OBAMA JUSTICE, THE KEYSTONE KOPS, AND ORWELLIAN EVIL
It was the Keystone Kops version of George Orwell’s dystopian novel of a dictatorship in which the past is rewritten to suit the political masters, words are robbed of their meaning. “War is peace.” “Freedom is slavery.” “Ignorance is strength.”
The Justice Department released Monday morning (6/20) a partial transcript of Omar Mateen’s 911 call from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. All references to ISIS and Islam were deleted.
“OM: ‘I pledge of allegiance to [omitted]. ‘I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].’”
This effort to drop the killer’s motive down the Memory Hole was hilarious. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was redacted. Especially since it had been widely reported that Mateen had described himself as a “soldier of Allah” who declared his allegiance to ISIS.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” Orwell said.
That the real reason for the redactions was to deceive Americans about the killer’s motive is made clear by the strenuous efforts of the president and his minions to blame the massacre on Christians, Republicans, the NRA -- everyone but radical Islamists.
Join the forum discussion on this postTHE MODI REVOLUTION STALLS IN INDIA
India’s bid to become the ‘economic super-tiger’ of Asia is in serious doubt after an assault on the independence of the central bank and failure to deliver on promised reforms.
The country has been the darling of the emerging market universe since the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi swept into power in May 2014 promising a blitz of Thatcherite reform and a bonfire of the diktats, but key changes have been blocked in the legislature. The government has turned increasingly populist.
Matters have come to a head with the de facto ouster of Raghuram Rajan, the superstar governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), rebuked for keeping monetary policy too tight. It is part of a pattern of attacks on central banks by politicians across the world, and the latest sign that the glory days of the monetary overlords are waning.
“This is ‘Rexit' – India’s equivalent of ‘Brexit. It looks very bad for India and will not go down well in financial markets. He was defeated by the crony capitalists up against him,” says Lord Desai from the London School of Economics.
THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG IS CRITICAL FOR FREEDOM
Most people who have reached a certain age have changed their minds about something or someone that they firmly believed in the past. Many of the real conflicts in society, including hate-driven mass shootings, result from people who fail to acknowledge, even to themselves, that they could be wrong.
Yet today, we see some subset of Moslems who think they can take action against the rest because they are unable to acknowledge that they could be wrong in their beliefs.
We see the effort of many in colleges to shut down the free speech of those they disagree with. We see the effort of some to shut down media whose messages they reject.
We see those for whom global warming has become a religion rather than a science. They speak with great certainty about things they cannot possibly know, because of the immense number of variables, or in the words of F.A. Hayek, they suffer a fatal conceit (as did the early Bolsheviks).
All of this comes from a failure to admit, “I may be wrong,” and without such understanding, a civil society cannot exist.
We see those for whom global warming has become a religion rather than a science. They speak with great certainty about things they cannot possibly know, because of the immense number of variables, or in the words of F.A. Hayek, they suffer a fatal conceit (as did the early Bolsheviks).
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/17/16
As we argue over whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would be a worse successor, we got a vivid reminder yesterday (6/16) that the worst president America has ever had is in the White House now.
Yesterday his CIA Director issued a chilling rebuttal to President Obama’s claim ISIS is on the run. ISIS is more “formidable” than ever, is planning more Paris, Orlando-style attacks, John Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Yet those in government who are responsible for our safety are unable, or unwilling, to protect us from Islamist terror.
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Britons will vote next Thursday (6/23) on a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. Current polls show Brexit (a conflation of the words “Britain” and “exit”) with a slight lead. This is remarkable, because virtually every major British politician opposes Brexit.
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If Brexit wins, the EU may be doomed, because other countries – chiefly Sweden, Norway, Denmark and France – are likely to follow.
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The Taliban controls more of Afghanistan now than at any time since it was toppled from power in 2001, said our new commander there.
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Donald “Trump is building up hostility, shedding prospective supporters, and alienating – or worse, frightening – entire voter groups at a stunning rate, wrote GOP strategist Ed Rogers in the Washington Post Tuesday.
Trump is on track to get a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Goldwater in 1964, McGovern in 1972.
