Political Digest December 24, 2009

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.

Merry Christmas
Despite this turbulent world, and the challenges besetting freedom from the statists and the aggressive theocrats in the world, I hope you are prepared to enjoy the holiday with family and love. We just learned another good friend, wife of a Marine, is entering a battle with cancer. Pray for the afflicted and cherish those you love. All our days are few. And if you are not of a tradition that celebrates the miracle that happened when an innkeeper refused a room to a nice Jewish girl, than Happy Hanukah, Merry Kwanza, or a belated, but peaceful Eid Al-Adha. And if none of that fits, may the Sun return to warm your fields, and the authorities from Salem not come calling.

Pray for our Troops too
There is a thin line between our families and homes and the barbarism that treats women as chattel, mutilates young girls, murders innocents in God’s name and relegates kufr to subjugated status as dhimmi, or death. If you missed it, here are my Christmas Poems for the troops. Feel free to share: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2009/12/two-christmas-poems.html

Islam and Kufr at war
http://www.investigativeproject.org/235/bakri-muhammad-islam-and-kufr-at-war
Excerpt: Omar Bakri Muhammad is the founder of the U.K.-based terrorist group known as Al-Muhajiroun. "Kufr," roughly translated, is a denial or rejection of the truth and generally applies to non-believers. Transcript: OMB (Arabic):...unless we close our eyes, it is Islam and kufr at war. Islam is not at war with the West, Islam [is] at war with kufr....Whatever its name, whatever its called, [unintell] or communism, capitalism, all this ism and ism...So my dear Muslim brother, 11th of September, if we want to assume bin Laden did it, it is part of the war between Islam and kufr.

China sticks it to Obama's engagement
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/1951800,CST-EDT-hunt22.article
Maybe he forgot to bow? Excerpt: Twice, Premier Wen Jiabao stiffed meetings with President Obama, instead sending low-level functionaries to sessions with Obama and other leaders. The White House took note of the snub in a press release and, according to the New York Times, Obama demanded another one-on-one meeting with Wen. That was scheduled, along with a separate session with the leaders of South Africa, Brazil and India, key players in the climate talks. As the time for the big encounter approached, White House aides were "startled," as the Times put it, to learn that, instead of heading for the session with Obama, Wen had already begun meeting with the three other men. The leader of the Free World had to rush to that conference and stand in the doorway calling to Wen, "Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me? Are you ready?" Not a pretty picture.

After quiet first months, Franken's sharp tongue emerges in Senate http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/73417-franken-shows-glimpses-of-sharp-tongue-behind-the-scenes
We are where we are on this ruinous healthcare bill because of that very close—some say stolen—election in MN. But this guy may not be able to control himself.

Ho-Ho-Hopenhagen: Don't Let the Green Grinch Steal Christmas
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2816

Wikipedia’s climate doctor http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx
They gotta cook the books. Excerpt: The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history. The Medieval Warm Period, which followed the meanness and cold of the Dark Ages, was a great time in human history — it allowed humans around the world to bask in a glorious warmth that vastly improved agriculture, increased life spans and otherwise bettered the human condition. But the Medieval Warm Period was not so great for some humans in our own time — the same small band that believes the planet has now entered an unprecedented and dangerous warm period. As we now know from the Climategate Emails, this band saw the Medieval Warm Period as an enormous obstacle in their mission of spreading the word about global warming. If temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago than today, the Climategate Emails explain in detail, their message that we now live in the warmest of all possible times would be undermined. As put by one band member, a Briton named Folland at the Hadley Centre, a Medieval Warm Period “dilutes the message rather significantly.” Even before the Climategate Emails came to light, the problem posed by the Medieval Warm Period to this band was known. “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” read a pre-Climategate email, circa 1995, as attested to at hearings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. But the Climategate transcripts were more extensive and more illuminating — they provided an unvarnished look at the struggles that the climate practitioners underwent before settling on their scientific dogma.

