North Coast Online

By Gosh, We'll Just Plan Our Way Out Of This Mess

Donn Esmonde starts out his column today with that most patronizing of liberal racial platitudes:  minorities should be spread evenly throughout the community.  I'll give him credit for admitting that what he calls "segregation" here isn't caused by racism; it's more the fault, he claims, of the suburbs' supposedly high cost of housing and the lack of public transport.

The problem is, you can’t live on a lot of streets unless you have the bucks. The suburbs have weak public transit and lack lower-income housing. For the most part, only folks who can afford a house and a car can afford to live there. The segregation is economic, but — because minorities are disproportionately poor — it means that it’s racial as well. It does not have to be that way.

Oh, he sighs, if we could only be like, get ready, "other cities regions".

Other regions made laws to bring have-mores and have-lesses closer together. Other regions saw that separate-but- unequal towns, villages and neighborhoods make the community weaker. Other regions saw that warehousing the poor in cities only deepened problems.

City schools filled with baggageheavy kids from bleak streets do not spawn many success stories, no matter how good their teachers are. Uneducated kids are more likely to turn to crime, to end up on welfare, to be a burden to a community — instead of a jobholding, tax-paying asset.

Other regions saw economic — and racial — segregation as a problem and did something about it.

This whole thing ends up a plea to support regionalism and regional planning.  He never does get around to naming all those other regions that have done so much to erase supposed racial economic injustice -- just one -- the Valhalla of meddlesome control-freaks everywhere, Portland.

Portland, Ore., decades ago drew a growth boundary, limiting new development beyond a perimeter. It turned growth back toward the city, so you do not have Buffalo-style streets of abandoned, worthless houses. It kept jobs reachable to all and avoided the cost of new roads, bridges and sewers that come with sprawl.

While Portland is, no doubt, an excellent example of nanny-government regional planning, it's a very odd choice to illustrate solving racial economic problems.  In 2005 the Census Bureau estimated that that the non-white (minority) population of Buffalo was 49.7% of the total.  Portland's minority residents constituted just 20.5% of its.  The comparison starts out shaky at best.

And as for all that turning "growth back toward the city"?  Well, after "decades" of trying to dictate where Portlanders may live; and for all the thousands of trees that have been killed to report on the great social experiment that is Portland; and despite all the praise lavished on it for its foresight -- the City of Portland's population dropped by about 16,000 from 2000 to 2005.

And with all that public transport and all those jobs being brought "closer to the people", the percentage of Portland's residents living below the poverty line increased from 13.1% of the population in 2000 to 17.8% in 2005 -- that's a 36% hike. Now, it's only fair to point out one of the good things that happened during this period -- the median housing value in the city increased from $176,000 (in 2005 dollars) to $225,900.

If regional planning could accomplish that in Buffalo, I doubt it would be a hard sell at all.  But I'm not terribly sure that those extra 36% of Portlanders living below the poverty line were much heartened by all the cheery real estate "Sold" signs, in fact it cause me to wonder if maybe rents increased, too.

The truth is that these huge government planning schemes don't ever do much to affect the overall economic conditions of something so big as a city much at all.  Billions are spent on the priorities of a relative few and while things look different, the underlying strengths or weaknesses of the city continue on as they would have anyway.  Houston, for example, which is famous for no planning and no zoning had much the same results in population and poverty as micro-managed Portland during the first five years of the century.   

Before we let the local government-planning zealots loose with their very own new bureaucracy, we must make them prove by specific example where their ideas have actually shown the results they claim.  During the 90's we were regaled by the wonderful goings-on in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.  We all know now that they're still just as bad off as we are.  More recently, Milwaukee is the city we're told to emulate but it's hemorrhaging people, too.

Well, if the next role model is to be Portland, I'm not convinced yet.  Prove it.  Regionalism in Buffalo started out a decade ago as an effort to reduce government overlap, but it's been hijacked by by a small bunch of people congenitally disposed to telling the rest of us how we should live.  We'd do well to ignore them.

Did I See Karl Rove Wearing A Monocle?

The editorial board has obviously been reading 'Kos' again.

Vegetables Are Cheap

Some editor at the Buffalo News evidently lost his nerve.

Few things cause the average American more hostility to public assistance programs than the anecdotal sight of a fat parent with one or two fat children in tow buying groceries with food stamps. [emphasis mine]

The "anecdotal sight"? 

It isn't the anecdotal sight (if there is such a thing) of fat Food Stamp recipients loading up a cart with steaks and junk food that galls Americans, it's actually watching them do it.  Fat food stamp recipients exist.  If they were only anecdotes then why would the board publish an editorial claiming that they're hungry and need help? 

Help from the government of course.  Help not only to pay for the food, but help now to choose it too.  Hillary's sponsored a bill to do just that, though as of this posting, they're still expected to anecdotally cook it themselves. 

What If?

If today's media had reported World War II.

May 31, 1941

The sinking of HMS Hood, and the loss of 1,400 British sailors, is only the latest in the series of disasters that have impacted Britain since Mr Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. Our army was forced to retreat at Dunkirk, resulting in a loss of many million pounds worth of heavy equipment. Our cities have been bombed, and something like 40,000 of our citizens have been killed. Even now, merchant shipping is being attacked by U-boats, and it is by no means certain that adequate supplies of military equipment–or even of food–can continue to reach our island nation.

All of these disasters and failures were a foreseeable consequence of the policy of military adventurism pursued by Mr Churchill..a policy very different from the diplomatically-based policy that had been recommended by Lord Halifax. It cannot be stressed enough that this is a unilateral policy–other nations do not seem to share Mr Churchill’s obsessions. The United States, although happy to sell us military supplies, has been most unwilling to commit forces. Even the Communists in Russia have had the sober judgment to come to a diplomatic modus vivendi with Germany, rather than pursuing a military solution.

