Praying passenger removed from SF-bound flight

We read:

""A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said. The Orthodox Jewish man, who wore a full beard, a black hat and a long black coat, stood near the lavatories and began saying his prayers while the United Airlines jet was being boarded at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday night, fellow passenger Ori Brafman said.

When flight attendants urged the man, who was carrying a religious book, to take his seat, he ignored them, Brafman said. Two friends, who were seated, tried to tell the attendants that the man couldn't stop until his prayers were over in about 2 minutes, he said. 'He doesn't respond to them, but his friends explain that once you start praying you can't stop,' said Brafman, who was seated three rows away."

Source

Sounds like a bit of religious intolerance there. Even 2 minutes was too much to ask? I'm betting that it delayed the flight a hell of a lot longer than 2 minutes to take him off it. No brains at all. But brains seem to have flown out the window where air travel is concerned these days.

If he had been a Muslim he would have been treated with much more respect. But he clearly wasn't, of course. If you can't tell an Orthodox Jew in full garb, you don't know anything. And if you can tell one, you know he is harmless.

Are "Christian Seders" Inappropriate for Passover?

I am rather pleased that some Bible-oriented Christians are at last taking Christ's command seriously and celebrating the Passover instead of the pagan Easter. My entire Scripture blog was devoted to noting how far away most Christians have drifted from what the New Testament actually says. Michael Medved comments wisely below:

Rabbi Mark Glickman of the very liberal Reform branch of Judaism recently wrote a Seattle Times column decrying Christian congregations that celebrate their own Passover Seders. Rabbi Glickman claims the Seder was developed long after the Exodus events it commemorates, and was supposed to convey powerful anti-Christian messages, making Christian participation inappropriate.

In truth, there's nothing in the ancient formulation of the Passover Haggadah-the book of Seder liturgy-that disrespects or contradicts Christianity or Jesus, and most Jews passionately disagree with Rabbi Glickman. Retelling the story Exodus and affirming Jewish faith doesn't amount to an attack on Christianity - any more than affirming Christian faith amounts to an attack on the Old Testament or Judaism.

The two religions certainly disagree on key theological points, but share a commitment to remembering God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage as a liberating moment in human history. Christian rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity is actually good for Jews, Christians and humanity.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

The LA Times: always covering the big issues

Barack Obama scratched his face using a middle finger while mentioning Hillary.

And the L.A. Times reported the story as if it were hard news.

That whizzing sound you hear is the Chandler family spinning in their graves.

Funny how the mainstream media never bothered to cover a far more important middle-finger incident.

This is Gunnery Sergeant "Iron" Mike Burghardt flipping off insurgents after surviving an IED explosion -- literally between his legs -- in 2005.

The Times couldn't bother covering that story then, however.

VERY FORTUNATE

The IDF thwarted an attempt by the Hamas to use a car bomb and breach the borderline:

The IDF foiled a well-planned car bomb attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing, but the cost was high. Thirteen IDF soldiers were lightly or moderately wounded Saturday morning as Palestinians detonated car bombs, fired mortar shells and opened fire on the troops, in what the IDF considers an attempted abduction attempt

In the first attack of its kind from Gaza, Hamas sent two explosives-packed jeeps and two armored vehicles. The jeeps, which were detonated by suicide drivers, broke through to the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom goods crossing early Saturday, April 19. Terrorists jumped out of the first armored vehicle under cover of the explosions as well as mortar fire and heavy mist, and attacked the Israeli position guarding the terminal. This vehicle, painted in IDF colors, was captured and the assailants driven back.

It's lucky that they were on the alert.

Media lies about the Pope

A reporter reports his own ideas as being those of the Holy Father. Post below recycled from Gateway Pundit. See the original for links

Pope Benedict spoke to the United Nations General Assembly today. The AP religious writer Eric Gorski reported this on the pope's speech:

Pope Benedict XVI told diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that respect for human rights was the key to solving many of the world's problems, while cautioning that international cooperation was threatened by "the decisions of a small number." The pontiff, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on his first papal trip to the U.S., said the organization's work is vital. But he raised concerns that power is concentrated among just handful of players. "Multilateral consensus," he said, speaking in French, "continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a small number." The world's problems call for collective interventions by the international community, he said.

