Archives for March 2005

Why is communism bad?
Asks some clueless kid on a message board, and Bridget Johnson explains why. Many young people know why communism is bad.

Locally, Princeton University Students protest crackdown in Cuba

CAUSA co-founder Chris Gueits, also a Princeton sophomore, said the group’s decision to end its march outside the front doors of Firestone was symbolic of the absence of a free flow of information in Cuba and restrictions against free expression.
“In countries like Cuba, this would land you in jail,” Mr. Gueits said in front of the sculpture outside the library. “There’s a vacuum of information over there, and these people feel alone.”
. . .
The march was held within a week of the second anniversary of an alleged crackdown on dissent by Cuban President Fidel Castro on March 18, 2003. President Castro ordered the arrest of more than 75 journalists, labor union organizers, civic leaders, librarians and human rights activists, according to organizers.

The protest at Princeton University was one of several reportedly held on college campuses across the nation. There was a simultaneous march on the University of Pennsylvania campus, and memorial events were held at Harvard, Georgetown, Boston College, University of Florida, Florida State, Cornell, Columbia and elsewhere, organizers said.

I heartily applaud Mr. Gueits and his group for their efforts.

Update: Che makes it to this Dean‘s list (via Babalu)

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1121/

The Whore of Mensa?
Back in the olden days when Woody Alan was funny, way before his incestuous marriage, the published a story called The Whore of Mensa, which premise was an escort service of high-IQ women.
Well, it looks like someone on campus’s got a business plan:

An online advertisement that offered Princeton University students male escorts — and solicited female students to apply for a position — was a joke, but the ad’s author insists the business model is sound.
A business that catered to the community at large likely would be profitable, said Edward Shin, the univrsity senior who created the ad.
On March 8, Mr. Shin posted the dating service ad on a new student auction Web site called TigerTrade. TigerTrade, which opened Feb. 28, can only be accessed by students of the university and matches sellers to buyers through a bidding system similar to that used by eBay.
The ad — which was marred by several misspelled words — read, “Our gentlemen, over six feet tall and in excellent physical shape, are willing to offer you companionship. Whether the occassion is a formal, a movie, or a shopping trip, we can accomodate.”

Apparently only tall guys were available. What happened to the short guys?

As a side comment, may I mention that the Mayflower Madam has relatives in town?

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1120/

Why “Non”?
Because the French want to be on top, and they don’t want the “wrong sort of Europe”, that’s why “non”.

The latest survey shows that 55% of French voters will likely vote no on the 500-page-EU Constitution referendum. The Economist explains,

From a tender age, French voters are taught the virtues of Europe. For political leaders, on left and right alike, Europe has been the means of preserving and projecting French power in a world that was otherwise eroding it. In short, Europe offered comfort: protection from decline; reaffirmation of their social model; the foundation of peace.

This sense of comfort is now falling away. In its place, Europe is increasingly seen as a menace: a destroyer of privileges and a source of new threats. Take the two issues that vex the French most just now, neither related to the constitution, but both overshadowing it: the European Commission’s directive to liberalise services, which Mr Chirac ripped apart, just as he had earlier torn up the euro area’s stability and growth pact, at this week’s EU summit (see article); and Turkey’s possible EU membership. The first, introduced by Frits Bolkestein, a Dutch liberal, has become an emblem of French fears about an “ultra-liberal” Europe. There may be genuine concerns about lower wages or safety. But nobody has even tried to explain the merits of the measure, although it was approved by the two French commissioners at the time (one of them, Michel Barnier, is now foreign minister). It has rather become, as one socialist puts it, a symbol of “Europe’s drift towards liberalisation”.

The French don’t want the idea of the “wrong sort of Europe”. EU Referendum looks at A sunset in Europe:

More likely, appears that Chirac feared that even 10 minutes of Barroso’s “liberal” views on French television might cost votes in the referendum, although the French president is known to harbour a “low regard” for the commission chief and his “Anglo-Saxon” views.

However, there are fears that Chrac, by portraying the commission as an ultra-liberal Anglo-Saxon institution, may be fuelling the “no” campaign rather than his pro-constitution effort.