Obama seeks to close the deal on healthcare reform in new year http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/73419-obama-seeks-to-close-the-deal-on-healthcare-reform
Excerpt: House and Senate Democrats have already started to play the leverage game, with both factions pointing out they have little to no ground to give. The House passed its version 220-215, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) needed to convince every member of his conference to overcome a 60-vote legislative hurdle on Monday morning. While the White House has repeatedly insisted that Obama has been very involved in the evolving legislation, many Capitol Hill Democrats have said the president needs to do more.

Why the hard Left can’t accept the Islamic roots of Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1222jg.html
Excerpt: Yet the evidence is now conclusive: the Fort Hood massacre was an act of Islamic terror. Before his shooting spree, Hasan told colleagues that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell and that they should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats. Hasan traded 18 e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida recruiter. On the morning of the massacre, he gave his neighbor a Koran as he was departing for the base, telling her that he was going to do “good work for God.” Wearing Pakistani garb, Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar” as he began firing at U.S. troops. Despite the plentiful evidence, however, leftists refuse to accept Hasan’s Islamic inspiration…. To recognize the evil of Nidal Hasan and his ideology, to admit the existence of pernicious enemies, is to concede that there are societies, cultures, and systems that are much more unjust than ours. This is an untenable step for leftists to take, because it means acknowledging that there is something superior about our civilization that’s worth saving and defending. The notion that his own society is evil and unjust is the bedrock of the leftist’s vision. Wicked capitalists trample on the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden; the leftist appoints himself to rescue these victims. He is a self-styled social redeemer, leading a movement to liberate the masses, even if it results in the destruction of his own society. This political mission provides him with immense moral indignation and, therefore, moral superiority, dispositions from which, in turn, he derives emotional self-gratification. His whole belief system provides him with a sense of belonging; he joins other social redeemers, as well as the victims, real or imagined, who wait for him to break their chains.

Chairman Mao Adorns White House Christmas Tree
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/12/23/chairman-mao-adorns-white-house-christmas-tree/
Stalin and Hitler came in second and third, as their brand of socialism didn’t reduce the carbon output of as many millions of corpses.

America Loses a Hero: Col. James Herbert Macia Dies at Age 93 http://mainstreetradical.com/2009/12/22/america-loses-a-hero-col-james-herbert-macia-dies-at-age-93/
Excerpt: In the post-9/11 world, the term hero has been thrown around often by politicians and the media. At a time when our country is losing a generation of selfless men and women, it is a good time to reflect on the actions of some of our true American heroes. One of the latest losses is that of Col. James Herbert Macia, who died on Monday December 21st, 2009. Col. Macia was a Bombardier/Navigator on Crew 14 in Jimmy Doolittle’s Tokyo raid (pictured on far left). This volunteer action was considered by many to be a mission of no return.

U.K.: Relatives encouraged 16-year-old Muslim to rape his 12-year-old "bride" http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/12/uk-relatives-encouraged-16-year-old-muslim-to-rape-his-12-year-old-bride.html
The joys of all-cultures-are-equally-valid thinking. Excerpt: The case came to light when the mother of the girl, who objected to the arranged "marriage", told police about it. Scotland Yard child abuse detectives then discovered several relatives of the boy had urged him to rape his cousin.

Egyptian court upholds 4-year sentence for blogger for criticizing Islam http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BL3KB20091222
Guess I won’t be visiting the pyramids this year.

Suicide Bomber in Pakistan Kills 3 at Peshawar Press Club http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Suicide-Bomber-Kills-2-People-at-Pakistan-Press-Club-79883147.html
Maybe this explains the Leftstream Media fawning on Islamists. Censored by people who mean it.

Detained U.S. Nationals In Pakistan Say No Regret On Planning Jihad Against U.S. Forces, Affirm: “Martyrdom Is Our Aim; We Will Get Martyrdom If We Are Hanged’’ http://www.thememriblog.org/urdupashtu/blog_personal/en/23136.htm
I’m cool with hanging them, that being the time-honored price of treason.

The Myth of the Anti-Muslim Backlash http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/372nmbdt.asp
Always the left’s excuse for obscuring the motives of Jihadist attacks.

Rasmussen Polls http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
55% oppose Healthcare bill. The number of voters who “strongly disapprove” of President Obama is 18% higher than those who “strongly approve,” and pushing toward the 50% mark.