Now if you read through the pope's speech (As I did twice) you will not see anything about "power concentrated among just handful of players." It's also not clear where the AP came up with the "multilateral consensus" statement, either. This would have been surprising coming from a man they call "God's Rottweiler" because he is considered to be such a strong enforcer of the faith.

What Benedict did speak on was human rights- rules that do not limit freedom (not socialism). He also emphasized religious freedom. He did not, as the AP suggested, give some kind of socialist US-bashing manifesto. Here is the transcript of Pope Benedict's speech today to the United Nations.

The most important segment of his speech dealt with religious freedom. This is something the pope has spoken about recently with the Saudi Kingdom. Religious persecution is a frequent theme in his speeches. Pope Benedict urged UN member states to value the right of religious freedom:

"Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the size of the citizen and that of the believer. The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions, including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the freedom to profess religion and choose .

It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or religious positions with majority of an exclusive nature.

The full guarantee of religious liberty can not be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order. Indeed, they actually do so, for example through their influential and generous involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized.

Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute - by its nature, expressing communion between persons - would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person.

Sadly, this was not even mentioned in the AP's report.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Today's Obamology

Those who will not learn from history ....



232 years ago, a group of bitter men clung to their guns and religion, driven by their antipathy towards people who weren't like them. It the end, I think it worked out OK.

(Via Charlie Foxtrot)




Bitter? Religious?



(Via Dr Sanity)

More at OBAMA WATCH

Christopher Booker: From BSE to Global Warming, Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth

UK TELEGRAPH:

Dr Fred Singer, a distinguished US scientist, formerly professor at two universities, and founder of the US satellite weather service. He has done more than anyone in the scientific counter-attack against the ruthless promotion of global warming orthodoxy by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Dr Singer played a key part in last month's scientific conference in New York organised by the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), and gave me an advance copy of its new report (which is now available online - just Google "sepp" and "NIPCC").

The report - Nature Not Human Activity Rules the Climate - presents a devastating analysis of the IPCC's case.

CONCLUSION:

"anthropogenic greenhouse gases can contribute only in a minor way to the current warming, which is mainly of natural origin".

WARNING:

thanks to the overwhelming pressure generated by the IPCC, the world's politicians, led by the EU, are committing us to spending untold trillions of pounds, dollars and euros on measures to "mitigate" the claimed effects of man-made warming, here is a galaxy of experts producing hard evidence that - if the problem exists at all - the official explanation for it is oriented in wholly the wrong direction.

The Left's anti-oil/anti-coal-pro-biofuels orientation has wrought severe distortions in both energy markets and food markets - distortions which are causing real economic pain and the threat of starvation.

The Left's other "grand" AGW schemes will do even more damage to other parts of the world's.

We must not only prevent the new schemes we must rollback the ones on the books.

What lifted the West out of poverty was liberty and industry - and leftist AGW schemes diminish BOTH and condemn those with less, AND future generations to a life less free and less rich.

This is every bit as bad as the future which the radical muslims want for us.

And it must be treated as the threat it is.

A takeover of the USA by Obama would be like the commies taking over Russia in 1917, the UK in 1945, or Spain in 1930's or Chile in the 1970's.

Look at TAIWAN and look at PRE-Deng Xiao Ping RED CHINA and ask yourself which future YOU want for YOUR children.

Compare North and South Korea. Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. The Warsaw Pact nations now to 1980.

No matter the continent, or the culture, no matter the race or the creed: THE FREE NATIONS EXCEL AT PROVIDING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE SOCIALISTIC NATIONS ARE LESS FREE AND POORER.

From BSE to Global Warming, Leftist Scares are threatening our future.

They would take us down a road which is less free and poorer. After all, prosperity is a BY-PRODUCT OF LIBERTY.

Obama and the Democrats would take us all down that road.

The Road To Serfdom.

WANT THAT FOR YOUR KIDS!? If not, then we must be willing to do ANYTHING to stop them.

And that means even vote for the liberal McCain.

