HALF-FULL REPORT 07/03/09
On the eve of July 4th, I've discovered I can't do what I've done for the past five years: provide a cheery update for Freedom's Birthday. Yes, the 4th is a time to feel good about America. But our country is in such extraordinary danger - more than any time since the Civil War - that just feeling good and proud doesn't cut it. Especially when the danger is internal, not foreign. This example just appeared in Israeli papers today (7/03): That Zero intends to block any new sanctions on Iran at the upcoming G8 summit next week. Never before in our nation's history have we ever had a president who hated his country, who by his every action sought to weaken its national security, destroy its prosperity, and expand government control over our lives to literally the level of Orwell's 1984. Thus the phrase you'll hear at many a Tea Party tomorrow: "To avoid 1984, you have to go back to 1776."
PARENTAL INTERNET SAFETY – AND QUESTIONS FOR THE 4TH
TTPer parents have asked me to comment on children's safety on the internet. There are some software applications to trace history of web surfing and to prevent violent or sexual explicit sites from being accessed. I will list a few here that can be explored by interested parties... ...And may I suggest that you take a few moments on our Independence Day to read the entire text of our nation's founding document? It is not only thrilling and inspirational, but provides a certain perspective on the present. How many of the millions of participants in tomorrow's Tea Parties will think this description of the British King applies to today? "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
ARE THEY IDIOTS, OR DO THEY HAVE ANOTHER AGENDA?
Why did a bare majority (219-212) of the members of the U.S. Congress vote for the largest tax increase in American history this past Friday, under the claim it was a vote to save the climate? There is no consensus in the scientific community about how much climate change, other than the normal cycles, is taking place, nor how severe it will be, and how much man-made CO2 is responsible. It is known that the legislation will have a negligible effect on global CO2 emissions, particularly since the big polluters, such as China and India, are not playing ball. It is also known that the "cap and trade" system that the legislation calls for has been a failure in Europe. In sum, serious people understand the legislation will hurt the U.S. economy, reduce the standard of living and yet not accomplish its claimed intent; therefore, why were so many members of Congress willing to vote for it? Are they idiots, or do they have another agenda?
QUANTUM WEIRDNESS
The great physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), who pioneered the study of sub-atomic or quantum physics, was fond of saying, "If someone says that he can think about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood anything whatever about it." The Alice-in-Wonderland quality of sub-atomic physics is called quantum weirdness. It was in response to such weirdness that Bohr's contemporary scientist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) claimed "the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." Today, however, the concept of quantum weirdness seems also to apply to politics in America. Clearly, we are no longer living in a world of normal reality. For the first time in US history, we have a president who hates his own country. A president who is on the side of America's enemies, not on the side of America.
THE VICTORY OF PRESIDENT BUSH IN IRAQ
Our effort in Iraq passed a major milestone this week: Our troops are leaving the cities. Advisers remain in place. Joint patrols will still occur. And our forces will wait nearby to respond to Iraqi calls for support. But the last of the bases and US-only outposts within Iraq's urban centers will be vacated. Terrorists have already begun testing the new security arrangements. Iraqi forces won't always pass with flying colors. Yet this situation seemed a pipe dream not so long ago: Iraq's security forces, serving an elected government, assume primary responsibility for the good order of their own country. It is an extraordinary achievement, the credit for which goes to President George W. Bush.
THE PRO-DICTATORSHIP ANTI-DEMOCRACY PRESIDENT
In Honduras, Mr. Obama is intervening on the wrong side. But if you take him at his word (a dangerous thing to do), the wonder is that he is intervening at all. This is the guy, you'll remember, who was so concerned about being perceived as "meddling" in Iran's internal affairs that he, alone among Western leaders, refused to denounce the blatantly stolen election in Iran, or to express support for those who protested the theft. Mr. Obama is now doing with regard to Honduras what he has refused to do with regard to Iran: organizing an international coalition to pressure the country to reverse course. There is a disturbing consistency to Mr. Obama's apparent inconsistency on Honduras and Iran. In both the case where he has intervened, and in the case where he hasn't, he has taken the side of anti-American dictators (in Mr. Zelaya's case, a wannabe dictator) over the vast majority of their people.
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/26/09
Naked evil. That's what was on display this week in much of the world - what could be half-full about it? The world's scum are all in support of Ahmadinejad's "election." The Red Chinese, Chavez, Putin, et al, are congratulating the thugs who run Iran on their "exercise of democracy." The world's actual democracies are all a-flutter, trying to decide how to condemn the butchery and kow-tow to the Chicoms and the Kremlin at the same time. Zero doesn't have the guts to take the side of the protestors getting butchered and beat up. What's half-full is that the mullah regime has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of the Iranian people. This is a regime with no future. It's worth recalling that the revolution replacing the Shah with the Ayatollahs did not occur overnight. The protests started in January of 1978, and succeeded with the Shah fleeing the country in January of 1979. During that year, there were many periods of quiescence, when the protests seemed to vanish and the Shah's rule was deemed secure. Then they would crank up again, and up a notch. So this is a marathon, not a sprint. There is very serious dissention within the mullahs themselves, there is no longer a center of the regime that can hold. The protestors are young, determined, and smart. This is far from over, it has only just begun.
THE COST OF DIVERSITY AT ANNAPOLIS
The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced in Annapolis recently that "diversity is the number one priority" at the Naval Academy, where I have been a Professor of English for 22 years. The Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, echoed him. Everyone understands that "diversity" here means nonwhite skins. Fowler insisted recently that we needed to have Annapolis graduates who "looked like" the Fleet, where enlisted people are about 42 percent nonwhite, largely African American and Hispanic. The stunning revelation last week was that the Naval Academy had an incoming class that was "more diverse" than ever before: 35 percent minority. Sounds good, only this comes with a huge price tag. It's taxpayers who bankroll the military. Yet nobody has asked us if we're willing to pay this price. Instead we're being told there is no price to pay at all. If you believe that, you probably also believe in the Tooth Fairy.
THE ZERO RESIGNATION CHALLENGE
To understand how TTP's Jack Kelly used precisely the right word to describe Zero's policy towards Iran, and indeed the entire Zero Presidency - obscene-you should read this horrific eyewitness description of the mullah regime butchery that took place yesterday (6/24). The vice-president of my bank here in DC is Iranian. We have had a running debate about Zero for at least a year because he's a total Zero-worshipper - but he's my friend so we keep it polite. I paid him a visit today to notarize some papers, and we discussed what was happening in Iran. He looked me in the eye and said, "Jack, I have to admit - your were right about Obama. He is an enemy of freedom." There are millions upon millions of Americans, native born and naturalized, that are coming to the same conclusion - and their numbers are growing by the day. The time has come to issue the Zero Resignation Challenge.
BRITAIN AND AMERICA COMPETE IN ECONOMIC SUICIDE
Professor David Smith, a former Bank of England economist and well-known commentator on the British economy, has forecast a rise in government spending to more than 53 percent of national income by 2010, financed by deficit spending of 14% of national income. He argues: "There must be serious doubt whether deficits on this scale can be financed in a non-inflationary manner without very large capital inflows from abroad. And it is hard to see why such inflows should be forthcoming now that the British economy has become so highly taxed by international standards." If President Obama carries through on his threats to greatly increase U.S. taxes on carbon, etc.; allows the George W. Bush tax cuts to expire next year; and does not begin seriously to reduce spending, many economists will be able to say the same things about the U.S. economy next year that Mr. Smith says about the United Kingdom's economy today.