Local politics explained in one sentence

Steve Sailer writes:

Politicians control developers, so developers control politicians.

Yes They Are This Sinister

http://theknickerblogger.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-yorks-snatch-and-grab.html
Given the flatly unconstitutionally nature of AB 9807, maybe New York's interstate tax grab might really be a tax smash-and-grab. It may be a long while before Amazon's court case brings New York's new tax on out-of-state online retailers to a grinding halt. But in that window of time, New York could find itself benefiting from ill-gotten gains along with any other states that decide to join it.

NY MUST know this is unconstitutional - so what they are doing, in my opinion, is to using the time to track who buys out of state and THEN when it is declared unconstitutional, go after individual taxpayers by audit, since they will have a 'list' .

Winning Vs. Right

Americans Love A Winner!” — G.S. Patton

[Steve Sailer] @ 9:54 am [Email author] [Email This Article] Print This Post

A few years ago, I read a book by historian Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders. It contained a chapter on the wonderfulness of the Federalist Papers, as written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, comparing them to the Anti-Federalist Papers, written by a bunch of losers nobody has heard of since.

The Anti-Federalists would write, “If the Constitution is ratified,the federal government will grab the power to do X [or Y, or Z].” And Madison, Hamilton, or Jay would answer back, “Oh, no, that would never happen in a million years. It explicitly says right here in Article Whatever that only the states can do that.”

But the funny thing is, Bailyn’s long list of about a dozen or more things the Anti-Federalists warned would happen if the Constitution were ratified … they have all happened. They didn’t all happen right away. Many took until the Civil War, or the New Deal, or the Warren Court, or whatever. Still, when it comes to making long-run accurate predictions, the despised Anti-Federalists were right and the sainted Federalists were wrong.

But, nobody cares. People care about who won, not who turned out to be right.

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Makes me want to read the anti-Federalist papers.

Hypocrisy Check

During his hatchet job of Pat Buchanan's new book Adam Kirsch describes Buchanan:

, Mr. Buchanan's book is more dangerous. For Mr. Buchanan, a former speechwriter in the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, was once a notable presence in mainstream American politics. Since the collapse of his second protest candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, in 1996, however, he has in fact left the mainstream behind,not just by associating himself with the fringe Reform Party, but by publishing a series of books whose Spenglerian rhetoric about the decline of the West lays bare the racist and reactionary premises of his thought.

Its never hard to expose the hypocrisy of people like Kirsch: A little googling and volia:
Israel's Jewish Defamers .... a long defense of Zionism ending with:

All these feelings on the part of [anti-Zionist] Jews are understandable. From their standpoint they are justified. The Jews, however, have no right to expect that Zionism should commit suicide for their sake."

Mr. Kirsch condemns Buchanan for defending US and Europe from policies which will mean their people will be literally marginalized. Yet he uses the same justifications for his defense of Zionism and Israel. I wonder, out loud if people like Kirsch ever see their own hypocrisy...well, I used to wonder that but now I a believe more and more, that it isn't hypocrisy, its calculated maliciousness.

File under "you can't make this stuff up"

link.Father's Day cards banned in Scottish schools
By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
Last updated: 8:57 AM BST 23/06/2008
Thousands of primary pupils were prevented from making Father's Day cards at school for fear of embarrassing classmates who live with single mothers and lesbians.

The politically correct policy was quietly adopted at schools "in the interests of sensitivity" over the growing number of lone-parent and same-sex households.

It only emerged after a large number of fathers failed to receive their traditional cards and handmade gifts.

Family rights campaigners last night condemned the policy as "absurd" and argued that it is marginalising fathers, but local authorities said teachers need to react to "the changing pattern of family life".

An Office for National Statistics report in April found that one in four British children now lives with a lone parent - double the figure 20 years ago.

The Father's Day card ban has been introduced by schools in Glasgow, Edinburgh, East Renfrewshire, Dumfries and Galloway and Clackmannshire.

Tina Woolnough, 45, whose son Felix attends Edinburgh's Blackhall primary school, said several teachers there had not allowed children to make Father's Day cards this year.

Mrs Woolnough, a member of the school's parent-teacher council, said: "This is something I know they do on a class-by-class basis at my son Felix's school. Some classes send Father's Day cards and some do not.

"The teachers are aware of the family circumstances of the children in each class and if a child hasn't got a father living at home, the teacher will avoid getting the children to make a card."

The making of Mother's Day cards and crafts, in the run-up to Mothering Sunday, remains generally permitted.

But the Father's Day edict follows a series of other politically correct measures introduced in primary schools, including the removal of Christian references from festive greetings cards.

Matt O'Connor, founder of campaign group Fathers For Justice, said: "I'm astonished at this. It totally undermines the role and significance of fathers whether they are still with the child's mother or not.

"It also sends out a troubling message to young boys that fathers aren't important."

Alastair Noble, education officer with the charity Christian Action, Research and Education, said: "This seems to be an extreme and somewhat absurd reaction.