"Soft" Jihad: Using Lawsuits and Intimidation to silence Western Criticism of Political Islam

The extraordinary lengths to which the sworn enemies of Western Civilization have been attempting to destroy our institutions, our Constitution, and our freedom of Speech--all which have been paid for with the blood of hundreds of thousands of American lives since the 1770's--are not merely confined to barbaric videotaped killings, rockets and IED's aimed at innocent civilians, orchestrated rioting, and Global Terrorism in general.

The enemies of freedom are also using rampant Political Correctness as a key weapon in its strategy destroy our institutions by other means, including: threats of violence, vocal and physical intimidation to suppress dissent, sympathetic MSM media coverage, Leftist Academic activism, partisan Democrat politicians, sleazy Trial Lawyers using specious "Hate Speech" lawsuits, and our broken legal system in general. And that's just in the United States--just ask Mark Steyn how bad things have gotten in Canada... We are not just alluding to an "anomaly" here and there; this is an all-out, coordinated, disciplined assault. As huge as the problem of violent Global Islamist terror is, the Islamofascist "soft war" using Western institutions is a crisis that becomes more acute with each passing year.

PajamasMedia has a very revealing video up today, taken from a panel discussion on this topic, in which Roger Kimball makes a compelling case for just how dangerous this problem has become--with the all-too-willing assistance of the American Left:

Kimball also has a nice bit of writing posted about this assault on our way of life: check it out.

DEADBEAT DAD A VICTIM OF IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT

Almost every day, the Washington Post publishes a sob story about illegal immigrants. This one is a doozie:

The way Jaime R. Villagran tells it, to avoid going to jail, he would have had to break one law to obey another.

The Guatemalan native acknowledged that he owed more than $11,000 in child support when he appeared last month in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. But to pay it, Villagran told the judge, he would have to work illegally because he was awaiting permanent residency and work authorization from the U.S. government. He refused to do that.

The WaPo article goes on to paint Villagran as an honorable man, a victim of "the system," including this portion of the article:

With the immigration debate at a roar nationally, Villagran's case illustrates a moral and legal quandary. Locally, groups that oppose illegal immigration want the government to crack down on those in the country illegally and to punish employers who hire them. But many immigrants live in a complicated state of limbo. Physically but not legally in the United States, they are bound by federal and local laws, even when the two collide.

"You try to do the right thing, and it ends up being the wrong thing," Villagran said.

In almost every story about any criminal, one can find something worthy of sympathy, I suppose. But do "a quandary" and "a paradox" excuse evasion of the law? In the many human-interest stories in the mainstream media, yes.

The victimology mindset, but one aspect of political correctness, pervades all of Western society. Unfortunately, this agenda on the part of the media meets with a lot of success. All kinds of excuses are now viewed as logical and acceptable, in a sort of extended application of extenuating circumstances. Such thinking amounts to perpetual adolescence--not a viable way to build a society.

Pesach seder (Passover celebration)

Not many posts here recently. Something to do with Shabbat being followed by the Pesach seder, maybe.

Australian time is nearly a day ahead of American time so I have just got back from my first seder. It was with a local conservative congregation so there was lots of Hebrew chanted and sung -- and we used an Orthodox haggadah. I enjoyed it. It was a relaxed and happy occasion, as it should be. We even had some very pleasant Israelis present.

Will I attend another seder one day? Perhaps. I am not religious so that is a counterindication. But I enjoy Biblical exegesis so if an opportunity came up to attend one in very scholarly company I would be keen. I have only a Christian knowledge of the Torah so I would appreciate a deeper discussion of it. But there are no Yeshivot in Brisbane so I am not holding my breath.

I would be particularly interested in an exegesis of Exodus 12: 43-49. On the face of it, the Lubavitchers have got it right. But, as with all good law, there is a loophole: verse 48. I would fail the loophole myself but there other cases where defining the exception would be interesting.

I think that I should in closing express my great appreciation of the inimitable Garek Fish, who led the Beit Knesset Shalom congregation through the seder ceremonies with thoroughly admirable gusto.

Update:

I am reminded of something that Karl Popper once said: "It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."

When I said above that "We even had some very pleasant Israelis present", that could be construed as implying that Israelis are not usually pleasant! That was not at all my intention, of course. I guess that I should have said that "We even had some Israelis present, who were very pleasant". In these days of political correctness, one has to watch one's words. I say a little more about my visit to the shul on my personal blog



Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Hollywood Better Get Over Obama Quickly

Barack Obama has made no bones about it. He is going to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes to save the Social Security/Medicare programs. Those making over $97,000 a year will be hit with an additional 15.3% in payroll taxes for anything they make over $97,000.

