STOPPING TEHRAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

According to the WASHPOST/AP: Iran is smuggling in nuclear materials for a bomb. The smuggling operation includes people involved with the Pakistani AQ KHAN network.

If the current talks stall, then the Free World must act - DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO "de-fang" the tyrants of Tehran before it's too late.

We should demand that the MULLAHS/IAEA/UNSC GUARANTEE that Iran is "weapons program free." If they cannot, then Congress should authorize a massive pre-emptive missile strike against all known AND SUSPECTED, PEACEFUL AND MILITARY - AND DUAL USE - nuclear sites ANYWHERE inside of Iran.

That ought to get their attention.

CONGRESS MAY FINALLY TIGHTEN SCREWS ON CORRUPT U.N.

FOX/AP:

A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago. The "United Nations Reform Act of 2005" targets a panoply of issues that have troubled critics of the United Nations, particularly Republicans, for years. Among other things, it would seek to cut funding for programs seen as useless and bar human rights violators from serving on U.N. human rights bodies. The 80-page bill, from Illinois Republican Henry Hyde's House International Relations Committee, is still in an early form and has only recently been distributed to Democrats, who are likely to oppose several elements. It was sent to a few U.N. officials Thursday night, when a copy was obtained by The Associated Press. One of the bill's most controversial proposals will be linking dues to the changes it spells out. The document stipulates that if the reforms are not carried out, Congress will withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget, taking the money from programs it deems inefficient and wasteful.

Readers of this blog know that I called for this MONTHS AGO, in a post HERE - "TIME FOR HELMS -BIDEN REDUX."

ALSO THERE'S THIS ITEM: Trump weighs in on the UN's $1.2 BILLION renovation - which the USA is supposed to pay for. FROM POWERLINE/The Weekly Standard:

... on April 6, 2005, Senator Jeff Sessions recounted his conversation with Trump:

Let me share this story with you, which is pretty shocking to me. The $1.2 billion loan the United Nations wants is to renovate a building. Some member of the United Nations, a delegate, apparently, from Europe, had read in the newspaper in New York that Mr. Donald Trump . . . had just completed the Trump World Tower--not a 30-story building like the United Nations, but a 90-story building, for a mere $350 million, less than one-third of that cost. So the European United Nations delegate was curious about the $1.2 billion they were spending on the United Nations. He knew he didn't know what the real estate costs are in New York. So, he called Mr. Trump and they discussed it. Mr. Trump told him that building he built for $350 million was the top of the line. It has the highest quality of anything you would need in it. They discussed the matter, and an arrangement was made for Mr. Trump to meet Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, to discuss the concerns. . . . So according to Mr. Trump, who I talked to personally this morning, they go meet with Mr. Annan, who had asked some staff member to be there . . . When the European asked how these numbers could happen, Mr. Trump said the only way would be because of incompetence, or fraud. That is how strongly he felt about this price tag because he pointed out to me that renovation costs much less than building an entirely new building. So he has a meeting with Mr. Annan, and they have some discussion. And Mr. Trump says these figures can't be acceptable. He told me in my conversation this morning, he said: You can quote me. You can say what I am saying. He said they don't know. The person who had been working on this project for 4 years couldn't answer basic questions about what was involved in renovating a major building. He was not capable nor competent to do the job. He went and worked on it, and talked about it, and eventually made an offer. He said he would manage the refurbishment, the renovation, of the United Nations Building, and he would not charge personally for his fee in managing it. He would bring it in at $500 [million], less than half of what they were expecting to spend, and it would be better. . . . Yet he never received a response from the United Nations.

It appears there are serious questions about the U.N.'s renovation project. Depending on which assumptions one accepts about cost and square footage, anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in expense is unaccounted for. Given the U.N.'s history, is there any reason to doubt that the costs projected by that organization include substantial sums representing, as Trump put it, incompetence or fraud? Given what we know about the oil-for-food program, is there any reason to trust the U.N.'s business or accounting practices?

NOPE! The UN is a CESSPOOL of Leftism and corruption, and it's BEYOND RENOVATION. IT'S A TEAR-DOWN! Instead of RENOVATING it - or its building - we should TEAR IT DOWN -- LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY -- AND START FROM SCRATCH: A NEW ORGANIZATON AND A NEW BUILDING AT A NEW LOCATION!

And we could have them sell their building and real estate to Trump, and he could make it into a hotel/condo/marina-resort.

TYRANT FIDEL THUMBS NOSE AT E.U.

From the BBC:

Cuba has expelled two European Union politicians visiting Havana to address a rare pro-democracy conference. ... The pair were due to address a meeting of dissidents opposed to the Communist rule of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The EU, which has called for 61 jailed dissidents to be released, will decide next month whether to impose sanctions against Cuba for human rights abuses. ... Several other EU politicians have been arrested or barred from entering Cuba in recent years, accused of fostering links with dissidents. EU-Cuban relations have been strained since 75 were people were arrested during a crackdown on political opponents in March 2003. The EU imposed sanctions but lifted them when 14 were released last year. Sixty-one still remain in jail.

