Twas the Night before Christmas at the Carnivorous Conservative’s,
and Santa had bad hair!
Thank you, Dan.
Archives for 2004
Tomorrow’s the anniversary of the Battle of Trenton
which took place on December 25, 1776:
The effect of the battle of Trenton was out of all proportion to the numbers involved and the casualties. The American effort across the colonies was galvanized and the psychological dominance achieved by the British in the preceding year overturned. Howe was stunned that a strong German contingent could be surprised in such a manner and put up so little resistance. Washington’s constant problem was to maintain the enthusiasm of his army for the war, particularly with the system of one year recruitment and Trenton proved a much needed encouragement.
More links at The Patriot Resource
UNScam this week
Three U.N. Officials Leave World Body: Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s chief of staff Iqbal Riza, the undersecretary-general for management Catherine Bertini, and the U.N. controller Jean-Pierre Halbwachs. Bertini spent 10 years as executive director of the U.N. World Food Program before taking the U.N. management post on Jan. 1, 2003. Of course, the UN claims these resignations are “coincidences”, but Annan Says Oil-for-Food Produced a Bad Year. I’ll say! There’s the bugs, a minor issue, and the larger issue of sexual abuse, the homemade movies (via Instapundit):
The case has highlighted the apparently rampant sexual exploitation of Congolese girls and women by the UN’s 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 civilians at a time when the UN is facing many problems, including the Iraqi “oil-for-food” scandal and accusations of sexual harassment by senior UN staff in Geneva and New York.
The UN, haunted? Well, ‘Ghosts’ Hamper Iraq Oil-for-Food Corruption Probe (via Friends of Saddam)
A UN-ordered probe into Iraq oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the 60 billion dollar (£31.4 billion) program.
No wonder Koffi wants us to move on.
On Social Security reform,
a very interesting article (in Spanish) by José Carlos Rodríguez Adiós a Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Privatizar la Seguridad Social supone acabar con el legado de Franklin D. Roosevelt. Bajo su mandato se produjo un cambio radical en el papel del Estado en la economía en los Estados Unidos. El modelo público de pensiones se ha agotado y las reformas propuestas por Bush devolverían la iniciativa y la responsabilidad a los ciudadanos, arrancadas en este siglo por el omnívoro Estado. La apuesta tiene enorme calado y sus implicaciones sociales son de largo alcance. Los grupos sociales y de intereses que han servido de plataforma de la izquierda y que se han beneficiado tradicionalmente del favor estatal tiemblan ante la posibilidad de que desaparezca la partida más importante del presupuesto estatal y, especialmente, de que se cree una sociedad de ciudadanos ahorradores y autosuficientes, que vean con creciente desapego y desconfianza al Estado. Ya han empezado a reaccionar, actuando conjuntamente contra el plan de reforma. Se inicia un lucha política apasionante y de enorme importancia.
(
my translation)Privatizing Social Security implies ending Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy. Under his mandate there was a radical change in the Governemnt’s role in the American economy. The public pensions model is exhausted, and Bush’s proposals would return initiative and responsibility, which had been pulled away by the omnivorous Governemnt, to the citizens. This wager has profound, long-term enormous social implications. Leftist social and interest groups that have traditionally benefited from Gevernemnt favors, are trembling now that they face the possibility that the most important share of the buget might disappear, and that a society of self-relying, saving citizens who see Government with increasing detachemnt and mistrust, might be created. They [the interest groups] are already reacting, working together against the refrom plan. This is the start of an intense and hugely important political fight.
Too bad Krugman doesn’t read Spanish.
The Modern Movement has finally come full circle,
puns Brian Micklethwait about this:
An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.
For US$300,000 you and your guests –and your pets, too — can get dizzy every day, since “At low speed, each floor takes an hour to revolve.” I don’t know if they come with built-in karaoke, but one would expect a coctail lounge atmosphere. “Each apartment can revolve independently, spinning 360 to the left or to the right”, I guess for political neutrality.