Let's assume you are a $20 million a picture actor and you make two pictures a year. Obama is going to ask you for an additional $6,130,000 of new taxes over and above the $14,000,000 you pay at 35%. In other words he wants you to pay a 44% increase in your taxes to compensate for Congress's irresponsible use of the pay-as-you-go method of funding those programs over the years and promising more than they could afford - to be precise $45 trillion more and counting.. .

Now if you are a run-of-the-mill celebrity and only make an extra million above the $97,000 cap it is only going to cost you an extra $153,000 in new taxes over the $350,000 you pay to the IRS. Assuming you are a Hollywood liberal the price of being one has just gone up - thanks to your new liberal political idol.

The tragedy of such liberal philosophy is that raising taxes on the rich never makes the poor wealthy. Raising taxes on the rich will merely reduce the capital in the private sector used to keep the economy humming. Obama's raising the cap won't make the poor wealthy, it merely covers up the screw-ups of Congress and keeps massively inadequate retirement programs called Social Security and Medicare from being scrapped for better ones.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

THE DEMOCRAT MENTAL WORLD

Some excerpts from Dr Sanity

I made the mistake of watching some of the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on Capitol Hill yesterday, with the subsequent questioning by many posturing senators who seemed indifferent to anything the General or the Ambassador might have to say since they were already committed to their own agenda. It was, for the most part, a rather pathetic performance.

I was particularly unimpressed with Presidential candidate/ Senator Obama's questioning which while not confrontative like some of his Democratic colleagues, was significantly underwhelming in its content and direction. The usually slick Obama appeared to be completely out of his depth when not appealing to those abstract concepts of 'hope' and 'change'. Also, he looked nervous and sometimes tongue-tied as he sought to phrase each question in the most politically correct manner. In short, he had absolutely nothing of substance or originality to contribute to the discussion.

All in all, the entire production (except for the information imparted by the General and Ambassador) amounted to a a waste of my time. It was particularly annoying to watch and listen to the antics of the lunatic Code Pink clowns, who have come to symbolize the lack of seriousness with which the left takes national security issues....

Until the Iraqi government decided to finally deal with the issue of Moqtada Al Sadr and his militia (and indirectly with the reality of Iranian interference), the Iraq story had basically dropped off the radar of both the MSM and the Democrats. Because the Surge was working, both realized Iraq had become an issue that could not possibly benefit them and their strategic goal of reclaiming the White House. Hence, the silence was rather deafening as they retreated from their original talking points about the war being lost and were mostly confined to trying to tie the cost of the war into their economic doom and gloom package.

Then along comes Basra and Sadr, and these loyal American 'patriots' nearly wet their pants at the possibility that they could use this violent confrontation to justify their desire to surrender and confirm that the whole enterprise is a HOPELESS QUAGMIRE. For a party that is betting everything on HOPE and CHANGE, their hopelessness about the possibility of defeating Al Qaeda and their lack of interest in the CHANGE in the strategic map of the Middle East is somewhat amazing.

The Democrats and the left live (and die) by polls. Popularity means everything to them. Other people's opinions are the foundation of all their "principled" stands on issues, and you can always count on them to be a weathervane showing which direction the winds of ego gratification blow. It's really too bad for them that external reality is not decided by a poll; nor is it decided by feelings, or pandering to feelings. Their self-induced blindness and utter refusal to acknowledge the realities of Islamic fanaticism and the war on terror in general; as well as the realities of the specific Iraqi theater of that war is truly astonishing.....

For the Democrats and their increasingly histrionic leftist base, denial--not America-- has been their country of residence since September 11, 2001. Generally, it has been a safe and happy place for them to be; because as long as they can hate and vilify George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and all those evil Republicans and Lieberman Democrats out there; and as long as they can pretend that the objects of their hate are the real cause of any problem; then they don't have to deal with the external reality of Islamofascist terror, or face the truth about their own unacknowledged and pathological internal reality. They can continue to cling to the holy, neo fascist socialist faith, newly risen from the ashes of the 20th century; and delude themselves into thinking that they are wonderful, caring, loving and reality-based people.