"I would have thought that the traditional family and marriage are still the majority lifestyles of people in Scotland. To deny the experience of the majority just does not seem sensible."

Local authorities defended the change, saying teachers needed to act "sensitively" at a time when many children were experiencing family breakdown and divorce.

A spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council said: "Increasingly, it is the case that there are children who haven't got fathers or haven't got fathers living with them and teachers are having to be sensitive about this.

"Teachers have always had to deal with some pupils not having fathers or mothers, but with marital breakdown it is accelerating."

Jim Goodall, head of education at Clackmannanshire Council, said teachers are expected to behave with common sense but be sensitive to "the changing pattern of family life."

South Ayrshire Council said children should not feel left out or unwanted, while City of Edinburgh Council said the practice on Father's Day cards was a matter for individual schools.
Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2176315/Father%27s-Day-cards-banned-in-Scottish-schools.html
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Ah the groovy (according to Reason) world of Globalization/Marxism/Multiculturalism.

Italy Not Diverse Enough, Laments NYT

Steve Sailer dissects the NYT's globalist push. As Steve Sailer comments at the end of the piece, the NYT, lately, has become a bad parody of Kevin MacDonald's theories.

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Wouldn't the whole world be better off if Italy weren't so damn Italian? I mean, what has Italian culture ever contributed to anything? When will the Italians get with the program and adopt the Universal Globoculture? The New York Times wants to know!

Italy Gives Cultural Diversity a Lukewarm Embrace

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Europe, for all its diversity, can be remarkably provincial.

Ponder that for a moment.

Italian culture certainly isn’t diverse now. It subsists on an all-white, all-native, monoethnic diet of Italian game shows, Italian television mini-series, Italian advertisements on cable stations for improbable vibrating contraptions that promise to jiggle fat away, and Italian pop music. Even Roman schoolchildren no longer stray far from a spaghetti-with-ragú diet now that an intercultural city program to serve one international-themed lunch a month has been abandoned by the new center-right government, heeding some Italian mothers, who doubted the nutritional value of falafel and curry.

Italian children in Italy eat Italian food? The horror, the horror ...

And isn't it about time they tore down the Florence Cathedral and put up a Frank Gehry building made out of sheet metal? How come there's not a Hello Kitty logo anywhere on Michelangelo's "David"? Shouldn't La Scala dump Verdi and stage a tribute to the Spice Girls?
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Its funny, and fitting, in light of recent news, that he uses Frank Ghery as an example of trash culture. Trash developer, trash architect, trash project.

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Here's where the NYT doesn't realize their gross hypocrisy something which they are NEVER challenged on in mains stream media:

Franca Eckert Coen echoed that remark. An Italian Jew in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic city who lives in an apartment filled with Jewish art, she was in charge of multicultural policy under the former mayor of Rome,

Huh? Would I be considered a multiculturalist if I was described as a having an apartment filled with English Anglican art? No, I would be considered a 'narrow minded' nativist. This sort of hypocrisy happens one too many times to not take notice.

I have a GREAT Idea

Lets build a stadium - because the tristate area doesn't have enough of them already, and lets build it on the busiest corner in Brooklyn. Lets not have any serious security measures, lets give away land to the developer to do it - land from the cash strapped MTA who is threatening to cut service and raise fares...lets also use state and city funding and tax breaks for a billionaire developer despite falling revenues and increasing burden on middle class tax payers... oh yeah and lets forcibly take homes away from people who refuse to sell to the developer.

Yeah that's a really great idea, isn't it? Its a great use of resources in these terrorist threatened, high oil price, mortgage crisis times.

Why The Chorus of Horrahs For Ratner In the NY Dailies?

take your pick:
a. they have never even been to the site and have only heard about it through Forest City/Fat ass Bruce at cocktail parties. (how many could locate it on a map?)
b. Bruce Ratner's companies are financially tied to them (we know this is true with the Times)
c. They are pulling a favor for their pal Bruce, a show of force from the new elite to say 'don't fight us' 'don't question us' you will lose.
d. The New York elite know they are part of a 'system' is top heavy with corruption and the markets are tanking and they are arranging deck chairs on the titanic/fiddling while Rome burns or whatever other similar cliche you can think of.

Yes, in their backyards?

That was the title of the NY Daily News Editorial.... its kind of funny coming from Mort Zuckerman's paper, isn't it? I recall that the Daily News ran a scathing editorial condmening a proposed east side luxury condo skyscaper because it would cast shadows on Central Park, and, on an unrelated side note, Mort Zuckerman's apartment.

Norman Oder wades through Zuckerman's bullshit here. For those too tired/lazy/sick to read: as usual, as with everything else, Mort Zuckerman's papers have to lie - about project approval, subsidies and benefits. Then again, Mort Zuckerman bought the Daily News (and US News et al) and tools like Errol Louis so he could lie.

He's a creepy looking bastard, isn't he?

