Tom Friedman: Liberal Fascist

Regular readers of the is blog know I LOATHE Tom Friedman. He's a jerk. (MORE FRIEDMAN IDIOCY HERE! Even more here. Unbelievable Friedman crap here.)

He proved it once again today on MTP:

JONAH:

Global Warming As Noble Lie [Jonah Goldberg]

Tom Friedman on Meet the Press, from a reader:

Jonah,

Tom Friedman on Meet The Press:

"If climate change is a hoax, it's the greatest hoax ever
perpetrated on the United States of America. Because everything we
would do to get ready for climate change; to build this new green
industry, would make us more respected, more entrepreneurial, more
competitive, more heathy as a country."

Notice the context of the word "greatest". He uses "greatest" not as
a way to describe the effectiveness of the hoax's ability to trick the
public, but, as a way to describe how beneficial the hoax/lie would be
for the country.

More Friedman [Jonah Goldberg]

I guess I've got to watch Meet the Press today. From a reader:

I just saw Thomas Friedman on Meet the Press, saying how great it would be for the US to "be China for a day" so that the President of the US could freely impose whatever energy policy he (or she!) wishes. Clearly, you need to send Thomas Friedman a copy of Liberal Fascism.

Keep up the good work.

09/07 12:36 PM

YES: AGW is the biggest hoax since communism - and just as bad.

AGW is an excuse for lefties to do what they have long wanted to do - and Tom Friedman admits he would use fascism to do it.

The AGW crowd - like the commies - are utopianists who think that an intellectual elite or POLITBURO would be more effective at running your life than you, and better at maw-making than a democracy.

The eco-nutsies are as wrong about the root cause of GW (it AIN'T man-made), as the commies were about poverty. That's another why the solutions that each suggest(ed) are doomed to failure.

Communists and eco-nutsies each misunderstood the nature of the problem they perseverated on, and suggested solutions which had to fail. Redistribution of wealth cannot end poverty, only the creation of new wealth can. And Kyoto type schemes and carbon taxes and carbon trading cannot work either. Additionally, the carbon-scheme will create more poverty.

The answer is simple: freedom. It creates prosperity and democracy.

The free market is not only more moral it is more efficient.

BUSH'S "DISAPPEARING" ENERGY POLICY: MORE PROOF THAT TOM FREIDMAN IS AN IDIOT - OR A LIAR

WHO PROVES TOM FRIEDMAN IS AN IDIOT?

TOM FRIEDMAN DOES. HERE:

After 9/11, Mr. Bush had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on breaking our addiction to oil.

Instead, he told us to go shopping. After gasoline prices hit $4.11 last week, he had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on clean energy. Instead, he told us to go drilling.

Neither shopping nor drilling is the solution to our problems.

THAT IS EITHER AWESOMELY DUMB OR A FLAGRANT LIE.

HERE'S THE PLAIN TRUTH:

• BUSH PROPOSED SWEEPING CHANGES TO OUR NATIONS ENERGY POLICY IN 2001.
• IN MAY ------- BEFORE 9/11!
  

• AND ALL THE LEFT DID ABOUT IT WAS ACCUSE HIM OF BEING IN THE POCKETS OF THE ENERGY INDUSTRY,
  
• SUBPOENA CHENEY - TAKING IT TO THE SUPREME COURT, TO TRY TO GET MINUTES OF HIS PRIVATE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE ONLY TRUE ENERGY EXPERTS: THE FOLKS IN THE ENERGY INDUSTRY;
  
• AND THEN... THEY VOTED IT DOWN IN 2003.

WE BLOGGED ALL ABOUT THIS WEEKS AGO HERE - JUNE 30TH, A POST CALLED "HOW WE GOT HERE".

WE POSTED ABOUT IT AGAIN - A WEEK LATER - IN THIS ARTICLE WE ATTACKED THE NYTIMES FOR NOT MENTIONING THE BUSH ENERGY PLAN IN A 4000 WORD ARTICLE ON THE CURRETN CRISIS.

