Boku Haram, Freedom, Terrorism

Ruth Wisse: The Closing of the Collegiate Mind - WSJ.com:

Many that read this blog will recall that my favorite book outside the Bible is "The Closing of the American Mind" ... looking back in the blog I realize that it is time for me to re-read that book and do a blog on it. Here is a link to a column and discussion somewhat similar to this from last year for some background if interested.

The theme here is the ongoing destruction of Western Civilization, with the University being ground zero for the destruction of big L LIBERAL thought (allowing difficult, unpopular, ancient and often uncomfortable ideas to be discussed openly in the interests of true intellectual freedom. TRUE DIVERSITY, that of THOUGHT!)

But today, the university is on the side of Boku Haram:

Assaults on intellectual and political freedom have been making headlines. Pressure from faculty egged on by Muslim groups induced Brandeis University last month not to grant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the proponent of women's rights under Islam, an intended honorary degree at its convocation.

The US left has no problems hammering on Christianity for any views on abortion, gay marriage, etc which the left dislikes, but it REALLY hates to see the US be critical of Islam in ANY way -- even Hillary's State Department couldn't bring themselves to admit that Boku Haram was a terrorist organization.

I love Ruth's closing paragraph. If we lived in a country with a free press, everyone ought to understand the links between American universities being fine with Islam not educating girls, the State Department being unwilling to go after an organization that obviously is a danger to girls seeking education, and that overall corruption of freedom of thought in our country. Something that was once a shared American value!

In short, let the university become as contentious as Congress. In Nigeria, Islamists think nothing of seizing hundreds of schoolgirls for the crime of aspiring to an education. Here in the United States, the educated class thinks nothing of denying an honorary degree to a fearless Muslim woman who at peril of her life, and in the name of liberal democracy, has insisted on exposing such outrages to the light. The struggle for freedom is universal; would that our universities were on its side.

Indeed. It would be nice to have the US State Department on the side of freedom as well!



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High Taxes *DO* Fix Income Inequality!

http://blog.heritage.org/2014/05/11/american-companies-escaping-europe/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

I DO believe that high taxes "work"!

"Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of" is as true as the computer maxim "garbage in, garbage out", or the standard that we need to remember relative to the deficit and all forms of bubbles; "If something can't go on forever, it won't".  Reality still works, we just need to be SURE that we really want it to work!

The US has the highest corporate taxes in the world. If you follow the link it will take you to the very liberal "Poltifact" that is forced to admit it IS a true statement for CORPORATE taxes even though they try their best to soften the statement some by bringing other taxes. Guess what? If you are a CORPORATION, deciding to exit the country with the HIGHEST taxes on your INCOME is pretty much a no-brainer!
I know it is evil from the "liberal" perspective, but corporations are actually "in it for profit"!

The US is losing jobs, companies and high earners. I love the comment from the linked NPR article ... "This was not a gradual change. It was a sudden spike. It's a story of dominoes falling, one after another, leading to an unexpected outcome." Well, "unexpected" in their universe, where cause and effect relative to taxes was declared "repealed" ... right along with the thought that mortgages could be handed out with "affirmative action" and there would never be a housing bubble, we can keep running high deficits forever, etc. ... There tends to be a BIG difference between declaring reality to be repealed and it actually going away! 

The is a lot of "unexpected" in the NPR universe! Not a surprise to me or readers of the blog, I reported on it last year at this time as well. Last year there was some old data for 2010 that indicated 1,500 folks, last year it looks like maybe 3K ... and on it will go. The old blog reports on some conjecture that given the fact of income inequality, it doesn't take many to have a LARGE difference. Sorta like shooting the top 5 QBs in the NFL would really lower the level of QB play. (hopefully Vikings fans will not get any ideas! ... one has to be a bit worried about the mental faculties of folks that wear horn hats and goldilocks!)

Oh, and the US is well in the way to making "Income Inequality" here the equivalent of wanting to climb Everest ... all the way up you have to carry higher and higher tax rates, and as you near the top, there is every sign that they are going to try to kill you! Oh sure, if you are a TP member, you may get some grace, but unless you inherited it, or really lucked into it, a lot of the folks oriented toward taking the risks and doing the work of getting to high income are just not inclined to bow and scrape to the likes of BO and to live in fear of losing everything ala a Sterling if they happen to have one too many and say the "wrong thing"!  (as defined by the PC police on a given day). 