Well they both are, but Ratner is particularly sinister looking. One could easily imagine him as a Soviet agent, happily burning churches and machine gunning kulacks to create a 'new order' that will bring equality to everyone, but the Ratners of course, even 'crusading' Michael Ratner, are more equal than others.

New York's Snatch-and-Grab

New York's Snatch-and-Grab

Call it New York's nationwide tax grab. Living up to its distinction as one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation, the Empire State has found a new way to subject its citizens to even more taxes. New York tax officials are looking to fill budget shortfalls by looking beyond state borders. As part of its budget, New York passed a first-of-its kind law that saddles sales tax collection burdens on catalog and online retailers in every state of the country.

As of this month, Assembly Bill 9807 requires out-of-state retailers who sell products to New Yorkers to register as vendors with New York tax officials. Civil and criminal penalties now face retailers who fail to comply. What's more, out-of-state retailers refusing to register have already been threatened with possible auditing and charges for years of back taxes.

The new law zeroes in on out-of-state online retailers who pay a small sales commission to New York-based Web sites hosting online ads. Under AB 9807, a mere Internet ad banner placed on a New York-based site triggers tax collection obligations under the new law.

Needless to say, this new sales tax law has glaring constitutional problems.
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my note::Yet they are giving tax breaks and billions to people like Bruce Ratner..while further burdening middle class tax payers....now they wish to further burden other businesses as well.

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Given the flatly unconstitutionally nature of AB 9807, maybe New York's interstate tax grab might really be a tax smash-and-grab. It may be a long while before Amazon's court case brings New York's new tax on out-of-state online retailers to a grinding halt. But in that window of time, New York could find itself benefiting from ill-gotten gains along with any other states that decide to join it.
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Such calculated legal theft is not beyond the state government or crooks like Bruce Ratner. There are/is probably an army of state lawyers calculating how long they could continue the case in court (one, two, three years?) and how much revenue they could gain in that time.

Given the nature of Bruce Ratner's destructive land grab and looming federal investigations up Yonkers, it could be that our so called elite is simply grabbing as much as they can, as quick as they can before it all comes crashing down...

Victor's Justice.

Pat Buchanan has been making easy work of Christopher Hitchen's smear job, of course, 90% of main stream media will just repeat Hitchens lies. Who can lie the most and the widest is what wins arguments these days, not truth.
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Morality – Trotskyite vs. Christian
Pat Buchanan: 'Did the Allies commit acts of war for which we hanged Germans?'


By Patrick J. Buchanan

Did Hitler's crimes justify the Allies' terror-bombing of Germany?

Indeed they did, answers Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek response to my new book, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War": "The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities."

Atheist, Trotskyite and newborn neocon, Hitchens embraces the morality of lex talionis: an eye for an eye. If Germans murdered women and children, the British were morally justified in killing German women and children.

According to British historians, however, Churchill ordered the initial bombing of German cities on his first day in office, the very first day of the Battle of France, on May 10, 1940.

After the fall of France, Churchill wrote Lord Beaverbrook, minister of air production: "When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path ... an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland."

"Exterminating attack," said Churchill. By late 1940, writes historian Paul Johnson, "British bombers were being used on a great and increasing scale to kill and frighten the German civilian population in their homes."

"The adoption of terror bombing was a measure of Britain's desperation," writes Johnson. "So far as air strategy was concerned," adds British historian A.J.P. Taylor, "the British outdid German frightfulness first in theory, later in practice, and a nation which claimed to be fighting for a moral cause gloried in the extent of its immoral acts."

The chronology is crucial to Hitchens' case.

Late 1940 was a full year before the mass deportations from the Polish ghettos to Treblinka and Sobibor began. Churchill had ordered the indiscriminate bombing of German cities and civilians before the Nazis had begun to execute the Final Solution.

By Hitchens' morality and logic, Germans at Nuremberg might have asserted a right to kill women and children because that is what the British were doing to their women and children.

After the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945, Churchill memoed his air chiefs: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed."

Churchill concedes here what the British had been about in Dresden.

Under Christian and just-war theory, the deliberate killing of civilians in wartime is forbidden. Nazis were hanged for such war crimes.

Did the Allies commit acts of war for which we hanged Germans?

When we recall that Josef Stalin's judges sat beside American and British judges at Nuremberg, and one of the prosecutors there was Andrei Vishinsky, chief prosecutor in Stalin's show trails, the answer has to be yes.

While Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were surely guilty of waging aggressive war in September 1939, Stalin and his comrades had joined the Nazis in the rape of Poland, and had raped Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well. Scores of thousands of civilians in the three Baltic countries were murdered.

Yet, at Nuremberg, Soviets sat in judgment of their Nazi accomplices, and had the temerity to accuse the Nazis of the Katyn Forest massacre of the Polish officer corps that the Soviets themselves had committed.