• TOM FRIEDMAN - AND HIS COMRADES AT THE NYTIMES - HAVE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN THIS EPISODE.

• JUST AS HE - AND THE REST OF THE LEFT - SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

• THEY HAVE AIRBRUSHED THE BUSH ENERGY PLAN OUT OF THEIR HISTORY BOOKS - THE WAY THEIR HERO STALIN USED TO WITH FORMER COMRADES!

• OF COURSE, FRIEDMAN HASN'T REALLY FORGOTTEN THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. LEFTIES LIKE HIM OFTEN PULL IT OUT WHEN IT'S CONVENIENT, LIKE WHEN THEY HARANGUE US ABOUT "PEAK OIL".

• ER UM... TOMMY BABY: "PEAK OIL: IS BASED ON IRREVERSIBLY DECLINING OIL SUPPLIES.

• SO WHEN BUSH PROPOSES WE INCREASE SUPPLIES HE'S DOING THE SANE THING.
• WE KNOW WHERE THE OIL IS.
• ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS LET THE ENERGY COMPANIES DRILL FOR IT - AT THEIR EXPENSE.

SHEESH.

• THE THING IS TOMMY, BABY... "PEAK OIL" IS BS - JUST LIKE AGW - THERE IS PLENTY OF OIL IN THE WORLD - THEY JUST DISCOVERED BILLIONS OF BARRELS MORE OFF THE COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA.

• AND WE GOT BILLIONS MORE HERE AT HOME - OFF OF OUR COASTS AND IN ALASKA.

BUT PHONY SC*MB*GS LIKE YOU WON'T LET US DRILL FOR IT.

YOU'D RATHER BLAME BUSH AND PAY HIGH PRICES.

IDIOT.

I'M GONNA MAKE THIS SO SIMPLE EVEN A LEFT-WING IDIOT LIKE TOM FRIEDMAN CAN GET IT:

• BUSH PROPOSED EXPANDING ENERGY PRODUCTION AND OIL EXPLORATION BEFORE 9/11.
• HE PROPOSED INCREASING SUPPLIES, AND THIS IS WHAT REDUCES PRICES.

• SO THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF TOM FRIEDMAN'S COLUMN IS FALSE.

HEY TOMMY BOY: EITHER ADMIT YOU'RE AN IDIOT, OR ADMIT YOU'RE A LYING SACK OF LEFTIST SH*T MORE INTERESTED IN HELPING THE DEMOCRATS THAN THE NATION.

TOM FRIEDMAN - LIBERAL FASCIST - PART 1,934,735

DINOCRAT:

[TOM FRIEDMAN:] When it comes to Detroit, my views are clear: I think we should be talking about “bail,” not “bailouts,” regarding the people running the Big Three car companies and the lawmakers who mindlessly protected them for so long. Still, I do not want to see jobs destroyed. But if taxpayers are going to give Detroit money, we must not entrust the spending to people who have run their businesses into the ground.

You want my tax dollars? Then I want to see the precise production plans and timetables for the hybridization of all your cars and trucks within 36 months. I want every bailed-out car company to move to hybrid electric drive trains, because nothing would both improve mileage and emissions more — and also stimulate a whole new 21st-century, job-creating industry: batteries.

It’s awfully nice of Mr. Friedman to take the time to design industrial policy for the US and the 3 automakers with their $400 billion in sales.

Perhaps he had his deep thoughts about how the American people should live and conserve energy while strolling the grounds of his considerable estate or while seated at a cozy fire in his 11,000 square foot mansion.

Questions: (a) what if producing hybrids does nothing to make the automakers profitable? (b) what if hybrids are a mere sandwich technology and not a long-term solution to anything? (c) what if Americans don’t want hybrids?

FRIEDMAN IS A LEFTIST MORON - LIKE HIS COLLEAGUE KRUGMAN.