This building opens a whole new world of possibilities for Interior Desecration Style: “The Apartments are revolting! I mean, revolving!”
At least the one in the slide show is tastefully decorated.
the ACLU and Christmas, updated
(via Betsy) Mark Steyn
Forty years of effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicised Christianity in America. By “politicised”, I don’t mean that anyone who feels his kid should be allowed to sing Silent Night if he wants to is perforce a Republican, but only that year in, year out it becomes harder for such folks to support a secular Democratic Party closely allied with the anti-Christmas militants. American liberals need to rethink their priorities: what’s more important? Winning a victory over the kindergarten teacher’s holiday concert, or winning back Congress and the White House?
. . .
In Italy this Christmas, towns and schools have banned public displays of the Nativity on the grounds that they “may” offend Muslims.Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But who cares? The elevation of the right not to be offended into the bedrock principle of democratic society will, in the end, tear it apart. That goes for atheists threatening suits against New Jersey schools and for Muslim lobby groups threatening fatwas against The Telegraph. On which cheery note, Merry Christmas to all.
Continuing on a Christian note, The Economist has an article on Monasteries of the Christian east: Where mammon meets God that quotes a professor at The University, on the positive effect of prayer,
Peter Brown, the doyen of religious historians at Princeton University, gives a striking account of what early eastern monks thought they were doing. They “did not abandon the world, in the sense of severing all connection with it. Rather, in the imagination of their contemporaries, they transformed its wild edges. They ringed a careworn society with the shimmering hope of paradise regained. Having drained from themselves all hint of the dark passions that ruled the world, they validated the world by constantly praying for it.”
With ideals as lofty, and as other-worldly, as that, the eastern monks were willing to make whatever compromise was necessary with the expediencies of Earthly power to keep themselves in business. It was an act they more or less pulled off, until the 20th century threw them off balance. In a sense, however, modernity has taken the eastern monks back where they started. Their liturgy has always emphasised plucking new life out of death: redeeming the lifeless and demon-infested world of the “desert” and making it bloom like Eden.
In the rich, urban monasteries of late Byzantium, mired in power games, such language may have had a hollow ring. But think how it sounds on Anzer island in the Solovetsky archipelago. This is where, after an epidemic in 1929, prisoners were tossed into a mass grave, below a church named Golgotha where a tree grows naturally in the shape of a cross. In a place so drenched in suffering, the language of death does not have to be hammed up or invented. It is difficult to believe that anything can now bring light and life to such a spot. But, if anything can, it may be monastic prayer.
The ACLU’s short-sightedness, our loss.
Update (via Mr. Minority), Jerusalem Distributes Free Christmas Trees to Christians
For decades, Israel has distributed the trees free of charge, particularly to the ex-patriot community of Christian leaders, journalists, diplomats and others.
Marry Christmas!
Disputed elections update:
Puerto Rico: Court won’t revisit Puerto Rico vote
A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a request to reconsider its ruling giving Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court jurisdiction over disputed ballots in the island’s gubernatorial election.
No de Boston y Domínguez cierra el caso Boston’s No and Dominguez closes the case, (my translation)
Poco después de conocida la orden y mandato del Tribunal de Apelaciones, el juez federal de distrito Daniel Domínguez desestimó ayer en la tarde la demanda radicada por el ex gobernador Pedro Rosselló y un grupo de estadistas en el foro federal. Ya para efectos del tribunal federal en Puerto Rico, el caso promovido por el PNP está cerrado, según aparece en el expediente electrónico.
Shortly after the order from the Appelate Court, federal district judge Daniel Domínguez dismissed the suit filed by former governor Pedro Rosselló and a pro-statehood group. As far as the federal tribunal in Puerto Rico goes, the PNP case is closed.
Ukraine: Elections on Sunday, December 26. Yushchenko Urges Ukrainians to Vote, Defend Choice
Washington state Day by Day says it best:
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