Friday, May 30, 2008

Crime has no Color.



From NY1:
"As the search continued for the man police say sexually assaulted a woman in her SoHo apartment building early Wednesday morning, they released a sketch of the suspect Thursday night.

They say the man followed the 19-year-old woman from the subway to her building on Prince Street.

..................

Police say the suspect was wearing a light blue baseball cap with a New Era label and was carrying a dark colored backpack.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.


From the Daily News:

"The "pock-marked" suspect is in his 20s. He's about 5-feet-9 with black hair and a medium build."



5 9, black hair medium build...could be a young Sean Connery for all we know...nowhere in either description do we here the suspect is black. When our elite go to such pains to avoid reality, one wonders how much longer our society can last...or is it a society any longer...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

What we have become.....

from AmConMag:
There is an astonishing essay on today’s New York Times editorial page by Errol Morris entitled “The Most Curious Thing.” It is the story surrounding an Abu Ghraib photo showing a grinning American woman soldier giving a thumbs up over the body of an Iraqi who died under torture by the CIA. What is most shocking is that many of the more than 300 comments following the piece either support torturing “terrorists,” or are most interested in dissecting what the woman’s smile might have meant, or prefer to argue simply that “war is hell” to excuse the war crime. To my mind, every time I make the assumption that after nearly eight years of George Bush we as a people cannot sink any lower, I read something like the horror described in the Morris essay and decide that the escalator is still going down. I suppose that is good news for John McCain.

To me one of the most terrible revelations in the essay regarding the GIs running the Abu Ghraib prison is their casual referral to “Palestinian hanging” prisoners. The prisoner would have his hands tied or cuffed behind his back and he would be hoisted up so that he hangs suspended from his wrists, leading eventually to dislocation of both shoulders when the muscles can no longer take the strain. In the case of the Iraqi man in the photo, he was beaten before he was hung up and died as a result of the treatment he received. Just envisioning the procedure makes me slightly nauseous and I cannot even imagine what it would be like to experience it. I also have to wonder how an expression like “Palestinian hanging” came into common usage in the US military, suggesting as it does that the American Army has somehow adopted Israeli interrogation standards. If the Abu Ghraib guards have been using an English translation presumably from Hebrew to describe a technique perfected by Israeli torturers, might that suggest that they or others in their chain of command were also trained by the Israelis?




A mild, seemingly passe term like "treason" no longer encompasses the scope of activity of the 'Israel first' cabal operating within Washington and presumably, the military.

Palestinian Hanging" Well that's a good indicator where our standards of decency are coming from these days, or rather, why they have sank so low.

It does not surprise me as we have become more decadent as a society that we have, in turn, become more inhumane.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Back-Shooting Child-Molesting Cop Killer Gets to Live

Back-Shooting Child-Molesting Cop Killer Gets to Live
[Brenda Walker] @ 6:15 pm [Email author] [Email This Article] Print This Post Print This Post

What has happened to Texas that a Houston jury would let a cop-killer illegal alien off with just life in prison? This sentence is a huge disappointment to anyone who cares about justice, not to mention crime prevention. Every cop killer should expect to pay the ultimate punishment.

For earlier coverage on the murder of Officer Rodney Johnson, see Officer Down in Houston. He had arrested Juan Leonardo Quintero for driving without a license, but Johnson’s frisking missed a gun hidden in the prisoner’s waistband, which was used in the shooting. Quintero was an illegal alien who had been previously deported in 1999 for indency with a child and was arrested for drunk driving as well.

“We’re just very upset,” said Lorraine Crawford, mother of the slain officer’s widow, Joslyn Johnson.

“We wanted the death penalty,” Crawford said. “He had nothing but malice in his heart.”

She added that the jury did not seem to understand the difficulty of a police officer’s job.

The officer’s brother, David Johnson, was in the courtroom with his wife, Donna Mack, when the sentence was announced. He said he and his wife also had wanted to see Quintero sentenced to death.

“He shot him four times in the back, three times in the head,” Johnson said. “I can’t believe that. What’s mitigation?”
[HPD officer's family shocked by life sentence, Houston Chronicle, May 20, 2008]




What's happened Brenda? Do you have to ask? He was tried by a jury of his 'peers' who put ethnicity before justice. White liberals tell us that if just let more of them in, and other ethinic block forming people, we'll enter a new era of racial harmony. Too bad officer Johnson won't live to see it.

Note II: anyone remotely (and realistically) familiar with the 3rd world countries knows that 'indecency' (one of our prejudice, Anglo-Saxon notions, no doubt) toward children is commonplace. Muslims are already challenging our Anglo Saxon notions of monogamy (strangely marching lock step with gay activists both of whom want to 'redefine' marriage) no doubt they will challenge this Anglo-centric notion of ours as well.

Interesting take on Obama's White Problem

1. Is Webb the solution to Obama's Scots-Irish problem?
Obama continues to do very well in Puritan-descended states, such as Oregon (with the exception of Massachusetts, where the bloom is off the David Axelrod / Deval Patrick rose), but yesterday he got annihilated in another Scots-Irish state, Kentucky. So, that makes Virginia Senator and hillbilly intellectual James Webb all the more plausible as a running mate. It would certainly be the ticket with the best writers on it in a long time.

On the other hand, the idea that Barack Obama might put Jim Webb on the path to being President someday is pretty funny, although probably not to Barack Obama. (What would Rev. Wright say?) So it probably won't happen.



well I am mostly "Scots-Irish" but my mother is southern but more anglo...she's for a obama and I think he's a madhi in disguise.. yet my brother is for him...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Fourth Estate Fails Again:: Iran Will Be Attacked

From Antiwar.com Palestinian Pundit:
The Fourth Estate Fails Again
An Important Story

"Eleven days ago I wrote an item for The American Conservative blog that asserted that the U.S. National Security Council had decided to proceed with plans to attack Iran in light of Tehran's reported interference in Iraq and in Lebanon. Those who have been following the issue know well that planning to attack Iran is nothing new, that there are many in the Bush administration and outside it who are eager to bomb the mullahs into the stone age. What is different now is that there is a consensus inside the White House that a military attack is not an option but rather a necessity to "send a message" and restrain Iranian ambitions. Burned by Iraq, it is by no means certain that the Great Decider will actually pull the trigger, but the likelihood of war has increased dramatically.

My story came from two independent sources who have been reliable and who have excellent access to the information that they were conveying. Both were concerned that war with Iran is not in the best interest of the United States and would, in fact, be a catastrophe for both countries, a view that I share. They also believe that Iran poses no genuine threat to the United States. As often happens, after my blog post appeared I was contacted by several other independent sources who also confirmed my report. No one disputed it. Justin Raimondo replayed the story three days later and he in turn had his own excellent sources who indicated that the account was correct. More than 500 Web sites and other bloggers picked up the report.......