Read the whole thing.

Washington On 50 Carbon Credits A Day

I don't read the Buffalo News Travel Section (too exhausted from the editorials I suppose,) and so missed the gem that this letter-writer mentions.

I read the article on the April 29 travel page titled, “Enjoy a family vacation in Washington, D.C.” I was interested in “what to do” because some family members will be traveling there in the near future. While some of the ideas seemed good, when I got down to the fifth paragraph, I was shocked at the statement of the author, Eileen Ogintz.

She said: “Show the kids the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and tell them how many Americans protested that war.” I, and others I spoke to, thought that this was a very insensitive remark. Ogintz should realize that if it weren’t for the servicemen and women who gave up their lives for our freedom, she would not be able to have such inconsiderate statements published. It would have been better if she had said: “Let’s honor all those whose names are on the Vietnam Wall.” [emphasis mine]

Truly appalling.  It would be like taking the kids to the Martin Luther King Memorial and telling them how many Americans were killed in the race riots that followed his death.  Rather misses the point of the monument, don't you think?
 

The Chris Matthews Show Goes To The Reagan Library

Last night's Republican debate was fascinating -- no, not so much the candidates or their answers -- but because its presentation by MSNBC was a really a caricature of a Republican debate.  From liberal host Chris Matthews (oh, yes he is) to the panel and the questions asked, it was clear that this was a show designed by Democrats for Democrats.

The left may be fascinated by questions such as "tell me what you hate most about America," but it would never occur to anyone on the right to even ask it.  It was designed specifically to trip the candidates up, not to bring to light their opinions on the issues that matter to the Republican primary voter.  It was just as dishonest as that sophomoric interview question, "name one of your weaknesses,"  and it was asked in the manner of, "do you still beat your wife?" 

The best answer I thought of was "smug, liberal talk-show hosts who think they're capable of moderating a presidential debate."  But that would have been rude and no Republican would behave that way in front of a camera.  Truly shameful question.

The other telling area was the focus on the war in Iraq and on President Bush.  There again, those are not particularly hot topics on the right.  There's virtual unanimity that we must win the war and while there's disappointment over Bush's high spending (aided by Democrats, of course,) there's little appetite to bash him.  The bias extended even to the coverage this  morning by NPR.

On the morning news show, the announcer highlighted the debate by mentioning that Rudy Giuliani was the only candidate who favored legal abortion and Mitt Romney was the only one in favor of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  That was it -- two left-wing issues from a right-wing debate.  But NPR cuts it right down the middle, don't they?

I mean that's what they tell us.  Yeah, right (no pun intended.)

One more.  The candidates were asked if they believe in evolution.  Fair question, you say -- if you're a Democrat.  But the Democratic candidates weren't asked, for example, if they believe in God.  Or how about this one, "do you deny that cutting taxes spurs the American economy?"  I didn't hear Hillary have to respond to that.

In the end I'll give the Republican candidates credit for not running away from what they surely knew would be a hostile evening.  But such is media life for Republicans, they know they'll have to deal with it.  The Democrats ran scared from a debate to be televised on Fox News, but that only highlighted their inability and lack of desire to argue their beliefs in a setting that isn't stage-managed specifically for them by their like-minded journalist-friends.

As has been pointed out [Coulter maybe?], if they're too scared to confront Brit Hume, can we really trust them to face down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Principle

Hugo Chavez has made another pronouncement.  Venezuela Threatens to Nationalize Banks.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to nationalize the country's banks and largest steel producer, accusing them of unscrupulous practices.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said. "If banks don't agree with this, it's better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

Chavez also warned the government could take over steel producer Sidor, which is majority controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA.

After having already effectively nationalized private property and the oil industry, it would only make sense that Chavez would now go after the banks and manufacturing.  In the U.S., the left will be strangely silent.  It dare not openly express approval, but there's certainly no great disappointment either that  Chavez is gradually doing away with his countrymen's right to keep what they've worked for.

Despite the socialist failures of Russia, China, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Albania, Lithuania, Poland, Cuba, Mongolia,  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, North Korea, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan, there's always the chance that the next workers' paradise might just work.  After all, if you live in the capitalist United States, why would you worry much over the fate of the poor schmucks in Venezuela or the rest?

 

 

By Definition

Opinionjournal.com highlights the recent mayoral race in evidently uberliberal New Paltz.   I just loved this quote from one of the town's electors.

"I was really gung-ho for West when he first ran," Judy Swallow of New Paltz     said. "The sadness with Jason is the fame, perhaps, got in the way of some     of the issues."

She voted for Dungan for a few reasons, namely his interests in ecology     and sustainability. She said it might have been difficult for West to honor     such issues in the face of a proposed 15 percent property tax cut.

I didn't like the tax cut," she said. "I felt it was pandering to the voters." . . .

That about says it all, doesn't it, fellow conservatives?

Guess Which One's Winning

Maybe John Edwards is right and there really are two Americas:  a rational one and a loony one. 

In A Moment Of Weakness

I hate myself.  I gave Rosie's blog a hit tonight.  Drudge made me do it.

How Ya' Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm?

For decades, environmentalists have been shaming the American public for our profligate love-affair with the automobile.  Why can't we be more like the Europeans who have demonstrated over and over again their preference for mass transit and fuel-sipping sleds cars?  It increasingly becomes obvious, though, that the Euros aren't that different from us.