Let's face it, the myths that fuel the left's denial are designed to make sure that they--not America--come out the winners; and that they never have to say they are sorry for enabling the enemies of America and for helping them to kill their fellow Americans.



(Graphic via Siggy)

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Obama, the latter-day (Pink) Humpty-Dumpty?

When David Brooks is writing stuff like this in the New York Times... then yes, it is safe to assume that things are getting very, very uncomfortable on the Democrat side of the equation--with no end in sight:

Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

When Obama began this ride, he seemed like a transcendent figure who could understand a wide variety of life experiences. But over the past months, things have happened that make him seem more like my old neighbors in Hyde Park in Chicago.

Some of us love Hyde Park for its diversity and quirkiness, as there are those who love Cambridge and Berkeley. But it is among the more academic and liberal places around. When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them. Obama has to address those doubts, and he has done so poorly up to now.

It was inevitable that the period of “Yes We Can!” deification would come to an end. It was not inevitable that Obama would now look so vulnerable. He’ll win the nomination, but in a matchup against John McCain, he is behind in Florida, Missouri and Ohio, and merely tied in must-win states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.

General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.

A few months ago, Obama was riding his talents. Clinton has ground him down, and we are now facing an interesting phenomenon. Republicans have long assumed they would lose because of the economy and the sad state of their party. Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November.

And by the way, the fact that Obama is complaining so loudly that a news organization would actually have the gall and the nerve to stop lobbing him softballs--as they have been for over a year now--is ironic to say the least.

The media has been in the tank for Obama since the very beginning and so suddenly he feels like that a (supposedly) "independent" media is actually asking him questions that people want answers to? My heart bleeds for him...

If Barack has this much trouble giving coherent answers to highly legitimate questions about his VERY checkered past, how in the world is Obama supposed to handle a nuclear crisis putting the US in imminent danger from the Oval Office? Good grief, Barack: grow a pair. Hillary's just an ambitious former First Lady and she has bigger cojones than you do. (which isn't saying a lot...)

This is the most unprepared, most ideologically dangerous candidate in US History, and we have had plenty of bad candidates. Obama's Capital Gains response last night still has to be one of the stupidest--and most revealing--answers ever given in a televised debate. Yes, he understands that Capital Gains reductions raises more revenue for the Government---but that's not the point; it is just so...."unfair" to have businesses making profits, even if it means the Government gets more money: more investments and profits means businesses can hire more workers and distribute dividends to our 401K's.

It is so utterly obvious that Obama does not care about how much revenue Government does or doesn't raise: the point is to punish business and the middle class, no matter what it does to revenue; revenue is just the convenient excuse. Last night the whole country saw Obama for what he really is. Obama's only focus is to punish investors and businesses, so that these workers will need government handouts and subsidies to bail them out. Heaven forbid if businesses and Investors began to accumulate wealth on their own, they won't need bloated, inefficient government handouts to thrive.

There is only one other explanation for Barack's answer: his primary objective is to take more of your money, no matter what it does to federal revenue, because fiduciary responsibility is not what Obama is about. The less money the population has (especially the productive population), then the less POWER we have over our government or our lives. Taking money out of the economy to subsidize low productivity special interests like Big Labor is Marx/Engels 101. In this thinker, business is the enemy. And the weaker that business becomes, the more able the Marxists are to nationalize one industry after another (which is exactly what subsidies are--a way to make entire industries dependent on Central Government for their very lifeblood...).

Barack Obama is a Communist. This is not hyperbole; this is a fact. He told you: he admitted that federal revenue is secondary for him as a reason for raising taxes. 'Someone out there is successful?? Well then we mush punish them...' that Obama's bottom line.

The beauty of last night's debate is that the rest of the country knows this, and also knows that Obama has spent his entire adult life hanging out with known Communists, anarchists, terrorists, racists, and crooks.

And yet the media is not supposed to ask about these associations, Barack?? Welcome to the Majors, kid. And quit sucking your thumb...