LOST IN FUN
Funafuti, Tuvalu. Welcome to FUN.
As you most likely know, airports around the world have a three-letter code in capital letters. Los Angeles for example is LAX, while Istanbul is IST. This place has the best airport code on earth: FUN. I’m lost in it again.
You first learned about Tuvalu (too-vah-loo) back in October 2013: Serendipity in the South Pacific, which I hope you can take the time to read again.
You learned how Tuvaluans persevered over incredible British vindictiveness, while maintaining a wonderful cheerfulness, rather than succumbing to anger and bitterness.
They still have that positive attitude, they haven’t succumbed, and they are still getting screwed. Here’s the situation – and the lesson for Americans.
IDIOT JOURNALISTS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN GUNS
Who is the biggest wuss in journalism today?
Gersh Kuntzman of the New York Daily News went to a firing range in Philadelphia to shoot the AR-15, the most popular semi-automatic rifle in America. For him, it was a harrowing experience:
“It felt to me like a bazooka – and sounded like a cannon,” he said. “The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD.”
Mr. Kutzman bruises easily. The AR-15 shoots a .223 caliber cartridge, just a smidgen bigger than the .22, the smallest caliber of ammunition sold. Recoil is negligible. If Mr. Kutzman thinks an AR-15 “sounds like a cannon,” he’s never heard a cannon fired.
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, many gun control advocates call for reinstatement of the “assault weapons ban” in effect from 1994 to 2004. They are idiots, or think you are.
THE WORST TERROR ATTACK SINCE 9/11
When Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded 53 at an Orlando nightclub last weekend, it was the worst terror attack in America since 9/11, the 86th instance of Islamic terror here since then.
The FBI investigated Mateen in 2013 and 2014. But he wasn’t on a terror watch list; worked for a security firm that has contracts with the Department of Homeland Security.
“The most disturbing aspect of recent terror attacks is that the authorities were taken by surprise each time despite advance warning,” said Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club. “This serial failure undercuts the administration's claim to competence.”
LEFT WING VIOLENCE ON THE HORIZON
THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY DIES
The attacks on Trump supporters at a rally in San Jose last week were another example of the left’s violent assaults on free speech and association. Before the election there is likely to be more thuggery, as an emboldened left lets slip their dogs of war to foment disorder to continue Obama’s aim to “fundamentally transform” America. As the long history of political philosophy teaches, this undermining of law by violence is an important sign of democracy’s impending doom.
Over 2100 years ago, the Greek historian Polybius described how democracy dies:
So when [the rich] begin to hanker after office, and find that they cannot achieve it through their own efforts or on their merits, they begin to seduce and corrupt the people in every possible way, and thus ruin their estates. The result is that through their senseless craving for prominence they stimulate among the masses both an appetite for bribes and the habit of receiving them, and then the rule of democracy is transformed into government by violence and strong-arm methods. By this time the people have become accustomed to feed at the expense of others, and their prospects of winning a livelihood depend upon the property of their neighbors, and as soon as they find a leader who is sufficiently ambitious and daring . . . they introduce a regime based on violence.
WHY EUROPE STAGNATES
Last week I visited an island and stood among a crowd of puffins. If I turned my head I could see the lighthouse. If I looked up, the arctic terns were above my head. Yet I never left my living room. How come? I was wearing a virtual-reality mask.
I have tried this “Oculus” technology once before, when visiting Facebook in California (which owns Oculus) and it is truly extraordinary to have an all-round, up-and-down view of the world depending on how you turn your head. All it involves is a special (Samsung) smartphone jammed into a pair of goggles.
Is it the next wave of tech? I have no idea. Apart from games, virtual visits to inaccessible nature reserves and maybe estate agents, it may not have many practical applications. But I may be wrong. Does the next wave lie in big data? Or robotics? Or the internet of things? Or something else entirely?
Nobody knows. The one thing that the history of technology shows above all else is our complete inability to see what comes next.
Yet something will come next, of that we can be confident. By 2025 there will be a vast new firm, valued at an astronomical sum and run by people who look like teenagers from a futuristic building in . . . well, where will it be? Can you imagine it being in Europe? Me neither. Here’s why.