There's just one thing the common driver doesn't like: Cars with low gas consumption. Volkswagen's three-liter Lupo -- so called because it used as little as three liters per 100 kilometers (close to 80 miles per gallon) -- was no car for the common man. It was intended for do-gooders, the environmentally conscious, but it turns out there are less of them than the Wolfburg-based auto company thought. Demand for the energy-saving car was too low and the company stopped producing the model in 2005. Good mileage, it turned out, isn't a priority for German car buyers.

Buyers, it seems, are providing producers with the perfect alibi. What are we supposed to do, the CEOs of Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Volkswagen ask? How are they supposed to reach the low target values for CO2 emissions if customers just keep buying big heavy cars?

It may just be that they used to put up with those ridiculous little cars because they didn't have the money to buy anything else.  But as incomes and wealth have risen in Europe, the Europeans are demonstrating a very human characteristic -- they like to spend it on convenience, comfort and -- yes -- ego.

Maybe we Americans aren't the uniquely short-sighted and selfish creatures we've been led to believe we are.   We just got rich first.  Only one thing left for the enviros to do now -- figure out a way to keep us poor.  And, trust me, they're already hard at work on that project.

[UPDATE:] John Edwards (who's already made his $50 million with no more CO2 emissions than his own voice) is on board.

Finally It Can Be Told

Pravda reveals the real reason behind Don Imus's firing.

Missing Emails -- Again

The Buffalo News Seems To Us column on Karl Rove's missing emails.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Americans who were even slightly aware of the news from 1972 to 1974 must have felt an odd tingle this week when the White House revealed that e-mails sought by Congress for investigations into the firings of federal prosecutors were missing. Who can forget the protracted fight over the audiotapes President Nixon secretly made in the Oval Office — or the regret of many supporters that he simply didn’t destroy them.

You don't have to go back to Watergate to find missing White House documents.  Why, it doesn't seem possible does it, but the last administration also had its own email problems.  Remember the Buddhist temple kerfuffle?

The California Buddhist temple that served as the site of a controversial 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign event has been notified that it likely to be indicted, say its lawyers.

Vice President Al Gore attended an April 1996 event at the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights that drew considerable attention after it was revealed that donors in attendance were illegally reimbursed by the temple.

Hsi Lai Nuns have already received immunity from prosecution, but the temple itself can be prosecuted for campaign-finance violations.

Gore's story about the event evolved as reporters asked more questions about it. He initially described it as a "community outreach" event, then later acknowledged that he knew beforehand that it was "finance-related."

It evolved from media-ignored kerfuffle to full-blown scandal during the run-up to the 2000 presidential campaign.  And Al Gore's emails from around the time that the sweet nuns had helped him with his campaign  were mysteriously found to have gone missing. 

Despite a year-long effort to restore them, the emails were never found.  Everything old is, indeed, new again, but I feel an odd tingle every time the Buffalo News editorial staff demonstrates mass amnesia over anything that happened in the White House between 1992 and 2000.

Saving The Environment

I've come up with a new idea to ease the conscience of seafood-lovers (and make some cashola,) lobster offsets.

The Po-Mo's Amongst Us

I think, no, I'm sure you'll want to read David Thompson's Peddling Stupidity.

“Postmodern prose is perhaps best approached as an exercise in posturing and phonetics, of couching slim and trite observations in needlessly Byzantine language… Efforts to fathom deep meaning, or, very often, meaning of any kind, are generally exhausting and rarely rewarded. More often, what you’ll find is essentially a pile of language, carefully disorganised so as to obscure a lack of content.”

Thanks to the blogging psychoanalyst, Shrinkwrapped, I came across a doctoral dissertation called, rather implausibly, Quantum Feminist Mnemotechnics: the Archival Text, Digital Narrative and the Limits of Memory. The work in question, by “radical cyber-feminist” Carolyn G. Guertin, is apparently the basis of a forthcoming book of the same name. Faced with such an imposing title, one can practically hear the boundaries of human knowledge squealing as they expand. Naturally, I had to find out more.

It's worth the ride.

Hating The Good For Being Good

We all know that the United States is a favorite target of human rights groups, environmental activists and assorted other bleeding-hearts not because it's such an offender, but because they know we're more likely to respond to their complaints than, oh, I don't know, Zimbabwe for example.  Here's an analogy: Greenpeace continues to target Apple on environment.

The Next Generation

Why are young liberal activists so often such little, um, shits?

White House adviser Karl Rove was confronted by more than a dozen protesters who blocked his car and threw things as he tried to leave a speaking engagement at American University, officials said.

Rove was attending a guests-only discussion of electoral politics Tuesday night sponsored by the American University College Republicans.

I know, I know.  They were just blowing off steam.  Aren't they cute?

Die, Bush-Lover!

Tony Snow's cancer has returned and has evidently spread to his liver.  Even his detractors, one might think, would call off the hounds.  Evidently not.  The following is not, mind you, from some obscure leftist-anarchist, wacko-blog but from the esteemed Huffington Post itself -- and not even from a commenter but a poster.

I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot? I know, it's terrible. I admit it.

Well, good on you for admitting it's terrible, pal.  But you couldn't help saying it, could you?  It's telling, the hatred the left shows for people who don't agree with them -- even those facing the prospect of death.  This goes just a bit beyond a Democrat calling a Republican a racist or a Republican calling a Democrat a faggot.  It's just disgusting. What kind of sick, sick person would write it?

And why would Arianna Huffington allow it?  I know, I know -- hits.

Speaking To One's Audience

The myth of the "noble savage" has become an indispensable tool to the multicultural left's effort to portray the United States as a country founded on injustice.  One Ph. D. recently erupted in frustration over Mel Gibson's portrayal of the Mayas as the blood-thirsty, warlike tribe they really were.