Americans fought alongside British soldiers in a just and moral war from 1941 to 1945. But we had as allies a Bolshevik monster whose hands dripped with the blood of millions of innocents murdered in peacetime. And to have Stalin's judges sit beside Americans at Nuremberg gave those trials an aspect of hypocrisy that can never be erased.

At Nuremberg, Adm. Erich Raeder was sentenced to prison for life for the invasion of neutral Norway. Yet Raeder's ships arrived 24 hours before British ships and marines of an operation championed by Winston Churchill.

The British had planned to violate Norwegian neutrality first and seize Norwegian ports to deny Germany access to the Swedish iron ore being transshipped through them. For succeeding where Churchill failed, Raeder was condemned as a war criminal and sent to prison.

The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal decided that at Nuremberg only the crimes of Axis powers would be prosecuted and that among those crimes would be a newly invented "crimes against humanity." This decree was issued Aug. 8, 1945, 48 hours after we dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima and 24 hours before we dropped the second on Nagasaki.

We and the British judiciously decided not to prosecute the Nazis for the bombing of London and Coventry.

It was an understandable decision, and one that surely Gen. Curtis LeMay concurred in, as LeMay had boasted at war's end, "We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night of March 9-10 than went up in vapor in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined."

After the war, a lone Senate voice arose to decry what was taking place at Nuremberg as "victor's justice." Ten years later, a young colleague would declare the late Robert A. Taft "A Profile in Courage" for having spoken up against ex post facto justice. The young senator was John F. Kennedy.
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To this day, I find it astounding, or perhaps not, that Stalin's crimes, Trotsky's crimes - and the peoples who supported them go largely unprosecuted, unnoticed and even, justified.

A Personal Note

Not much sense writing about a personal thought on an anonymous blog but there it goes...today we learn that Pataki Vs. Goldstien, eg the challenge to emiment domain which involves the state of New York turning over private land to a private developer for that developer's personal gain, under a thinly veiled pretext of 'public good', was rejected by the Supreme Court.

I feel that every position I take, whether 'right' or 'left' is the losing one...am I simply someone from a certain socio economic, a certain religion, a certain ethnicity, that is on the losing side of globalization? Do I just take 'lost causes' - real ones not fake ones like "fighting racism" not 'charging windmills' but rather, charging giants with a toothpick?

Or is it that there has, since the 1960s, been a 'new elite' in this country that has been doing things for their own gain, and are so self serving and myopic that they are simply trying to grab as much as they can and destroy as much as they can before it all comes crumbling down?

It does seem that the lies and denial of reality is getting worse, not better, while people pin false hopes to Manchurian candidates like Obama.

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On the actual Atlantic Yards debacle - its doubtful that Bruce Ratner can raise the money he needs, not half of it- especially with the looming credit crunch and inflation - but since the state doesn't care about accountability or financial feasibility, nor does Ratner since he is simply robbing the public coffers - it is not enough to stop the worst aspects of the project - the MTA giving Ratner land for 1/4 of its value (at the same time claiming they have to raise fares) the city giving him hundreds of million in aid, at the same time, claiming they need to raise taxes, and the state giving him both aid and land they don't own but rather, are seizing from private property owners.

So can the state, will the state (because hope of winning in state court, where the judges are utterly corrupt, is a long shot) be brazen enough to take the land from the property owners even though its obvious Ratner won't build for a long long time? They have done it before..

Perpetual Propesperity ....

oops.

Mankind cannot bear much reality

The Holocaust:
Was it inevitable?
Pat Buchanan rebuts Christopher Hitchens' opinion
that columnist's new book about world wars 'stinks'

By Patrick J. Buchanan

"What Would Winston Do?"

So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.

Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British Empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.

That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."

Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.

Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.

We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war all over the globe."


Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.

From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.

Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?

As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and was ever denied.

In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish "blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to the Austrian throne. The Kaiser backed down or was trying to back away when war erupted.

Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ... acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."

What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust.

Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West. Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.

Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain – a war he never wanted.

If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.

Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Western Wall, in the Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?

If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.

That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.

"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ...?"

Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.

The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.

Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.

The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality."

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The last comment, is perhaps the most pertinent.

The Welfare-Warfare State

The Welfare-Warfare State
How it works
by Justin Raimondo
As I write, the House of Representatives is passing a "supplemental" war-funding bill – an event that one would think ought to be the occasion for a renewed debate on the war, whether to end it or, as John McCain would like, to escalate it. One, however, would be quite wrong. The halls of Congress are virtually silent, this election year, as a war the American people oppose continues and threatens to spread. As for the discussion in the media: check out this piece in The Politico – which is chock full of discussion about the bill's non-war related add-ons, and barely mentions the war as an issue, except as a bargaining chip.

The Democrats have struck a deal with the White House, essentially giving Bush everything he wanted in terms of more money for his war, and more authority to conduct it as he sees fit, in return for increased social welfare spending. The libertarian social theorist Murray N. Rothbard coined a very useful term to describe what is happening, in this instance: he dubbed modern America a "Welfare-Warfare State," and surely this Democratic deal with the Devil shows how it works in practice.