UTOPIANIST "KNOW-IT-ALLS" LIKE FRIEDMAN - (LIBERAL "CHINA FOR A DAY" FASCISTS) - ARE THE TYPES OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE COMMITTED MOST OF THE GENOCIDA; ATROCITIES IN HUMAN HISTORY, (AND THEY'RE ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CURRENT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN).

THE EARTH AIN'T FLAT (ESPECIALLY NOT IN THE GLOBALIZATION ERA!) - AND TOM FRIEDMAN'S HEAD IS EMPTY.

CARBON, CALORIES AND PENCILS: PROOF THE "GREEN ECONOMY" IS A HOAX

Leftie "do-gooders" AKA "LIBERAL FASCISTS" like Tom Friedman and Barry Obama want to create an "green economy" to save the world from AGW. Obama says he will create HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of GREEN COLLAR JOBS. Friedman says it's the next economic revolution - if I.T. was he last, then he dubs this one E.T for environmental technology. He even joked to Brokaw on MTP that he's like it if the USA were a totalitarian state like China for a day so he and the other left-wing do-gooder elitists - AKA LIBERAL FASCISTS - could pass by fiat all the laws they need to to bring this about. (I guess Tommie Friedman envisions himself or Barry Obama as as sort of like a GREEN CHAVEZ.)

Well, too bad for Friedman and Obama we are not like China and they are not yet Chavez. Too bad for them - BUT LUCKY FOR THE REST OF US.

Here's why: even if they were right about AGW and CO2 - (which they are NOT!) - their policies wouldn't work. It's UNIVERSALLY acknowledged that Kyoto would have been a failure even if the entire world had joined in. The goals were never met by the nations which signed on, and even if they had, CO2 wouldn't have come don't one itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit.

OKAY: IT WOULD HAVE CONE DOWN A TEENY WEENY, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE GLOBAL CLIMATE.

I think an analogy would best illustrate the idiocy of the AGW crowd's concept of a GREEN ECONOMY.

Instead of AGW and CARBON, let's say these LIBERAL FASCISTS were to solve another big problem: obesity and heart disease. A NOBLE CAUSE! And unlike global warming (which has killed no one!), this actually kills millions of people every year.

To "do-good", these LIBERAL FASCIST would get together and pass higher taxes on fattier foods, and mandate maximum calorie input per person. Everybody would be forced to eat a "healthy diet" and nobody who was fat would be allowed dessert. Calories would have to appear on every food bill and each person's grand total of calories and fat - THEIR "FAT FOOTPRINT" (YES: A PLAY ON "CARBON FOOTPRINT").

NOBODY WOULD BE ALLOWED TO EAT MORE THAN WOULD BE HEALTHY FOR THEM.

To make sure everyone obeys the law, the feds would hire millions of FAT FOOD COPS who would enforce the law.

These job would be like the GREEN COLLAR jobs Barry Obama wants to create.

NOW... are you beginning to see how totally effin idiotic this whole approach is!?!?

Its goes against our individual liberty - to eat as we damn please - and the free market. It creates a more powerful state - and costly one, and an artificial economy that has no basis in the real world.

AND I THINK THAT THIS IS CENTRAL: it's ARTIFICIAL because it's not based on the free choice of free people; it's IMPOSED.

Absent the imposition the value collapses, hence it is really a FALSE VALUE. Empty. Worthless. And that's why the whole edifice built upon it will have to collapse.

As the USSR did.

That's why socialism - in carbon or calories - is never the most efficient way to do anything. From pencils to carbon to calories. The MOST EFFICIENT and ONLY TRUE way to ascribe value to a good or service is to let free people do it in a free market. MILTON FRIEDMAN - (THE SMART FRIEDMAN!) - PROVED THIS WITH PENCILS:



MILTON FRIEDMAN PROVED THAT TOM FRIEDMAN AND BARRY OBAMA AND KARL MARX ARE WRONG.

The leftist way violates our basic nature and the market place which is based on that basic nature, AND it artificially and inefficiently and oft time incorrectly ascribes value.

Marx thought he would get around this because Marx thought his leftist elitists would create THE NEW MAN.

They failed.

We are who we are.