Case in point: Alicia Estrada, an assistant professor of Central American studies at California State University, Northridge, Thursday night accused Mel Gibson “of misrepresenting the Mayan culture in the movie” Apocalypto. Estrada, in a superior display of historic ignorance, stated “that representations in the movie that the Mayans engaged in sacrificial ceremonies and had bloodthirsty tendencies were both wrong and racist.”

Quite to the contrary, archeological evidence of Maya “sacrificial ceremonies” and “bloodthirsty tendencies” are ubiquitous. It all started with the discovery of murals at Bonampak.

Gibson rather eloquently responded by telling her to "fuck off." Which, given her ignorance, was probably all she could be expected to understand.

Meanwhile In Portland

I've always figured it was only a matter of time until the left could no longer contain its contempt for the "troops."  Catch this video from Portland where a bunch of peace activists burned an American soldier in effigy.

"Bye, bye GI, in Iraq you're gonna die." Charming.

When Leftists Turn On Their Own

CODEPINK is planning a takeover.

                Anti-war group CODEPINK is planning to take over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office at 4:00 pm, the group said.   

Protesters plan to play “Pin the war on the Donkey” to show their frustration with the Democratic leadership’s inaction of ending the war in Iraq.

   

CODEPINK is expecting arrests.

"Pin the war on the Donkey."  That's a good one.  Keep her feet to the fire, girls.

When Celebrities Open Their Mouths

What tiny shred of doubt remained that Rosie O'Donnell and Charlie Sheen are complete nutcases has now been dispelled.  They're promoting the 9/11 conspiracy theories that claim the Federal government was responsible for it all.  You know, missiles cloaked in Boeing 757 holograms, etc..

The sitcom actor and talk show hostess have both become spokespeople for the 9/11 conspiracy movement.

"If the government is lying about flight 93, is it hard to believe the rest is a lie?" That line can be heard on the video "Loose Change," which has been floating around the Internet for years, but now Sheen is in talks with Magnolia Pictures to narrate a new version of the video and redistribute it.

Sheen believes the government may have been behind the attacks, and said so in a recent interview.

"I have a hard time believing a fireball traveled down the elevator over 1100 feet, and still had the explosive energy to destroy the lobby as it was described," Sheen said on "The Alex Jones Show."

Now, Charlie is certainly entitled to his opinion but it does point out to me just how scared of Bush these people are.  That he and his minions were supposedly capable of pulling something like 9/11 off indicates a government paranoia that even I can't claim.

I spent a couple years in the 90's pretty convinced that TWA Flight 800 had either been brought down by terrorists or by a misfired American missile and that Clinton was covering it up.  But after a while, when no one comes forward -- when no one leaks to the New York Times or the Washington Times -- you have to suck it up and admit you were wrong.

Look, our government can't keep anything a secret.  It's sad on one hand but oddly reassuring on the other.  It's been more than five years since the U.S. government supposedly fired missiles into not only the World Trade Center but the Pentagon.  Among those killed was the wife of the U.S. Solicitor General; and the entire event was captured by dozens of video cameras owned by ordinary citizens from all angles.

Yet not a soul has come forward to spill the beans.  At some point you might hope that even Charlie's and Rosie's addled and neurotic brains might see that as a potential clue.

I'm Surprised They Can Even Feed Themselves

Remember when the Buffalo News ran its vaunted series on businesses that "prey" on the poor?  You know, like check-cashing stores for those without bank accounts and rent-to-own stores that deliver new furniture today to poor people who can't wait until they save up for it? 

How long do you suppose it will be until they join the chorus that thinks the poor should be protected against getting mortgages?  After all, they're probably too stupid to handle that, too.

Oh God, What Next?

Here's where political correctness leads -- gender-profiling ice cream.

The Swedish Consumers Association (Sveriges Konsumentråd) has reacted angrily to one of the ice pops in GB's new line. 'Girlie', a star-shaped, pink ice-cream with glitter make-up stored inside the stick, is entirely inappropriate, according to the association.

"I question whether there is a demand," said secretary general Jan Bertoft.

The raspberry-flavoured novelty ice cream was just one of a new range presented by GB at the beginning of March.

According to GB, the 'Girlie' ice pop signals a "sense of summer", "star status" and "a disco feeling".

The Swedish Consumers Association however uses an entirely different word: "gender-profiling".

"Girlie, GB's new ice pop, is pink and has make-up inside the stick. It says a lot about what GB thinks about girls and how they should be," said the association in a statement.

Maybe if they dumped the star theme and returned to the popsicle's traditional phallic shape, the make-up in the stick could be excused.

Off With His Head

I've got a sneaking suspicion that European animal-rights wackos have borrowed a page from their American cousins at PETA.  The more outrageous the campaign, the more it gets publicised.  How else to explain their call to kill a 3 month old polar bear cub?

Testosterone Causes Global Warming

Daniel Clark is convinced that the hysteria over global warming has devolved into an attack on men -- as a matter of political expediency.

Wouldn't it be more plausible if a few items like styling gel, latte makers and tofu were said to destroy the planet as well? Perhaps, but that would not serve the purpose of expanding the base of the global warming movement. Since no liberal cause can produce much support on its own, any one of them must ally itself with all other liberal causes, so that they can pool their resources.

That's why it's almost impossible to distinguish the original purpose of a left-wing political rally. What starts out being an 'anti-war' demonstration will invariably become a convention of environmentalists, gun control advocates, pro-abortionists, animal rights activists, racial Balkanists, and outright Communists, because that's the only way to prevent the size of the crowd from being laughably small.