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What more needs to be said?

War, Economy.

Ron Paul talks about what no candidate or main stream media will mention...why? Because big media, the big corporations and wealthy individuals who back Mccain AND Obama are the ones pushing these policies :

War, Economy Can't Be Decoupled

by Rep. Ron Paul
What is the importance of the war in Iraq relative to other current issues? This is a question I am often asked, especially as Americans continue to become increasingly aware that something is very wrong with the economy. The difficulty with the way the question is often asked relates to the perception that we are somehow able to divide such issues, or to isolate the cost of war into arbitrarily defined areas such as national security or international relations. War is an all-encompassing governmental activity. The impact of war on our ability to defend ourselves from future attack, and upon America 's standing in the world, is only a mere fraction of the total overall effect that war has on our nation and the policies of its government.

The cost of this particular war is enormous, and therefore it's of great importance. There is no single issue that is more important at this particular time. The war has, of course, made us less safe as a nation and damaged our credibility with allies and hostile nations alike. Moreover, years of growing deficits have been spurred on by the high price tag of war, and the decision to pay that price primarily by supplemental spending rather than traditional "on-budget" accounting.

War takes what would otherwise be productive economic capacity and transfers both that capacity and the wealth it would generate in normal, peaceful times into far less economically viable activities. It also impacts budget priorities in ways that are detrimental to our nation. I have often pointed to the fact that we are building bridges in Iraq while they are collapsing in the United States .

All war, but most particularly war funded by monetary inflation, bleeds a country in multiple ways. Obviously, many of the young people who are in the military literally give their blood, and sometimes their lives, fighting in wars of this type. Meanwhile, those who do not fight the war, but fund it, are forced to pay both the immediate costs, as well as seeing their long-term purchasing power erode, as the twin pillars of debt and inflation are foisted upon the backs of current taxpayers and future generations. Neither conspiracy nor coincidence explains steep increases in the price of gas as the war drags on. No, this is simply a reality of the inflationary policies that, among other things, make this war possible.

As people are continually asked to choose whether our nation's teetering economy or the failed foreign policy of the past several decades is more important as we look forward, it is well for those of us who understand that these two issues are closely linked to continue to explain this fact to our fellow citizens. To fix the problem requires a proper diagnosis.

Diversity or Freedom? The Two Don't Mix

Why is Pat Buchanan always called a 'facist' by the left when they are champions of hate speech laws and codes??

Freedom of the press is on trial in Canada.

The trial is before a court with the Orwellian title of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The accused are Maclean's magazine and author Mark Steyn. The crime: In mocking and biting tones, they wrote that Islam threatens Western values.

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In France, animal rights champion Brigitte Bardot has been fined $23,000 for provoking discrimination and racial hatred by denouncing Muslims who slaughtered a sheep in a religious ceremony. Bardot had been punished five previous times for her statements.

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.....Canada's commitment to multiculturalism and the equality of all religions, races and cultures requires the silencing of those who do not believe all races, creeds and cultures are equal.

The dogmas of the Diverse Society dictate that the cherished rights of the Free Society be sacrificed on the altar of social tranquility.

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Certainly there are times to 'restrict' certain types of expression: child pornography, personal libel, for example. But when a government or engineered 'society' are governed by irrational principles whose fallacies can easily be illustrated, the only way to 'win' the argument is to not let it take place.

Interestingly enough, the only area where a previously taboo expression has become more mainstream, both legally and in mains stream media, is pornography. ...which again makes me wonder, exactly where the West is headed and who benefits from such standards. A 'decadent' sex obsessed, , distracted public sounds more like the Entruscans than the Romans. Haven't heard of the Entruscans? They're extinct.

Sibel Edmunds:: Down the Memory Hole?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

http://www.justacitizen.com/

The story of Sibel Edmunds, a former FBI translator, is probably one of the most explosive cases ignored by the media today. Even Antiwar.com has gone silent, perhaps because there's not much more to say than "She blew the whistle and no one is listening because the case is so big it would bring down both sides of the Washington Establishment . There is a blog maintained by a third party as well:.

Sibel Edmonds Case: More Destruction of Evidence re Nuclear Black Market

It's remarkable, really.

The US government has taken some extreme measures to silence former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Among other reasons, they are obviously very nervous about information that Sibel has regarding the involvement of US, Israeli, and Turkish officials in supplying the nuclear black market.

Now we have this: The US Government apparently demanded that the Swiss government destroy all evidence - all 30,000 pages of it - related to the pending prosecution of the Tinner family. The Tinners were "very key suppliers" of AQ Khan's nuclear proliferation network, but their court case is now unlikely to proceed, given the destruction of the evidence.