And freedom is our essence.

Those who seek to limit it - FOR OUR OWN GOOD - are doomed to failure.

And rightly so.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

IDIOT TOM FRIEDMAN ONCE AGAIN ARGUES IN FAVOR OF TYRANNY

NYTIMES/TOM FRIEDMAN:

America today increasingly looks like the society that the political scientist Mancur Olson wrote about in his 1982 classic “The Rise and Decline of Nations.” He warned that when a country amasses too many highly focused special-interest lobbies — which have an inherent advantage over the broad majority, which is fixated on the well-being of the country as a whole — they can, like a multilimbed octopus, choke the life out of a political system, unless the majority truly mobilizes against them.... 

... “If we are to get out of our present paralysis, we need not only strong leadership, but changes in institutional rules,” argues Fukuyama. These would include eliminating senatorial holds and the filibuster for routine legislation and having budgets drawn up by a much smaller supercommittee of legislators — like those that handle military base closings — with “heavy technocratic input from a nonpartisan agency like the Congressional Budget Office,” insulated from interest-group pressures and put before Congress in a single, unamendable, up-or-down vote.

THIS IS JUST ANOTHER WAY FOR FRIEDMAN TO AGITATE  ONCE AGAIN FOR HIS "CHINA FOR A DAY" CRAP:

THAT'S HIS IDIOTIC IDEA THAT FACELESS BUREAUCRATS/TECHNOCRATS/APPARATCHIKS "fixated on the well-being of the country as a whole" SHOULD DECIDE WHAT'S BEST FOR EVERYONE ELSE.

I GOT NEWS FOR TOMMY: THERE IS NO "COUNTRY AS A WHOLE" DISTINCT FROM THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO COMPRISE IT - WHO ARE THE TRUE SOVEREIGN, WHO DULY CONSTITUTE THE LIMITED AND ENUMERATED POWERS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

THE PEOPLE DON'T INTERFERE WITH GOVERNMENT; PEOPLE COME FIRST.

FRIEDMAN HAS REVEALED - ONCE AGAIN - THE BASIC DEFECT IN LEFTIST THINKING AND THE LEFT'S BASIC IMMORALITY:

THEY WANT THE STATE TO TAKE CARE OF THEM, A STATE RUN BY BENEVOLENT TECHNOCRATS - A POLITBURO. BUT A STATE POWERFUL TO TAKE CARE OF YOU FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE IS A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN AND MUST CRUNCH INDIVIDUALITY - THAT'S AN IMMORAL THING TO ADVOCATE.

IT HAS NEVER WORKED. IT WILL NEVER WORK. IT'S THE ROAD TO SERFDOM.

ALTHOUGH IT SEEMS MESSY AND INEFFICIENT TO THE LEFTIST MIND, A FREE MARKET, (IN WHICH MILLIONS OF UNRELATED PEOPLE MAKE MILLIONS OF LITTLE AND WELL-INFORMED DECISIONS), IS ACTUALLY MUCH MORE EFFICIENT THAN A SMALL GROUP OF ANOINTED GENIUSES TRYING TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS AND EXCHANGES - NO MATER HOW SMART OR HOW NICE THEY ARE.


MILTON FRIEDMAN PROVED THIS:





ADVICE TO LEFTISTS:

THINK OF THE FREE MARKET AS DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE, (IN THE CASE OF THE USA) - AS 333 MILLION PC'S ALL HOOKED UP AND RUNNING IN PARALLEL, IN UNISON.

THE PROBLEMS OCCUR WHEN SMARTER-THAN-THOU LEFTIES LIKE FRIEDMAN INTERFERE WITH THAT INTERACTION.

ESPECIALLY SINCE WHEN ONLY A FEW HOLD POWER IT'S EASIER FOR THEM TO BE COMPROMISED BY SELF-INTEREST OR BY BRIBERY OR BY BLACKMAIL AND EXTORTION.

MAKING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WEAKER MAKES REDUCES THE ABILITY OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO BEN THE POWER OF THE STATE TO THEIR SPECIFIC NEEDS.