Totalitarians like Fidel - Mugabe, Chavez, Assad, Kim Jong Il - ARE ALL LEFTISTS and THEY ALL MUST GO!

KORANGATE: FRIEDMAN GETS ONE RIGHT - for a change!

This blog has been justifiably tough on NYTIMES columnist Tom Friedman, so it's only fitting and proper - and FAIR AND BALANCED - that we cite him when he's gets something right:

The Muslim world's silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Koran, highlights what we are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq - as well as the only workable strategy going forward.

[...] If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis were given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop, as happened with the Palestinians.

The Muslim world's lack of criticism of the Muslims who rioted because of the Newsweek article, and the fact that Muslims rarely criticize Iraq's suicide bombers reveals a HUGE problem within Islam.

Muslims must cease their xenophobic hysteria and their reflex to use violence. This would most likely begin to happen if their mainstream clerics would LOUDLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY criticize the neojihadist fanatics who riot or become suicide bombers; (right now, the only Islamic folks who are consistently crticizing the neojihadists are Islamic fringe critics like IRSHAD MANJI). WE'RE WAITING.

WHAT IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS??

HARRY REID REFERS TO THE FILIBUSTER AS IF IT WAS THE ONLY THING WHICH STOOD BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM.

WELL, IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS, WOULD THEY EXPECT THE GOP MAJORITY TO RAISE THE NUMBER OF VOTES IN ORDER TO INVOKE CLOTURE?

THAT'S ABSURD!

THERE'S NOTHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT THE NUMBER 40. IT USED TO BE 35; BEFORE THAT, IT WAS 30. THE DEMS CHANGED IT - TO INCREASE THEIR POWER AND DECREASE THE POWER OF THE GOP SENATORS.

THERE IS SOMETHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT MAJORITY RULE - IT'S CALLED DEMOCRACY.

IF THESE 5 NOMINEES WERE REALLY "BEYOND THE PALE" THEN THEY WOULD NOT PASS IN A STRAIGHT UP-OR-DOWN SENATE VOTE.

THINK ABOUT THIS: BUSH IS HAVING A PROBLEM WITH 5/270 NOMINEES. THAT'S 1/54th. HARDLY AN AMOUNT THAT WOULDS IRREVOCABLY HURT THE JUDICIARY. AND THERE ARE ABOUT 200 APPELLATE JUDGES ON SVERAL CIRCUITS. THESE FIVE NOMINEES CANNOT POSSIBLY CHANGE - IN ANY MAJOR WAY - THE CHARACTER OF THE APPELATE COURTS TO WHICH THEY ARE NOMINATED, IF THEY ARE CONFIRMED.

WHICH PRIOVES THAT THE WHOLE ISSUE IS NOTHING MORE THAN HYSTERICAL LEFT-WING BS! THE DEMS ARE HOLDING UP THE NOMINEES TO RAISE MONEY FROM THEIR LEFT-WING BASE, TO PROVE THEIR "WORTH." THE DEMS HAVE PROSTITUTED THEMSELVES TO THE ANTI-MAJORITARIAN, ANTI-MIDDLE-AMERICAN, LEFT-WING. THIS WILL GET THEM MONEY - IN THE SHORT RUN - AND AN EVER-DWINDLING RESULT AT THE BALLOT BOX IN THE COMING ELECTIONS.

CHECKS AND BALANCES AND SENATE FILIBUSTERS

The Dems in the Senate are CHARGING that the proposed rule change will destroy "checks and balances" and will turn our republic into a tryanny. But "checks and balances" is a term which has to do with the three co-equal branches (the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary), and NOT minority powers within one body (the Senate) of one branch.

When the Dems CHARGE that MERELY reducing the votes required to invoke cloture on judicial nominees is an "attack on checks and balances" they are hyping to the point of pure unadulterated demagogic LYING!

The reason that Bush should get most if not ALL of his nominees conformed is because we live in a DEMOCRACY, and a majority of Americans have VOTED IN the GOP into a MAJORITY in the Congress - BOTH in the House and in the Senate - and into the White House. That's DEMOCRACY - the WILL OF THE PEOPLE - and NOT a "power grab." Rather, it is the DEM MINORITY that's trying to GRAB power - literally use ARCHAIC SENATE RULES to exert more power than they are Consitutionally entitled to, and more power than they can win IN ELECTIONS. And in DEMOCRACIES, elections are SUPPOSED to be how things get decided.

UPDATE: 12:54PM - Chuckie Schumer is accusing the GOP of abusing power and threatening "CHECK AND BALANCES" - and... GET THIS: he accused the GOP of throwing a "TEMPER TANTRUM." The Freudian concept of "projection" never had a more perfect, more salient example.

IS BUSH TRYING TO "PACK THE COURT"

I'm watching the Senate rule change debate on C-SPAN.