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US journalists ignore Sunday Times scoop on FBI nuclear scandal

January 22, 2008 9:50 AM

Harry Shearer, one of the voices behind The Simpsons, has used his own blogging voice to ask a pertinent question. Why has a story broken by the Sunday Times over here about nefarious goings-on in the States failed to take off in the American media? He isn't alone in his concerns. Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers some 35 years ago, is even more outraged.

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A brave women comes forward, blows the whistle and is met with hostility, smears, indifference, and litigation blocking her from speaking. If a society rewards those who expose criminals in such a manner, what sort of society can we expect to have.

And what's the election about? The current news headlines? Distractions, trivia. and Sibel Edmunds?

ps, and darnit she's pretty too.

The Spy Who Loves Us

Just can't figure out why the New Republic, National Review and other neoconservative dominated publications miss stories like this. The Spy Who Loves Us... baffling.

Predictable Neocon Smear Of Pat Buchanan's WWII Book.

Pat Buchanan devotes a column to correcting the smears of "neocon court historian" Victor Hanson:

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Hanson cites not a single fact I got wrong and ignores the fact that the book is dedicated to my mother's four brothers who fought in World War II. Moreover, the book begins by celebrating the greatness of the British nation and heroism of its soldier-sons.

Did Hanson even read it?

The focus of "The Unnecessary War" is on the colossal blunders by British statesmen that reduced Britain from the greatest empire since Rome into an island dependency of the United States in three decades. It is a cautionary tale, written for America, which is treading the same path Britain trod in the early 20th century.


Hanson agrees the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was "flawed," but says Germany had it coming, for the harsh peace the Germans imposed on France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

Certainly, the amputation of Alsace-Lorraine by Bismarck's Germany was a blunder that engendered French hatred and a passion for revenge. But does Teutonic stupidity in 1871 justify British stupidity in 1919?

Is that what history teaches, Hanson?

In 1918, Germany accepted an armistice on Wilson's 14 Points, laid down her arms and surrendered her High Seas Fleet.

Yet, once disarmed, Germany was subjected to a starvation blockade, denied the right to fish in the Baltic Sea, and saw all her colonies and private property therein confiscated by British, French and Japanese imperialists, in naked violation of Wilson's 14 Points.

Germans, Austrians and Hungarians by the millions were then consigned to Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland and Lithuania, in violation of the principle of self-determination.

Germany was sliced in half, dismembered, disarmed, saddled with unpayable debt and forced, under threat of further starvation and invasion, to confess she alone was morally responsible for the war and all its devastation – which was a lie, and the Allies knew it.

Where was Hitler born?

"At Versailles," replied Lady Astor.

As for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Germany imposed on Russia in 1918, is Hanson aware that the prison house of nations for which he wails, which was forced to disgorge Finland, the Baltic republics, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus, was ruled by Bolsheviks?

Was it a war crime for the Kaiser to break up Lenin's evil empire?

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First, Hanson should get his prime ministers straight. It was Neville Chamberlain who issued the war guarantee to Poland after the collapse of his Munich accord. Churchill was not even in the Cabinet.

Second, Hansen implies that I portray Hitler as a misunderstood victim. This is mendacious. Hitler's foul crimes are fully related.

Third, was it moral, Hanson, for Britain to promise the Poles military aid they could not and did not deliver, thus steeling Polish resolve to resist Hitler and guaranteeing Poland's annihilation?
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Was it worth 50 million dead, Hanson, so Stalin, whose victims, as of Sept. 1, 1939, were 1,000 times Hitler's, could occupy not only Poland, for which Britain went to war, but all of Christian Europe to the Elbe?

Churchill was right when he told FDR in December 1941 it was "The Unnecessary War" and right again in 1948, when he wrote that, in Stalin, the world now faced "even worse perils" than those of Hitler.

So, what had it all been for?

Historian Hanson should go back to tutoring undergrads about the Peloponnesian War and the Syracuse Expedition.
more.

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Buchanan asks "Did Hanson even read it?" No. And in many ways Buchanan misses the point. The game today is not truth, or facts, its who can lie to the most people who can effectively pin a simple label on the opposition that will scare and bully people into accepting your view.

On immigration,it is not about facts, or whether we can even sustaint the current numbers. its about being labeled a racist.
On the middle east, its about being labeled a 'nazi' or 'the next hitler'

Locally, its about being labeled a 'nimby' against 'jobs and hoops' (and even the lingering vestiges of the Ratner's housing sham.

Silly me, silly Buchanan. I thought facts were important.

And Speaking Of Mega Projects...

from VDare::

LA’s MegaMansions and Immigration

[Randall Burns] @ 10:17 am [Email author] [Email This Article] Print This Post

Jessica Garrison writes in the LA times:

Unaffected by the economic woes besetting the masses, the super-rich
are going on creating palace-like complexes. One builder says he knows
of 20 houses of at least 20,000 square feet in the works.

What percentage of construction workers in Southern California are illegal immigrants? Recent Legal immigrants or beneficiaries of amnesties? Would such mansion be being built if we never had the immigration expansion of the 60’s? What might be being built instead?