IOW: THE CURE IS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT FRIEDMAN PROPOSES.

WE NEED LESS GOVERNMENT WITH MORE CHECKS AND BALANCES AND NOT A MORE POWERFUL GOVERNMENT RUN BY FEWER PEOPLE WHO AREN'T SUBJECT TO CHECKS AND BALANCES OF ELECTIONS OR ELECTED OFFICIALS.

OF COURSE, TOM FRIEDMAN BLAMES BIBI, AND HIS COALITION GOVERNMENT

Via Hot Air:

Tom Friedman - Israel alone

What could Israel have done? The Palestinian Authority, which has made concrete strides in the past five years at building the institutions and security forces of a state in the West Bank — making life there quieter than ever for Israel — finally said to itself: “Our state-building has not prompted Israel to halt settlements or engage in steps to separate, so all we’re doing is sustaining Israel’s occupation. Let’s go to the U.N., get recognized as a state within the 1967 borders and fight Israel that way.” Once this was clear, Israel should have either put out its own peace plan or tried to shape the U.N. diplomacy with its own resolution that reaffirmed the right of both the Palestinian and the Jewish people to a state in historic Palestine and reignited negotiations.

Mr. Netanyahu did neither…

I have great sympathy for Israel’s strategic dilemma and no illusions about its enemies. But Israel today is giving its friends — and President Obama’s one of them — nothing to defend it with. Israel can fight with everyone or it can choose not to surrender but to blunt these trends with a peace overture that fair-minded people would recognize as serious, and thereby reduce its isolation.

Read the Article.

What to think? HERE'S WHAT:

Liberal doves like Tom Friedman always think they have a utopian solution for peace without victory.

They call their policy "accommodation."

And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.

All who oppose them - like Netanyahu - are indicted as warmongers.

(Adapted from Reagan's Time for Choosing Speech.)

It's delusional to think that Arabs will become less belligerent or want to co-exist with Israel if only Bibi would "make nice."

The Arabs do not want to coexist with the Jewish State of Israel - (links to video of Abbas saying so just a few weeks ago)

• BESIDES, IT'S ABBAS AND THE ARABS HAVE REFUSED TO TALK TO ISRAEL.

• ISRAEL, UNDER BIBI, HAS REPEATEDLY SAID THAT THEY WILL TALK ANYWHERE AT ANYTIME ABOUT ANYTHING, NOTHING IS OFF THE TABLE.

IT'S REALLY THAT SIMPLE: As a result of the Arab refusal to negotiate, no deal is possible - no matter what Israelis do.

The recent expansion of Arab and Muslim bellicosity is a direct result of several signals Obama sent them - (deliberately or naively, it matters not why):

• He un-invited Mubarak to his Cairo speech while inviting the Muslim Brotherhood
• He announced time-based withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan
• He sided with Arabs with regard to the 1967 borders
• He sided with Arabs with regard to settlement construction - even in Jerusalem
• He stood by and did nothing as Iranians rebelled against the theft of their electoral process
• He does nothing with regard to the assassination of PM Hariri now proven to have been by Hizballah - despite the fact that Hizballah is part of the government of Lebanon
• He allows NATO member Turkey to EXPLICITLY threaten Israel

OBAMA AND HIS POLICY OF APPEASEMENT ARE WHY WE ARE HEADED FOR A HUGE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

It matters not if Obama is a crypto-Muslim, or just an anti-Zionist (who has been friends with leading anti-Zionists his entire adult life!), or an inept naive appeaser.

The results are the same.

The results will neither bring peace or stability or justice.

Just war.

Sigh.

BOTTOM-LINE: FRIEDMAN IS WRONG: BIBI AND BARAK ARE NOT TO BLAME. OBAMA IS.

UPDATE: ROUND UP HERE.

MORE PROOF THAT TOM FRIEDMAN IS A MORON

TOM FRIEDMAN:

There is an old saying in the Middle East that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. That thought came to my mind as I listened to President Obama trying to explain the intervention of America and its allies in Libya — and I don’t say that as criticism.