Leahy has just charged that Bush is trying to "pack the court." BS!

Leahy then went on to say that the Senate has already confirmed about 270 Bush nominees, and are only holding up 5.

WELL: HOW COULD 5 NOMINEES AMOUNT TO PACKING THE COURT?! It's pure demagoguery. These five nominees cannot possibly change the character of ANY court to which they are appointed.

Then Leahy charged that the GOP is hyping the crisis and dangerously employing the "nuclear option." But the GOP is merely changing Senate cloture rules which the Dems changed 5 times - three times when Byrd himself was leader. The number of votes required to invoke cloture has been reduced before. It is NOT "nuclear." Charging that it is "nuclear" is HYPERBOLE AND DEMOGOGIC!

And then Leahy called the GOP contemptible McCarthyites. Which is yet another example of OUTRAGEOUS DEMOGOGUERY.

It's the Dems and demagogic jerks like Leahy who've fomented this crisis and who are HYPERBOLIZING the crisis.

Now that HOMUNCULUS Durbin is admonishing Frist and the GOP for using hyperbole. WHAT HYPOCRISY!

UPDATE: The INVALUABLE MALKIN is NUCLEAR OPTION central - CHECK HER OUT! And WELCOME Malkin readers; please check out a few other FRESH posts while they're still wamr!

MORE PROOF THE LEFT LIKES NEOJIHADISM MORE THAN NEOCONSERVATISM

From VIKINGPUNDIT (hat tip AZ CENTRAL):

DNC CHAIR Howard Dean on a NEOJIHADIST GENOCIDAL MURDERER:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," [Howard] Dean said during the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."

About Tom Delay - who has been neither indicted or convicted of ANYTHING - (and who has been "charged in the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION" ONLY with doing what 150 Democrat Congrressman have done: travel at someone else's expense):

"I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence."

This OUTBURST reveals that the Left fears neoconservatism - and Bush and Delay - more than they do neojihadism. Which is warped. And it's why - as long as there's a war on - the Dems will NEVER be trusted with the White House or control of the Congress.

I guess this is to be expected from the party that still advocates socialism - like nationalized health - even though it has failed (or is failing) everytime it has ever been tried everywhere in the world.

And it's more proof that the Left is not anti-war; they're on the other side.

WARS WORK!

From WINDS OF CHANGE:

[The 20th Century was] a century that saw far more people murdered by governments than killed in wartime 169M to 36M, by one estimate...

SO: when we FAIL to intervene against socialist tyrannies, we err on the side of GENOCIDE. It SAVED LIVES to defeat Hitler. If we had marched on to Moscow in 1945 - it would have SAVED LIVES. If we had intervened MILITARILY in Rwanda, it would have SAVED LIVES.

And I believe that making war against tyrants like Mugabe and Fidel and Chavez and Kim and the mullahs would not only end their TYRANNY but SAVE LIVES, and lift the people up to lives of liberty and prosperity.

That makes me a libertarian hawk. And a HUMANITARIAN who wants to SAVE LIVES.

BOTTOM-LINE: WAR WORKS. I think this is further proof that the DOVES OF THE LEFT (since Vietnam days and all the way to the anti-Iraq War folks) have been "anti-war" because they're on the other side, and not because they want to save lives.

NEW LEFTIST MANTRA: "FAKE BUT ACCURATE!"

"FAKE BUT ACCURATE." It makes perfect sense. To the Leftist mind. They do NIT even see the INANITY of it. "FAKE BUT ACCURATE." Rathergate was FAKE BUT ACCURATE. Newsweek's KORANGATE was "FAKE BUT ACCURATE."

To the Left, "fake but accurate" means that a lie or a fiction might get at a higher truth than the facts.

You know what the REALLY scary thing is? Leftists really REALLY believe this.

Real truth - the LITERAL TRUTH - is not as important to the Left as stuff that FEELS truthful, as the FIGURATIVE TRUTH. That's why they come up with stuff like: BusHitler/AshKKKroft/Blood4Oil/Bush-lied; people died.

And it's why they so often argue analogically ("Zionsim is racism/Sanctions were infanticide", and use metaphors (like "Nuclear Option"), and coin coded synonyms, like: Neocon is code for Likudnik which is code for Zionist which is code for International Jewish Banking Conspiracy/CFR-Bilderberger, blah blah blah.

Unfortunately for the Left - and fortunately for the rest of us - figurative thinking, analogies, and code-words are NO SUBSTITUTE for good-thinking, logic and the truth.

Which is why the Democrats are in REAL TROUBLE: they have more affinity for the Loony "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" Left than they do for Middle America.

Welcome BASIL'S BLOG readers! And if you're not one, you should be EVERYDAY!

More on "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" here and here and here and here and here.

NEWSWEEK SOURCE IDENTIFIED!