The Telegraph, which EU Referendum quotes, sees these as Hopeful signs from France, but with a propaganda machine in the works,

A “No” vote on May 29 would solve so many problems for Britain that it seems almost too much to hope for. Surely the French can be relied upon to let us down. One thing is for sure: the full weight of the Gallic establishment will be deployed in the attempt to bludgeon voters into submission. The BBC’s pro-Brussels sympathies are as nothing compared with those of French television and most newspapers; the state will spend vast sums in the attempt to twist its citizens’ arms. Anything that can be done will be done.

It’s already started. Last evening’s (government-sponsored) France2 newscast inaugurated a series of pro-EU Constitution questions-and-answers aimed to make the viewer vote “oui”. Expect a lot more to come.

Japan, however, managed to say “Non” to Jacques,

In fact, Koizumi, leader of a nation renowned for its diplomatic protocols, was uncharacteristically blunt, telling l’escroc that Japan strongly opposed the lifting of a EU embargo on arms sales to China.

On another issue of contention, the siting of the proposed International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, Koizumi also refused to yield to the French bully, telling him equally bluntly that Japan would not give up its bid to host the site.

Thank you, Mr. Koizumi.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1119/

Blogger trouble at the moment
will post on the UN Constitution later today. In the meantime, read about why it’s time to disband the UN.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1118/

Time to disband the UN
My family and I live in an area of New Jersey where land has become more valuable than the structural value of a house, so it’s more cost-effective to tear down an old house and build a new one than it is to buy an old, outdated, existing house. The UN has reached that point: It’s time to tear down the UN.

The UN has outlived its purpose. Not because a forum of nations is per se a bad idea, but because it has, year after year for decades, become a corrupt entity beyond redemption. It is a club of petty villains and corrupt bureaucrats. As I have stated previously, there’ll never be a reform of the UN. The organism itself is too far gone.

Just a glance at this morning’s NY Suneditorial gives you a whiff of the UN’s malodorous nature, as exhibited in its anti-Semitism:

When exactly the dream of the United Nations began to fade is hard to pinpoint. It may have been as early as 1956, during the Sinai war, or 1974, when Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly. Or it may have been with the passage of the Zionism is racism resolution in 1975. But it is not hard to assert that over time, in scores of decisions large and small, the United Nations emerged, if not as exactly an enemy of Israel and the Jews, at least as a hostile forum, peopled with hostile international civil servants, some of whom – like the secretary-general’s chief of staff for much of this period – would not even say hello to a diplomat of the Jewish state.

There have been other failures of the United Nations – and we do not wish to belittle any of them, from Rwanda to Sbrenica – but none is as fundamental as the U.N.’s failure in respect of the Israel. It was the war against the Jews, levied by Hitler and his collaborators between 1933 and 1945, that gave impetus to the establishment of the United Nations in the first place. There have been successes of the world body, but none so great as to erase its default on its most fundamental mission to secure the remnant population of European Jewry in the land of Israel. It has simply been off the field or hosting cabals of Israel’s enemies in one resolution after another designed to achieve their humiliation and destruction.

The NY Sun editorial doesn’t touch on the history of corruption at the UN, with the UNESCO scandals and the numerous incidents of UN staff involvement in crimes that range from corruption to rape and murder.

If the UN was interested in things other than the preservation of its status quo, it would move closer to the places where its work is most needed — ah, but what is the night life like in those places? Instead, the UN is based in New York City, where the living is good, and comfortable, and affords an array of services most of the nation-members of the UN can only dream of in their lands of origin.

So, of course, the UN wants to not only stay in NYC, but expand, at great cost to the City and the Americans, who shoulder 22% of the U.N. operating budget. We’re talking huge sums — as befits the UN, place of the largest scam known to mankind, the Oil-For-Food — a $1.2 billion low-interest loan for renovating the Secretariat Building and other U.N. headquarters facilities, plus a $650 million in bonds issued by the United Nations Development Corporation, a New York city-state entity, for a 35-story annex, to be built over a city park adjacent to the United Nations’ Turtle Bay compound.

At least Congress is not chomping at the bit: Congress Turns Up Heat on U.N. Headquarters

Questioning the priorities of the world body, and the demands it places on American taxpayers, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen concluded: “When there is such a need for additional resources to provide technical assistance for political development and civil society, health, and education, should the contributions of countries be diverted to making the U.N. bureaucrats in New York more comfortable? Certainly not! The U.S. taxpayer must not continue to be bled white by an unaccountable U.N. bureaucracy.”