As is frequently the case, one must suspect that U.S. policy is really all about Israel, the 600-pound gorilla in the room. Alan Greenspan's attempt to change the subject to oil notwithstanding, the Iraq war would never have happened without the Lobby's guiding hand. And invading Iran will be more of the same, with the same cheering section urging us on to war. My telling the story about an impending attack on Iran, which could conceivably lead to a surge in public opinion opposing such a prospect, possibly derailing it, is not what the Israel Lobby wants. Alarm bells undoubtedly went off in various news rooms. The media has obediently lined up on the subject, and nothing more will be said, just as the story about newly revealed Israeli spy Ben-Ami Kadish has already disappeared from sight.




Actually considering the interest of the owners, I think the 'fourth estate' is earning their paycheck....

It is an increasingly uncomfortable issue, but one that has to be addressed:: the power of Israel' lobby must be confronted, and their power challenged. There is not the remotest likelihood of this happening in Washington. Even if massive grassroots support for, say a rational middle east policy where to gain ground, it would be ignored the same way opposition to immigration was ignored.

At this point, I don't know what the answer is.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Horse Sense>>>

Few people realize that "animal rights" activists are quite often also conservative....not neoconservative - they care little for human beings let alone animals, but 'conservative' you know those "they are against the Iraq War and Settlements so they must be anti-semitic conservatives" Here is one such writer who also has been aware of peak oil for sometime..something the media and beltway pols are just becoming aware of....

Horse Sense

There is much hand wringing today over the fate of Eight Belles, the filly who broke both ankles at the conclusion of Saturday's Kentucky Derby and who was euthanized on the track immediately following the conclusion of the race. Numerous commentators have criticized the sport for its inhumane mistreatment of the horses. It's a charge that I find difficult to credit so long as those critiques are limited to the high-profile deaths of beautiful horses like Eight Belles and Barbaro, while we continue to condone the massive and brutal mistreatment of "ordinary" animals like cows, pigs and chickens in our factory farming practices.



However, I could not help but be struck by several sentences in a column in today's Washington Post in which sports writer Andrew Beyer tries to excuse these high profile equine deaths as the consequence of a set of poor and lamentable developments in horse racing. Sports - like much of modern culture, including finance, schooling, and media - are driven by the bottom line, and above all by the demand to get results immediately no matter what the underlying or deferred costs. So, writes Beyer,

"In earlier eras, most people bred horses in order to race them, and they had a stake in the animals' soundness. By contrast, modern commercial breeders produce horses in order to sell them, and if those horses are unsound, they become somebody else's problem. Because buyers want horses with speed, breeders have filled the thoroughbred species with the genes of fast but unsound horses."

If you replaced every mention of the word "horse" in this passage with the word "mortgage" (along with a few other modifications), you could put this article on the front page of the Business section. Or, you could slightly alter the subject while retaining the basic sentiment and explain much about modern factory farming, professional sports, modern media, economics, and modern education. "Unsoundness" that is eventually someone else's problem is the order of the day.

Let's Keep Suburbanizing Farmland...

A Bargain at Four Dollars . . .
Posted on May 18th, 2008 by Clark Stooksbury

ABC News had an interesting report (I couldn’t find video) Saturday which dared to think the unthinkable–that the era of cheap fuel is ending. It considered the effects on air travel, agricuture (they interviewed Michael Pollan on local agriculture) and the road trip vacation. It even used a brief ephemeral film clip of 50s suburban triumphalism, End of Suburbia style.

On a related topic, James Poulos notes my criticism of Jim Manzi on the subject and adds that “If I had to make a guess, sovereign state control over oil resources – call it ‘oil nationalism’ — will be a much bigger factor going forward whether we’re under peak oil conditions or not.” Perhaps, but not very reassuring.



Any serious efforts in the US to deal with this? Nope.

The Democratic Party Abandon American Workers

Then it quickly occurred to me. This was before mass immigration had displaced Americans from whole industries, as humble as they were.

Back then, cannery work was relatively well-paid. Canneries would advertise for work at colleges boasting of adventure in Alaska and the like. Today they do no such thing. They advertise for foreign workers to depress labor costs. Today the cannery workforce is almost exclusively foreign and almost none speak English. Last year Alaska public radio did this story: International cannery workers crank through huge pink run in Cordova September 19, 2007

From Vdare:In the story, Bill Gilbert was reported to have worked in a cannery in 1967 for the equivalent of $19.55/hr in 2007 dollars. He was 15 years old at the time. Today he manages the cannery. Hillary likely received a similar wage in her summer of '69 up here. [Figure arrived at using BLS inflation calculator here.]

Today a worker doing the same thing gets minimum wage—$7.15/hr.

Mr. Gilbert goes on to explain that labor can be obtained from abroad, thereby depressing overall wages. He may have gotten $19.55/hr at 15 years old, but he'll be damned if his workers see anything above $8/hr.

But not to worry, today's workers got a little something extra last year. Due to record catches last year the foreign workers had to put in 18 hour days. So the town and industry got together and gave each worker a handsome bonus: a T-shirt for each and every worker thanking them for their hard work.



Why are democrats encouraging MORE immigration when they know- they have to know - it depresses wages and further taxes the environment. Who, ultimately, are they answering to?

Missing the Big Picture?

Over at Atlantic Yard Report, Via NoLandGrab :
In response to "State Development Agency Buffeted by Slowing Economy and Internal Rifts":

What does that mean for Atlantic Yards? It's unclear. Paterson has expressed his support for the project, which likely requires less state funding than some of the other projects, and he left it out of a major speech on development last month.




What's missing? The big picture. The "cost" of Atlantic Yards isn't just in state money used to support the project- it's in the money lost if a better project were put in its place. Does anyone really believe that real estate on the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic has to be sold at 1/4 it value? or that a developer needs huge public subsidies and tax breaks to build there? The money lost by backing a very bad project, one which will require constant government support (as Ratner's failed Metrotech and Atlantic Mall) rather than having a profitable one built is enormous - much more than two billion the state is already promising Ratner.

Ratner's track record as a developer, is appauling - its a trail of incompentance, poor judgement, poor planning and rotten ideas- but all of that is swept under the rug by Ratner's one talent: getting money from the public coffers.

Darfur v. Zimbabwe: Is U.S. Foreign Policy Just an Elite Plaything?

Darfur v. Zimbabwe: Is U.S. Foreign Policy Just an Elite Plaything?