It was Joe Wilson. I mean Dick Clarke. I mean Dan Rather. I mean Mary Mapes. I mean Chuck Graner. I mean Sy Hersh. I mean Howard Zinn. I mean Sandy Berger. I mean Alger Hiss. I mean John Kerry. I mean Ramsey Clark. I mean Noam Chomsky. I mean Jimmy Carter. I mean Benedict Arnold.

Well... I can GUARANTEE THIS: it was a Left-wing anti-American who believes that the USA needs to be punished. (What for you ask!? For being: Western; middle class; vulgar and unsophisticated compared to zuh French; universalist; the ONLY superpower; capitalist; free; and traditional.)

(BY THE WAY: SHOULDN'T THERE BE SOME KIND OF "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT" IN RELATION TO THE MSM (WHEN THEY GET IT SO SO SO SO VERY VERY WRONG!? SHOULDN'T WE IN THE DEFRAUDED PUBLIC HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUE THE MSM TO FIND OUT WHO THEIR SOURCE WAS?! IT MIGHT DISCOURAGE THIS DESPICABLE ACTIVTITY.)

MUSLIM REACTION TO NEWSWEEK LIE UNACCEPTABLE - so is the MSM's!

At NRO's THE CORNER, John Podhoretz spotted this comment from last night's anti-American/anti-Bush NIGHTLINE show (which I saw):

"It would certainly be convenient to say that all this is Newsweek's fault," said Nightline's John Donvan. "The problem is, America also has a credibility problem in the Muslim world."

Blaming America for the misperceptions that many Arabs and many Muslims have about America is like blaming the beaten and abused wife for the abuse she receives at the hands of her wife-beating husband (who says in his own defense: "It's HER fault; she doesn't effing listen!")

Except of course that UNLIKE the wife-beater, the Arabs and the Muslims have the MSM and al Jazeera to thank for CRANKING-UP and reinforcing their WARPED view of what the USA is all about. The MSM - and al Jazeera - are essentially like the mean-spirited friends of the wife-beater who egg him on by LYING about the wife.

They have no shame.

NOT NEWS: MSM LIES, AND MUSLIMS RESPOND WITH CRUEL XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE

This time it's Newsweek who rushed to press with a phony anti-War/anti-Bush/anti-American story. HOW SHOCKING!? (Sarcasm off.)

And Muslims around the world CHOOSE to display their PIETY by killing and rioting.

YAWN. What else is new?

There was an OLD joke about Nixon: "How do you know when he's lying? "He's moving his lips." DITTO the MSM - "How do you know they're going out of their way to bash Bush?" "They're 'reporting.'"

And it's LONG PAST TIME that the "moderate" Muslims - moderates who led the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and who granted women the right to vote in Kuwait - condemned ALL XENOPHOBIC MUSLIM VIOLENCE OF ANY AND ALL SORTS.

If the MSM became UN-BIASED, AND MODERATE MUSLIMS SPOKE OUT AGAINST VIOLENCE... NOW THAT WOULD BE NEWS!

THE LEFT, THE USSR, NYC CRIME AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

I remember when the Left was anti-Reagan and pro-UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT. The Left argued that nukes were bad - and that the USSR was benign, internationaly - and that Reagan was taking unnecessary and destabilizing steps when he increased defense-spending and ESPECIALLY when he deployed the Pershing nuke missiles in Western Europe, and kept deploying even after HUGE (Left-wing sponsored) protests all over the world!

The Left favored other policies in our relations with the USSR, (whom they did NOT SEE AS AN EVIL EMPIRE - in fact, they thought Reagan was a dangerous simpleton when he said that then, just as they thought that Bush was when he called North Korea and Iran the "AXIS OF EVIL". The Left favored unilateral disarmament and peace-talks, and other lovey-DOVEY/non-confrontational approaches.

The Left was wrong: Reagan's arms build-up and Pershing II deployment were two HUGELY IMPORTANT factors in bringing down the USSR (along with the threat of an arms build-up on another front - in SPACE - with SDI, or "STAR WARS).

I also remember that the Left was very VERY anti-Giuliani when he ran against Dinkins; Rudy ran once and lost, and then ran again - AND WON. To the Left, Rudy was a belligerant blow-hard who threatened a USELESS WAR ON CRIME that would use increased police actions and POINTLESS (to the Left) arrests at EVERY level - from turnstile jumpers to "squeegee-men" to purse-snappers, on up to muggers and rapists and murderers. The Left said this was NO WAY to fight crime, that we needed to "GET TO THE ROOT CAUSES of crime: poverty" - as if poor people (who make up 10-15% of the population were somehow more criminal and immoral than rich people, which in my mind is a terrible slander aginst the poor.)

The Left was WRONG AGAIN. Rudy's get-tough ZERO-TOLERANCE apporach WORKED: Rudy got crime lower and lower and lower until it fell beneath the TIPPING POINT and all but disappeared as a social factor in the City.

Now.... The Left is complaining about "VIGILANTISM" on our border with Mexico - (as if when normal citizens try to get law-enforcement-officials to enforce the law it is sonmehow "dangerous.")