Good one.

IEATAPETA

I hadn't realized that Saturday is the fifth annual "Eat an animal for PETA" day."

The Holocaust is regularly invoked in improper and offensive ways. The one that hit my outrage button the hardest three years ago was an ad campaign titled “The Holocaust on Your Plate.” It was created by the radical animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, or PETA.

The PETA ad campaign compared the slaughter of chickens for food to the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. They traveled the country with a series of billboards that used Holocaust imagery next to images of animals. They lied to the American Holocaust Museum to obtain permission to use these pictures in their ad campaign.

It’s a well-known fact that PETA has always chosen sensationalism in their ad campaigns. They’re usually stupid and offensive, but this campaign caused enough pain that a child of Holocaust survivors wrote me a letter asking if there weren’t something we could do about it. That’s why I created the first International Eat an Animal for PETA Day (IEAPD).

The fourth annual celebration is coming up again on March 15th. On that day, I ask everyone who thinks PETA is offensive and over-the-top to eat meat or animal products like cheese in at least one meal. It’s the exact opposite of what PETA wants, and is our little protest to their offensive ad campaigns. Our theme (besides eating lots of meat that day) is “don’t get mad, get even.” IEAPD is gaining strength and notoriety every year.

Don’t get me wrong. I am utterly against animal cruelty. But I am also utterly against cruelty to humans, and especially against the misuse of Holocaust imagery to get a point across.

Hear, hear.

Just Remember That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Does it sometimes seem to you that the same people who are demanding we pronounce Iraq a lost cause and get out are the same ones who insist that we should lead military action in Darfur?

The United States, as a world leader badly in need of a moral cause to espouse, needs to take the Darfur crisis on as a serious diplomatic priority and to build an international coalition that would do more than make sporadic visits to the crisis zone. It’s harder for the United States to exercise that kind of leadership these days, with the crisis in Iraq and the Middle East, but it’s not impossible.

Many of us believe that we already have a moral cause to espouse, the defeat of the Islamofascist jihadists who vow to destroy Western civilization.  But you see, according to the left-wing moral code (I know, I contradict myself,) no action is moral if you actually derive a benefit from it.  It's sort of like the new-age exhortation to commit acts of kindness but only in secret -- if anyone knows, they somehow don't count.

Iraq and Afghanistan don't qualify as moral crusades because we have a direct stake in their outcome.  But sending the military to Darfur, which doesn't affect the United States at all, is noble exactly because it doesn't.  I realize it's confusing but you really need to understand this point.

It's the reason we could bomb the hell out of Kosovo without a peep from the peacemongers or the human rights activists.  If Slovodan Milosevic, the great butcher, had only been a little more vocal about hating the United States, though, we couldn't have gone.  Once someone has a beef against the U.S., no matter how flimsy, he's to be treated with kid gloves.

When Hugo Chavez inevitably starts imprisoning and killing Venezuelans to hang onto his power, we'll only be able to sit by and watch because he's anti-American and thus somehow protected.  Ditto Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jung-Il.  Those guys may do dumb things but they're smart enough to have figured out America's left and its perverse sense of morality. 

No Democrat Left Behind Math -- 93 < 8

The Buffalo News joins the latest Greek left-wing chorus calling for an investigation into the firings of eight (remember that number (8)) U.S. attorneys.

It took a few weeks for the facts to start bubbling to the surface, but it is now clear that what most of those prosecutors had in common was an apparent belief that they were supposed to follow investigations where they led, not where the White House wanted them to lead. The lack of a proper reason for their dismissals, plus the bold admission that one of them was pushed aside just to make a spot for a former aide to White House political guru Karl Rove, strongly suggests that competence was not a problem and policy differences were a mere fig leaf.

Now, perhaps my memory fails me -- I could be wrong -- but I don't recall the News getting this worked up when Bill Clinton fired all 93 U.S. attorneys.  Yes, you read right, ninety-three -- every one -- all of 'em, kit 'n' kaboodle, the whole enchilada.

Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them.

Now, any rational person knows that a current action cannot be justified by someone else's prior action (unless of course you're a lawyer and then it's called "precedent,") and citing Clinton's blatantly political firing of 93 U.S. attorneys certainly doesn't justify Bush's blatantly political firing of 8.  All it accomplishes is to illustrate the incredible hypocrisy of the left in this country which claims it's motivated by principle when in reality it just hates Bush.

The Spoiler

Wow, even Artvoice has figured out that Ralph Nader has done the left few favors.  Though, after reading this piece, I'm thankful he's the unreasonable cuss he is.

The Never-Ending Quest To Understand The Left

Shannon Love posits that leftists don't really hate western society, it's just that their protests fall on deaf ears everywhere else.  And they're much too important not to be heard at all.

Leftism as an ideology criticizes western society because leftism is overwhelmingly the politics of articulate intellectuals. All the tenets of leftism function to create a society in which the articulate intellectual occupies the highest positions of status and power in society. (Marx famously described his predicted communist utopia as a society in which individuals would be differentiated only by their innate intellectual ability.) So the hammer of the articulate intellectual becomes the hammer of the Left and the nail of the articulate intellectual becomes the nail of the Left. To lay claim to the ability to solve a problem, leftists must define that problem as arising from a negative behavior of liberal democracies.

So, he'd have us believe, while leftists don't support Muslim misogyny, for example, they're quite aware that their disapproval would have no influence at all on its reduction.  More effective, then, to refocus their efforts on criticizing the United States which just might listen.  The same holds true for the Palestinian "problem."