In my new VDARE.com column, I compare the interest level in two African disasters of equal lack of strategic important to the American national interest:

Obama has, however, done a nimble job of exciting the Stuff White People Like crowd by repeatedly acting as if he cares about Darfur, a god-forsaken expanse of arid grassland just south of the Sahara in western Sudan, where militias backed by the "Arab" central government in Khartoum have been attacking locals.

Darfur has become a cause célèbre among celebrities such as George Clooney and Matt Damon. Obama has been addressing fashionable Darfur rallies and hiring foreign policy advisers, such as Samantha Power, who are passionate about America getting involved in this huge bit of damn-all in the middle of nowhere.

Darfur’s usefulness as a foreign policy issue to Obama and McCain in appealing to the SWPL contingent is it’s utter uselessness—America has no national interest in Darfur whatsoever, so therefore, the thinking goes, we should get involved because it wouldn’t do us any good—thus demonstrating the purity of our intentions.

In contrast, virtually no celebrities have expressed any interest in "raising awareness" about Zimbabwe, a verdant country at a pleasant altitude in southeast Africa. Over the last decade, dictator Robert Mugabe has destroyed the economy and driven his subjects to the brink of starvation. As with Darfur, the U.S. has negligible national interest in Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, in contrast to Darfur, Zimbabwe doesn’t interest the partisans of purity because of the unfortunate details behind why it is now prostrate: In 2000, Mugabe unleashed his goons to beat up and steal the farms of the efficient white farmers who raised most of the food.

Several members of Barack Obama's inner circle of foreign policy advisers are leaders in the movement to demand we do something about Darfur. For example, in a 2006 Washington Post op-ed entitled "We Saved Europeans. Why Not Africans?" ...

Similarly, in an interview entitled "The McCain Doctrines" with Matt Bai in today's New York Times Magazine [May 18, 2008], John McCain volunteers that he's often thought about starting a war with Sudan, if only a way could be found to make it practical:

"I asked McCain if it was true … that he had been brought to a more idealist way of thinking partly by the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica. ‘I think so, I think so,’ he said, nodding. 'And Darfur today. I feel strongly about Darfur, and yet, and this is where the realist side comes in, how do we effectively stop the genocide in Darfur?' He seemed to be genuinely wrestling with the question. 'You know the complications with a place that’s bigger, I guess, than the size of Texas, and it’s hard to know who the Janjaweed is, who are the killers, who are the victims. It’s all jumbled up. … And yet I look at Darfur, and I still look at Rwanda, to some degree, and think, How could we have gone in there and stopped that slaughter?'"

Note that, although McCain likes military adventures, the simpler task of intervening in Zimbabwe to avert famine does not appeal to him at all. While McCain volunteered Darfur, the NYT’s Bai has to bring Zimbabwe up:


"Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election?"

McCain tries to spell it out euphemistically for the journalist why a white President of the United States is not going to depose a black tyrant who wrecked his country by persecuting productive whites:


"'I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,' McCain said thoughtfully."

Well, not that thoughtfully—the U.S. doesn't actually have much of a history in Africa.

McCain notices his mistake and tries to make himself clear without actually mentioning the W-word:


"Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa.'"

... What makes Zimbabwe so unsexy compared to Darfur is that in 1965 the British Colonial Office tried to give the colony of Rhodesia to its black majority. But its white population declared independence and for 15 years resisted an international trade embargo, building a substantial manufacturing base. Finally, in 1979, Margaret Thatcher organized the handover of the country to Robert Mugabe.

The new President devoted the next decade to slaughtering his tribal enemies, largely leaving the white farmers alone to feed the country. In 2000, however, Mugabe began to reward his supporters by telling them to drive out the white minority and steal their land. Not surprisingly, his bully boys proved to be worthless farmers and the country has teetered on the brink of starvation ever since. Mugabe's government has responded to the shortages it created by printing money, driving the annual inflation rate up to 165,000% in April 2008.
....more



Similarly, the US and Europe will ignore the disaster in the making in South Africa...the flippancy of our elite and self righteous liberals is astounding - anything that conflicts with ideology goes down the memory hole.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Don't Talk To Nazis

Honestly, this is just embarassing coming from the mouth of a president, but when you cow tow to the Israeli Lobby, who are about as wrong as wrong can be, you have say some pretty stupid things.....from the NYT

In a lengthy speech intended to promote the strong alliance between the United States and Israel, the president invoked the emotionally volatile imagery of World War II to make the case that talking to extremists was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”


Gee Mr Bush, what about the Soveits, whom we 'allied' with - you know the ones who killed 20 million people? They were the 'good guys'?

So according the Bush we're supposed to attack anyone/everyone we label extremist. How is it China can oppress her people and other peoples (Tibet) and still have most favored nation status? How is it Israel can encourage utlra orthodox settlements - people who literally think that non Jewish life is worthless - yet not be labeled extremist...but Palestinians who are simply fighting for the homeland are "extremist".

And what about me Mr. Bush, my ancestors fought and died for this country, I have no other, no other loyalty, and I think you're and extremist....what do you suggest I do?

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Avoiding Reality Won't Change It

Steve Sailer on Postville

1. Postville, Iowa
A reader sent me a long write-up on the illegal immigration scandal at the Lubavitcher slaughterhouse in a small town in Iowa, which I'll post below. This business run by New York ultra-Orthodox Jews first became notorious a number of years ago when a Jewish academic named Stephen Bloom exposed how the newcomers were treating the Iowans. From the review in Amazon.com:

"The enterprise was a huge international success, with its kosher meats exported even to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The Jewish population grew to 150, and they were rich. The town was saved, and the people were grateful. All's well that ends well? Not quite. The Hasidim kept to themselves, did things their own way, and basically had no interest in integrating into Postville. And why would they? Their laws are strict, their mission clear, their community defined by race and religion. They are not interested in watermelon socials or coffee klatches at the diner. Their little boys do not swim with their little girls, are not educated together, and do not go on play dates with goyim. Small-town Iowans, on the other hand, are very friendly. They know each other's news, they support each other's businesses, they wish each other Merry Christmas, they want you to feel at home. They don't like that the new townspeople stomp up the street hunched over, talking in a foreign language and looking straight through them when greeted. They really don't like it when one of the newcomers drives around town with a 10-foot candelabra strapped to his car playing music at full volume for eight consecutive winter nights."


The point is not to pick on the business practices of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The bigger issue is that this kind of in-group morality is not at all restricted to Lubavitchers. In-group morality and sharp elbowed business practices are the norm among mercantile minorities across large swathes of the world, the great majority of them non-Jewish. (In fact, many are notoriously anti-Semitic.)