One Lefty "human rights-watchy" Leftist appeared on C-SPAN - JENNIFER ALLEN of BORDER ACTION NETWORK - and she said she and other Left-wing (let's not enforce our laws" groups have SEVERAL LAWSUITS against the federal government and AD HOC citizens groups (like the Minutemen) -- lawsuits which highlight THOUSANDS OF ABUSES OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE ALLEGED BORDER-BUSTING/BORER-IGNORING Mexicans.

And of course - like a GOOD LEFTIST, Ms. Allen said that the laws are no good and that VIGILANTISM would NEVER WORKS ANYHOW.

Where I have I heard this "let's go-soft" - NAY: LET'S APPEASE AND CAPITULATE - policy before???? LET ME SEE.... OH YES, IT'S STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR THE LEFT: "let's surrender to our enemies."

I say: the Left's policy of appeasement and capitulation failed with the USSR - and with Reagan's leadership we became HAWKISH; it WORKED; WE WON! I say the Left's policies failed in regard to CRIME IN NYC - and that under Rudy's leadership the city instituted more HAWKISH policies; it WORKED AND WE WON!

And, I say that The Minutemen have PROVEN that ENFORCING our border and our ANTI-ILLEGAL immigrtation laws works, too. Illegal immigration has HALTED in areas they patroled.

BOTTOM-LINE: not only are Leftist policies IMMORAL (because they advocate appeasement to evil forces, and/or because the Left denies that evil forces even exist), but THEIR POLICIES DO NOT WORK.

Getting tough with our adversaries - and enforcing laws (which are passed in a DEMOCRATIC MANNER IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!) is not only right - AND MORAL - IT WORKS!

BUSH UN APPOINTMENTS: Danforth versus Bolton, and why Bolton is the RIGHT MAN for the job

I think we should all look at the recent historical context of the Bolton nomination: After Negroponte, Bush appointed John Danforth to the UN Ambassadorship. Bolton was nominated to replace Danforth. The men could NOT be more different in their styles.

WHY WOULD BUSH DO THIS? Here's what I surmise...

Danforth is an extremely TEMPORATE man with a lot of GRAVITAS. Danforth's first Ambassadorship was to the Sudan - as a Special Presidential Envoy to the Sudan, an appointment made BEFORE 9/11 and before the Sudan was on the radar-screen of the world.

Danforth didn't last long as UN Ambassador, and he left in large measure because he felt the body was hopelessly bogged down in corruption and bureaucratic BS and utterly failing to meet its own mission. He said so in a speech. Here's an excerpt -from PBS/NEWSHOUR:

According to The Washington Post, Danforth had recently expressed frustration over the effectiveness of the United Nations, particularly the U.N. Security Council, in dealing with world problems. "While the U.N. is an important part of multilateralism, which is essential to U.S. foreign policy, it's very difficult to get strong resolutions passed," Danforth told the Post in a recent interview. "It's built for compromise, and it's built for wordsmithing. It's difficult to create real policies because of the ornate structure of multilateralism, at least the U.N.'s version of it."

The New York Times reported that Danforth had publicly expressed impatience with the U.N. General Assembly in late November after a resolution to denounce human rights violations in Sudan was blocked.

"One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this," Danforth said. "One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What is it all about?"

Danforth OBVIOUSLY did not have the stomach to lead the effort reform the UN; he resigned. So what did Bush do? He took his time - many months - and then nominated a person who WOULD HAVE THE STOMACH FOR THE JOB: JOHN BOLTON.

The Senate MUST confirm Bush's nominee and then Bush and Rice and Bolton must bear the onus - or fruits of their efforts. We'll all be watching.

UPDATE: Maybe I shoulda titled this post "BOLTON'S STOMACH"??? In lieu of the shabby treatment he's gotten at the hands of many disgruntled State bureaucrats and by the obstructionist Dems, and also because AFTER HE IS CONFIRMED, he'll need an iron-plated stomach to work at the UN!

UPDATE #2: Welcome BETSY'S PAGE readers! Please check out a few other posts while you're here --- THEY'RE STILL WARM!

FRIEDMAN WRONG AGAIN: THE WORLD AIN'T FLAT - OR EVEN GETTING FLATTER!

From the book - THE WORLD IS FLAT:

Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife, and only in a whisper. “Honey,” I confided, “I think the world is flat.”

Tommy Friedman has written another bestseller - THE WORLD IS FLAT. The title is clever - BUT IS DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE THEME OF THE BOOK!

In addition, the theme is hardly new, at all; in fact it is old, quite trite, even banal: that there's no more "there" anymore, that everywhere is "here" is a truism that's more than two decades old; we live in a global village which has SHRUNK (in aprt due to technology) in the forty-three (43) years since McLuhan coined that phrase.

