Archives for March 2007
Wonderful good news!
Captain Ed’s First Mate is doing fantastic, and so is her donor.
Tomorrow: Second Annual Rally against Islamo-Fascism

Rally Against Islamo-Fascism Day (R.A.I.D.)
The UNITED AMERICAN COMMITTEE will be holding its
Second Annual Rally against Islamo-Fascism
March 31st, 2007 at GROUND ZERO
corner Liberty & Trinity Place (Church St)
From 12 Noon to 2 PM
This National Rally will be held simultaneously in Los Angeles, Boston, Columbia, Missouri as well as Orlando, Florida.
The United American Committee is an organization committed to Public Awareness and Education in the battle against Radical Islamic-Jihad. The
PC-“police” in co-operation with organizations like CAIR are continuing to control the information-highway; withholding the truth about Jihad through intimidation. We must stop the deception!
The World-Wide Jihad against our Western Culture and the control of our American Press by such apologists as CAIR is real. The intimidation is real. And the American Public must Wake-Up to this threat; a threat to our schools, our culture and our public safety; slowly eroding our laws and our safety from within through lack of Public Awareness.
Please join us at Ground Zero on March 31st, 2007.
Representatives from such organizations as NYICE, NYPAICE, CSDL(Coalition for a Secure Drivers License) GET OUT THE FACTS (which had success recently picketing and challenging the lies and distortions in the Off-Broadway play “My Name Is Rachel Corrie”), NJCIC, as well as a representative from The David Horowitz Freedom Foundation and surviving family members of the 9-11 Holocaust at Ground Zero will join us and many others TBA as we challenge CAIR: ” They claim they are in support of America and against terrorism. Well, CAIR is more than welcome to stand with us and condemn bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorists by name at this rally.”
This will be a joint effort of organizations with a common goal of educating others to the dangers posed by Radical Islam. “This is an opportunity for people of all walks of life to come together, setting aside political or religious differences.” remarks United American Committee Chairman Jesse Petrilla, who also noted that Muslims are especially encouraged to join in the rallies.
Also, meet the blogosphere: live! Those who help in this fight to tell the truth about Radical Islam, such as KesherTalk, WhatAreTheySaying, UrbanInfidel and ThePeoplesCube, amongst many others.
All will speak to these on-going dangers; what we must do to protect ourselves today and to save our tomorrows for our children and our children’s children through Public Awareness and Legislation.
Contact : Pamela Hall
NewYork@UnitedAmericanCommittee.org
WWTD?
What would Thatcher do?
Can anyone imagine Mrs T wringing her hands in this way over Iran’s seizure of our Marines?
Emboldened by the Iranian hostage crisis, now the Argentinians are growing a pair: B Aires hardens Falklands stance
Argentina has toughened its stance over the disputed Falklands Islands, days ahead of the 25th anniversary of its invasion of what it calls the Malvinas.
I’m not the only one asking.
Update, Sunday 1 April Poke them with a fork, because they’re done … done for, that is. Steyn writes about the smiling eunuch
Tomorrow April 2 at noon, my guest will be Monica Showalter of Investor’s Business Daily
Everything old is new again in today’s items
Democrats Vote to Leave Iraq- 34 Years After the US Left Vietnam… To the Day (Video)
Jules has Good news and bad news.
Iran Humiliates Hostages again.
Special thanks to Larwyn.
Via Maria, The influence of George Soros.
I believe it was George Burns who said, “you live long enough, you get to hear every joke at least twice”, and the same thing happens with junk science: Back in the early 1990s before my son was born there was a rumor that a pregnant mothers’ consumption of beef meant a reduced sperm counts in their sons. Like George Burns’s jokes, we’re hearing this one again (h/t Augusto). As Peter Allen sang, Everything Old Is New Again
And for something new, the latest JibJab, What We Call the News
Blatherin’ Rosie
Via Mara, LGF has the video
Rosie: “For the first time in history steel was melted by fire.” Wrong Rosie: steel is melted by fire each and every day around the world. What’s melting are the few neurons left in what you call a brain inside your head.
Gerard has an excellent post,
Be sure to tell yourself that whatever has happened to you, it is not your fault. Be a post-post-modern American. Be an eternal victim. You’ve got it coming.
When the going gets tough, blame your genes and demand that all share your pain, send you a check, and pay extra for medical research to cure what ails you. For free. It’s you’re right written right there in the invisible ink between the lines of the Constitution.
When the going gets really tough, blame George Bush, the center of all the evil that is America. Besides, the people that really want to kill you are far too numerous and far too dedicated to your death to contemplate. It is much lighter on the breaking brain to believe that George Bush wants to kill your right to dissent even if it is much harder to see. Your real enemies are far too frightening to contemplate. Your secret hope is that they’ll burn you in an instant in some thermonuclear fire so you don’t have to be around to put everything back together.
Don’t think for a minute that you are unraveling what is left of your social fabric. Who needs clothes in the dark? You are only taking advantage of your First Amendment rights. What was the Second one? Oh, that’s the bad one. Then there’s 5. And the others? Who remembers? Who can count that high these days?
The excerpt from Gerard’s post doesn’t do it justice, so make sure to read it all (thank you Larwyn).
And don’t even look at the UN:
I mean, watch this:
(h/t Atlas)
The United States remains the UN’s largest contributor.
We pay 22% of its regular budget, and about 27% of its peacekeeping costs. On top of that, we give generously to support the work of UN agencies providing humanitarian relief, electoral assistance, food aid, and more.
When are we going to wake up?
