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MUST READ!! One of those "nail on the head" articles...

chefinfidel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:04:00 GMT

Bailout marks Karl Marx's comeback

Marx’s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout

By Martin Masse

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package. Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.
“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder.

At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments.

So why throw this sound free-market analysis overboard as soon as there is some downturn in the markets?

The rationale for intervening always seems to centre on the fear of reliving the Great Depression. If we let too many institutions fail because of insolvency, we are being told, there is a risk of a general collapse of financial markets, with the subsequent drying up of credit and the catastrophic effects this would have on all sectors of production. This opinion, shared by Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and most of the right-wing political and financial establishments, is based on Milton Friedman’s thesis that the Fed aggravated the Depression by not pumping enough money into the financial system following the market crash of 1929.

It sounds libertarian enough. The misguided policies of the Fed, a government creature, and bad government regulation are held responsible for the crisis. The need to respond to this emergency and keep markets running overrides concerns about taxing and inflating the money supply. This is supposed to contrast with the left-wing Keynesian approach, whose solutions are strangely very similar despite a different view of the causes.

But there is another approach that doesn’t compromise with free-market principles and coherently explains why we constantly get into these bubble situations followed by a crash. It is centered on Marx’s Proposal Number Five: government control of capital.

For decades, Austrian School economists have warned against the dire consequences of having a central banking system based on fiat money, money that is not grounded on any commodity like gold and can easily be manipulated. In addition to its obvious disadvantages (price inflation, debasement of the currency, etc.), easy credit and artificially low interest rates send wrong signals to investors and exacerbate business cycles.

Not only is the central bank constantly creating money out of thin air, but the fractional reserve system allows financial institutions to increase credit many times over. When money creation is sustained, a financial bubble begins to feed on itself, higher prices allowing the owners of inflated titles to spend and borrow more, leading to more credit creation and to even higher prices.

As prices get distorted, malinvestments, or investments that should not have been made under normal market conditions, accumulate. Despite this, financial institutions have an incentive to join this frenzy of irresponsible lending, or else they will lose market shares to competitors. With “liquidities” in overabundance, more and more risky decisions are made to increase yields and leveraging reaches dangerous levels.

During that manic phase, everybody seems to believe that the boom will go on. Only the Austrians warn that it cannot last forever, as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises did before the 1929 crash, and as their followers have done for the past several years.

Now, what should be done when that pyramidal scheme starts crashing to the floor, because of a series of cascading failures or concern from the central bank that inflation is getting out of control? It’s obvious that credit will shrink, because everyone will want to get out of risky businesses, to call back loans and to put their money in safe places. Malinvestments have to be liquidated; prices have to come down to realistic levels; and resources stuck in unproductive uses have to be freed and moved to sectors that have real demand. Only then will capital again become available for productive investments.
Friedmanites, who have no conception of malinvestments and never raise any issue with the boom, also cannot understand why it inevitably leads to a crash.
They only see the drying up of credit and blame the Fed for not injecting massive enough amounts of liquidities to prevent it.

But central banks and governments cannot transform unprofitable investments into profitable ones. They cannot force institutions to increase lending when they are so exposed. This is why calls for throwing more money at the problem are so totally misguided. Injections of liquidities started more than a year ago and have had no effect in preventing the situation from getting worse. Such measures can only delay the market correction and turn what should be a quick recession into a prolonged one.

Friedman — who, contrary to popular perception, was not a foe of monetary inflation, but simply wanted to keep it under better control in normal circumstances — was wrong about the Fed not intervening during the Depression. It tried repeatedly to inflate but credit still went down for various reasons. This is a key difference in interpretation between the Austrian and Chicago schools.

As Friedrich Hayek wrote in 1932, “Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. ... To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about ...”

The confusion of Chicago school economics on monetary issues is so profound as to lead its adherents today to support the largest government grab of private capital in world history. By adding their voices to those on the left, these confused free-marketeers are not helping to “save capitalism”, but contributing to its destruction.

Financial Post

Martin Masse is publisher of the libertarian webzine Le Québécois Libre and a former advisor to Industry minister Maxime Bernier.

***Emphasis added by CHEFINFIDEL***

What's your favorite food?

chefinfidel — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Let's say it was a very slow day in the cooking business and some chef decided to find out everyone's favorite foods.

Here are the categories:

Best home cooked meal.

Best restaurant entree.

Best restaurant appetizer.

Best burger in town (no stupid "in california they have..." comments).

Best pizza.

Chris Cannon-THAT kid from school.

chefinfidel — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:24:00 GMT

Remember that annoying kid on the playground that was overly competative, complained about be fouled, always had new shoes, acted like every game was the world championships? Then he would lose and suddenly claim, "I didn't really care-I wasn't really trying that hard-I didn't really want to win anyway."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Chris Cannon!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_el_ho/cannon_defeated

Let's not forget that he raised 7 times the money Chaffetz did, and had the backing of basically every republican leader from the White House on down.

Nice message to his supporters, too. "Thanks for the millions, but I didn't really want to win anyway.."

Well played Cannon, well played.

Studly Chef in Utah regrows severed finger faster than British Pansy with "pixie dust"

chefinfidel — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:29:00 GMT

Exactly 3 weeks and 4 hours ago I cut nearly a half inch off my left pinky finger while chopping some bacon. For some reason, I pick up the tip and threw it away, not realizing that I should have kept it to stop the (profuse) bleeding. It bled off and on for the next couple of days, and, as of about 5 or 6 days ago, it has completely sealed up and is almost back to normal.

So, anyway, I'm browsing DRUDGE and find this:

The amazing 'pixie dust' made from pigs bladder that regrew a severed finger in FOUR weeks

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=563099&in_page_id=1965&ct=5

Now, I have to tell you that my finger looked almost exactly like the severed finger in the picture. In fact, most everyone here at work thought it was my finger, and wondered how I got in the news.

So how does this guy get in the news for healing in a week and half longer than me by using PIG BLADDER? Who do I have to call to report my historic scientific break through?

Here's my headline:

Studly Chef in Utah regrows severed finger in TWO AND A HALF WEEKS less than British Pansy with "pixie dust" concoction

On a strange side note: I was handling and roasting a whole raw pig a couple of weeks ago...hmmmm

How does this story end if the managers were not armed?

chefinfidel — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:23:00 GMT

Manager recounts "Wild West" shooting in West Palm Beach grocery

By ELIOT KLEINBERG

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

WEST PALM BEACH — Being a lousy shot might well have saved Marshall Hugo Grant's life.