Last night Obama could not hide from the American people who he really is. "Fairness" my ass: what we have here is the 2008 incarnation of Eugene Debs; and if you ask me, I prefer the message in the original Russian (or technically, German I guess... not that half of Obama's constituents have enough of a clue to understand what he is actually admitting to anyway...). But I think enough Centrist Democrats did understand it that it is going to be a real problem for him. And I know enough Republicans did...

Life is good.

No Great Depression

Excerpt:

`Depressing" is the adjective we're hearing a lot when it comes to the U.S. economy. There are reports of how the University of Michigan's consumer-sentiment poll is lower than at any time in the past quarter century. Senator Obama speaks of how, in some places, "the jobs have been gone 25 years and nothing's replaced them." A recent Pew survey suggests that fewer Americans see their lives improving than at any point in almost half a century. The gloom is so thick that it feels positively German. And that's just our domestic press. The Brits have long since decided that doom is around the American corner. Covering Bear Stearns Cos., a reporter from the Independent wrote, "Wall Street traders said they had never experienced such fear."

The suggestion behind such talk is that the current situation isn't merely depressing. It is that the slowdown is like the Great Depression of the 1930s. You almost expect Senators Obama and Clinton to repeat the lines from President Roosevelt's inaugural address of 75 years ago: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

The analogy is absurd. This economy is to the Great Depression what an April drizzle is to Hurricane Katrina. So far, the Dow has declined about 12% from its record high of last fall. In the Depression, it dropped more than 80%. Unemployment is about 5%. In the Depression it was 25%. Maybe 2% of mortgages are in trouble, and abandoned homes line some parts of Cleveland Heights. During the Depression, more than half of Cleveland was underwater. Today, one big bank has collapsed. In 1931, 1,400 banks collapsed. Even a comparison with more recent periods is a stretch.

Today, everyone is concerned about the consequences of the Bear Stearns rescue. On the right, critics argue that the Federal Reserve's decision to make funds available to Bear created moral hazard on a scale that can bring down our markets. These critics forget that in 1984 Washington actually nationalized a big bank. That bank was the nation's seventh largest, Continental Illinois. Yet the Reagan Revolution didn't stall. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Dow languished in the 800s for a period longer than it takes to collect a college degree. Unemployment in 1982 was close to 10%. Yet you didn't hear too much talk about the New Deal or FDR's speeches.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Another Leftist mind-reader

There is a fevered article in the LA Times by a David Shipler which makes great efforts to "reinterpret" things that whites say about Obama. It is like so much other Leftist drivel that I was not initially going to comment on it. I see, however, that Taranto thought it interesting enough to comment on so I thought I might take a few moments to point out the glaring weakness in Shipler's thinking. Take the following excerpt:

"But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross. This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. "Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

What evidence does he offer for any of those assertions? None. Leftists don't need evidence. They are just high and mighty beings who KNOW, without any evidence being needed. He implies that when whites say "elitist" in describing Obama they really mean "uppity", an old Southern Democrat term of criticism for self-confident blacks.

How does he know what goes on in other people's minds? There is only one way he can even hope to know and that is via introspection. He can use his own thoughts and feelings as a model for what others think and feel. And the inference from that is that HE is the one who sees Obama as "uppity". And he is, of course, in harmony with millions of his Democrat predecessors in thinking that sort of thing about blacks. In short, what Shipler says is mere unsubstantiated abuse that reveals more about himself than anything else.

This tendency of Leftists to make Lordly and abusive pronouncements with absolutely no backing evidence is one I almost invariably find in emails that I get from Leftists. They seem to think that because they say a thing is so then I must accept that it is so. I must confess that I do to an extent use their own tactics back on them sometimes. I don't dignify their emails with an argument about the facts. I just answer abuse with abuse. And even then what I say to them is milder than what they say to me. In answer to an abusive email, I might say: "You sure sound full of hate. Get help!" I gather that few conservatives reply that way because it sure rattles the Leftists concerned. They usually reply with either a denial or further abuse. But I keep up pointing out how what they say suggests mental defects of various sorts and they quite often get so upset that they ban my email address so that they cannot receive any further replies from me. What fun!

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

CONTRARY TO WHAT LEFTISTS FEEL, NATURE ISN'T STATIC

Would the world really be a better place if all species which are now extinct were still extant?

Nope.