If the Arab autocracies are the main drivers of the conflict, then leftists will have little to contribute to the resolution, but if the problem is Israel’s liberal democracy, then again the leftist articulate intellectual becomes central to the solution.

It also explains why the left is willing to forget about the millions who died when the United States abandoned South Viet Nam.  That bit of nastiness cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the fact that, for the first time ever, the left's intellectuals actually stopped a war.  Heady stuff, indeed.

It's certainly a plausible explanation for the left's arrogance and one that, on the surface, explains a lot of their behavior.  Of course, if true, their "intellectualism" is still childish, narcissistic and short-sighted.  It's always about them and the rest of the world can go to hell.

Which it usually does when we listen to them. 

The United States Is A Horrible, Horrible Place

A couple days ago NPR led its newscasts with this: U.S. on List of UNICEF's Worst Countries for Kids

A new report from the U.N. Children's Fund says the United States and Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world in which to be a child. UNICEF says an examination of 40 factors, such as poverty, deprivation, happiness, relationships, and risky or bad behavior puts the United States and Britain at the bottom of a list of 21 economically developed nations.

The UNICEF report sought to assess children's well-being in developed countries by measuring a number of factors, including health, education, poverty, family relationships, and bad or risky behavior. Children were also asked to say whether they were happy.

Now, a lot of NPR's audience no doubt nodded their pointy-heads in sad agreement that the US is, indeed, a terrible place to raise children and the rest of us probably just yawned and switched stations to listen to Sandy Beach interviewing Bernice Golden about how the war in Iraq would turn out.

Scott Burgess, however, took the time to actually look into the "study."

Take "Material Well-Being", for example. Readers will be surprised to learn that the United States and the UK rank 17th and 18th respectively in terms of this dimension. Surely American children are materially better off than Czechs, Greeks and Portuguese!

Well, they most likely are. But the Unicef report manufactures the desired result by heavily weighing a "child income poverty" component that considers only relative income poverty - that is, percentage of children living in a household with an income less that 50% of the median for that country.

By this measure, the US has by far the highest percentage of children "living in poverty", followed by the UK (this was the case seven years ago, at any rate - that's how old the data for this indicator are).

So, by this criterion, a Hungarian family making $7,000 is better off than one making $23,000 in the US. The report does at least recognise the obvious problem surrounding this measure of poverty, but makes no attempt whatever to incorporate an absolute poverty measure into the analysis.

Here's the excuse:

"Critics have argued that relative poverty is not 'real' poverty, pointing out that many of those who fall below relative poverty lines enjoy a standard of living higher than at any time in the past or than most of the world's children in the present."

Well, yes. So ... what's wrong with that criticism, exactly? Here's the only answer the report attempts:

"But this fails to acknowledge that in today's OECD nations the cutting edge of poverty is the contrast, daily perceived, between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them".

So, for the authors of this report, the important matter is a child's perception of poverty, not poverty in an absolute sense. What they've done is to relabel a society's family income inequality as the much nastier sounding "child poverty."

Read the whole thing, please.  And then wonder why NPR didn't bother to analyze it just as he did. Isn't that what the media does?  Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Let Them Eat Dirt

A small but growing number of Cuban doctors are trying to flee to the United States and the Bush administration is encouraging them.  A policy which doesn't sit well with some Americans.

"This is an evil and mean-spirited effort to undermine health services for the poor," said the Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, a human rights group that opposes U.S. policy towards Cuba and organizes humanitarian aid convoys there.

I think that sums up leftist attitudes pretty well.  Better they live in slavery but be "equal" than have a chance for freedom.

The Bolivarian Revolution Bears Early Fruit

Please keep in mind that the following is not from the Hoover Institute, it's an Associated Press report.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

President Hugo Chavez's administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible. Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.

Major private supermarkets suspended sales of beef earlier this week after one chain was shut down for 48 hours for pricing meat above government-set levels, but an agreement reached with the government on Wednesday night promises to return meat to empty refrigerator shelves.

Shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.

The left's efforts to "protect the poor" all too often seem to  end up making everyone poor.  As usual, America's progressives (just home from a shopping foray to Wegman's no doubt) will cluck approvingly as everyone in Venezuela is now a small step closer to their ideal of universal suffering.

And just think of all the carbon they won't be emitting.   

Spoiler Seems To Cruel An Adjective

The Republicans' "ace in the hole" speaks up.

Asked on CNN's Late Edition news program if he would run in 2008, the lawyer and consumer activist said, "It's really too early to say. ... I'll consider it later in the year."

Nader said he did not plan to vote for Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York and former first lady.

"I don't think she has the fortitude. Actually she's really a panderer and a flatterer. As she goes around the country, you'll see more of that," Nader said.

On whether he would be encouraged to run if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, Nader said, "It would make it more important that that be the case.

Run, Ralphy, run.

Ungrateful Whelps

A moral dillema:

You're a caring, prosperous first-worlder, who's jetted off to Nairobi to discuss African poverty. 

Unexpectedly, though, the ungrateful poor invade your hotel and eat the food.  Now, African hunger has obviously not been eradicated, but should you complain to the management?

The Truth Will Out

Every once in a while it makes sense to read something like this -- Read This And See Why You Should Hate Conservatives.

Conservatives are opposed to compassion. They are opposed to equal access to quality education.  No Child Left Behind was intended to set the stage for ending federal support for public education.  They are opposed to equal access to quality health care.   They are opposed to protecting basic living standards for older people.  To be a conservative means that you refuse to contribute to the common good.

And that's the complimentary part; it's all downhill from there.

Hat tip to to Arnold Kling who, coincidentally, is mentioned more than once in the screed post.