Beltway Christmas: Cash for Corruptocrats http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/12/23/beltway_christmas_cash_for_corruptocrats
Excerpt: The Democrats are right. Sleazy bribes and pork payoffs didn't start with their government health care takeover bill. They've been doling out taxpayer-funded goodies for votes all year. Harry Reid's latest Cash for Cloture deals are the culmination of Washington's 2009 shopping spree at our expense.

Gunmen Kill Family of Mexican Drug War Hero http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580885,00.html
And these “Undocumented Pharmacists” are increasingly moving here. Utterly without pity or human feeling. It will be ugly. Excerpt: MEXICO CITY — Gunmen have killed the family of a Mexican marine who died during a raid that took down powerful drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva. Police say the attack happened shortly before midnight Monday at the home of fallen marine Melquisedet Angulo — just hours after the military honored him as a national hero during a memorial service. A federal government official tells The Associated Press that the dead include Angulo's mother, two siblings and an aunt. An unidentified woman is being treated at a hospital.

Time for a Separation of Science and State http://townhall.com/columnists/NickRizzuto/2009/12/21/time_for_a_separation_of_science_and_state?page=full&comments=true
Excerpt: Arguably, scientific fact changes more rapidly than religious dogma. What was undeniable truth one day might be discovered to be quackery the next. The most glaring example of this in the 20th century is the science of eugenics. The science of eugenics insisted that the human gene pool was being polluted by various undesirable races and threatened to lead to the degeneration of the human species into a collection of feeble minded individuals. So popular was this science that it spawned no less than three Global conferences with attendees included scientific and political heavyweights of the time. When eugenics took the form of government policy, it did so in a frightening way. Take for example the case of the Racial Integrity Act (RIA). In the name of fighting off the inevitability of human degeneracy that would occur if people were left to breed uncontrolled, the state of Virginia passed the RIA in 1924. This law allowed the state powers that today would cause us to recoil in horror. These powers included forced sterilizations, and the banning of intermarriage between minorities and whites. When brought before the Supreme Court, the law was upheld. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in the ruling: It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. In other words, of course the law is constitutional, it’s based in science. Justice Holmes famously concluded the opinion by declaring that, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

My lazy American students http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/
Excerpt: By the time students are in college, habits can be tough to change. If you’re used to playing video games like “Modern Warfare’’ or “Halo’’ all night, how do you fit in four hours of homework? Or rest up for class? Teaching in college, especially one with a large international student population, has given me a stark - and unwelcome - illustration of how Americans’ work ethic often pales in comparison with their peers from overseas. My “C,’’ “D,’’ and “F’’ students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have - despite language barriers - generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants.

Black Caucus sends strong economic message to Obama http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/11/cbc.minority.jobs/index.html
Excerpt: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in November 2009 for blacks is at 15.6 percent -- and 12.7 percent for Hispanics. In comparison, the rate for whites is 9.3 percent. (Wonder what it is for Asians—see my comments below.)

Black unemployment
I heard on TV that unemployment among young black males is twice that of young white males. Is that discrimination? Or is it that black males do not get an education? Black fathers abandon their children at a much higher rate than white fathers, and kids from single-parent families don’t d-do as well in school, and more drop out. In the black inner-city culture, defended by leftist multi-culturalists, getting an education is dismissed as “acting white.” So getting job skills is “acting white” and whites get more jobs. Duh. Is it that black thugs keep those black kids who want to learn from getting an education, and no one dares deal with the thugs for fear of racism charges, so the good black kids suffer? Thomas Sowell points out that there was a black high school in DC that got excellent results, with less money, from black kids from average families. But the school enforced educational discipline, the parents supported discipline and the students tested better than many better-funded white schools. Then came the trashing of the culture and values, and blacks have suffered most at the hands of white liberals. But blacks have to keep voting for them; they control the entitlement spigot for the plantation. It’s pathetic.

I’d bet good money that young Asian-American males have better employment rates than young white males, not because Asians have power and discriminate against whites, but because their families, like Jewish families, culturally value education.

Quote
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it. --Frederic Bastiat, French economist.