It's the nature of low trust societies: you have the peasants and you have the business people, and never the twain shall marry. An American-style society where it's not surprising when a farm boy like Henry Ford or Philo Farnsworth goes on to big things is a rarity in this world. (Here's Tom Wolfe on Robert Noyce of Intel, co-inventor of the silicon chip, who grew up in Grinnell, Iowa, a small town much like Postville -- except now it has an extremely rich college, due to getting in early on the companies started by Noyce and another Midwestern boy named Warren Buffett.)

Not surprisingly, lots of mercantile minorities want to emigrate to the rich pickings in America. What's in it for Americans is less clear.

There has been a giant immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, a town that has been taken over by a Hasidic Jewish sect, the Lubavitchers, and the third world illegal workers from Mexico and Eastern Europe that they have imported to work at their meat processing plant and are dumping on the community:

Des Moines Register

KMEG Channel 14

There is so much more to the story easily available on the internet. Rabbi Rubaskin, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Lubavitchers, Federal Prison, arson in Pennsylvania (see Failed Messiah, below), Secret PETA video tapes, fraudulent kashering, attempted bribery of the police, non-assimilation in America, self-isolation of Jews, Man! The story has everything. Read reviews of Stephen Bloom's book, "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in the Heartland" in which he challenges the melting pot ideology of the open borders crowd.

Failed Messiah a Jewish blogger, has blog entry after blog entry on the crookedness of the Rubashkin family and how they screw the gentiles and the Jews, including articles on Federal prison time for defrauding their gentile workers:

Here is a two-year-old article from the Jewish Daily Forward on the exploitation of third-world workers:

This is a "clean" interview with Stephen Bloom on his book about Postville and the Lubavitcher invasion:

This is Luke Ford's long unexpurgated interview with Stephen Bloom. Positively scathing and well worth a read.

Here is a bogus suckup article by the Jewish womens group called "Hadassah" on the wonderful diversity and multiculturalism of Postville:

Hallmark did a ditzy show called "The Way Home: Stories of Forgiveness" about the (nonexistent) touching reconciliation of the Postville locals and the third world illegals and Lubavitchers that took over ... It was narrated by Glen Close.

" In Postville, Iowa, residents were forced to reevaluate their way of life after the local meat packing plant closed, only to be reopened by Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn, N.Y. The Hasidic Jews' value of a tight-knit community seemed to clash with the openness of many in Postville. The town's story continued when workers from Mexico and Eastern Europe flocked to Postville to take advantage of the plant's ample job opportunities, and residents faced further challenges embracing diversity. Gradually the communities came to understand and respect each other's differences."

But the Rubashkins who run the Postville facility [aren't so nice] to their fellow Jews as well. Brutal animal slaughter is a way of life at the Lubavitcher Jewish plant in Postville. It is so nasty (ripping the tracheas out of cows) that many Jews won't even eat the food because it is a violation of Jewis shechita (ritual slaughter rules). The slaughter is so brutal that [the famous high-functioning autistic animal sciences professor] Temple Grandin (her fascinating life story is worth a read, too!) condemned the practices several years ago when shown the PETA tape. [She's a leading designer of animal slaughter yards.]

This is what Stephen Bloom, the author of Postville (see the Luke Ford review above) has to say about the feel-good sales pitch of happy-diversity that Hallmark and the Jewish media are pimping:

"The [Hallmark] video is an embarrassment. It's contrived. It's an audio-visual Hallmark card. It's cheery, upbeat, positive.

"Ever since Postville has come out, I've been interested in what the Japanese call Wa -- how Japanese society is run. It means harmony. In Japan, Wa is very important. It's rare in Japan for a vote in a corporation or the parliament that is not unanimous. All the differences are aired in private. By the time the public is clued in, everyone is on board, even the most vociferous critics.

"It's most important to live in a harmonious society where disagreement is eliminated. In America, journalism is generally opposed to the Wa. We journalists look at issues and we don't say, 'George Bush is doing a great job.' That is not a news story. We say, 'George Bush is screwing up big time.'

"There seems to be a tremendous attempt by the Jewish community, as prompted by the Hadassah piece, JTA, Forward, and this Hallmark presentation, to say that two different communities can flourish in America today. Postville is an example of that. There's a tremendous sense that readers and viewers need to come away with a feel good response. 'That stuff that Stephen Bloom did is water under the bridge. That was a long time ago. That was terrible. But now there's been forgiveness, reconciliation and harmony.' That's what the [Hallmark] show is all about.

"They make up a story line that when the Gentile head of the slaughter house, Donald Hunt, who's in my book, I call him a Caesar Romero lookalike, died about a year ago. His death brought together the distinct factions in Postville and began to heal the wounds. There's footage of Hunt's funeral and locals as well as Lubavitchers at the funeral. They use that as a point of entry for establishing a premise that things are going along just great.

"The people I talk to in Postville say things are not going along great.

"This latest skirmish is the slaughter house dumping some 30 tons of salt a week into the aquifers of ground water... There seems to be a journalistic mandate to remind everyone that Postville has reached Wa status. That's not what journalists do. Journalists are supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

Armed Humanitarian Intervention.?

my note:: This is why liberals and even Obama will be no better than neocons -both believing bringing 'freedom' or humanitarian aid at gunpoint, an oxymoron if there ever was. Of course, I suspect the motivations underlying it are suspect. Does Mr. Kaplan champion brining armed humanitarian relief to Palestine, or the refugee camps there? Why does he and others avoid fixing the one problem that we in fact, have helped create - and the one, presumably, where we can have the most positive impact by doing less (and giving less aid to the wicked) ? Because, all animals are equal but some are more equal that others.

And now for something completely different…
Wednesday, May 14th in Foreign policy, War by Leon Hadar

…like doing an “armed humanitarian intervention” in Myanmar aka Burma.

Yep. This is what travel writer/military strategist/philospher Robert D. Kaplan — Rudyard Kipling for poor and stupid people — is proposing in “Aid at the Point of the Gun” in the New York Times today. He also reports that “there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.” Sorry, but I haven’t heard that “chatter.” I don’t get that channel on my Sirius Satellite Radio.

In a recent post I speculated that the Times may be trying to demonstrate its post-modernist sense of humor. Reading Kaplan’s analysis and policy recommendation I’m beginning to think that that is indeed the case.

“As it happens, American armed forces are now gathered in large numbers in Thailand for the annual multinational military exercise known as Cobra Gold,” Kaplan explains. “This means that Navy warships could pass from the Gulf of Thailand through the Strait of Malacca and north up the Bay of Bengal to the Irrawaddy Delta.” Great! And “because oceans are vast and even warships travel comparatively slowly, one should not underestimate the advantage that fate has once again handed us.” Thanks, Fate!

He then proposes that

a carrier strike group, or even a smaller Marine-dominated expeditionary strike group headed by an amphibious ship, could get close to shore and ferry troops and supplies to the most devastated areas on land.