1 - THE MISTAKEN METAPHOR:

Historically a "flat world" is one in which "YOU CANNOT GET THERE FROM HERE!" Everyone told Columbus that he was going to fall off the edge of the Earth if he sailed west to get to the east because they BELIEVED that the Earth was flat. Columbus proved them wrong; he proved that the Earth was NOT FLAT, but a GLOBE --- he was the first GLOBALIST, and his discovery CREATED GLOBALISM, and ended the false "flat-world" myth. And need I remind you that GLOBES are all ROUND!

The GLOBE has gotten SMALLER - NOT FLATTER. If the world was flatter - as Friedman suggest - then it would have become less easy to ignore location as a factor in trade. In a flat-world, getting form the place on the left of the map to the place on the rioght of the map means you have to cross the entire middle of the map - as if, in a map with Great Britian on the left-edge and the east coast of the USA on the right-edge you'd have to transverse all of Europe and Asia and the Pacific and the USA to go from London to NY. This was DISPROVED by Columbus, and it's also why a flat-world metaphor is entirely wrong for Freidman's book. (It is "catchy" though. I guess that is valued more than truth and aptness by the MSM.)

UPDATE: the FLAT world metaphor Friedman uses is a perversion of the LEVEL-PLAYING FIELD metaphor. Friedman was told that techonology and education has made the playing field more level (a Chinese genius has just as good a chance as a genius from anywhere else because technology and education and free trade). Friedamn conflates FLATNESS with LEVELNESS - a stupid mistake.

2 - THE MISPLACED EMPHASIS ON TECHNOLOGY:

From Zakaria's review of the book int The NYTIMES -

The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally. Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.''

The reason why China and India are better places NOW than BEFORE is because of free markets and GLOBALISM, and NOT BECAUSE OF TECHNOLOGY. Technology is merely a facilitator, a tool, an exploitable product or service. Technology may crank-up opportunities, but it is FREEDOM - free people doing what they want - which CREATES THEM. The true ENGINE OF OPPORTUNITY AND GROWTH AND POTENTIAL IS FREEDOM - AND FREE MARKETS - not silicon chips or computer programming or teleconferencing. Can anyone deny that if China were still under "pre-Deng Xiao Peng Maoism" that they'd be just as poor now as 1949-1980?! That imaginary genius wouldn't have a chance under Maoism; he has a chance now because of free markets and free trade, not IBM or APPLE.

The MSM's failure to see the inaptness of Friedman's title and his incorrect emphasis on technology reveals their bias, and their proneness to see NO FLAWS in their "little darlings" and imaginary flaws in their enemies: To them, Friedman is a genius who coins new phrases and enlightgens us with new insights; and Bush is a theocratic, war-monerging, dumbass unilateralist.

NOT!

BUSH, YALTA AND THE LEFT - or - THE LEFT : BUSH :: FRANCE : AMERICA

JYB has a GREAT post on YALTA and TPM. IT'S A MUST READ (hat-tip PEJ).

JYB catches JMM of TPM in a BLATANTLY SHAMELESS HYPOCRITICAL ATTACK ON BUSH:

Two years ago Marshall believed [and blogged that... (reliapundit)] that the US decision to leave eastern Europe in the USSR's hands was a "great betrayal," and that it was "shameful." "Inevitable," yes, but still a great betrayal.

Today he calls President Bush's remarks on Yalta--remarks that more or less agree with Marshall's own line from two years ago--"cheap posturing or folly."

There is indeed some cheap posturing and folly going on. You'll find it every day at Talking Points Memo. Oh, there is one point of consistency to Marshall's remarks from two years ago and now: He uses all events available in space and time to smear Republicans, or President Bush, or both.

OUCH! Actually, this sorta HIGHpocrisy is reflexive for the Left. Here's another recent example: They used be for INDEXING of Social Security payments, but now that "BUSHitler" is for it… they’re agin it!

Why are they like this? The Left are partisans/comrades first and ideologues second. That their ideology has been PROVEN to be an ABSOLUTE FAILURE matters not one whit to the Left; (YES: P-R-O-V-E-N - just look at the Korean peninsula or Cuba versus P.R., or China and India pre’n post market-reform). How did they become this way?! SInce the collapse of the USSR, Leftism has devolved into an AD HOC, morally relativistic Oppositionism - the Left exists only to obstruct reform, and they seem only to support that which is anti-West, anti-traditional, anti-bourgeois. Which means anti-GOP and anti-Bush.

The Left is to Bush what France is to America.

UPDATE: a compendium of more "Leftie Yalta hypocrisy" from Matt Welch (hat-tip Glenn) HERE.

OUR "IFFY" ALLY PAKISTAN IS AIDING CHINESE HEGEMONY

WASHTIMES/UPI (hat-tip FJORDMAN):

To the dismay of the U.S. Bush administration, Pakistan and China have agreed to co-produce a new JF-17 fighter aircraft.