These are questions that just aren’t being asked anywhere except a few places like VDARE.com

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that is the great, unanswered question...if we weren't adding 1 million + people a year to this country ::
a. wages for the poorest and working classes would probably be better.
b. land and real estate would probably be cheaper.
c. crime and corruption would be much less.

In other words it would have been great for most Americans, while mass immigration has benefited super wealthy "Americans".

Oh, Now I know Why I have to Pay Tax on Amazon Purchases....

To help make up the massive New York State deficit....one which just got a little bigger thanks (again) to Bruce Ratner from DDDB:

NYCEDC Confirms: Ratner Wants More Subsidy for Atlantic Yards

Back on April 2nd, Forest City Ratner's parent company CEO Chuck Ratner said on an analysts conference call that "we still need more" subsidy for Atlantic Yards. (Atlantic Yards Report broke that story.) Ever since then, Forest City Ratner spokespeople have flat out denied that they would be seeking more subsidy. But NYC Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky begs to differ, according to the Sun article, he confirms what Chuck Ratner said in April:

...He [Pinsky] also said that the developer Forest City Ratner Co. had expressed interest to the city about seeking additional tax-exempt funding, but that the request was being handled by the state..

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Who ends up paying? Who ends up profiting? Is it any wonder that New York is simultaneously one of the highest tax states (and most left leaning) in the Union and one of the most corrupt? Is it any wonder the middle class is leaving in droves, like in California (or simply vanishing) what will we become if this continues?

Victimocracy.

I am not for mccain, but this is brilliant:

Peter Schweizer asks a question:

We now are down to two presidential candidates. One went to the Ivy League and Harvard Law School as a young man. The other spent years of his youth in a Vietnam Prisoner of War camp and suffered lifelong injuries. Guess which one whines more about his hardships?

That arugula-eating Barack Obama, that’s who! says Schweizer.

He compiles an impressively lightweight brief against him (and his wife). And concludes:

Many observers believe that Barack Obama secured the liberal base of the Democratic party because he was antiwar from the beginning. But I think it’s because he mastered the art of complaining and won over the Whine Caucus. Today the Democratic party is dominated by groups making claims of victim status — blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, unwed mothers, artists, pampered academics, environmental activists, the poor, the unemployed, animal rights activists, women, homosexuals. As Michael Crowley openly admits on Slate: “What does define and unify the [Democratic] party is a sense of victimhood.”

True to a point. Schweizer then goes on to cite several studies that show liberals hate their jobs, their homelives and their hobbies. Liberals blame “the man” for their misery.

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The American Conservative goes on to point out that whatever is left of the Republican party have become pretty good at playing the victim game themselves....which leads me to ask, what's left? If I say its the old right taking all the hits - the victimizers - than I would be making myself a victim....

Change

Ron Paul On Obama

Proof of their Guilt Is Obvious from Their Racist Statements.

From Steve Sailer:"It's totally obvious how Liptak is slanting this New York Times article to get readers to presume that Steyn's article is "hate speech." There's not a single quote from Steyn's essay "The Future Belongs to Islam" in Liptak's entire 1,838 word article. On the other hand, Liptak uses the word "hate" (or "hateful") appears 18 times, "Nazi" three times, and "Hitler" once.

The real story here is, once again, about how diversity dooms free speech."

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How long can 'the left' or 'the neocons' get away with this tactic? Its been going strong for 50+ years with no end in site...seems nobody has the guts to actually read the 'hate' speech after it is declared 'hate' (nazi, Hitler, etc).

Peter Hitchens On The Bishop of Rochester

31 May 2008 7:02 PM
Why does it take Bishop Nazir-Ali to tell us how it really is?

Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column:
Why does it take Bishop Nazir-Ali to tell us how it really is?
Why is it that nobody in our own elite actually likes or understands this country or its people or its traditions?

Why did we have to wait for Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, born and raised in Muslim Pakistan, to remind us that, as he put it, ‘the beliefs, values and virtues of Great Britain have been formed by the Christian faith’?

Just as important, why did we have to wait for him to urge us to do something about restoring that faith before we either sink into a yelling chaos of knives, fists and boots, or swoon into the strong, implacable arms of Islam?

Most of our homegrown prelates are more interested in homosexuality or in spreading doubt about the gospel or urging the adoption of Sharia law.

Then again, why did it take the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to explain to us that our parliamentary system was the best guarantee of liberty in the world and to remind us of the courage and valour of our people in war?

This is not what British leaders say or even think, not least because they are busy pulling the constitution to pieces.

It is not what our children are taught in schools.

In fact, any expression of national pride is viewed with suspicion by the state, by the education system and above all by the BBC.

It was not always so. Half a century ago, we had churchmen, broadcasters, academics and military men who thought it normal to love their own country, normal to support the Christian faith which made us what we are, and were willing to defend it.

The question of what happened in the years between is one of the most interesting in history.