We are actually WELL down the road of "fixing income inequality"! You are in the TOP 10% if your income is $115K today! Lots of calculations show that a single mother of 3 on 100% government dole in most states would need to make $70K in order to improve her "effective income"!  Why that is LESS than **2X**!!!  2x is a crappy $23K Honda Gold Wing vs $46K Harley CVO!! Sure, there are guys like Leno out there than can have every bike and car ever made, but is that REALLY bothering you??? That is 1%, you don't even have to SEE them if you don't want to. Plus, 90% of us are already separated by LESS than somebody making twice as much as you even if you are NOT WORKING! 

Why, this is nirvana! ... but I guess not, so we will have to siphon off a few thousand more top corporations and individuals so we can all feel better about everyone in the US being reduced to riding a Vespa ... I wonder if they make loud pipes and extra chrome for those?

Gestapo Fails to Get Walker

George Will: Wisconsin prosecutors abuse the law for partisan ends - The Washington Post:

TP (formerly Democrats) were using their enforcement arm, the Gestapo (formerly US "justice" system) in a naked ruse to harass, and if they got lucky, destroy Scott Walker. Walker, governor of WI is one of the last Americans to SUCCESSFULLY (for the moment) take on TP and it's Government Workers wing relative to the issue of the State Government being used as bag man to collect Party funds from TP members working for the government in unions.

So Walker has faced a recall effort plus all forms of legal and illegal harassment from the propaganda wing in the MSM as well as efforts like the one covered here for TP to hopefully destroy him, but at least send a STRONG cautionary message to others about what happens if you dare to take on TP!

Here is a nice summary from the article of a significant mission of major parts of the TP apparatus in all branches of government including "justice", as well as MSM and the "education" system:

The purpose of all this was to suppress conservative political advocacy by consuming the time and other resources of conservative leaders, and by making people wary of collaborating with those targeted by a secretive criminal investigation.

"Suppression of conservative political advocacy" as well as conservatives in general and conservative thought in all forms is pretty much the MAIN mission of TP. Naturally they claim it is "helping people", but "people" are TP members and voters (legal, illegal, dead, or imaginary) in their lexicon, and conservatives are "targets" for the NSA, IRS, "justice" system, regulatory systems, or just harassment and hopefully  destruction.

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Charles, Benghazi, TP

Charles Krauthammer: How to do the Benghazi hearings right - The Washington Post:



Politically, Benghazi is yet another case where the Rs (Republican) have already lost, and TP (The Party - Democrat) and it's propaganda wing (the MSM) are deciding how to best damage the Rs on the issue.



Two strategies present themselves, both of which will be used:

1. The current and standard one which will continue to be used is "boycott". If you only watch MSM, you don't even know the content of the new revelations that Charles covers in the article. All you MAYBE know is that the Rs are trying to create some sort of "investigation". Since Benghazi is a word so seldom used in the MSM other to say it is some "R fantasy" or something equivalently derogatory, it is hard for the standard American to even explain what it is all about. Independently of wether TP decides to actually boycott the hearings, the MSM will continue to boycott the story! 
2. Use the issue of the investigation to attack the Rs. Since TP and their minions in the MSM have no concern for "whatever" happened at Benghazi, since a few lives lost is a small price to pay for BO being re-elected, no matter what the circumstance, it is perfectly reasonable to morph any investigation as the R's "failing to focus on the economy and jobs". Someone astute might say, "Isn't that inconsistent when TP and BO have flitted from BOcare to, Climate Change, to Crimea, to kidnapped girls, to whatever -- including some hand wringing over Sterling's racial comments. To which I would remind you -- what part of Consistency IS NOT an issue!! are you failing to understand! 

As I've said many times, if you put this shoe on the other foot with an R in the WH in 2012, they would have CERTAINLY failed to be re-elected, because the "Sargent Schultz" defense used by BO along with the little "it was all the film, no Al Qaeda involved" would have yielded the litany of:

• If he doesn't know, he is incompetent 
• Since he didn't come clean right away about Al Quaeda, then he is LYING ... 
• and since he is LYING, then it is a COVER UP!!! ... and if you are an R, then you are "Nixon or worse than Nixon" ... and he would have been gone. 

But in this case, we see the TP version ... see one and 2, no problem!



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Cotton Explains Truth, Honor, Benghazi, BO

Tom Cotton Savages Democrats on Benghazi | Power Line:



If America ever stages a comeback, it's roots will be in the same kind of character that it has aways been. The kind of character that was once called "American".  THIS is the kind of character we once admired!!