Dinosaurs would present some big problems. Ditto Mammoths wandering around North America.

Extinction is as much a part of nature as evolution and climate change.

Nature is neither static or pristine. Never has been. The current state of nature is not permanent and cannot be made so. Many new species - thousands - are discovered every year. Some go extinct. Climate change is natural. Nature is all about what Obama is always talking about: CHANGE.

So Lefties: get used to it. Accept that extinction and climate change are natural and stop blaming industry and capitalism and the free marketplace. And stop proposing idiotic things like Kyoto and the Endangered Species Act.

Worst. President. Of all time. In a landslide.

This article says it all.

It puts a cherry on the top of a career that includes a horrific record as president: the human rights disasters occasioned by his failed policies in Iran and Nicaragua. The fall of the Shah and the rise of the Mullahs in Iran -- directly attributable to Carter - provided the central bastion for Islamofascism leading up to 9/11. His failure to support the Shah also emboldened the Soviets, who rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, correctly figuring that Carter would do nothing but bloviate using a whiny drawl.

Nice work, Mr. Peanut. It's just another volume destined for the Carter Presidential Library of Catastrophic Failures and Anti-Americanism located conveniently in downtown Tehran, Iran.

Update: SC&A: Jimmy Carter, a fool on a fool's errand (via Larwyn)

Will Putin Marry Into Islam?

Vladimir Putin's bride-to-be is, apparently, a Muslim. From Nora at Infidel Bloggers Alliance:

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is said to be getting ready to marry the Olympic medal winner gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Alina Kabaeva was born in Uzbekistan and her father is a Muslim Tatar.

Putin quietly divorced his wife Lyudmila Aleksandrovna. According to the claims, Kabaeva and Putin will get married in mid-June. Marat Kabaeva is a former professional football player. Marat Kabaeva warned his future son-in-law: 'my daughter is a very sensitive girl; so, know how to make her happy.'"

Here's Wikiepedia on Putin's Christian credentials:

"Though his father was a "militant atheist",[235] Putin's mother "was a devoted Orthodox believer". Though she kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly (despite the government's persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time). She ensured that Putin was secretly christened as a baby, and she regularly took him to services. His father knew of this but turned a blind eye.[234]

According to his own statements, his religious awakening followed the serious car crash of his wife in 1993, and was deepened by a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996.[235][236] Right before an official visit to Israel his mother gave him his baptismal cross telling him to get it blessed “I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since."

LEFTIST CLIMATE HYSTERIA REVISITED: THE DREADED EXTINCTION-INDUCING AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT... THAT ENDED UNEVENTFULLY

TIM BLAIR:

2004:

Perth will become a ghost city within decades as rising global temperatures turn the wheatbelt into a desert and drive species to the brink of extinction, a leading Australian scientist warns.

2008:

Perth remains on track to break the record for the wettest April ever recorded ...

• THE LEFT IS A ONE NOTE SAMBA: HYSTERICAL AWFULIZING OVER PSEUDO-PROBLEMS WHOSE SOLUTION IS ALWAYS MORE REGULATION, HIGHER TAXES, AND INTERFERING WITH THE FREE MARKETPLACE.

• THE LEFT IS WRONG ON BOTH SIDES OF THE EQUATION: THE PROBLEMS THEY CITE ARE PHONY AND THE SOLUTIONS THEY PROPOSE WOULDN'T SOLVE THEM IF THEY WERE PROBLEMS; THEY MAKE OTHER MATTERS WORSE.

NEED PROOF?

• ER, UM... BIOFUELS: THEY'RE MORE POLLUTING THAN "FOSSIL" FUELS AND ARE MAKING FOOD MORE EXPENSIVE.

NEED ANOTHER EXAMPLE?

• KYOTO: NOBODY COULD ACHIEVE THE GOALS IT SET OUT, BUT JUST TRYING TO ACHIEVE THEM MAKES ECONOMIES LESS EFFICIENT - WHICH HURTS THE POOR, (WHO NEED GENERAL PROSPERITY TO BECOME RICHER, NOT HANDOUTS AND REDISTRIBUTION SCHEMES).

"SOLUTIONS" LIKE BIOFUELS AND KYOTO ARE WHY THE LEFT IS THE SECOND MOST THREATENING THING TO CIVILIZATION.