After Grant fired three times Monday from the doorway of the King IGA grocery store, manager Marino Hernandez made a split-second decision not to fire back.

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"I was afraid he was going to keep shooting, but I already had in mind that he wasn't a good shooter," Hernandez said Tuesday.

Grant, 73, appeared Tuesday morning before Judge Nancy Perez, who ordered him held without bond while he undergoes a psychiatric examination.

Grant was a daily customer who'd never been a problem, said Hernandez, who manages the large supermarket at 1000 36th St.

On Monday afternoon, Grant and Hernandez argued after he tried to enter the store through the exit.

"I said, 'You know what? Take your business elsewhere,'" Hernandez said.

Grant then drew a handgun. Assistant manager Roberto Espinal, behind a side counter, drew his gun. When Grant turned that way, Hernandez pulled his gun.

It was 5 p.m., and the store was jammed with customers, loading up for dinner on their way home, who hadn't counted on a three-way, Wild West standoff.

Grant made the first move. He backed out of the store and started firing.

One bullet struck the front wall above the doorway, one hit the wall beside the door, and one imbedded in the ceiling over the cash registers.

One cashier, all of 16 years old, was on her first day on the job.

"A lot of chicken was left on shopping carts," Hernandez said. "Customers started screaming, going for the floor."

But, he said, "I'm a quick thinker. When I saw the first bullet hit high, right away I knew I was dealing with someone that was not a good shooter."

The two managers surrounded Grant as he backed into the parking lot, hid behind a car, and fired a fourth shot.

"He said, 'You calling the police?'" I said, 'Hell, yeah I am.'" Hernandez said. "I said, 'Put the gun down. Put the gun down. It's not worth it.' Then he said, 'You're going to beat me up if I put the gun down.' I said, 'I'm not going to beat you up.' "

Police then arrived and took Grant away. He was charged with attempted first-degree murder, shooting into an occupied dwelling, aggravated assault with a firearm and carrying a concealed firearm.

Staff writer Sonja Isger contributed to this story.

The silver lining around Larry Craig...

chefinfidel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:46:00 GMT

I've been meaning to post this for a week.

I really didn't believe Larry Craig. I tried. My Idaho roots wouldn't let me believe that he could be so stupid and perverse.

When the news about Elliot Spitzer broke I immediately thought about Larry and how hardly anything reported about politicians these days is unbelieveable.

Well, I finally found the proverbial silver lining around Larry Craig that I had been hoping for...At least he held to his fiscally conservative roots.

I mean, Spitzer reportedly spent $80G's to get his thrills, while Larry Craig did the fiscally responsible thing and, well, let's just say, went a "thriftier" route.

WARNING! Wii VIDEO GAMES BLAMED FOR RISE IN EFFEMINATE VIOLENCE

chefinfidel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:42:00 GMT

Now I'm really glad I didn't buy one of those things...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/wii_video_games_blamed_for_rise_in

Best article of the year, period. From David Mamet

chefinfidel — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:14:00 GMT

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'

An election-season essay

by David Mamet

March 11th, 2008 12:00 AM

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"

My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice.

Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot.

Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage.

When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the paper and wrote a retraction, praising the play as the masterpiece it is.

Every playwright's dream.

I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's "Competitions" in New York magazine. The task was to name or create a "10" of anything, and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical Review. It went like this: "I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I've ever written. When you read this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only review anybody in the theater ever wants to get.

My prize, in a stunning example of irony, was a year's subscription to New York, which rag (apart from Mary Ann's "Competition") I considered an open running sore on the body of world literacy—this due to the presence in its pages of John Simon, whose stunning amalgam of superciliousness and savagery, over the years, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of proactive mediocrity.

But I digress.

I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.

But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, ***, utopian-socialist speechwriter.

The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the *** up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.

Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you will—but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly-up; the hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the Internet; and the individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime.

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?

I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From experience. I referred to my own—take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.

The director, generally, does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority—that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeavor.

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community—a solution the community can live with.

Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.

And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.

White was for 40 years the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosevelt and wrote the best book I've ever read about the presidency. It's called Masks in a Pageant, and it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreservedly.

White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain wrote, you want to understand men, run a country paper.) White knew that people need both to get ahead and to get along, and that they're always working at one or the other, and that government should most probably stay out of the way and let them get on with it. But, he added, there is such a thing as liberalism, and it may be reduced to these saddest of words: " . . . and yet . . . "

The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.

Remember those murdering Haditha Marines?

chefinfidel — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:24:00 GMT

Remember the Haditha incident where those murdering marines slaughtered all of those innocent Iraqis, then tried to cover it up all the way to the White House? It was all fact, right? I mean, John Murtha said it was, right? After being the leading story at every major news outlet for weeks (before any actual investigations took place), the follow-ups should be huge news and making headlines all over the world, ...right?

Well, I guess getting buried on page 10 of the Washington Post will have to do:

Marine Corps Exonerates Captain in Iraq Killings

By Josh White
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; A10

A U.S. Marine company commander who led the unit that killed as many as 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, has had all criminal charges against him dismissed nearly two years after the shootings occurred.

Marine Corps officials announced yesterday that Capt. Lucas M. McConnell no longer faces two counts of dereliction of duty in allegedly not investigating the Nov. 19, 2005, shootings and not reporting up his chain of command. Three senior officers above McConnell received administrative punishments this month for their own actions and inactions after the incident.

McConnell, who was not at the scene of the killings, has long maintained that he and the Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, reported the incident to higher authorities and that he thought the shootings were part of an appropriate response to a complex insurgent attack. In the incident, a Marine squad killed a group of Iraqis on a roadside immediately after a huge bomb killed a member of their unit, and members of the squad then raided nearby homes, killing women and children as they hunted for the enemy.

The dismissal of the charges, officially dated Sept. 12, amounts to a full exoneration for McConnell, who was one of four officers charged with crimes related to the aftermath of the shootings.

“It’s long overdue,” said Kevin McDermott, McConnell’s civilian attorney. “It is clear that everything these guys knew went up the chain of command.”

Another captain — a battalion lawyer — was also cleared.

OH YEA, SOME OTHER GUY WAS CLEARED, TOO.

Good Stuff- Scroll down, please.

chefinfidel — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:53:00 GMT

by Darby Conley					September 09, 2007

ultra-sounds are cool- it's gonna be a girl.

chefinfidel — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:49:00 GMT

Some people, like Splitt, can impregnate a wife just by looking at her the wrong(right?) way, or bumping into her in the hallway.

Other people, like myself, may take a little longer, but can do requests...