Freedomland

mynote: the American Conservative continues to be the only magazine that seriously looks into Iraq and utter failure of the venture and the reasons behind it.
Freedomland

Petraeus and Crocker pretend Iraq is a state. Everyone goes along
.

by William S. Lind

In the second week in April, the world’s most elaborate kabuki theater, Washington, offered a stunning performance. America’s two consuls for Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan C. Crocker, gave Congress and the world their appreciation of the situation in that unhappy country. Senators and congressmen listened with rapt attention. The three presidential candidates, aka the three blind mice, postured and preened in the great men’s presence. The press hung on every word. Analysts and columnists parsed their meaning.

No Land Grab On the Brooklyn Public Libary, Me On Burke

No land Grab writes::

CURIOUSER: Brooklyn Public Library

This week, there's a raging debate at Gowanus Lounge over the suitability and propriety of adults viewing online porn at the Brooklyn Public Library. Some claim that public viewing of porn is creepy and shouldn't be condoned in a public institution frequented by children, while others champion citizens' First Amendment right to access all available media.

The Brooklyn Public Library addressed the issue by releasing a statment to Gowanus Lounge which included the following:

While some topics and content may be unpopular it is our job not to judge, just to provide.

We find it curious that this is the same Brooklyn Public Library that rejected several works of art from the Atlantic Yards Footprints Exhibit due to the controversial content.


No one really thinks that the above photos, taken by NoLandGrab contributor Amy Greer, are more controversial than public viewing of online porn. Granted, the library isn't launching an exhibition of porn, but the public institution ought to recognize that they make judgments every day about appropriate content.

It's ironic that the same library that appeared so nervous about the Atlantic Yards controversy can display principled confidence while addressing the great online porn debate, which will surely rage on as Atlantic Yards opponents continue to grind their teeth to the sounds of Bruce Ratner's demolition of the Footprint.



We on the old right are not suprised:
Burke vs. Reason
by Kevin Michael Grace | Jan 18, 2004

Reason believes that the world has become "groovier" since 1968, the year of that magazine's founding. Not merely "groovier," mind you, but "groovier and groovier." In celebration, it has nominated "35 heroes of freedom," freedom apparently being synonymous with grooviness. This list, and the reasons given for the selection of the "heroes" therein is sufficient to persuade me that modern libertarianism, at least as exemplified by Reason magazine, is not a philosophy suitable for adults.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites...in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke

Get it? we increase 'sexual freedom' and anything which continues to tear at the fabric of the West, like the elephant dung virgin Mary paintings sponsored, with glee by the Brooklyn Museum, - anything that dumbs down people, or makes them more licentious - because such a society is easier to control. On the other hand, all across the west, while we border on child pornography as 'freedom of expression" in Candada, most of Europe, and defacto in the US you can be put on trial for being politically incorrect. So while Reason tells us how wonderful it is that performance artists can masturbate in public, or that people have the 'right' to view online porn in a public library - increasingly, relevant books are taken off the shelves, authors attacked (in the US it is common for conservative speakers on college campuses to be assaulted and the students not charged), while people become increasingly unfit to govern themselves.

We all know, by now, that the Brooklyn Museum, for example can degrade Catholic imagery and be glorfied as 'daring' by, say the New York Times, and for example, if something similar were done about, say the Holocaust, not only would the 'artist' work not see the light of day, but there is a good chance, at least in Europe the 'artist' would be thrown in jail.

That's where this 'groovy' society that the Reason champions ( the flattery of knaves) over a truly healthy democracy - the conditions for which are increasingly vanishing in our 'groovy' globalist world.

That's what 'liberals' and libertarians don't seem to get.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Obama vs. The Lobby

Obama vs. The Lobby
No matter how much he grovels, it's never enough
by Justin Raimondo

Poor Obama. No matter how much he tries to placate the Israel lobby, they just won't take yes for an answer. The Lobby has been after him for months, trying to dig up "evidence" that someone with the middle name of "Hussein" is necessarily an enemy of Israel. The best they could come up with so far were the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's jeremiads, which didn't have much of an effect at the polls, as the North Carolina and Indiana primary results – and subsequent national polls – attest.

Yet Obama still keeps trying to appease the Lobby. He's purged staff members who so much as looked cross-eyed at the Israelis, such as one poor adviser who meekly suggested that talking to Hamas might not be such a bad idea. He was out faster than you can say Mearsheimer and Walt.

Speaking of which: the Obama-oids have gone out of their way to distance themselves – i.e., "reject and denounce" – those two hate-criminals, even though, as Philip Weiss trenchantly avers, a book by Obama's point man on the Middle East says pretty much the same thing. In response to all this, Scott McConnell, editor of The American Conservative, dryly remarked: "At this point one wonders whether the people who deny the dramatic influence of the Israel lobby on American politics feel a little bit silly."



Scared, is more like it. But this, from the great 'change' candidate? How will there be any change? if anything, its an indicator that things are going to get worse with either president until Americans start to realize the reasons for our debacle in the middle east, and get the guts to do something about it. Neither the former nor latter are an easy task. Its one thing to blog semi-anon its another to face 'the lobby' as a politician, or any public figure.

Addicted to Stupid

link:
Republicans Say House Loss May Signal More Setbacks (Update1)

By Laura Litvan

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Republicans said an election loss in Mississippi yesterday may portend widespread voter rejection in the November races, and some complained that party leaders are failing to provide an adequate election-year strategy and agenda.

At a closed-door weekly meeting of all House Republicans today, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia distributed a 20-page assessment of the party's prospects, telling reporters later that it warned that following the ``same-old, same-old is a 25-seat loss.''

Republicans are increasingly concerned about their election prospects after Democrat Travis Childers yesterday won a Mississippi House seat that Republicans had held for more than 13 years, the third time since March that a Democrat won a Republican-held seat in a special election.



Here's an idea: get back to the old republican party values, you know the ones we had before the Neocons came?, Small government, anti-'nation building' - you know the exact opposite of everything John McCain is?

This election is, if anything about how far the values of our "elite" have become out of touch with the rest of America. Since a large % of campaign money now comes from the super wealthy, transnational elite - (previously Republicans had more middle class support) the Republican leadership has become more and more flippant towards voters.

There was also a deliberate, overt effort to marginalize Ron Paul, the one candidate who could perhaps save the nation from impending disaster- or at least, soften the fall.

Diversity Is India's Strength

New Delhi - Seven synchronized bombs exploded in the picturesque city of Jaipur Tuesday evening, killing more than 80 people and wounding more than 200. The bombs, the deadliest such attacks in India in nearly two years, appear to fit into an emerging pattern in India, in which bomb explosions occur every few months and are attributed to Islamic terrorists.