The video is under 2 min, WELL worth your time!



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BO Tells Big Donors "Too Much Money in Politics"

Obama says political cynicism could hurt Democratic turnout in November | Fox News:



How could people ever get cynical? The first thing to go when you are liberal is a total loss of your sense of irony. It would be impossible to make this up!

"Obama said the political system faces challenges from legislative procedures, a partisan media and too much money in politics. But he said the main cause for gridlock was fundamental differences between what Democrats believe and "what this particular brand of Republicans in Congress believes.""

Those that don't understand surrealism don't listen to BO enough. You are telling a bunch of rich folks at a 10-30K a place fundraiser that "there is too much money in politics"? Golly, I wonder if anyone could figure out how to remedy THAT???

Obama spoke before about 90 contributors who paid from $10,000 to $32,400 to attend. Among those attending were Hollywood luminaries Barbra Streisand, James Brolin and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Clearly "The Party" (TP, formerly "Democratic") means that since there is ANY non-TP money and ANY "partisan media" (media not just 100% TP propaganda), well it "makes it tough! Not to mention, there are "challenges from legislative procedures", you know, like the filibuster, oh, damn -- got rid of that excuse already!  Well there is still that tired old Constitution and supposedly "checks and balances", although BO seems to pay no attention to that as he simply edicts changes in BOcare with no thought of consulting congress.



BO and his big donors see the finish line for them as not being very far away. There are a few pesky elected officials in Washington that have "beliefs" that BO doesn't like -- things like God, family, a work ethic, private property, freedom from being attacked by the IRS, NSA or other government agencies ... maybe even the privacy to hold a conversation and believe that if anyone is taping it, they are a criminal because they are taping it!



You know, that kind of stupid thinking -- BO is lamenting it isn't fully stamped out!

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Obsession, Easy to Reid

Harry Reid Sinks Deeper Into the Abyss | Power Line:



The video is 30sec ... Koch brothers are the two richest men on the planet! THEY are a major CAUSE of Climate Change???



Harry is clearly off his meds.



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IBM Hursley, Places I've Been "In the News"

IBM Hursley Park: Where Big Blue buries the past, polishes family jewels • The Register:



Well, the slow day tech news at least. Somehow IBM Hursley was a place on my travel itinerary from the late '80s right up to the end of my career  for at least 5 trips I loved the big fat pheasants from the area, the little pubs, the "minces" at Christmas, and the myriad of accents.



The early April trip in the late '80s with a week of superb weather and a couple short excursions including Portsmouth where the "Ark Royal" British carrier was in port and London to see Parliament, Westminster, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square in like "an hour"  ... the life of a business traveller --  "I was there". Well, sorta.



We almost always stayed right next to Winchester Cathedral at the "Wessex" ... I remember walking over there early in the AM before we headed into work and just being in awe of the age, the scale, the more than 100 year building schedule. The breakfasts were pretty good --  great sausage and bacon. Never got fully used to the baked beans or cooked tomatoes for breakfast. Oh, and on one trip the bartender (Chinese) at the Wessex had idea how to make a Martini! So much for "shaken, not stirred".



The little Dolphin Inn Pub right in Hursley Park is a classic, and it was there that I got to have "Doom Bar" beer on tap!



Oh, and the memory of being in all day business meetings, jet lagged to the max having just the devil of a time staying awake!



I do recall that we wandered through the museum the last time I was there in 2011 -- so at least "The Register" part of the MSM occasionally tells the truth!











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7% Of Journalists are Very Courageous.

The PJ Tatler » Just 7% of Journalists Identify as Republicans:



It takes a lot of balls to be a reporter and admit that you vote Republican (even "secretly" ... how many examples do you need of "it got out"). WTH, are you directly paid by somebody? Shouldn't you just be a lobbyist"?



I also find the 28% who self-identify to be at least more brave and honest than most!



Let's face it, "independent" is pretty much "I always vote Democrat, but I like to claim I'm above political stuff!" which means that the number are about the same as always ... the MSM is 70%+ Democrat and in a good year around 10% Republican.



That is as level as the media playing field gets in this country!



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Snowpack Shrinks 86% in ONE YEAR!!

‘Houston, we have a dumbass problem’ | Watts Up With That?:

In case someone quotes this completely foolish item to you, at least now you know.