[UPDATE:] Oh how I hope that NCLB was designed to end federal support for education.  I'll admit that ol' GWB had me fooled with that increase-federal-education-spending-by-50% tactic.  The guy's a f***in' genius.

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others

Poor Edward Ellis of Blasdell.  Not only is he deluded in his faith in Hugo Chavez, he's the victim of extremely bad timing.

It is obvious to anyone watching closely that Chavez is not a dictator. He is, however, bombastic and his recent announcement that the government plans to nationalize private companies must be understood within this context. Despite the bluster, history and common sense show there will be no expropriation of private companies in Venezuela without fair remuneration.

Yesterday, the non-dictator got his rubber-stamp legislature to grant him the power to rule by decree.

 Venezuela's legislature on Thursday gave initial approval to a bill giving President Hugo Chávez extremely broad powers to rule by decree for 18 months on a wide range of social, political and economic issues.

Chávez has called the measure ''the mother law of revolutionary law'' -- the legal basis for furthering the turn to the radical left that he undertook after his Dec. 3 landslide election to a second six-year term.

Ruling by decree sounds an awful lot like dictatorship to me, though I did hear on NPR today that Señor Chavez has insisted that Venezuela is still a democracy.  That will no doubt be solace to Mr. Ellis of Blasdell, though I suspect the good citizens of Caracas are much less sanguine tonight.

[UPDATE:] By the way, here's a link to George Orwell's Animal Farm, online and free.  If you've never read it, please do -- you won't be disappointed.   

Revolutionary Tourism

How exciting it must be for young communists and socialists to witness the birth of a Marxist utopia.

Meet the revolutionary tourists, a wave of backpackers, artists, academics and politicians on a mission to discover if Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, really is forging a radical alternative to neo-liberalism and capitalism.

From a trickle, a few years ago, there are now thousands. They travel individually and on package tours, exploring a purported left-wing mecca, and their ranks are set to swell now Mr Chavez is accelerating his self-styled revolution after last month's landslide re-election. "Socialism or death - I swear it," he said last week, and declared himself a communist.

"It's just amazing being here. There is so much vibe and passion, there is truly a sense of revolution," gushed Lucy Dale, 20, a university student from Chicago on a 17-day trip. "I want to return to do volunteer work."

Global Exchange, a San Francisco group that doubles as a travel agent, organised trips for almost 500 Americans last year, five times the 2003 figure, said Jojo Farrell, its Venezuela liaison worker.

And now would certainly be the time to visit; there are still decent air connections, plenty of food and a dearth of starving, imprisoned people.  All those will come with time of course, it's inevitable. 

Barbara Boxer's, Um, Misstep

I'd wager that this will surprise "y'all." I take Barbara Boxer at her word that she wasn't trying to insult Condoleezza Rice for being childless.

Condoleezza Rice let out a heavy sigh when asked Saturday whether as a single woman with no children she had difficulty appreciating the ramifications of war. It's a topic that has inflamed the Internet and talk radio in the U.S. since a Democratic senator challenged the secretary of state's personal stake in the War in Iraq.

Senator Boxer was not trying to set feminism on its ears by her snide remark, she was simply implying that the Secretary of State has no particular "standing" to have an opinion on the Iraq War since she won't suffer personally because of it.  It's an example of the same argument that would have President Bush termed a "chicken hawk" because he stands by his decision to go to war without ever having served in one himself.

When you disagree with the Left, you're subject to this sort of anti-intellectual smear -- but, please, you mustn't take it personally. 

Tom DeLay, for example, was a brilliant politician (even the Dems would agree with that) who was mocked for having been a "bugcatcher."  He was a self-made man.  Starting out with a tiny pest-control business, DeLay eventually made millions and, it must be said, greatly benefited the residents of suburban Houston along the way. But by minimizing that accomplishment (how could a lowly bugcatcher possibly know anything,) his opponents spared themselves the effort of debating his policies. No, much easier to denigrate him.

Following this line of "reasoning," of course, it's not hard to see how insisting that we have credentials before we speak out would affect our society. Only actors would be allowed to review movies and no one but established chefs could critique restaurants.  Men would still not be permitted to opine on the sanctity of life and women's thoughts on football would remain beneath contempt (well, OK, that one still holds.) 

Presumably I would have no right to complain about the neighbor's botched remodeling absent an architecture degree and Al Gore would be mocked mercilessly for his presumption to understand the complexities of global climate change when he's spent his life doing nothing more than holding a finger in the air trying to sense what concerns the electorate.  We are all capable of sympathy for the hard-pressed and understanding situations we've never encountered ourselves.  I was never molested as a child, but that doesn't stop me from understanding the horror and the damage that child molestation causes.

But the good Ms. Boxer certainly didn't think that far ahead in her catty dig at the Secretary of State. She just fell prey to the temptation of the foolish and lazy fallacy that we humans are incapable of comprehending situations that we haven't lived.  She doesn't believe any of it, I'm sure, but this time she miscalculated and her snotty, little tactic blew up in her Botoxed face. 

Now, I'm not a plastic surgeon, so I really can't be sure that she uses Botox.  But damn, she's not bad-looking for a 67 year old broad, and as I progress in life myself, I've learned a lot.  You don't need a college degree and you don't have to stay in a Holiday Inn Express to know this stuff.

Economics -- San Francisco Style

Last fall the voters of San Francisco passed by referendum a measure that requires all city businesses to provide paid sick-leave for their employees.  Now that's certainly a feel-good measure isn't it?  Why yes, unless you're one of the people who has to figure out how to pay for it.

Christiane Schmidt runs her small San Francisco restaurant, Walzwerk, on a tightrope-thin margin. She does her own bookkeeping and cleaning, waits tables and relies on tips to survive. Of her four full-time and six part-time employees, none gets paid sick leave, and only her chef gets a paid vacation.