The government issued a national security alert and imposed a curfew in Jaipur, capital of the western desert state of Rajasthan



**if** this is actually "Islamic" terrorists, its one of over 40 violent separatist movements in "India", which is actually already split between India/Pakistan, Bangledesh and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) which, of course is the home of the #1 suicide bombers in the world and no, they are not Muslim.

Isn't diversity wonderful? Shouldn't we be doing even more to get even more divergent peoples in the US, especially from Mexico with whom we have had historic grievances? We'll all just hold hands and sing "kum by ya" Obama, of course leading the way.

A Reminder....

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites...in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke

Diversity Is Our Strength:: Somali Muslims Threaten Service Dog.


SCSU student leaves training at Technical High School

A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School left the school in late April because he says he feared for the safety of his service dog.




- don't worry Obama will fix EVERYTHING, because we know its this 'typical white person's' fault - showing his 'fear of immigrants' and no doubt clinging to his guns religion, and, in this case, dog.
the "killer" quote comes at the end:
Steffens said it is important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students.

I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse,” Steffens said.


Die-virsity

Friday, May 9, 2008

Oil Futures Were $126.00 A Barrel Today....

I have an idea. Let's use taxpayer money to build an environmentally wasteful and superfluously (and poorly) designed arena over a major transportation hub. I mean that's what the US really needs right now isn't it? That's the best use for railyards these days, isn't it? Nah...that would be really really dumb...who would ever do that?

Not So Sure About This Atlantic Yards

When the chief of one of the worst boon-doggler/eminent domain abusers in the city is 'not so sure' about atlantic yards, you can bet its a lousy idea. Really, other than Ratner, people Ratner has bribed or stand to benefit directly, financially from it...and of course, the truly foolish does anyone think this is a good idea?
New Port Authority Chief Not So Sure About This Atlantic Yards

Chris Ward, due to take over the Port Authority this month, suggests to us that he thinks Bruce Ratner should consider recruiting architects other than Frank Gehry for the Atlantic Yards. “Flatbush and Atlantic is a totally underused area and a major transportation hub, and I hope we don't lock ourselves into a design that does not allow other architecture or public space,” says Ward. That design is entirely Gehry's; even after Ratner admitted his multi-tower vision might not attract financing, public officials have kept the architect front and center. “Bruce, with his optimism, is probably feeling that he doesn't have to worry about those contingencies,” Ward continues. “But it would be worthwhile to pay attention to the real-estate risks there.” And, yes, he called him "Bruce": Ward worked under Ratner when the he ran Consumer Affairs in the Koch administration. Still, this warning should hearten the project's opponents: Ward will have a lot of influence over state spending if the developer needs a cash influx. —Alec Appelbaum

De"mock"cracy

The Silenced Majority
No one wants another war – so why does it seem inevitable?



De"mock"cracy: No one wants war, 85% of Americans (and Britians for the that matter) are opposed to mass immigration yet the immigrants keep coming. Americans are opposed to race quotas but they keep happening. Why?

Why did candidates who ran on enforcing immigration turn around and stop supporting it? Why the Iraq war continue despite no support and the obvious damage it does to our economy and world standing?

Economics, Right and Left

Loretta Napoleoni on “Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality”

Italian economist, journalist and author Loretta Napoleoni argues that recent events on Wall Street indicate a much larger upheaval and could “signal the end of the ‘Roaring Nineties,’ nearly two decades of easy money, cheap credit, and soaring global debt.” It’s an argument Napoleoni develops in her latest book called Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality. [includes rush transcript]



Indeed, while Wall Street and their bought and paid for 'think tanks' went on and on about 'globalism' and 'free markets' what was really going on was specfic tweaking to help specific people.

On a local level, innocently named 'Business Improvement Districts" were designed to help big companies muscle out smaller ones under the guise of providing services that the city should already be providing.


Meanwhile Pat Buchanan points out:
When Europe imposes a 15 percent value-added tax on U.S. imports and rebates the VAT on exports to the United States, that is not free trade. When China devalues its currency 45 percent, as it did in 1994, and bolts it down to suck jobs and factories out of the United States, that is not free trade. When Japan manipulates its currency, preaches economic nationalism to its people, and shelters its market for TVs, autos and steel, while dumping into and capturing ours, that is not free trade.


"Free Traders" in Washington sit around and do NOTHING when millions of American workers lose their jobs...but lo and behold, when Wall Street screws up - the fed comes and bails them out at our expense. SOme free traders, I guess, are more equal than others.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Another Great Shreya Ghoshal Song


Damn she has a great voice.

McCain on Eminent Domain.

The year 2005 also brought the case of Susette Kelo before the Supreme Court. Here was a woman whose home was taken from her because the local government and a few big corporations had designs of their own on the land, and she was getting in the way. There is hardly a clearer principle in all the Constitution than the right of private property. There is a very clear standard in the Constitution requiring not only just compensation in the use of eminent domain, but also that private property may be taken only for "public use." But apparently that standard has been "evolving" too. In the hands of a narrow majority of the court, even the basic right of property doesn't mean what we all thought it meant since the founding of America. A local government seized the private property of an American citizen. It gave that property away to a private developer. And this power play actually got the constitutional "thumbs-up" from five members of the Supreme Court.

Not that I believe, well, anything he says but its got to be embarrassing to be on the wrong side of John McCain on any human rights issue ....'progressive' Bruce Ratner and his Atlantic Yards supporters are just that. Maybe we could ship them to Gitmo bay...and brother Michael will come to their aid.

More Equal Than Others

At 60, Israel's never-ending struggle for security

On May 7, Israelis began celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. Soon, Palestinians will mark the nakba, or catastrophe.



Funny how the former is lauded over and celebrated in the US, while the latter is not even acknowledged. Steven Spielberg, who has self-righteously withdrawn from artistic advisory to the 2008 Olympics because of Tibet, is mum about israel, yet constantly bombards us with images of Jewish suffering. How could anyone see such gross hypocrisy and not raise an eyebrow?

I am not surprised that one ethnicity would be so self focused - nor is there anything 'wrong' with a group focusing on its own sufferings, I am just amused that Americans of all stripes still fall for it, to the tune of over one trillion dollars and counting.

But even the title of the usually objective CS Monitor is amusing. "Struggling for Security"? Here's an idea:: don't invade other people's land and build settlements, and then people will be much less likely to threaten your 'security'.