Now we are down toe ONE YEAR effects of "Climate Change"? Can we get better than that? I'm, HOPING that the variation between the warmest day of summer this year and the coldest day last winter is LARGE ... although I must say I'm getting a bit concerned it won't even come close to my hopes!

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TP (The Party) as Medieval Indulgence

Liberals: Exempt from Scrutiny | National Review Online:

 "We are told that the Kennedys, the Pelosis, the Kerrys, and others like them are noble because they vote against their class interests. But they really do not; they vote for them. Liberalism is now the domain of the elite, and antithetical to the aspirations of the upper middle class that lacks the capital and tastes of the 0.1 percent. The higher the taxes, the more numerous the regulations, the greater the redistribution, so all the more the elite liberal distances himself from those less cool who breathe down his neck, and the less guilty he feels about the growing divide between him and the poor he worries about, but never worries about enough to associate with.

Liberalism professes a leftwing ideology, but these days it has absolutely no effect on the lives of those who most vehemently embrace it. In other words, being liberal is professionally useful and psychologically better than Xanax, but we need not assume any more that it is a serious belief."

Good column that covers some of the specifics of Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman and others -- as I've often said, you CAN'T really be a hypocrite when you don't truly claim to believe in anything!

Little long for the benefit, but generally worth it.

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It's Been Hot on BO's Home World

White House Report Says Climate Change Has Moved 'Into the Present' - NBC News.com:



I'm often mystified as to what the planet that BO comes from is like, but apparently it has been hot there recently!



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5-4, Heartland, Working for God Through Human Excellence

Supreme Court ruling allows prayer at New York town council meeting - NY Daily News:



The saddest part of slavery in the US was that if ended up forcing a trial over secession for the wrong reasons and unsurprisingly the trial ended with the wrong answer -- on secession, though not on slavery.



I'm not a believer in the maxim that "war (or violence) never solves anything" -- it solved Nazi Germany, the US break from England, and Saddam Hussein to name a few. But that DEFINITELY doesn't mean it typically or even frequently solves things. Perhaps fighting primarily over people (Hitler, Saddam, King George) may be more productive than fighting over ideas? A later discussion.



Anytime a court is deciding anything on prayer, the court believes itself to be WAY more "supreme" than it actually is. If it is getting correct answers unanimously, then there might be cause for optimism, but 5-4 says "Gird your loins", there is a court that is WAY beyond it's pay grade!



Prayer, political speech -- the right to be a "Denier" (freedom of thought),  2nd amendment ... these are non-negotiable. If another civil war is required to get some set of US states that still believe in "Under God", actual diversity of thought, and the right of free people to be armed, then so be it. Blood is a high cost, but it is cheap next to tyranny. There will be a point where HOPEFULLY the secession standard can be reset and done peacefully. Ideally with some connected "coterminous" column of states -- Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, TX and no doubt a few others.



Founding a Christian, pro-business, pro-economic freedom,  pro-competition, minimal social safety net, balanced budget, flat tax, gold standard ...  FREE republic with ACTUAL liberty and justice for those that agree with the principles. Those that do not can easily move to the "Socialist States".  Let's call it "Heartland" -- a heart with a cross on it and the north star maybe? (I may be getting ahead of myself)

Essentially, the original US Constitution with the nation being explicitly Christian this time, but STILL not establishing a state church. Definitely however making it absolutely clear that the God of the Bible is where the unalienable parts of freedom flow and are NOT subject to review by some court. If the people want to change the Constitution, fine ... 2/3 majority of both houses and then 2/3 of the states!



MUCH more power in the states and LOCALLY. MUCH reduced Federal government -- having a non-paid federal congress meet every two years is about right.



Economically, such a nation would  have the advantage of energy; fossil, wind, bio and solar as well as PEOPLE looking to compete and succeed in the world via hard work rather than handouts.  It would be one of the largest food sources to the world, Ideally this ought to be bloodless with an "American Union" and "NATOish" defense agreement linking the old failed socialist nation with the new capitalist reality / liberty based  future.

The decline of America in the world is tragic. Canada is now ahead of it on the business climate front, perhaps a strong relationship between Canada, "Heartland"  and even Mexico based on a real Ricardian comparative advantage rather than faulty political posturing could ignite a resurgence of North America to counterpoise the rise of China, India and Russia.



