course, he won't. He will stay here in "racist" America, where the evil President Bush oppresses his people, and where black singers can earn millions of dollars, drive Beemers, live in mansions, and not get all their money confiscated by socialist dictators. Poor oppressed Harry...

International News Article | Reuters.com

Maybe Microsoft and Yahoo! can evade this story to console their guilty conciounces.

BREITBART.COM - Microsoft Shuts Down Chinese Blog

It seems that Microsoft and Yahoo! don't care to take any stand to protect the basic freedoms that make their own existences possible. It is really mind-numbing to witness the degree of evasion involved here. I hope that some prominent leftists, who are adept at finding examples of short-sighted "greed" of businessmen, will take note of this real example of the phenomenon

America, Mr. Bush Are you "Serious or Suicidal?" by Thomas Sowell

America, WAKE UP!
Mr. Bush, WAKE UP!

Nuclear-armed mullahs with end-of-the-world delusions about the Second Coming of Allah (or whatever it is)will have no inhibitions about sending a nuke to Israel, Europe, or America.

HELLO!!!