Reason Magazine's Curious Take on "Freedom"

A 'letter to editor' from someone canceling their subscription to Reason:

It should be apparent to every libertarian that there is a profound difference between an allegation of racist sentiment and the advocacy of public policy and actions that actually cause harm to people. Despite the claims of the holier than thou crowd, all human beings harbor some prejudices. These include elitism, yokelism (see comments by Ayn_Randian on the Hit & Run blog to see what I mean), nationalism, racism, religious intolerance, homophobia, etc... From a libertarian perspective, all of these prejudices are benign until they are coupled with a willingness to use force to violate the rights of others. This distinction is apparently lost on many of the writers at Reason. Writers like Matt Welch and David Weigel remain baffled that all libertarians don’t share their petty obsession with the politically incorrect libertarians over at the Mises Institute. And yet, they think it is reasonable, even respectable, to give space to people who advocate for the anti-libertarian concept of aggressive, preemptive war. They also failed to be outraged that Reason magazine found room to print the thoughts of a woman whose malignant prejudice against Islam is so extreme that she believes that it is the duty of Western governments to suspend basic civil liberties in order to "defeat" it.

In the November 2007 issue, Reason published an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In it she states that there are no moderate Muslims, and therefore that all of Islam must be considered an enemy. In order to crush this enemy, she endorses an aggressive, preemptive military and cultural war against Islam. As part of this total war she insists that Western governments must close all Muslim schools and all Muslim churches. Interestingly, she believes that the welfare and immigration polices of the Dutch government play a large role in fostering the violent actions of some Muslims in her adopted country. She correctly notes the absurdity of forcing taxpayers to fund "public schools" that, according to her, preach violence and hatred of others. She is also correct to point out that it is a lot easier to pursue violence if you don’t have to worry about getting a job. Thus, her profoundly illiberal views, advocating the annihilation, through government force, of an entire religion, are deeply influenced by her perception of the adverse affects of the immigration and welfare policies of Europe. The tragic irony here is that a woman who appears, in most respects, to be a remarkable and moral person, has embraced virulent prejudice against an entire group of people, in part because of the effect of Europe’s welfare and immigration policies.

Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul have all argued that open immigration and a welfare state cannot co-exist. During his campaign, Ron Paul repeatedly stressed that current welfare policies create resentment and hostility directed toward some immigrants, usually the poorest and neediest. Thus he believes that our perverse and immoral welfare system must be changed in order for liberal and expansive immigration to be desirable or practical. During an interview last year, Nick Gillespie acknowledged the views of Friedman and Rothbard on immigration, and did not challenge them. Still, he chose to present Ron Paul’s position in the worst possible light. Apparently, Mr. Gillespie possesses psychic powers. What else could explain his suggestion that Dr. Paul was being dishonest when describing his objections to our current welfare and immigration policies? According to Mr. Gillespie, Dr. Paul was really just pandering to a populist fear of "brown" people. This characterization was especially petty and dishonest as Mr. Gillespie needed to look no further than the pages of his own magazine to find a dramatic example of precisely what Dr. Paul describes.



Like communism, the cult of libertarianism, and the loud cheers for equality and 'freedom' are remarkably selective, and seem to favor, well, who?. What's the common thread here? Why the aggressive vaguely Marxist support of destroying particular religions?

Re-Reconquest

War of the Babies--When Modern Warfare and Demography Square Off, Demography Wins
Posted by Gary Brecher on May 06, 2008

What was the most important battle of the late 20th century? You could argue it was the one that took place on the southern border of Morocco on November 6, 1975. Of course, we’re not talking about another Stalingrad here. In fact, what happened that day isn’t usually called a battle at all. Its official name is “The Green March.” On one side were 350,000 unarmed Moroccan civilians carrying green (Islamic) flags, and on the other—miles inside the border, because they were hoping not to have to confront any of the marchers—was a shaky, demoralized token force of Spanish troops pretending to defend a former Spanish colony, the Spanish Sahara.

Borrowing From Hu to Pay Abudallah

Borrowing from Hu to Pay Abdullah

As if we needed any further evidence of the financial foolishness of our nation: it's coming to people's attention that the forthcoming "rebate checks" that were approved several months ago by suspiciously cooperative politicians, in order to stimulate the economy, will in fact be going to OPEC to pay for higher fuel costs (or, indirectly, to farmers who, in turn, buy fertilizers and pesticides that are made primarily of fossil fuels). In the midst of a "war against terror," our government is sending cash to its citizenry that will be used to further enrich the autocrats of the Middle East, especially to that nation that provided the dominant number of footsoldiers who flew the planes into the buildings of New York and Washington. Do we suppose that none of our largesse will find its way to outfits like bin Laden's?
....more

From The Always Interesting Phillip Weiss:

Will Hillary's Exit Signal the End of the Jewish Establishment?

Watching Lanny Davis spin desperately for Hillary the other night on MSNBC, hearing Howard Wolfson work the same riff on NPR this morning, I wondered if the Jewish establishment is ending almost before it began. The Clintons were the greatest thing that happened to Jewish success. My people had been outsiders in American life for generations, then they came inside with a giant splash during the Clinton administration, in which 2 of 2 Supreme Court appointments were Jewish and countless political plums too, including even the president's lover (Monica) and sometime-chaperone (Evelyn Lieberman). Almost everyone was Jewish on the president's negotiating team at the disastrous Camp David, a team that acted as "Israel's lawyer" (in the words of Aaron David Miller). A couple of my extended family got to play roles in the administration, too.


In a nutshell, I think Weiss is deceiving himself on two levels: a. the Barack Obama is anything but a power hungry, smooth talking race hustler b. that the power of the Israeli lobby is even close to being confronted, much less defeated.

I think he is incorrect that 'younger' Jews are less ethoncentric: its sort of a self-correcting mechanism, the people who aren't or out-marry are also not in the power structure.

I don't think any of this really matters - no candidate, Repub or Democrat, on any level, is addressing the serious issues confronting the US - a failed foreign policy, plummenting economy based on suburbanizing farmland and financial shennanigans from Wall Street and Fed, and, what no one will discuss: increasing ethnic polarization...

Peak Oil An Atlantic Yards

I ran across this post on peak oil from the American Conseravtive blogspot:

I answer: doubtless. But we will again ignore the costs upon local cultures that the ferocious race to extract ever-more valuable uranium from anywhere it can be found exacts. And we will again - as in the case of oil - seek to extract in full a non-renewable resource, leaving behind for our children a legacy of toxic and undisposable waste and a civilization that cannot be run on anything close to the order as we ran it.

I am asked: won't we instead have to seek unconventional sources of petroleum?

I answer: doubtless. We will extract everything we possibly can, even transforming the face of the earth into a living hell if it means we can continue to run a civilization of Dunkin Donuts, TGIFs and leaf blowers.