This is a destabilizing and aggressive move: it hurts Taiwan and Japan - our two BEST allies in the region (along with South Korea). As I have blogged many times before (HERE and HERE and HERE), this China-Pakistani ARMS DEAL emphasizes that we NEED to get MUCH closer to INDIA - to counter-balance China and Pakistan.

Without Musharraf would Pakistan be an ally at all!? Even WITH Musharraf, they're an ally only as good as Saudi Arabia is: a necessary ally for the time being - but one who (in a more perfect world - one free of neojihadism) we could jettison.

EVEN LBJ DIDN'T TRUST THE STATE DEPARTMENT

I just read the NYTIMES BOOK REVIEW of book analyzing LBJ'S tapes.

Here's something from the review that I thought was VERY interesting:

In some ways, Johnson's preoccupations as revealed on these tapes seem remarkably up-to-date. Johnson, like his successors, was obsessed with stopping leaks to the press. The State Department ''leaks everything they got,'' Johnson complained to his assistant Ralph Dungan. ''I've got about as much confidence in them as I have in a Soviet spy.''

LBJ said this in the late 1960's - which, if you THINK about it, was only 20 years after Yalta -- that's JUST ONE GENERATION. We are FORTY YEARS -- or TWO GENERATIONS from LBJ.

And at Yalta - with the help of one Soviet agent/sympathizer: ALGER HISS - Unlce Joe Stalin got the USA to give him half of Europe for commie slavery. Twenty-years later, LBJ still didn't trust the State Department - WITH GOOD REASON.

Do you think that the State Department is spy/mole free? I don't. I KNOW that if the USSR could successfully infiltrate the FBI and CIA - (remember Hannsen and Ames?) - then they, and other ENEMIES of the USA, could EASILY get to and buy a few key SYMAPTHETIC lifetime bureaucrats at State.

I think this is IMPORTANT now for two reasons: (1) the Bolton nomination is being attacked by left-wingers in the Democrat Party and by a few BUREAUCRATS in the State Department. Bureaucrats who are - like the military - are SUPPOSED to serve the ELECTED DECISION-MAKERS, AND NOT FOLLOW THEIR OWN AGENDAS. And (2), in the "GWOT" State has NOT always acted in synch' with our elected Commander in Chief; Powell never cleaned house; I hope Rice will. And a longtime "home" of MANY of the States Department's WORST, most LEFTIST bureaucrats has ALWAYS been.... the UN. This is another reason why Bolton is PERFECT for the job: he will clean up the UN; he will NOT suffer the UN's malfeasance lightly.

THERE'S A SIMPLE AND PROPER WAY FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO CONTROL WHO GETS ON THE FEDERAL BENCH:

If the Dems want to BLOCK Bush's picks, then they can do so CONSTITUTIONALLY: all they need to do is get a MAJORITY in the Senate.

If the Dems want to SELECT NOMINEES that's easy too: all they need to do is WIN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Every other gimmick they've used has been unconstitutional and dishonorable; the Dems behave like sore-sports.

ELECTIONS MATTER.

LEFTIES LIE ABOUT BLAIR'S VICTORY

The Left is trying to spin Blair's HISTORIC victory into a defeat for him and the Iraq War.

IT'S PURE BULL!

Blair won 36% of the vote this time; last time he won 40% of the vote. So Blair ONLY lost 4% of the general vote, and his party only polled 10% less this time than last time.

The voters Blair lost went to the Liberal-Democrats - who are in may ways TO THE LEFT of Blair - especially on the Iraq War.

Blair's party won 367 seats. the next nearest party was the Conservative Party which won 197 seats. The Lib-Dems won 62 seats. Other parties won a total of 30 seats. If the Consevatives and the Lib-Dems formed a coaliton then they would fail to overturn any labor policy or a loss of a confidence vote in Parliament. It is EXTREMELY UNLIKEY that the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems would ever be able to unite on anything, anyway, or to unite with the 30 MP's from any of the other parties. Blair's lead over the Conservatives is 170 - THAT'S ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SEATS! And Blair's lead over the next biggest party is a WHOPPING 305 - THAT'S THREE-HUNDRED AND EFFING-FIVE!

Therefore, Blair's Labor Party still enjoys a HUGE real advantage over each of his opposing parties, and it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that either the Conservatives or the Lib-Dems will be able to unseat the Labor Party - EVEN AT THE NEXT ELECTION!

As to the effect of the Iraq War... it had NO MEANINGFUL EFFECT. NONE. The Lib-Dems rans an anti-Iraq War dove and got 62 seats - not enough to be meaningful threat to Labor. And the Conservative Party supported the War. Therefore, if the Labor Party were to be led by a dove next time, they'd probably LOSE to a Conservative Party leader. History shows that the Labor Paryt did not (and couldn't've) become "NEW Labor" until AFTER they had convinced the broad center of the electorate that they could be trusted on the economy and on defense. If they backslide on either then they IN EFFECT revert to OLD Labor, and they'd probably get the commensurate electoral results: LOSE, LOSE, LOSE.