It actually looks like a nice day out! Perhaps the country we once loved isn't fixable, but maybe that is a good thing?  I didn't even get into a new education system, thorium reactors, everyone in the militia (the Oldster US is going to be HUNGRY -- perhaps their army will have walkers with weapons?) ... thinking of a bright future is so much more uplifting than decline and death under the crushing stench of BO!



A freedom based, excellence focused, heavily technological and hands-on system of education with no unions, purposefully competitive and vocationally focused is enough to get someone believing in very bright future all on it's own!

Europe and "The Socialist States of America" may well appreciate the foreign aid in the near future as their aging masses fall into the dustbin of history trying to tell people if they can pray or not!



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Never Enough: Americas Limitless Welfare State

Link to Book

A well written and fairly easy to follow discussion of how "liberals" have hi-jacked the American experiment, but it is far from ONLY a criticism of liberals. The author honestly set out to try to discover a limiting principle for "liberalism" and of course found none. Liberalism is like an invasive species with no predators -- it consumes all that is available until it's "niche" (the country or countries) that are it's host environment are destroyed.

Why? Because as Ayn Rand said, means are finite, but human desires are infinite.

or as Steven Hayward said in the foreword:

Ultimately what is at stake is not money or prosperity as much as self-government itself. Voegeli explains: “The danger liberalism poses to the American experiment comes from its disposition to deplete rather than replenish the capital required for self-government.” 

This book touches on the aspect that "liberalism" is an organism that abhors any kind of limits, so "limited government is anathema to it's existence:

When [FDR] took office in 1933 the separation of powers effectively ceased to function for the first time in a major domestic crisis other than civil war.

As I've stated in the blog many times, and one would assume would be obvious to the most casual of observers of Europe and the US:

“there is now a broad understanding that the social democratic project itself is unsustainable: that it has grown wildly beyond the principles of its inception and that the consequences of this are not only unaffordable, but positively damaging to national life and character.”16

I could go on endlessly quoting and there are close to 100 decent quotes along with a lot of excellent and very specific charts / analysis of US since FDR, the "Reagan attempt" that was the ONLY significant, yet still unsuccessful attempt to slow the Welfare State.

He then covers our current sad state --

• "limited government" Constitutionally destroyed as of the '30s and being trampled more each day. 
• A people addicted to benefits for the "most needy 100%" with all but the top 10% believing that they will be net importers of government largesse from others pockets. 
• The ever tightening screws on the smaller and smaller percentage of people still working, and detailed analysis of the futility of ever being able to transfer anything approaching enough money from that smaller and smaller group in order to "reduce inequality" -- in fact, why government transfers directly contribute to income inequality by rewarding behaviors that keep you poor (single parent family) and continually punish attempts to get off the bottom (marginal effects of moving up a level in income and losing government benefits)
• Lots of solid analysis of why libertarianism has no chance, and conservatism must be VERY careful if it seeks to have any power left at all ... 

In summary, while he doesn't state it as directly as I do, we are effectively screwed -- and likely were once we allowed FDR to sell us the false idea that "happiness" rather than the PURSUIT of happiness was a right -- it isn't, and of course it can't be!

MAYBE conservatives can slow the reckoning. MAYBE some other pair can come to where he says that Clinton and Gingrich were before the Lewinsky scandal broke --- supposedly in secret meetings trying to means test FICA / Medicare and allow private accounts. But he doubts it, as do I.

Essentially it is a book that does a better job of covering a lot of the stuff that I have covered over the years from a better writer, with a little more hope than I have been ground down to. I heartily recommend it.

"The Party" (TP) -- Sargent Schultz Defense (SSD)

Sargent Schultz - I know nothing, I am not here - I did not even get up this morning! - YouTube:

I can't go too nuts with the acronyms, but the latest Benghazi revelations with TP slipping into what I think of as the "Sargent Schultz Defense" --- "I know NOTHING, I hear NOTHING!!".

This is a defense not available to Non-TP, because the IMMEDIATE response from TP (especially their MSM propaganda arm) is "There are two choices, 1). They are lying or 2). They are "incompetent" ... because a Non-TP executive is NOT allowed to "not know".

Such a defense by a Non-TP ALWAYS means that they are either grossly incompetent, or lying ..., and most likely BOTH!

Ah the old TV shows.  Hogan's Heroes was a lot of fun -- but as the US starts to look more and more like Stalag 13 with leadership only a little less competent than Schultz, Klink, Burkhalter, and Hochstetter, but far more nasty, one begins to wonder who really won that war!
We could use some guys like Colonel Hogan and his wily men!

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