Hmm what else comes to mind? The greed and stupidity of Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry - using taxpayer funding, they want to build a wasteful, environmentally hostile, agoraphobic vegas style entertainment complex. Shouldn't we be thinking about better things to do with land over a transportation hub?

Don't expect people like Ratner, or the politicians he bribes, to consider the possibility. There is absolutely no long term thinking from our current 'elite' - cook the books, grab what you can, and pass on the problem to the next guy.

How different from previous generations who gave us Prospect Park instead of a condo development disguised as a park (Brooklyn Bridge "park") or the Brooklyn Museum as opposed to its current iteration which is nothing more than a vehicle for Corporations to advertise and promote agendas.

Is there any shame in these people? Of course not. Just a big, decadent eve of the French Revolution ball.

Link

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Frank Gehry, Architect of the Idiocracy.



What needs to be said, when a picture says so much.

Well, I guess that's one way to provide a Street Setback

One of the concerns about Forest City's very lousy Atlantic Yards project was that they proposed putting a steel and glass arena flush with Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, which would only require one truck van to create the world's largest hand grenade. Forest City assured us they had a 'secret' plan - what this great innovation was, is still a mystery. I wish they would share it with officials in Newark, who have to resort to crude concrete barriers to protect their stadium from potential truck bombers.

Well, perhaps Ratner's plan, at least until a force field can be invented, doesn't involve barriers, but parking lots:


Quite the innovators Ratner/Gehry who knew they were on the cutting edge of security architecture?

Frank Gerhy Reveals His latest errr "Building'

DDDB posts
Blogger Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass assesment of Gehry's design.

Blogger Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass has posted a lengthy and compelling indictment not just of the new design for the Atlantic Yards project's phase one by Bruce Ratner's architect Frank Gehry, but of Gehry's work in general. Makes sense to us. It's well worth reading to put the starchitect's latest sculpture in context:

Frank Gehry's new Miss Brooklyn - B1
Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass


B1...as is bomb(er)? BS1? as I commented on the blog:
Like Abstract art, once the 'joke' gets old, or the 'novelty' wears off, what' you're left with is an eyesore.
How anyone can think of building such expensive, quickly dated funtion-less buildings in an age of expsensive oil and environemental concerns is beyond me...oh did I mention security? Apparently, post 9-11 that's not a concern.


Yeah, more wavy superfluous titanium and steel and glass buildings, just what we need in this post 9/11, $120.00 a barrel of oil world. But hey, what does Ratner care, he's not paying for it.

Early Shreya Ghoshal

I stumbled on this video of a young Shreya Ghoshal when she was still competing on the indian equivlent of American Idol...
Even at a young age she exhibited vocal mastery and maturity, and paradoxically a sweetness and sincerity in her voice that older more jaded singers have difficulty evoking.

PS, the reason the camera focuses on someone's earring is, as best as I can tell from my scattershot hindi, its a song involving an earring.

Monday, May 5, 2008

U.S. Investigates Yonkers Development After Official’s Surprising ‘Yes’ Vote

U.S. Investigates Yonkers Development After Official’s Surprising ‘Yes’ Vote
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
YONKERS — For years, City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi of Yonkers was among the most vigorous critics of an enormous $600 million development proposal that called for 1,000 housing units, shops and a movie multiplex in the cliffs here over Sprain Lake.

She complained in late 2005 that the developer, Forest City Ratner, was “probably richer than God,” did not need tax breaks and was “robbing the city blind.” And she was the lead plaintiff in a 2005 lawsuit against the city, objecting to its approval process.

So the next summer, it stunned the Yonkers political and business establishment when Ms. Annabi provided the crucial fifth vote on the seven-member Council that the courts made clear Ratner needed to proceed.



Amazing what rotten luck Ratner has, where ever he goes, it seems, charges of corruption an impropriety abound. Such a shame it should happen to such a 'progressive' developer.

Saturday's Protest ...and Counter Protest

I know it becomes rather tiresome to compare the United States to aspects of the Roman Empire (or even more tiresome, Nazi Germany, oh wait, we use that for Iran) but Saturday's protests and paid for protests couldn't help but evoke images of Rome in decline - when politicians would have paid thugs who would riot and provoke civic unrest and 'democracy' no longer became civic discussion but violent blocks competing for power.

The purpose of the paid Union and other "protesters" was not to promote civic discourse, or more transparency in government. In fact it was exactly the opposite; The crude tactics of Forest City and its paid for 'protesters' was the latent threat of intimidation and violence, and in fact, physically trying to prevent people from really protesting.

As with the stunt Ratner pulled at the ESDC hearings - the purpose of these 'protesters' is to shout down and drown out any reasonable debate or objection to his pilfering the public coffers. He then can take the spin to the paper 'look more people came out in favor of my project'. Of course, his buddies at the Daily News, in addition to providing him column space, are perfectly willing to pass on his half-truths.

It now becomes obvious why big corporations and the mega wealthy promote seemingly 'progressive' policies of open immigration and 'diversity'; both give them cheap, easy access to segments of the population who are perfectly willing aid them in breaking the power of the civic class- and literally, support the legalized theft of property from others. A large middle class is essential for any democracy - it is no accident that is whom Ratner and his cronies are both stealing from and trying to undermine, by shamelessly exploiting the poor with false promises. But hey, Ratner's progressive, after all, he told us so.

Friday, May 2, 2008

It took this long to figure it out?

CIA Chief Sees Unrest Rising With Population

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2008; A15

Swelling populations and a global tide of immigration will present new security challenges for the United States
by straining resources and stoking extremism and civil unrest in distant corners of the globe, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in a speech yesterday



Gosh, you mean adding a million + people a year from radically different cultures creates problems? Who knew!
Gulp, you mean when different ethnic blocks form it fragments nations? Wow, what a revelation!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Declining Expectations, Increased Subsidies..

Each week seems to reveal a new 'surprise' about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project -this week, thanks to the inestimable Norman Oder, we learn that those 'generous' buyouts to property owners (coupled with latent threats of eminent domain) are being financed by New York Taxpayers. No wonder Ratner, a greedy man if there ever was one, was so 'generous'.

We also learn that Ratner can build little or no public housing in an extremely cushy time frame, and recently his Billionaire cousin "Chuck" (isn't lovely how they liked to be known on such familiar terms while they steal from us?) has indicated that shucks...they just might need more money. It is fairly obvious, that if this ill fated and ill conceived project gets off the ground, it will require huge public outlays - far more than indicated here...and politicians in Ratner's pocket will use the "too big to fail" fallacy. Every day it becomes clearer and clearer - this is nothing but a huge land money grab and transfer of wealth from middle class property owners and taxpayers to a crooked, wealthy developer.

I guess that's what Ratner means by 'progressive'.