This is not the first time legislators have threatened to withhold funds unless the UN agrees to more accountability and transparency. Last year the NY State Senate tabled a bill that would have started the building of the 35-story building, and several NY State legislators “called for cutting 10 percent of U.S. funding for the United Nations unless it cooperates with investigators probing the oil-for-food scandal.” The UN ignored it all.

I wish Ms Ros-Lehtinen and her associates good luck, but, as much of an optimist as I am, the UN can not be reformed. As the NY Sun proposed,

Here the way to lead is not by inclusion of the despots and bigots and envoys of hate. The way is to appoint a lower-level working group to plan the breakup of the United Nations and the salvage of some of the useful constituent parts, and a higher-level working group to plan for a new incorporated body of democratic governments committed to common principles.

Until then, it’s time to close shop. We can’t afford otherwise.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1117/

Two must-reads, if you haven’t already
Roger L. Simon‘s special report on Oil-For-Food starts.

Chrenkoff’s 24th installment of Good news from Iraq, which includes everything from water processing plants, to a new international airport, to schools supplies

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1116/

MS-13 on the NYT op-ed page
via HispaniCon: a man named Luis Rodríguez states that the MS-13 is Gang of Our Own Making because

While there’s no proof that MS-13 has any connection to Al Qaeda, it has something in common with it: American policy played a role in the creation of both groups.

Where have I heard this before?

Rodríguez, a former member of a Chicano gang in Chicago, proposes,

we can bring gang youth to the table and work to create jobs and training, providing real options for meaningful work and healthy families. In other words, we can help sow the seeds of transformation, eliminating the reasons young people join gangs in the first place.

At the same time, Drudge today has this item, Gang will target Minuteman vigil on Mexico border

Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.

which had also been a subject of my prior post. Does this sound to you like a group that’s ready to come “to the table and work to create jobs and training”?

On a related subject, ¡Gringo Unleashed! has been translating on the Minutemen.

Update La Shawn wants to know Who Will Protect the Minuteman Volunteers?

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1115/

Stevens Institute story at the Star Ledger
yesterday, titled Growing pains at Stevens: Faulty urges audit amid financial woes at president’s rising paycheck (but not on line today), talks about the issues first raised in an article published on the Chornicle of Higher Education. The Star Ledger article, written by Kelly Heyboer, states

A review of Stevens’ IRS findings, public documents, audits and other financial records provided to the Star Ledger reveals,

• Stevens posted an $8.5 million operating loss in 2003. Several years of similar deficits, coupled with mounting debt, prompted the Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s credit rating agencies to downgrade school bond ratings last year.
• Despite operating in the red six of the last eight fiscal years, Stevens sent annual reports to alumni and donors showing the school solidly in the black. School officials said those documents used a set of simplified, though accurate, figures that showed “operating activity
• Raveché’s pay has more than doubled in the past decade . . . In 2002, Stevens underreported his salary to the IRS by more than $100,000 due to an accounting error.
• Raveché owes Stevens more than $1.1 million on nearly $1.5 million in low-interest personal loans from school coffers.
• Stevens current yearly audit by the accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers is nearly three months late

Allow me to point out that Stevens made a loan of $1.5 million to Raveché — while the operating deficit was $8.5 million — nearly 18% of the operating deficit total, and at the same time, as Heyboer writes, “the glossy annual report released to the public showed a $464,123 surplus.”

And now for the punch line:

All of this comes as Raveché is preparing for a possible run for governor when his Stevens’ contract expires in 2009.

“When I leave I’m going to think about running for governor. I am”, said Raveché, who describes himself as pro-choice, anti-gun Republican.

Or, with a name like his, maybe he could run for mayor of Paris.

Jersey Style, Joe Territo, Mister Snitch! and Sluggo have been looking at this story.

Sluggo adds with his post Getting SLAPPed Around by Stevens information on a defamation suit brought by Stevens Institute against a pair of local community activists.

The dispute concerned the development of the abandoned Hoboken waterfront. Stevens wanted a portion of Castle Rock for the Lawrence T. Babbio Center for Technology Management and a parking garage. FBW contended that blasting for the project was releasing dangerous amounts of asbestos and at any rate proper clearances for the blasting hadn’t been obtained. Stevens contended that the publicity cost it more than $1 million. SLAPP suit.

The suit was dismissed.

What shouldn’t be dismissed is the need for an audit, and full disclosure of Stevens’s books.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/03/1114/