We know, thanks to their endless memoirs and the dramas about them, that this country’s foreign and intelligence services were maggoty with Communist penetration.

I am sometimes tempted to wonder if the same organisation targeted both political parties (especially the Unconservatives), the Church of England, the BBC, the Civil Service, the legal profession and the universities.

The Communist leader Harry Pollitt certainly urged his supporters back in the Forties to hide their true views and work their way into the establishment.

An organised conspiracy could not have done much more damage than whatever did happen.

We have a country demoralised in every sense, its people robbed of their own pride, its children deprived of stability and authority, terrifyingly ignorant of their own culture, its tottering economy largely owned from abroad, its armed forces weak, its justice system a sick joke, its masses distracted by pornography, drink and drugs, its constitution menaced, its elite in the grip of a destructive, intolerant atheism. Ripe, in fact, for a foreign takeover.

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Well said Peter, well said.

The NY Sun...Making Sense?

Well, its not one of the two eyes... Israel, Immigration.

The Amazon Tax

Editorial of The New York Sun
May 22, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-amazon-tax/76865/

Just in time for Father's Day and the summer beach reading season, Governor Paterson and his allies in the State Senate and Assembly are taking aim at New York's readers, imposing a new sales tax on books bought from the online retailer Amazon.com. New Yorkers who have bought books on Amazon recently are seeing the notice, "Important Messages: Due to a new law recently passed by the State of New York we are required to collect NY sales taxes on taxable items sold by Amazon.com on or after June 1st, 2008. If your order is placed prior to June 1st, your Order Total may not include an estimate of NY sales taxes, but those taxes may still be charged if your order is readied for shipment on or after that date."

We'd recommend Amazon illustrate the notice with photographs of Governor Paterson, Assembly Speaker Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Bruno, so that New York book buyers know exactly whom to blame. Under what logic, we wonder, does the state, or for that matter, the city impose no sales tax at all on clothing or footwear costing $110 or less, but impose the full 8.375% tax on books? Why should the Bible be taxed or books for children learning to read be taxed, but a $100 silk necktie or bikini go tax-free? New York also imposes no sales tax on wood, wood pellets, and compressed wood products used for heating purposes, meaning that if a tree is cut down and it is split it into firewood, then sold, no sales tax applies, but if the tree is turned into paper and used for a novel or a prayer book, it is taxed.

The Wall Street Journal issued a column yesterday arguing for taxing books sold on Amazon.com. It argued that tax free Internet shopping disproportionately benefits upscale citizens — i.e., the Wall Street Journal's core readership demographic — because such citizens are most likely to shop online. It claims that the absence of the tax "hurts parks and schools." Balderdash. Even without an Amazon tax, New York has managed to spend more money on its schools than most other jurisdictions in the country, and still have such mediocre results that many New Yorkers decide not to use the government-owned schools. It has also managed to fund parks — from Central Park and Prospect Park to the Adirondacks and the Long Island beaches — that they are the envy of the nation.

The Journal column argues that failure to impose the tax benefits "billionaire Internet moguls." But the people the tax's current absence really benefits are book-buyers and authors and the publishing business, which has some of the narrowest profit margins in all of industry, and, in case the state's politicians failed to notice, is largely based in Manhattan. It benefits readers of all income levels who thirst for knowledge and find the Internet the easiest way to shop for books.

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The American Revolution began in part as an uprising against a Stamp Act that imposed a tax on books. The lawmakers in Albany and the New York City council have poured billions of dollars into funding libraries and schools in an effort to encourage reading and literacy among both children and adults. So on top of everything else the idea of imposing a new tax on books bought from a major online retailer is counterproductive. Amazon is challenging the tax in court, where it will be nice to see the company's power harnessed to confront Messrs. Paterson, Silver, and Bruno with the injustice of the kind of taxes they want to impose on those who use the Internet.

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Interesting that the Wall Street Journal is supporting the tax....do they even try to maintain the sham that it was the WSJ has ever been conservative in any meaningful sense? I mean, at least NY Sun tries..

The Latest "Hate Crime" In Britian:

Christian preachers face arrest in Birmingham
By David Harrison
Last Updated: 7:56AM BST 02/06/2008
A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.

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While Billionaire Bruce Raids The Public Coffers...

from the NY times blog:

There were two predictable fallouts from New York State’s move to force online companies to collect state sales tax: There would be a lawsuit. And some online merchants would cut off their affiliates in the state.

The state hoped the new legal interpretation would bring in $50 million a year to help close New York’s budget gap.

Hmmm 50 million...let's see, how about selling Vanderbilt yards for what's worth not 150 million below its value? or the various two billion in subsidies going to Bruce Ratner and other corrupt developers? How about the luxury tax property tax carveout? We can on with examples, but you get the picture..

No, too easy. Instead, further put the pinch on middle class consumers by taxing them in a manner that is clearly unconstitutional. That's never bothered corrupt New York politicians before, why start now?