SO... when the Lefties tell you that Blair's support of Bush and the Iraq War hurt him, say: "okay, a little, but NOT in any significant way.

"THE BOOMERANG EFFECT" - another idiotic Left-wing fantasy

The Left-wing commonly accuses Bush and his adminsitration of exacerbating the GWOT - and tensions between the USA and Iran and the USA and North Korea - by going on the offensive, and by BEING offensive (at least using inflammatory/offensive speech).

Famous among these charges is the constant refrain from the Left that Bush's "AXIS OF EVIL" speech has a BOOMERANG EFFECT because they claim it incited Iran and North Korea to BECOME INCREASINGLY enemical to the USA and to start and speed-up their ILLEGAL and surreptitious nuclear weapons programs. The Left also charges that Bush's "IRAQ/OIL WAR" has had a BOOMERANG EFFECT and has increased terror and decreased stability.

This attack by the Left on Bush reveals a few SALIENT things about the Left: (1) they prize stability over any tumult even if the tumult may be the only weay to get positive change; (2) they would use appeasement to avoid any tumult or temporary instability; (3) they believe our self-confessed enemies (like the neojihadists and Iran and North Korea) have agendas and strategies which are only REACTIVE, and that these self-avowed enemies have no PROACTIVE agenda or strategy to use terror, force, and "nuclear blackmail," (etc.) in order to advance their aims.

I think that reality proves that these Left-wing assumptions or presuppositions are flatly wrong:

(A) North Korea was cheating on "Clinton watch" (byu enriching uranium) in order to make bombs. This cheating occurred BEFORE the "Axis of Evil" speech. (B) Iran has LONG been a state sponsor of international neojihadist terrorists - who have attacked the USA repeatedly, INCLUDING DURING THE REAGAN ADMINSTRATION. (C) And Saddam OPENLY sponsored neojihadist terror by neojihadist Arabs against Israel; now that Saddam is in jail - (awaiting trial for GENOCIDE, among other things) - Iraq sponsors NO TERRORISM and has instead becoma a battlegorund which itself ATTRACTS neojihadists (MOST of whom are murdering fellow Muslims); since the LAW OF PHYSICS says that a person cannot be in two places at the same time, EVERYONE of the neojihadist terrorists in Iraq is one fewer neojihadist terrorist that can attack the West in Israel, Europe or the USA. And (D), though the tumultuous transition to democracy in Iraq is deadly, it is still a lesser target of neojihadist terror than India and Kashmir - where neojihadists are killing Hindus and other Muslims who have nothing to do with either Bush or Israel or the Likud or Neoconservatism or Oil or Skull & Bones!

The forward-leaning/assertive/aggressive/militaristic startegy of the Bush Administration is an abrupt change from the preceding policy - of appeasement and containment (vis avis the USSR and neojihadism). This abrupt changes was necessitated by 9/11; this is something that Bush fully and openly explicated in numerous speaches and addresses including at West Point, in his "SOTU's" and Congressional addresses since 9/22/2001 and at the UN in 2001, 2002, 2003. (GOOGLE'EM YOUSELF IF YOU DOUBT ME!)

And Bush has reiterated - this week in Latvia - that the USA will NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST: as when we gave away eastern Europe to 50 years of Stalinist tyranny. That was appeasement; that was a cop-out; that was morally wrong; that was a HUGE strategic error.

Evil should be confronted - and fought - everywhere. Our enemies should be attacked, and counter-attacked - EVERYWHERE. And complaining that we are less safe now because we are COUNTER-ATTACKING as repellant to VERYONE now as it would have been in 1944 if someone complainied that "US casualties were higher in 1944 than 1943 and higher then than in 1942 and that this was higher than in 1941 - SO we shouldn't have gone to war against the Axis."

Our safety ultimately depends on our VICTORY becuase our enemies have motivations which are independent of us and our counter-measures. Making our enemies less numerous and less threratening over tinme REQUIRES that we kill or capture and bring to justice as many of them as we can WHEREVER they are, and that OVER TIME we reduce theior ability to recruit by dealiong with the UNDELYING ISSUES: lack of democracy in the Muslim world. Promiting democracy in the Muslim world will take years - if not decades and generations, therefore - since there are thosuands of neojihadists who want to kill us and blackmail us and make us subservient to them NOW, we must counter-attack with FORCE.

The "BOOMERANG EFFECT" argument fails to take into account the fact that the neojiahdists (and Kim Jiong Il) have self-interests and aims which are independent of ANY ACTIONS we take.

IN FACT, if we followed the Left-wing lunacy of appeasement and gave into the neojiadists and Iran and North Korea "peacefully" and buy short-term "peace" it would only reward there terror and illegal attemopts to gainm nuclear weapons with which to blackmail us - and therefore incite more neojiahdist terror. IN OTHER WORDS: the Left's policies - the failed polcies of the past, and not Bush's policies - would be the ones that would REALLY cause a BOOMERANG EFFECT.