Amazing Grace, Beowulf and Janis
I was going to blog about the troop withdrawl bill and the Democrat’s proposal for the largest tax hike in American history. I find both subjects profoundly depressing: One will get us killed, the other one will get us broke. And the Dems will pass both with, as they say in Spanish, bombo y platillo, which literally translated is drums and cymbals, or in Monty Python’s words, “with much rejoicing”.
That will be the soundtrack of their grab for power, the echoes of which the Caliphate Islam will no doubt replay for propagandistic purposes. The same Caliphate Islam that denies its followers the pleasures of music.
I had outlined the post but before I finished it I was thinking of going to a lecture at the University discussing Presidential legacies and possibly using something from that lecture. However, even when the person giving the lecture is not a Bush hater, I know that the audience will be filled with people who actively despise the President.
They live in hate.
Their hate feeds their complacency which feeds their hate.
A couple of months ago I was at a lecture where being surrounded by such a crowd had a toxic effect on me.
This afternoon I decided I’d pass, both on the lecture and on the post (I would have been at the lecture right now). I’m saving my energy for Saturday.
So after going through my email I was visiting other blogs, and found that Hot Air has a video promoting Amazing Grace. I had posted about my experience with the hymn, but never got around posting about the movie. The movie is beautiful. My only misgiving is that only the first stanza of the hymn is played in the movie, when the others are more meaningful:
T’was Grace that taught
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
the hour I first believed.Through many dangers, toils and snares
we have already come.
T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far
and Grace will lead us home.The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.When we’ve been here ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
then when we’ve first begun.
Certainly a song for our times.
It’s been a day for songs.
Today’s class on Beowulf started with Janis Joplin: The professor started the lecture by playing a CD of Janis Joplin’s Ball and Chain
Back when Janice was singing the blues I wasn’t even in college yet, and I’ve been blessed with a happy life so I’ve never felt the kind of pain that compelled her to tear out her heart while saying,
Hon’, tell me why love is like
Just like a ball
Just like a ball
Baaaaaaalllll
Oh daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy
And a chain.
But the lecture was interesting, in that the destructive force of Grendel is awakened by the song of the world.
Is the destructive force of our time awakened by the songs of our world? The songs of Grace, the songs of joy, the songs of love, the songs of heartbreak, all the songs we are free to create, and sing, and buy, and play – the songs that the evil in men’s hearts will try to stifle?
One can’t help but wonder.
Look who’s green with ethanol envy:
Castro hits out at US biofuel use
Cuban President Fidel Castro has strongly criticised the use of biofuels by the US, in his first article since undergoing surgery last year.
He said George W Bush’s support for the use of food crops in fuel production would cause 3bn deaths from hunger.
The article in the Granma newspaper did not mention Mr Castro’s health.
As the AP’s Anita Snow puts it,
The article is written in the same kind of apocalyptic style Castro typically adopts when discussing the impact of U.S. international policies on developing nations.
(Anita also added, “and there was no reason to doubt he was the author.” Val might disagree. But I digress.)
‘Fidel’ now tells us ethanol is sinister. Will the Left be repeating his line? You betcha.
For starters, Fidel is factually wrong:
As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulosic materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot, according to research by a Michigan State University ethanol expert.
The findings, which are being presented by Bruce Dale today at the ACS meeting in Chicago show that,
“The evidence indicates that large-scale biofuel production will increase, not decrease, world food supplies by making animal feed production much more efficient,” Dale said.
But never mind that.
The real reason Fidel thinks ethanol is sinister is because it is a threat to his Communist Revolucion, be it in Cuba, in Venezuela, or elsewhere. As a Cuban minister recently said, “in order for the revolution to survive, it needs the poor”.
An ethanol boom in Latin America will create great wealth and prosperity, and is already attracting investment and trade in Central and South America and the Caribbean. As I mentioned in a recent post,
- Sugarcane is grown in many countries throughout the region
- Countries that do not produce sugarcane but have ethanol processing facilities are benefiting from being exempt of the onerous ethanol tariffs.
- “An ethanol boom in Latin America would also attract investment to rural areas and create lots of jobs.That might help to reduce the steady northward stream of illegal immigrants. It would certainly burnish America’s image, and stem support for anti-American tub-thumpers such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. He has won friends throughout the region by selling oil cheaply. By sharing technology and promoting investment in ethanol, America would also be reducing Latin America’s fuel bill. If it bought lots of ethanol from its neighbours, it would be providing them with a lucrative export of their own.”
And that wealth won’t be limited to Latin America: Just this week the World Bank is helping Brazil export ethanol technology to African countries such as Ghana, Angola (where Fidel tried to export his revolution by sending troops), and Mozambique.
On a more personal note, I’m sure Fidel must be particularly incensed that sugarcane is bringing wealth to the region, after he ruined the Cuban sugar industry.
As Fidel himself said,
The sinister idea of converting food into combustibles was definitively established as the economic line of foreign policy of the United States
And let’s do it right, by abolishing all farm subsidies and tariffs.
Previous post on here.
In a somewhat related topic, Alvaro Vargas Llosa explains
Why Perfect Totalitarianism Is Impossible:
The lesson of our time, a decade and a half after the fall of communism in Europe, is that the slow, almost geological, accumulation of little bits of heroism throughout society can bring down a totalitarian giant over time. These acts of heroism, both inside and outside the structure of power, constitute the best hope for countries in which governments continue to enslave millions of people today.
But even if these acts of silent heroism are not enough to cause all despots to come tumbling down, they are at least enough to keep the human spirit alive. That is a comforting thought.
Via Dr. Sanity, who today explores the economic interaction of humans.
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