That's about to change.

Christine Schmdt is obviously a cold-hearted and callous industrialist.  But what sort of financial cost will she bear.

The law, as approved by 61 percent of voters in Proposition F, applies to both large and small employers -- even to individuals who hire a part-time house cleaner or babysitter.

Employees will accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. At businesses with fewer than 10 employees, accrual is capped at 40 hours per employee. Businesses with 10 or more employees have a cap of 72 hours per employee.

Now, actually Christine is probably a lovely woman but this isn't the first burdensome business law to be imposed on her -- oh no, San Francisco has many.

Some small-business owners say that the sick leave law by itself isn't a problem: It's the combination of sick leave with other city mandates. San Francisco's minimum wage just rose to $9.14, which is higher than the statewide minimum of $7.50. The city levies a 1.5 percent tax on businesses with payrolls over $166,667. And in July, San Francisco will start phasing in a new requirement that companies with 20 or more workers spend at least $1.11 per hour per employee on health coverage.

You start to get the picture don't you?  San Francisco is unusual among large American cities for more than its, um, relaxed sexual climate.  It's the only one that has lost minority population in the last few years.  Blacks and hispanics are leaving town because its restrictive building codes have made affordable housing impossible to find and its onerous business regulations have greatly reduced employment opportunities for entry-level workers.

It's ironic, though not at all unexpected, that very liberal economic policies eventually end up raising the cost of living to the point that the very people those policies were intended to help have to leave.  We're just now starting to see this phenomenon in Buffalo -- think living wage. 

The living-wagers think only of the end result, poor people a bit better off because of higher pay.  But they ignore completely the fact that it will be the dwindling number of city residents, who grow poorer by the year, who will pay for that increase.  The cost of city contracts will inevitably increase and we'll either have to increase revenue to pay for them or start fewer projects.

San Francisco, of course, is a wealthy city.  Its overall economy is booming and so the residents feel free to experiment with socially-conscious flouting of economic laws.  But it can only go so far before their "compassion" may turns around and bites them.

"Between this sick leave law and raising the minimum wage, pretty soon the only ones who can afford to do business in the city will be chains."

And wouldn't San Francisco's new-urban elite hate that little unintended consequence?

St. Steve Of Apple

The new Apple IPhone looks brilliant but Steve Jobs, during his press conference announcing it, did produce one jarring moment when he mentioned Al Gore.  Like Russell Roberts, I just assumed it was another paean to the great-at-least-to-himself environmentalist -- Apple being a famously lefty sort of fabulously-wealthy corporate enterprise.

10:24am - Page is loading, albeit a bit slowly. "And here we are, and there's a section over here, and these are the top sellers. Oh look, Al's "An Inconvenient Truth" is number one. Now I can go back to the NYT if I want, I can get rid of these by just hitting the X." Looks a bit like the UIQ browser, but much more slick.

But Russell didn't let it drop there and cites Holman Jenkins who's thought it through even further.

We can only wonder what Al Gore is making of his experience as the No. 1 defender of today's No. 1 backdating miscreant.

Mr. Gore, an Apple director, was a member of the special two-man committee that investigated and exonerated Steve Jobs in the backdating matter. By now, we presume he is well-versed in what backdating is and isn't. But how easily Mr. Gore -- the scourge of Big Pharma, etc. -- could have been the one braying about greed, CEO theft, the defrauding of shareholders.

Russell continues,

When he just happened to check out DVD's and just happened to find Al's DVD (love that first name basis!), I thought he was pandering to the environmentalist in all of us to show how he's a good  guy. But no. It's was a little thank you to Al. I wonder if Gore was happy to see his DVD touted or whether he cringed.

I'm sure Al was very pleased.  If we know anything about the left it's that the bad karma caused by illegal actions (in this case backdating stock options) can be erased as long as one's motives are pure and, um, sympathetic to the left with a big donation here and there.  It's sort of the secular equivalent of a marriage annulment.

Oh, Really?

E.J. Dionne claims that Conservatism seems to have run its course.  I'd advise the left to hold off on popping the champagne.

PhotoGate

Evidently the left-lobe of the blogosphere has begun to learn a thing or two from the righties about investigating articles that don't smell right -- they're still not too good at it, though.

Deep Pockets

Remember the Valerie Plame affair?  Sure you do, high-ranking members of the evil Bush administration "blew the cover" of a top-secret CIA agent as mere retaliation against her husband who had dared criticize one of the President's justifications for invading Iraq.

Of course, she wasn't a secret agent, her identity and job were already well-known, her husband admitted later to lying about his report and the supposed whistle-blower on her identity was a Clinton-era hold-over. Yawn.  Meanwhile, though, the case of Sandy Berger stealing classified documents in his very large pants went almost unreported.  The Inspector General of the National Archives has just released a report on that curious incident.

Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol, employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white, which could have been paper, around his ankle.

However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.

Brachfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go outside without an escort.

"In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... .

"Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)."

Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence. The review was to facilitate Berger's impending testimony before the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Well, now we know everything except the contents of the documents he felt necessary to secrete underneath the wheels of a construction trailer until he might have the chance to retrieve them.  The documents that a once powerful member of the highest levels of government was so determined to remove from public view that he sacrificed his reputation and whatever remained of his dignity to dispose of.

Does the media, our watchdogs against a too-powerful government, even care?  Nah, it was for Clinton -- it must be fine.  Move along, nothing to see here.

Loopy At Any Speed

Is Ralph Nader for real?  Yes -- unfortunately.