2 boys, 2 girls...two pair, read'em and weep, boys...

Ann Coulter gets in right, again.

chefinfidel — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:20:00 GMT

by Ann Coulter
May 30, 2007

Americans — at least really stupid Americans like George Bush — believe the natural state of the world is to have individual self-determination, human rights, the rule of law and a robust democratic economy. On this view, most of the existing world and almost all of world history is a freakish aberration.

In fact, the natural state of the world is Darfur. The freakish aberration is America and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world.

The British Empire once spread the culture of prosperity around the globe — Judeo-Christian values, tolerance, equality, private property and the rule of law. All recipients of the British Empire's largesse benefited, but the empire's most successful colony was the United States.

At the precise moment in history when the U.S. has abandoned any attempt to transmit Anglo-Saxon virtues to its own citizens, much less to immigrants, George Bush wants to grant citizenship to hordes of immigrants who are here precisely because they are fleeing cultures that are utterly dysfunctional and ruinous for the humans who live in them.

Yes, this country has absorbed huge migrations of illiterate peasants in the past — notably Italian immigrants at the turn of the last century. But also notably, half of them went back. We got the good ones. America was not yet a welfare state guaranteeing room and board to the luckless, the lazy and the incompetent from cradle to grave.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, immigrant and first Jewish member of the Supreme Court, said that Americanization required that the immigrant adopt "the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here" and that he adopt "the English language as the common medium of speech."

But, Brandeis said, this is only part of it. "(W)e properly demand of the immigrant even more than this — he must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been done will he possess the national consciousness of an American."

Or as George Bush would call it, "empty rhetoric." And as Linda Chavez would call it, "racist."

I wish our new immigrants had come to America back when the foundations of civic society and patriotism were still inculcated in all immigrants (and when half of them went home). But traitors who are citizens have destroyed all acculturating institutions. Traitors who are citizens have also destroyed all incentive for the poor to work or even keep their knees together before marriage.

Until the recipient culture is capable of doing an effective job of Americanizing immigrants, it's preposterous to talk about a massive influx of Hispanic immigrants accomplishing anything other than turning America into yet another Latin American-style banana republic. And it is simply a fact that no one is trying to turn immigrants into Americans.

To the contrary, Democrats are trying to turn new immigrants into wards of the state — and with some success! — so they will be permanent Democratic voters. Rich Republicans and their handmaidens in Washington are trying to turn immigrants into a permanent servant class.

In an astonishing exchange on Fox News last weekend, Dan Henninger of The Wall Street Journal responded to Heather MacDonald's point that Hispanics in this country have a 50 percent illegitimacy rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate of any group and the highest high school drop-out rate of any group, by asking: "Why don't we feel we are under cultural assault in New York City? You have no sense of this at all here."

You also have no sense of the existence of a middle class in New York City. The rich have hidden the evidence, transplanting all but the massively wealthy to the suburbs. Manhattan is white and getting whiter, while the boroughs are noticeably less white and more dysfunctional.

What evidence is there for the proposition that American culture will leap like a tenacious form of tuberculosis to today's immigrants? Americans display no evident desire to defend their culture, much less transmit it, and immigrants show no evident desire to adopt it.

To the contrary, immigrants are replacing American culture with Latin American culture. Their apparent constant need to demonstrate is just one example.

As Mac Johnson wrote in Human Events last year, these immigrant protests represent "the colonization of America by the Latin style of politics." He listed just some of the demonstrations drawing thousands — sometimes hundreds of thousands — of protesters over the last few years in Mexico alone. Among the targets of the protests were a new regional trade pact, plans to allow private investment in the state-owned electricity industry, energy and tax reforms, and support for the mayor of Mexico City.

In 1993 — long before 9/11, before the USS Cole bombing, before the bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania — the eminent Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington predicted that the greatest threat to Western civilization would come from a clash of civilizations, noting with particular concern the "bloody borders" of the Muslim world.

So it ought to be of some interest that Huntington is now predicting, in his book "Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity," that America cannot survive the cultural onslaught from Latin America.

American Hispanics responded to Huntington's book with a flurry of scholarly papers and academic debates to counter his thesis that Mexicans were not assimilating.
Just kidding! They called for national protests against Huntington, his publisher and Harvard University.

COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

Forced Vegan New Born in Better Place

chefinfidel — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:14:00 GMT

Two Vegans forcing their diet on a new born...SOY MILK and APPLE JUICE. 3 1/2 pounds at 6 months, now dead.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P102RO0&show_article=1

Unbelievable...

Andrew Klavan hits the nail on the head.

chefinfidel — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:56:00 GMT

Sometimes someone takes the words right out your mouth and then knows how to organize them in a brilliant essay. Andrew Klavan has done just that (even though he had know idea). From my new favorite read...

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_diarist.html

Excerpts:

"It’s manners, not morals, that lay the borderlines of our behavior."

"Still, mannerly as we would rather be, truth-telling continues to be both compelling and ultimately satisfying. There is, after all, something greater than courtesy. “Firmness in the right,” Lincoln called it, “as God gives us to see the right.” We find ourselves at a precarious moment in an endeavor of great importance: namely, the preservation of Western rationalism and liberty. It does mankind no good to allow so magnificent an enterprise to slip away merely for fear of saying the wrong thing."

New Guide Book for Illegal Aliens written in English

chefinfidel — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:09:00 GMT

This kills me:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070507-120816-5796r.htm

Here's the link to the actual pdf:

http://www.phillyimc.org/media/2007/04//38395.pdf

CHEF NEEDS HELP.

chefinfidel — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:02:00 GMT

I've been hearing grumblings around the kitchen this morning about a "secret" protest being planned for tomorrow by some of our friends from south of the border. They are planning a "day without a Mexican" kind of thing like last years failed attempt, but are trying to keep it under wraps this time as to increase the "damage". I have a couple of gringo sympathizers who leaked the info to me this morning. I'm seeing nothing in the news so I thought I'd fish for more info...Thanks.

RE-POST! MUST READ

chefinfidel — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:00 GMT

SINCE MY POST GOT UPSTAGED BY SOME WACKO HELL BENT ON KILLING AND THE PREDICTABLE MEDIA'S FIREARM WITCHHUNT, I'VE DECIDED TO RE-POST THIS.

I had a lot of questions regarding "global warming", "greenhouse effect","CO2", "polar ice caps", and such and realized that I really don't know the science behind most of these terms. Anyone can pick a side depending on what Al Gore or Rush says, but what is really going on?I found this article a few weeks ago and found it to be very useful. WARNING! MANY SCIENTIFIC TERMS AND FACTS! (Actually, it's fairly reader friendly-even some fun charts and stuff.)

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

What I like about JUNK SCIENCE is their non-partisian approach to explaining many of the scientific claims made daily in the media and by political opportunists. Obviously, the site comes across as anti-left or democrat (or democrate, as Melchor would say), but I think that it just shows how the left has a knack for coming down on the wrong side of most issues.

From their site:

Junk science?

"Junk science" is faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas. The junk science "mob" includes:

The MEDIA may use junk science for sensational headlines and programming. Some members of the media use junk science to advance their and their employers' social and political agendas.

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS may use junk science to bamboozle juries into awarding huge verdicts. Large verdicts may then be used to extort even greater sums from deep-pocket businesses fearful of future jury verdicts.

SOCIAL ACTIVISTS, such as the "food police," environmental extremists, and gun-control advocates, may use junk science to achieve social and political change.

GOVERNMENT REGULATORS may use junk science to expand their authority and to increase their budgets.

BUSINESSES may use junk science to bad-mouth competitors' products or to make bogus claims about their own products.

POLITICIANS may use junk science to curry favor with special interest groups or to be "politically correct."

INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS may use junk science to achieve fame and fortune.

INDIVIDUALS who are ill (real or imagined) may use junk science to blame others for causing their illness.

I love these guys...

RE-POST MUST READ! IT'S MONDAY-YOU STILL HAVE THE TIME...

chefinfidel — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:30:00 GMT

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

From their site:

Junk science?

"Junk science" is faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas. The junk science "mob" includes:

The MEDIA may use junk science for sensational headlines and programming. Some members of the media use junk science to advance their and their employers' social and political agendas.

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS may use junk science to bamboozle juries into awarding huge verdicts. Large verdicts may then be used to extort even greater sums from deep-pocket businesses fearful of future jury verdicts.

SOCIAL ACTIVISTS, such as the "food police," environmental extremists, and gun-control advocates, may use junk science to achieve social and political change.

GOVERNMENT REGULATORS may use junk science to expand their authority and to increase their budgets.

BUSINESSES may use junk science to bad-mouth competitors' products or to make bogus claims about their own products.

POLITICIANS may use junk science to curry favor with special interest groups or to be "politically correct."

INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS may use junk science to achieve fame and fortune.

INDIVIDUALS who are ill (real or imagined) may use junk science to blame others for causing their illness.

I love these guys...

How would YOU act?

chefinfidel — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:59:00 GMT

Worth the read:

Thank God our servicemen are free, but make no mistake, this has been a humiliation for Britain ...

22:13pm 4th April 2007 Comments (5)

The release by Iran of the 15 British hostages came as wonderful news for their families and a great relief to the rest of us. Almost no one had dared hope that they would be freed so soon.

But we should not deceive ourselves. This is an enormous propaganda victory for the Iranian regime. However much the Foreign Office may congratulate itself for its quiet and allegedly tenacious diplomacy, it has been Iran which has stage-managed these events, from the moment the hostages were seized until the moment they were let go.

Britain is - or, perhaps I should say, was - regarded in Iran and much of the Middle-East as a significant power with colonial baggage which teamed up with the even more hated and feared Americans in the war in Iraq.

Now, as a result of the on-screen admissions by several of the hostages that they had illegally strayed into Iranian waters, as well as their profuse and seemingly supine effusions of gratitude towards their captors, Britain and her armed forces will be viewed throughout the Middle-East in a very different light.

Scroll down for more ...

They were clearly relieved on hearing they would be freed, and we still don't know the full story. But has their apparent unprofessionalism contributed to Britain's humiliation?

Even the manner of their release was carefully calculated by Iran. They were deprived of their uniforms and told to put on suits, which made them appear harmless and inoffensive. It must be conceded that by waving cheerily, and ruffling one another's hair - behaving, in fact, in a slightly undignified way - they added to the effect, though two or three of them remained grim and thoughtful.

I do not blame the hostages for thanking the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or even for their television confessions, but we should be in no doubt as to the overall effect. However much they may retract their statements when they return to safety, and whatever further "proof" the British Government may choose to produce, our enemies and detractors will believe we have been humiliated, and rejoice in that fact.

We have done no more than show ourselves as we really are. How ironic and how fitting that this display of acquiescence should have come almost 25 years to the day after the beginning of the Falklands War. Whereas that conflict established, or perhaps re-established, the image of Britain as a doughty, almost martial nation that would not be cowed by bullies, this episode has created a very unmartial impression of weakness.

I repeat, I do not blame the hostages for their apparent willingness to confess and apologise. But we had better be honest with ourselves. In no previous era - not during World War II or Korea or Suez or the Falklands - would British servicemen have behaved in such a manner. Something has changed, and it would be better to register and assimilate that change before we go charging off again in the misguided belief we are a fully-fledged world power.

Let me enter some caveats. Conceivably some or all of the captives were tortured, in which case their confessions would be entirely understandable, and they would be beyond any reproach even from the most censorious. I am quite certain I would not be able to withstand torture for more than about 15 seconds. Even if they were not mistreated, they must have been disorientated and possibly even traumatised, and were in some degree acting under duress.

Equally, in co-operating so fully with the Iranians, they may only have been acting under orders. The old rule that captured personnel should only reveal their name, rank and number appears to have been abandoned in favour of a more flexible approach designed not to aggravate particularly unpleasant captors. Those eager to cast stones should perhaps direct them towards military bosses rather than the unfortunate sailors and marines themselves.

Even so, I cannot conceal the feelings I had when the paraded hostages confessed and apologised so apparently readily. It was not shame so much as shock - shock, of course, that the Iranians should have dared to put our servicemen in such a position, but shock, too, that they should have complied so readily.

Did millions of other Britons privately feel the same? For me the most painful moment came when the two officers, a Captain, and a Lieutenant, said their piece. Some commentators have discerned a kind of ironic breeziness in their speech, supposedly intended to convey that they did not mean what they were saying. Maybe. Or was there a sense almost of larkiness?

Either way, it was inevitably unsettling to hear two officers in the Royal Marines - a service renowned for its toughness - publicly admitting fault, and paying compliments to the Iranians. The thought entered my mind, no doubt disloyally, that American marines might not have confessed and apologised on camera. How could that be so?

My own quite recent experience of our servicemen - soldiers in Kosovo - suggests that they are pretty hard, and that one would not want to get on the wrong side of them on a dark night. So it may be that the apparent softness and pliability of some of these hostages is not representative of our armed forces as a whole.

They may reflect something about the rest of us. Possibly there are people down at the Pig and Whistle who have been worked up over recent days, but in most of the media, and perhaps in society at large, the belief that the Iranians acted abominably does not seem to have been very prevalent. An action that would have caused general uproar 20 or 30 years ago - let alone 100 - has been almost accepted in some quarters, and even rationalised.

In this sense the hostages may be our true representatives. We are no longer an imperial or even post-imperial people, and we may not be cut out for the role of world policeman that Tony Blair would like us to play. And a jolly good thing too, many will say.

Yet even as I write I think of the British soldiers who are bravely fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the many soldiers who have died in Iraq. No one could doubt that there are still lots of very fine and brave young people in the British armed services.

And we should remember too how when the Oxford Union passed the motion in 1933 that "This House would not fight for King and country," some observers concluded that our ruling class had lost the will to defend itself. Many of those who said they would not fight, in the event gave their lives in the war against Germany, Italy and Japan.

One incident does not explain everything. And yet I suspect that this unfortunate episode may turn out to symbolise a change that is taking place in our country every bit as much as the Falklands War symbolised a more martial Britain 25 years ago.

I repeat, we not not yet know the full truth but what I will recall about this hostage crisis was the seeming lack of decorum, almost the casualness, of some of the captives. This is the measure of Iran's victory. These are the images that will go around the world. President Ahmadinejad is, in effect, saying to the rest of the Middle East and to those who like us or loathe us: "These British think they are something, but they are not."

Yes, I rejoice in the release of our servicemen, but who can deny that he may be right?

I would like to think that I would have acted differently....Still, I can't help but be disappointed.

We should all live more like Al Gore!

chefinfidel — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:37:00 GMT

From TCSDaily: Following Al Gore's Example for Energy Use	Font Size:



By James H. Joyner Jr. : BIO\| 28 Feb 2007

Discuss This Story! (11) Email \| Print \| Bookmark \| Save

There's a never-ending discussion on the Internets about Al Gore's massive consumption of energy while simultaneously traveling the world proclaiming that Earth is in the balance because man is using so danged much energy. The most recent iteration of this kerfuffle was sparked by a release from an obscure think tank that somehow got hold of Gore's electricity bills and found out that his gigantic mansion uses TWENTY TIMES MORE ELECTRICITY THAN THE AVERAGE HOME!!! (Please imagine much larger font and a siren.)

I'm not familiar enough with the ins-and-outs of Gore's policy pronouncements to know whether this constitutes "hypocrisy," or whether his explanation about purchasing carbon offsets absolves him. Frankly, I'm not sure I care.

As a practical matter, I side with the writer Jim Henley, though, in "favor[ing] markets in emissions over hard regulatory targets for individual homes and businesses."

Regardless of what Al Gore preaches about these matters, the way he lives strikes me as reasonable. He was of the manor born, to be sure, but he has earned a lot of money on his own. He has every right to a ginormous house, a fleet of cars, and to be flown around the world in private planes to speak out against the dangers of global warming. While it's funny in microcosm, it strikes me as a perfectly defensible trade-off to use a thousand times more energy than the average guy in an effort to influence macro-level energy and environmental policy.

Where Gore and I differ is that my aim is for more people to get to live like Gore. While environmental degradation in general and global warming in particular are real problems, certainly a serious case can be made that they pale in comparison with the ravages of poverty. Further, if millions of people not starving to death isn't its own reward, UC-Berkeley professor emeritus of energy and resources Jack Hollander explains in The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy, that, contrary to conventional wisdom, as societies become more affluent, they produce less pollution. That's not particularly surprising, when you think about it, as those whose basic human needs are met have both the inclination and resources to worry about cleaning up their environment.

Increased freedom and prosperity is a wonderful thing. Thankfully, outside of sub-Saharan Africa, it's where the world is heading.

The key, then, is to figure out how to allow that to continue happening while at the same time ensuring that we have the energy to sustain that trend while coming up with ways to reduce the negative externalities caused by that production. Market-based solutions like cap-and-trade and similar offsets are no doubt part of the answer. Removing the stigma that surrounds nuclear power would also go a long way toward that end. Mostly, though, it'll take proper incentives to unleash the technological ingenuity to figure out how to produce lots of clean energy.

I have no doubt that this will happen. Jesse Ausubel, the director of Rockefeller University's Program for the Human Environment, documents the enormous increases in energy efficiency over the years.

"Inefficiency always costs much. Around the year 1000, before the invention of good chimneys, people in cold climates centered their lives around an open fire in the middle of a room with a roof louvered high to carry out the smoke, and most of the heat. Open fireplaces demanded constant replenishing and thus a large woodpile behind every house. A smart stove did not emerge until 1744. Benjamin Franklin's invention greatly reduced the amount of fuel required and, thus, the size of the woodpile was reduced for those who could afford the stove."

Free, self-interested individuals and firms are constantly exploring ways to make their lives—and thus, indirectly, ours—better. We have thus managed to largely eradicate hunger and scores of diseases in the West over the course of the last century or so. We're building cars that are safer, more energy efficient, less polluting, and last longer than ever before. To be sure, government coercion helped nudge some of that. Mostly, though, it was a response to consumer demand in an arena with substantial competition.

One day, it is to be hoped that all humanity can follow Al Gore's example.

James H. Joyner, Jr., Ph.D. writes about public policy issues at Outside the Beltway.

Re:Heads Up---She showed up to school this morning-didn't know she was missing.

chefinfidel — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:07:00 GMT

Somebody's gettin' nuttin' for Christmas...

Tony Blankley is genius.

chefinfidel — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:45:00 GMT

October 18, 2006

Conservatives Will Regret Putting Dems in Power

By Tony Blankley

John Stuart Mill once famously called the British Tories "The Stupid Party." From time to time since then, the Tory's American cousin, the Republican Party, has also earned that moniker. Now may be one of those moments. If current polls and anecdotes are to be believed, there may be a million or two conservative Republicans who are planning to not vote this November.

Of course, Mill also said, "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but also by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."

Apparently, these anticipated conservative non-voters are annoyed with Republican imperfection. They are disheartened, disappointed, disillusioned, distempered, and dismal -- and thus plan to dis the party that better advances conservative principles in government.

They appear to have fallen victim to the false syllogism: 1) Something must be done; 2) not voting is something; therefore, 3) I will not vote. Of course the fallacy of the syllogism is that the second category could be anything. For example, No. 2 could as well read "eating dog excrement is something."

I rather suspect that they will feel about the same afterward, whether they chose the non-voting option or the scatological one. They are both equally illogical -- and repulsive -- and would deserve the moniker "Stupid."

Here are some telltale signs of the sort of person who would vote (or not vote) to cause the election of a party that would act to defeat every value and interest he holds dear (merely because the party that will at least try to advance most of those issues has not done as well as he might have hoped):

1) When offered by a car dealer 25 percent off on a car, he insists on paying the full factory-recommended retail sticker price -- because he is damned if he will accept 25 percent when he deserves 30 percent off.

2) When the prettiest cheerleader asks the nerd to take her to the prom, he turns her down -- just because he can.

3) When stopped for doing 70 in a 65 zone, he tells the trooper that's not possible because he had the cruise control set on 90 -- he just resents being falsely charged.

4) When diagnosed with a serious illness, he promptly cancels his medical insurance -- in order to save the cost of premium payments to help pay for the upcoming hospital stay.

A conservative would have to be just that stupid to stay home on Nov. 7. I have heard it put around that the Republicans need a couple of years in the wilderness to regain their conservative bearings.

While turning over the Congress to the Pelosi/Kennedy mob for even two years would be recklessly irresponsible -- particularly during a dangerous war-- there is no assurance the wilderness years would last only 24 months.

In 1954, the Democrats, led by the great Sam Rayburn, retook the House after control had seesawed back and forth for 10 years (1944-Democrat; 1946-Republican; 1948-Democrat; 1950-Democrat; 1952-Republican; 1954-Democrat)

Sam Rayburn (one of the shrewdest politicians ever to play the game) was so sure that the Republicans would take back the House in the Eisenhower re-election year of 1956, that when he became Speaker after the 1954 election, he didn't even bother to move his furniture back to the better office suite occupied by Joe Martin (the Republican Speaker who returned to Minority leader status after the 1954 Republican loss.) They decided to keep their previous office spaces rather than go through the bother of moving across the hall.

As it turned out, the Republicans didn't re-take a majority of the House for 40 years (The Gingrich-led election of 1994). So for 40 years the Republican minority leaders got to keep the better office space (that looked out over the majestic Washington Mall), while the Democratic Speakers for 40 years got a view of the parking lot.

I don't care who has the better office space in the future, but any conservative ought to be very concerned about who has the political power in Washington. The Democrats have virtually promised to scandalize the Republican administration (with subpoena and impeachment-seeking oversight hearings) for the next two years -- in preparation for defeating the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

Moreover, every Democrat who beats a Republican in three weeks will have two years to feather his or her nest, and use the powers of incumbency to defeat his 2008 Republican challenger.

Even more important, in a closely fought 2008 presidential election, every extra Democratic incumbent senator, congressman and governor makes it just a little more likely that the Democratic presidential candidate may win that district or state. All those freshly tuned new Democratic machines will help get out Democratic Party votes for the top of their 2008 ticket.

This current conservative petulance -- if it actually occurs on Nov. 7 -- will increase the chances of electing Hillary, or worse (if such a thing is possible) in 2008.

There is no rational policy or political basis for conservatives not voting. I'm not sure the country can take the current Democratic mob in power for long.

A realist once observed that the history of mankind is little more than the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.

The Democrats are obviously heartless. Conservatives must guard against falling into the category of the mindless. Ignore your heartfelt peevements, use your brains and vote.

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/10/no_thanks_were_stupid.html at October 18, 2006 - 05:43:24 PM CDT _uacct = "UA-31527-1"; urchinTracker();

I love THE RAW FEED.

chefinfidel — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:36:00 GMT

VIA THE RAW FEED: http://www.therawfeed.com/

In Real Life, PC Is Cooler Than Mac

Comic and singer-songwriter John Hodgman is wrecking the premise of Apple's famous "Mac vs. PC" ads. In the ads, Hodgman plays the PC, and actor Justin Long plays the Mac. Apple ads portray Hodgman's PC as a boring, idiotic *** and Justin Long's Mac as an interesting creative type. It turns out that Hodgman is actually a very charismatic, funny, intelligent, creative and interesting person, showing up in podcasts, on TV, on blogs, in magazine articles, on bookshelves and elsewhere and getting rave reviews. Hodgman is becoming more famous for his extracurricular activities than he is for the Mac ads. An unsupportable and irresponsible Raw Feed poll shows that 90 percent of computers users would prefer to hang out with Hodgman compared with, say, 6 percent with Long. (Hmmmm. That sounds familiar....)

Great Article from the Salt Lake Tribune

chefinfidel — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:18:00 GMT

Every once in a while, someone hits the nail on the head. Unbelievably, this guy writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. (Via Real Clear Politics)

September 29, 2006

Terrorists' Excuse du Jour

By Jonah Goldberg

Of course the war in Iraq has made us less safe, and I didn't need the National Intelligence Estimate to tell me so. Who could possibly deny that Iraq has become, in the words of the NIE, a "cause celebre" for jihadists? One need only read the newspaper to conclude that Iraq is spawning more terrorists. (Indeed, one fears that all the NIE authors did was clip from the newspapers.)

If you've ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Any hunter will tell you that the most dangerous moment is when you've cornered an animal, and any cop will tell you that standing up to muggers puts you in danger. American colonists were less safe for standing up to King George III, and the United States was certainly safer in the short term when we stood on the sidelines while Germany was conquering Europe. Heck, we would have been safer in the short run if we'd responded to Pearl Harbor by telling the Japanese they could have the Pacific to themselves.

var zflag_nid="598"; var zflag_cid="14/4/1"; var zflag_sid="1"; var zflag_width="300"; var zflag_height="250"; var zflag_sz="9"; on error resume next c0=IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.5")) if(c0 var tcdacmd="sa=o;sz=3;ad";

After 9/11, there were voices on the left warning that an attack on Afghanistan would only perpetuate the dreaded "cycle of violence." Today, Democrats tout their support of that "good" war as proof they aren't soft on terrorism. Fair enough, I suppose. But guess what? That war made us less safe too - if the measure of such things is "creating more terrorists." A Gallup poll taken in nine Muslim nations in February 2002 found that more than three-fourths of respondents considered the liberation of Afghanistan unjustifiable. A mere 9 percent supported U.S. actions. That goes for famously moderate Turkey, where opposition to the U.S. ran three to one, and in Pakistan, where a mere one in 20 respondents took the American side.

In other words, before Iraq became the cause celebre of jihadists, Afghanistan was. Does that mean we shouldn't have toppled the Taliban?

Going back further, it's conventional wisdom that we helped "create" Osama bin Laden, or his Taliban and mujahedin comrades, when we supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union. So we shouldn't have done that either?

Every serious analysis of the Islamic world today describes a genuine tectonic shift in a vast civilization, an upheaval that cuts across social, religious and demographic lines. This phenomenon dwarfs transient issues such as the Iraq war. Are we to believe that once-moderate and relatively secular Morocco is slipping toward extremism because we toppled Baathist Saddam Hussein? Do we believe that the mobs who burned Danish embassies in response to a cartoon wouldn't have done so if only President Bush had gone for the 18th, 19th or 20th U.N. resolution on Iraq? Millions of young men yearning for meaning and craving outlets for their rage would have become computer programmers and dental hygienists if only Hussein's statue still towered over central Baghdad? Would the pope's comments spark nothing but thoughtful and high-minded debate from the Arab street if only Al Gore or John Kerry were in office?

Iraq is the excuse du jour for jihadists. But the important factor is that these are young men looking for an excuse. If you live your life calculating that it's a mistake to do anything that might prompt murderers and savages to act like murderers and savages, you've basically decided to live under their thumb and surrender your civilization in the process.

For me, the truly dismaying news this week didn't come from the NIE but from the German media. A German opera house announced that it would cancel its staging of Mozart's "Idomeneo" because Berlin police concluded that staging the opera - which includes a scene in which Jesus, Buddha, Poseidon and Muhammad are beheaded - would pose an "incalculable security risk" from jihadists. Germany, recall, proudly opposed the Iraq war - but still narrowly missed a Spain-style terrorist attack on its rail system this summer.

A leading Muslim spokesman in Germany explained that he was all for free speech, as long as it didn't offend Muslims. The Germans' all-too-typical appeasement of terrorism no doubt makes them "safer" and "creates" fewer terrorists.

And all it cost them - for now - is Mozart.

Chicago Tribune Eagle Mountain Mostly Polygamist Town

chefinfidel — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 17:19:00 GMT

Journalism at it's best. From the Chicago Tribune:

Polygamy.

(Utah's open little secret)

	Advertisement

By Kirsten Scharnberg and Manya A. Brachear Tribune staff reporters

September 24, 2006

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah -- The neighborhood looks like any other in the upper-middle-class suburbs: sprawling homes with porch swings and manicured lawns strewn with discarded kids' bikes.

But beneath the all-American veneer, much is different in this upscale subdivision 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.

"Pretty much everyone who lives here is polygamous," said Mary--a woman who gave a recent tour of the area and is herself the second wife of a Utah man. She, like other polygamists interviewed for this story, asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of prosecution. "There may be one or two houses that aren't, but virtually everyone else here is one of ours."

In the weeks since the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the fundamentalist Mormon leader who made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for allegations that he facilitated the rape and marriage of underage girls, there have been constant questions about the real pervasiveness and peril of polygamy in Utah.

Mainstream Mormons in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with 12 million members worldwide, have asserted that all polygamous denominations--including Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--are aberrations in a state where the influential Mormon Church suspended the practice of polygamy more than a century ago. But Utah's attorney general, pro-polygamy activists and other experts estimate there are 40,000 people living in polygamous families or communities like this one across the Western U.S.--with a large portion of them residing in suburban Utah.

Although it is rare that allegations of abuse are as systemic or egregious as those reported in the community led by Jeffs, virtually every other polygamous sect practicing in Utah today has been linked to financial, sexual or spiritual improprieties. Federal grand juries in Arizona and state investigators in Nevada are probing polygamist practices in those states, according to media reports.

Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), himself a Mormon, asked U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to create a federal task force to investigate polygamy sects in the Western U.S., particularly Jeffs' church, a group in which girls as young as 13 are being married and hundreds of boys have been excommunicated and cut off from their parents in an alleged effort to reduce the elders' competition for wives. Still, in his letter, Reid's comments made clear he was referring to Utah's polygamy subculture in general as much as to Jeffs' community along the Utah-Arizona border.

"For too long, this outrageous activity has been disguised in the mask of religious freedom," he wrote. "But child abuse and human servitude have nothing to do with religious freedom and must not be tolerated."

Defending their faith

In the wake of such comments, Utah polygamists have come forward in unprecedented force to defend their faith, values and lifestyle. They say plural marriage fulfills the mission of all Mormons to be fruitful and multiply and to ascend to the highest reaches of heaven. They say it breaks their hearts that the mainstream church in 1890 abandoned polygamy--or what one expert called "the process of polishing the soul"--to appease the federal government and ensure Utah would earn statehood. They point to such communities as Eagle Mountain and Rocky Ridge, where polygamous families appear to be happy and prosperous, often with multiple wives of one husband living in palatial homes with adjoining yards.

"We're really sickeningly boring," said Jane, another wife to the same husband as Mary. "There is no high drama. We are the people next door--it's just that there are more of us."

During the 2004 campaign for Utah attorney general, polygamy was called the state's "dirty little secret," and candidates for the top law-enforcement position debated how best to deal with it. Mark Shurtleff won and has since implemented a policy to essentially leave polygamists alone unless they are committing other crimes simultaneously. Although the act of having more than one spouse is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison in Utah, authorities long ago stopped actively going after polygamists.

"We don't have the resources, nor do I think that we should use our resources, to convict every polygamist in Utah, put them in jail and put 20,000 kids into foster care," Shurtleff told a Canadian reporter recently when asked the state's approach to cracking down on polygamy. "What we're focusing on are crimes against women and children and tax fraud and other crimes involving misuse of public money."

Indeed, long before Jeffs was arrested on a highway outside Las Vegas, those crimes have been evident. For example:

The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days was the subject of much criticism when a young woman fled the community and went to authorities alleging she had been coerced into marrying her stepfather after years of being told she would burn in hell otherwise, according to a book detailing the case. Utah's attorney general chose not to prosecute the man, a charismatic preacher who has claimed to be the reincarnated Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, because the woman was 20 years old and deemed a consenting adult.

The Apostolic United Brethren, a polygamous community in Utah with 7,500 members, a beautiful suburban complex with athletic fields, an outdoor dance pavilion and a private school, was found in court to have bilked a wealthy member out of more than $1.5 million, and a judge ruled the sect and its leaders had to return it.

In the Davis County Cooperative Society, a polygamous community north of Salt Lake City, the leading family, the Kingstons, has been said by state prosecutors to have assets worth well over $150 million. Yet court testimony in a recent child-abuse and custody case revealed that one of the community's patriarchs argued he could not pay the monthly child support ordered by a judge for the children of one of his several wives. Another of the family's leaders was convicted in 1999 of felony incest for taking his 16-year-old niece as his 15th wife.