THE BIGGEST THREAT IS RADICAL ISLAM ARMED WITH WMD.

SINCE THE LEFT RUNS INTERFERENCE FOR THE ISLAMICISTS, WE NEED TO DESTROY THE LEFT IN ORDER TO DEFEAT THE ISLAMICISTS.

Nuke Attack on Washington deemed "Inevitable" in the next 20 years

I saw this in passing last night and it gave me pause, but I was too busy blogging about Barack's (and Hillary's...) bad day; now Glenn has linked it, and it registered in my memory again. I think I must have passed over it because it seemed so shocking that I thought their "expert" couldn't have been saying what I thought he was saying... but he was (emphasis mine):

A nuclear device detonated near the White House would kill roughly 100,000 people and flatten downtown federal buildings, while the radioactive plume from the explosion would likely spread toward the Capitol and into Southeast D.C., contaminating thousands more.

The blast from the 10-kiloton bomb — similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima during World War II — would kill up to one in 10 tourists visiting the Washington Monument and send shards of glass flying the length of the National Mall, in a scenario that has become increasingly likely to occur in a major U.S. city in recent years, panel members told a Senate committee yesterday.

"It's inevitable," said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, who has charted the potential explosion's effect in the District and testified before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "I think it's wistful to think that it won't happen by 20 years."

So should the White House move underground? (I'd just as soon the Congress stay where it is, provided the Dems are still running things... after all it would be mostly their doing...).

Does anyone have even the remotest idea of what would happen in our country and world if/when this happens? And yet we have these appeaseniks running things. Here is a news alert for the media: whatever offensive actions we may need to take abroad with Iran, Pakistan, etc. (and at our own borders) to secure our future now now will pale in comparison of what will happen if a nuke takes out a city. Martial Law. Retaliation in kind abroad. Yet for some reason our appeaseniks seem to favor not doing what is necessary to prevent it...

We live in a country, a majority of whose elected representatives are Marxist Utopian fools. Is that their fault, or is it ours?

"Boy" is racist!

We read:

"U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman." He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama.

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."

Source

Big uproar on the Left about that, of course (e.g here). In many countries "boy" is undoubtedly a traditional term for a male servant of any age but I would have thought it clear that Davis was referring to the immature level of Obama's behavior.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Poor whites are NOT the base for the Republican party

Let's go back to first principles: what if Thomas Frank, the author of "What's The Matter With Kansas," the bedrock on which Obama chiseled his "bitter/cling" remarks last week, had it wrong? That's the thesis of political scientist Larry Bartels of Princeton, writing in Quarterly Journal of Political Science. Aggregating data, he finds that:

(a) White working class voters identify more with Democrats on cultural issues and more with Republicans on economic issues

(b) the salience of social issues has increased over the past two decades but more so among whites with college degrees

(c) Frank's trend finds statistical support only in the South, where it has an obvious explanantion: Democratic "strength" was "artifically inflated" by segregation and Jim Crow, according to Bartels.

The fundamental question that Frank and Obama both try to answer is why John Q. Pennsylvanian seems to vote against his economic interest? The embedded assumption is that it clearly is in his interest to support Democratic policies on fiscal policies (income redistribution) labor (a shift in the union/corporate balance), regulation (more, not less) but for some reason, he refuses to. Maybe he is bamboozled into supporting Republicans who convince him that they share his values more on cultural issues (which by their nature come from the gut) and convince him that cultural issues are more important.

The data to support this trend is at the very least, mixed. The trend over the past 50 years is clear: those voters with incomes in the lower third of the distribution have been trending Democratic. Among working class voters overall, the trend from 1952 to now is positive for Democrats.

In the white working class, as in the electorate as a whole, net Republican gains since the 1950s have come entirely among middle- and upper-income voters, producing a substantial gap in partisanship and voting between predominantly Democratic lower income groups and predominantly Republican upper income groups.

Frank is correct on one score: voters who make decisions based on their economic conditions are choosing Republicans more and more. But most of those voters are not poor. Indeed, the trend is mitigated somewhat by the better performance of Democrats among poorer voters.

Source

Monkey Cage makes a similar point. See the graphic below:



Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH