OK…I’m paraphrasing.…but it’s now obvious that Obama ascribes to an unkind, cartoonish vision of America.  First, Obama says small town Americans are bitter, racist, clinging to guns and religion:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them… it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." (my emphasis)

 
Now, Obama says he is embarrassed by Americans because they are linguistically-challenged when traveling in Europe.

"It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup,"

 
This is leadership? Doesn’t Obama have bigger, more important issues to highlight while he giving  stump speeches? Who really cares about embarrassment while touring around Europe?  Also, the US Democrat Party appears to be  obsessed exclusively with Western Europe.   From John Kerry, to Obama, the Democrat Party seems to think that the epicenter of the universe is Davos, Switzerland, or Club 55, France.

But, America is home to hundreds of immigrant groups speaking hundreds of different languages.  Why my utility bill, alone, comes with translation into Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.  Given the economic realities of the 21st century wouldn’t it be more valuable for an English speaker  to learn Mandarin Chinese than French? Or maybe a dialect from India?

In any case, language acquisition is not  an area of urgent importance for Americans. I agree with Mitt Romney:

“my concern about our education system is less about whether we can speak French and more about whether we can keep up with the world in math and computer science and other sciences, and that's a place where we're falling behind.”  (my emphasis)

 

The war the American colonists fought for independence from the British Empire was a war about first principles:  “Where did power come from? What defined loyalty?  Who defined the rights between king and subjects?” *

Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1775: “ the sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records.  They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

The  colonists believed, rightfully, that the our freedoms and rights come to us from God. On the birth of America, America's Founding Fathers confirmed this self-evident truth in the Declaration of Independence which states  that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

And, so it is that America is founded on an idea, not on ethnicity nor territorial expansion,  but on the recognition  that our individual rights  and freedoms come to us from God.

May God Bless America.

* quoted from Rediscovering God in America by Newt Gingrich

In his book, Unionism Decayed 1997 – 2007, David Vance describes the hollow, craven nature of the Irish “peace process.”

With wit and exacting detail, Vance lays down for posterity a  blow-by-blow account of Northern Ireland political events from 1997 - 2007.  In his book, Vance articulates a rarely stated truth: after the 1992 IRA bombing on the London financial district, the UK government was unwilling to further invest in the defeat of the terrorists; the Irish “peace process” was never so much about peace, as surrender.   As Vance succinctly states: “ It became cheaper to buy off the IRA than to keep fighting them.” 

Over the past decade, thanks to the “peace process” promoted by the UK government and the Northern Ireland political elite, aided and abetted by both mainstream media and Northern Ireland religious establishments, Unionists have effectively been railroaded. Unionist desire to maintain British identity in Northern Ireland has been relegated to the past, swallowed up by IRA/Sinn Fein objectives.  The critical lesson of Vance’s book is that -as night follows day - surrender follows appeasement.

It’s only been 70 years since Neville Chamberlain sat down with Hitler to sign the Munich Agreement and one would think that the inadvisability of appeasement policies would still be obvious. But, sadly, this is not the case.  Current Western political climate looks favorably on compromises with brutal enemies, favoring the intoxicating promise of “peace” through negotiation.  Appeasement’s Siren Call is that it promises a nonconfrontational  “cheap” approach, the easy out. And so it is that we find ourselves with  the current US Democrat Presidential nominee, Barack Obama, publically stating his willingness to meet, without precondition, with Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader openly seeking the destruction of America, the Great Satan.

The role of a contrarian like Vance  - out-of-step with current group-think, at home with unfashionable ideas - is not to assuage the public, nor to persuade. Vance’s value lies in  the actual recording of  the historical  facts. It might take a while, but in the end, facts really do matter and the reality is that appeasement is inadequate and never can stop evil.   When reality finally overtakes wishful thinking, Vance’s book will be there,  providing context and perspective, allowing one to take full stock, to fight back against evil.

Don’t believe me. Believe Gary Kleck, one of the nation’s leading gun scholars: legal gun ownership lowers the homicide rate.

“Kleck says his latest research indicates that when gun ownership rises among noncriminals, homicide rates decline. When gun ownership among criminals rises, there is no clear effect on homicide rates. Getting rid of the D.C. law, of course, should have no effect on criminals, since they don't get their guns legally anway. It will only make it easier for law-abiding residents to own and use firearms.”

 

As many of you probably know, the US Supreme Court ruled today that the Washington D.C. ban on handguns and trigger-lock requirement were unconstitutional, that they violated the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld the Constitutional right of  US citizens to bear arms, to legally defend themselves.

Interestingly,  violent crime went up in D.C. after the handgun ban and trigger-lock requirements came into law in the DC municipality.  And while Washington D.C.’s violent crime was going UP,  nationwide violent crime was going DOWN.    Handgun bans do not stop gun crimes, but they do prevent law-abiding citizens from legally defending themselves with handguns.
 
Also interesting, I heard many people say today that they were happy with ruling because they felt that the the US Constitution gives them the right to bear arms, to self-defend.

I strongly disagree.  The US Constitution does not give anyone the right to bear arms, or in any way create the right to bear arms.   

My right to bear arms, to self-defend, is a God-given right.  Not one created by a piece of paper.  The US Constitution simply sets out in very explicit terms my God-given rights, and prevents the US Government from taking these rights away from me.

Dear Reader...I thought you would appreciate the distinction.

Manmade Global Warming is not really about science. Manmade Global Warming – pushed by the UN, first with Kyoto and most recently with the IPCC -  is a vehicle for promoting world socialism.  But, the inconvenient truth for those pushing Manmade Global Warming  is that China is now no. 1 in CO2 emissions. Will China be included with other developed nations when the call go out for emission reductions?   Not if Kofi Annan has anything to do with it.

According to Kofi Annan:

“Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for 'climate justice', saying that it was polluters who should pay for the effects of climate change, and not the poorest and most vulnerable.”

So, there we have it. As one of the poorest, China will not be  included with other developed nations when the calls go out for emission reductions.   Why? Because MMGW is  backdoor for socialism, for slowing growth in developed nations. MMGW is about justice.  Climate justice.  

Representative T. McCotter (R - Michigan) offers a primer in speaking  Democrat . 

At 2:20:    "Diplomacy" in Global Democrat  means "magic" in plain English.  Used in a sentence:

"Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled diplomacy"  actually means "Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled magic."

One of the many hats I wear is a  “chauffeur” hat. And, like all chauffeurs, I spend a lot of time waiting.   Recently, I found myself waiting outside of a Chinese class. In addition to mahjong and haggling, I‘ve noticed that the Chinese greatly value education and they actively encourage study.  Perhaps it is for this reason that I was offered a spot in the Beginning Chinese class, while I wait, and at no extra cost. In any case, I am now a proud student of Mandarin Chinese.

Which brings me to the subject of this post ....to your left is a traditional Mandarin Chinese character and it is found in Chinese words for “China,” “America,” and “United Kingdom.”    Look at the character closely.  Like all traditional Chinese characters, it contains a story.  The rectangular frame on the outside is a boundary, or a border.  The little square inside the border is land. And the vertical stroke, with two horizontal strokes and a dot?  Well…that’s a sword.    This character means “country,” or “kingdom.”  In traditional Mandarin, a country is a sovereign piece of physical land surrounded by a border and protected by the sword.
 
Now, some Western Liberals, and America’s Democrat Party, would have us believe that sovereign nations can exist without  “the sword."   Consider the longstanding muscular pacifism of Western Europe.   The “war is not the answer” crowd actively encourages the disbanding of Western military forces. Internationalists claim that a supra-power like the UN can, and should, have the final word over sovereign nation states and  Western Liberals in Europe and in America would have us believe that protecting the borders of nation states is optional.

I think our “peaceniks” are naïve and dangerously wrong, though.  Dangerously wrong.  We in the West should heed ancient Chinese wisdom: a country = physical land, with borders, protected by ”the sword.”   Anything  less and a country will cease to exist.

It’s not just the Morton Salt girl seeking shelter from the storm.  Bad news for those with their fortunes tied to Global Warming Panic….but great news for the rest of us:  Global Warming seems to have disappeared.

The Global Warming trend, observed during the 1980’s and the 1990’s, ceased in 1998.  Now, for almost 10 years, there has been a global COOLING trend.

John Coleman, founder of “The Weather Channel,” remarks:

"Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call “Interglacial periods”.  For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period.  That might well be called nature’s global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age.  Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.

Well, it is simply not happening.  Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares.  That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline.  Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years.  So, I ask Al Gore, where’s the global warming?

The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it.  He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns.  Oh, really.  We are supposed to be in a panic about man-made global warming and the whole thing takes a ten year break because of the lack of Sun spots.  If this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.

Click to read more ...

Refusing to be railroaded by neurotic alarmists, cynical socialists and political pandering, one vote at a time.

 

Abortion on demand -- good thing or bad thing?  The debate rages on, and it looks like Mother Nature is going to get the last word.  Mark Steyn says it best:

“… Sex-selective abortion is a fact of life in India, where the gender ratio has declined to 1,000 boys to 900 girls nationally, and as low as 1,000 boys to 300 girls in some Punjabi cities. In China, the state-enforced "one child" policy has brought about the most gender-distorted demographic cohort in global history, the so-called guang gun– "bare branches." If you can only have one kid, parents choose to abort girls and wait for a boy, to the point where in the first generation to grow to adulthood under this policy there are 119 boys for every 100 girls. In practice, a "woman's right to choose" turns out to mean the right to choose not to have any women. (my emphasis)

…By midcentury, when today's millions of surplus boys will be entering middle age, India and China are expected to account for a combined 50 percent of global GDP. On present trends, they will be the most male-heavy societies that have ever existed. “Smaller families may mean just a boy or a girl for liberal Democrats, but in other societies it means just a boy. The Indian writer Gita Aravamudan calls this the "female feticide." Colleen Carroll Campbell writes that abortion, "touted as the key to liberating future generations of women," has become instead "the preferred means of eradicating them." (my emphasis)

 Read the rest of the article.

Last weekend, The Rev. Michael Pfleger, longtime Obama ally and political supporter, stood at the pulpit of Trinity United Church  mocking Hilllary Clinton, and making racist remarks.

Here’s a sample:  imitating Hillary Clinton losing to Barack Obama, Pfleger sobbed:  “’I’m White! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show.”

Now,  please note that Trinity United is Obama’s church and Rev. Michael Pfleger is a longtime Obama supporter and friend. Not only did Obama arrange a $100,000 government earmark grant for a youth center at a Catholic church run by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, but Obama also had Rev. Pfleger on his Campaign Advisory Committee and featured  Rev. Michael Pfleger's endorsement on his website.  While Rev. Pfleger has just been scrubbed from Obama's website and removed from Obama's advisory committee, Obama's connection with Rev. Pfleger is, in fact,  deep and enduring.

I have two questions:

1. When will the Democrats learn that Identity Politics neither unite, nor lead to "social justice?"
 
2. What is wrong with the Trinity United Church? Are they intentionally sabotaging the candidacy of Barack Obama?
_{links:  nytimes.com  michellemalkin.com}  

Scott McClellan’s Bush-bashing tell-all is making quite a splash with the liberal MSM. It apparently puts George W. Bush in a very bad light.

At least we think it does. We won’t really know until 6/9/08 when the book is available.

I am  interested to note that Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs  links Scott McClellan’s book publisher to billionaire George Soros. The very same George Soros who stated in a 11/11/03 interview with The Washington Post that removing George W.Bush from office was the “central focus of my life” and “a matter of life and death.”

Who could have guessed it!?  George Bush’s nemesis Soros  arranges to publish a book that puts President Bush in a terribly bad light.  And the liberal media laps it up.  Will wonders never cease?

_{Link:Little Green Footballs}

Thank You and God Bless.
Photo by Michael Yon.

Freeman Dyson reviews:

_{A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies
by William Nordhaus
Yale University Press, 234 pp., $28.00}

_{Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto
edited by Ernesto Zedillo
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization/Brookings Institution Press, 237 pp., $26.95 (paper)}

While I don't agree with everything Dyson writes about global warming, his review is excellent and he makes two very interesting points:

 

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful. (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the be-lief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard. (my emphasis)

 

I agree with Dyson that environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion; however, I strongly disagree that the ethics of  environmentalism are sound, and that environmentalism has the moral high ground.  But then I never felt that socialism had the moral high ground.

HT: Instapundit.com

Perhaps you don’t remember the staged photos from the Hizb’Allah/Lebanon- Israeli War of 2006.  There was The Green Helmet Man, grieving, holding a dead child aloft. He was photographed multiple  times, in multiple locations, with different children and a grieving expression.  There was an ambulance, supposedly hit by a missile but showing little actual damage.  And a grieving woman who had lost her home; like the Green Helmet Man, she was photographed in numerous different locations, in front of multiple different “homes,” always grieving.  There were dust-free toys placed on top of piles of rubble,  like this one from slublog.com (linked below), and smoke and warplanes photoshopped over skylines. 

Although for a while during the war it seemed that fauxtography was everywhere, only the blogosphere showed  any interest in vetting the obviously  questionable images being produced in the Middle East.  Reuters, AP and other Western media were eager to take the faux photos at face value.  Western mainstream media were eager to allow Hizb’Allah to frame the war narrative, a narrative which holds that Israel is unquestionably the Aggressor.
 
In 2000, French journalist Enderlin and France2 broadcast a story of a young boy named Muhamed al Durah gunned down by Israelis. It was broadcast throughout the Middle East and did much to inflame passions against Israel and to create sympathy for Palestine.  

Like the fauxtography of 2006, the al Durah footage was highly questionable.  In 2004, Philippe Karsenty published an article making a credible claim that the footage had been staged.   Rather than refute the claim with factual evidence to the contrary, France2 sued Karsenty for defamation.  

Today, the French appeals court dismissed France2’s  defamation suit.  The al Durah broadcast was propoganda, a staging of a murder designed to malign Israel, a bit of drama put out for public propoganda purposes by Pallywood.

Today's dismissal is a small victory for truth.

Here are some sources if you want to read more:

Ambulance, Green Helmet Man, Grieving Woman, Toys in the Rubble, Scholarship, Muhamed al Durah

I keep writing about Mark Steyn and his case before the Canadian Human Rights Commission because I just can’t bear to look away.  I don’t want to move into the future, a future less free than the present, a future in which the right to give offense is no longer protected, in which offensive speech is a crime.

How has it come to this?

In her May 21, 2008  article titled “Mark Steyn vs. the ‘Sock Puppets',     Kathy Shaidle writes:

On June 2, Steyn and Maclean’s magazine — the nation’s oldest newsweekly — are obliged to defend themselves against charges of “flagrant Islamophobia” at a British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal….

…. Canadian Human Rights Tribunals have a 100% conviction rate on “hate speech” charges. According to the BC Human Rights Code, decisions brought down by that province’s Human Rights Tribunals have “the same force and effect” as “a judgment of the Supreme Court.”

So, “when the British Columbia ‘Human Rights’ Tribunal finds us guilty,” writes Steyn, “they are statutorily obligated to issue a cease-and-desist order that will have the effect of preventing Maclean’s running any writing on Islam by me or anybody of a similar bent — even though the plaintiffs have not challenged the accuracy of a single fact or statistic or quotation.”

Referring to his accusers, Mark Steyn says:

 “It’s not about who wins the argument. They’re the future of this country, and that’s that.”

This is the end of free speech as we know it, and I am heartsick.