Yet even the most vocal critics are careful not to allege that every polygamist is guilty of such abuses.

"Listen," said John Llewellyn, one of the leading polygamy critics in Utah today. "I'm a former law-enforcement officer, a former polygamist and now someone who's working against polygamy. I've seen this from every side. And the bottom line is that there are a lot of polygamists out there who are good, honest people. There are, unfortunately, that many--or more--who are out there perpetuating every kind of horrible abuse you can't even imagine."

The Apostolic United Brethren community, whose members are scattered throughout Salt Lake City suburbs such as Eagle Mountain, is largely considered by authorities and even several polygamy critics like Llewellyn to be a group in which abuse is neither rampant nor tolerated.

`The highest heaven'

Charles, 41, a computer programmer with three wives and 14 children, lives in central Utah and says he simply wants to carry out God's plan. He and his first wife joined the Apostolic United Brethren, or AUB, and later he took second and third wives, Jeni and Alorah.

"We believe the purpose of plural marriage is to bring spirits here waiting to be born into good families that will teach them the gospel," he said. "A lot of people around here want to live plural marriage so they make it to the highest heaven. When I see what the savior has done for me, you just want to pay him back and do what he says."

But it's not for every fundamentalist Mormon. Charles' third wife, Alorah, said her mother was the third of four wives and still her decision to enter into plural marriage required intense prayer.

"There's a saying that is kind of common among the girls in this group, that if you can have 10 percent of a 100 percent man, instead of 100 percent of a 10 percent man, then what would you choose?"

Over the decades, polygamous communities have burgeoned statewide--and continue to do so because polygamists have such large families.

Mary and Jane are both married to one AUB community member, a middle-age man who is something of a real-life equivalent of Bill Henrickson, the character in HBO's series "Big Love" who lives in the Salt Lake City suburbs with his three wives, seven kids and ever-mounting bills.

Over dinner at a suburban seafood restaurant, Jane and Mary jointly make fun of their husband while he good-naturedly laughs at their quips. The women brush off questions about jealousy between them by saying he isn't worth fighting over, but they later expound on the Mormon principle of building large families on Earth that later can be replicated in heaven.

The family explains the mechanics of their lives: The two wives have houses next door to one another. (Jane jokingly complains that Mary has the better lawn.) The husband, who asked not to be identified, spends three nights each week with each wife and family; they rotate every other week on who gets the fourth night.

The family grows somber when they discuss allegations that abuses are inexorably linked to polygamy. They go to pains to say their community strongly discourages marrying before the age of 18. Mary is visibly proud when she tells that one of her sons discovered a man in the community was abusing an underage girl and went to police with the information.

"Bottom line," she says, "if you wake up a 13-year-old girl in the middle of the night and marry her off to a man 20 years older than her, that's abuse. Absolutely."

It's families like these that polygamy advocates hold up when they make their most frequent argument: decriminalization. They say that if the fear of prosecution is removed, polygamous groups could stop living in seclusion and secrecy, the very conditions that often enable many of the alleged abuses. Even more, they would then feel less fear about going to authorities to turn in abusers within their ranks.

"It would be all about going after the crimes, not the culture," said Anne Wilde, a former plural wife who now is widowed and the co-director of Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group.

Yet anti-polygamy activists are equally adamant that the culture invariably leads to problems. At minimum, they say, women are marginalized by a religious doctrine that turns them into a modern harem for their husbands. They tell of marriages in which the husband had more children than he could ever hope to support, thus leaving wives to scrape by as best they could on welfare. But worse, they say, is that the culture has a long tradition of physical abuse, rape, incest and underage marriage that endures.

"I've lived that life," said Vicky Prunty, a co-director of Tapestry Against Polygamy, the state's most vocal anti-polygamy group. "Anyone who tells you women are not being hurt there--forced into allowing their husbands to take on other wives in the name of religion, getting married too young to men much older, being hit or worse--[is] not being truthful."

Elaine Tyler, a volunteer at The HOPE Organization, a group geared toward helping those who have left polygamous communities, has seen firsthand the effects a polygamous lifestyle has on some of its members.

Tyler has met dozens of women, many of whom were forcibly married to much older men long before their 16th birthday, the legal age for marriage in Utah. Many also said they were abused by family members in the Jeffs communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, where incest has become so widespread that the group has what are believed to be the world's highest rates of fumarase deficiency, a rare genetic disease that causes profound mental retardation.

"The abuses are shocking," Tyler said. "Most of the women to emerge from these communities have no idea how unacceptable what has happened to them is. If all they've ever seen is their sister in bed next to them getting molested, then when it starts happening to them they don't think, `Hey, this is wrong.' They think, `Now it's my turn.'"

Reluctant witnesses

In fact, getting witnesses to testify to abuses is always the hardest part of polygamy prosecutions. Llewellyn, a former lieutenant in the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office who secretly took three wives himself before becoming an outspoken polygamy author and critic, said one of the key reasons he disavowed the lifestyle was seeing how polygamous communities routinely refused to testify against those within their fold who were committing crimes.

"I guess what I hope now is that I can pay back for some of the things I've done and been a part of," said Llewellyn, who wrote "Polygamy's Rape of Rachel Strong," a book that chronicled the life of a young woman who left a heavy-handed polygamous community, but only after being pressured into marrying her middle-age stepfather. Llewellyn argues in the book that Strong's stepfather, well-known Utah polygamist James Harmston, forced her into marriage and sex through a campaign of spiritual coercion as "effective as putting a gun to her head." Harmston has called Strong mentally ill and denied having forced her into the marriage.

On a recent Friday evening, as the fall chill began to creep into the mountain air, teenagers from a polygamous community on the outskirts of Salt Lake City gathered for a barn dance.

Erin Thompson, 15, typified the youth of the community who were there: bright, polite, optimistic. She spoke of her plans to attend college, perhaps become a dentist. Looking further ahead, she spoke of marriage and children, and, without hesitation, said she hoped to be a plural wife. She said she felt a religious calling to do so and believed that having to share a husband would teach her about sacrifice and prevent her from making him the center of her universe.

"Bad things happen in every community, whether they are polygamous or not," she said. "I know that. But I believe that this lifestyle can bring more blessings than you can imagine if it is lived correctly, and I understand that if it is lived wrongly it can bring that same amount of pain."

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kscharnberg@tribune.com

mbrachear@tribune.com

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