WIKI:

a camel is a horse designed by committee; this has been attributed to Vogue magazine, July 1958, to Sir Alec Issigonis and also to University of Wisconsin philosophy professor Lester Hunt.^[3]

TOM FRIEDMAN IS A MORON.

OLD NEWS: THE NYTIMES AND TOM FRIEDMAN ARE IDIOTS

I have a leftist friend - a leading leftist in NY and national circles for decades. He sends me articles from all the leftie looney publications; (contrary to what NEWSHOGGER CERNIG feels: HE IS A REAL HUMAN BEING, NOT AN IMAGINARY FRIEND).



IT'S A HOOT TO GET THE STUFF! Except... he and many other idiotarians still believe in this crap!

Well.... I just got a copy of Tome Friedman's column SWIFT BOATED BY BIN LADEN (from 8/26, and still behind the wall) - I think many bloggers linked and commented on it last week, but I have to toss in my two cents, dontchya know!

Friedman writes this at the end of the column:

Bin Laden has created a situation in which the U.S. occupation in Iraq is viewed as entirely “illegitimate” and therefore any violence there by Sunni jihadists against Americans or Iraqi civilians is considered entirely legitimate “resistance.”

THIS IS IDIOTIC RUBBISH.

Bin laden didn't create that situation, the NYTIMES and the MSM and the rest of the Left - including the Democrats did, day after day, headline after headline, traitorous speech after traitorous speech. You lefties relentlessly carried the enemy's water with crap about "Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, lies about WMD, Blood for Oil, Plame, NSA," etc etc etc and so on and so forth.

LOOK IN THE MIRROR TOM:

And you will see an ass.

All of the blame for our mediocre performance in the information wear versus Bin Laden does not go to Bush. Most of it goes to the Left, Bin Laden's Fifth Column.

NOTE: Friedman uses the term SWIFT-BOATING incorrectly. He uses it as if it means getting beaten by lies. In fact it means getting exposed by the TRUTH. Because the enemies - (read al Qaeda and the Left and the NYTIMES and Friedman) - use lies in their propaganda... they are not swift-boating anybody.

JUST LYING AND SPREADING DISINFORMATION TO HURT BUSH, AND THE USA.

POOR TOM FRIEDMAN

The Friedman Family Trust

Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, author, billionaire? Who knew? Friedman married into his wealth via Anne Bucksbaum, heiress of real estate investment trust, General Growth Properties (GGP).

But like others on this list, Friedman saw his family's net worth slide from billions to mere millions during the housing crisis, when GGP's revenues took a nosedive. The Friedman family trust went from $3.6 billion to less than $25 million.

I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR "MR CHINA FOR A DAY."

The "Q generation" and that out-of-touch lefist idiot Tom Friedman

FRIEDMAN/NYTIMES:

I just spent the past week visiting several colleges — Auburn, the University of Mississippi, Lake Forest and Williams — and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed.

I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.

IN OTHER WORDS: FRIEDMAN IS MORE PESSIMISTIC AND MORE RADICAL. AND THINKS EVERYONE SHOULD BE, TOO. THIS TELLS US MORE ABOUT FRIEDMAN THAN COLLEGE KIDS:

• ALL THIS PROVES IS THAT FRIEDMAN IS ACTUALLY AN ISOLATED LEFTIST FROM THE UPPER WEST SIDE, AND IS WAY TO PESSIMISTIC AND ANTAGONISTIC TO TRADITIONAL CONSERVATIVE VALUES AND POLICIES.

• IT ALSO PROVES THAT HE KNOWS ABOUT AS LITTLE ABOUT REAL AMERICA AS PAULINE KAEL WHO FAMOUSLY SAID IN 1972, THAT SHE COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT NIXON HAD WON REELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE BECAUSE EVERYONE SHE KNEW VOTED FOR MCGOVERN.

THE HEIGHT OF IDIOCY AND INSANITY OF THE LEFT: TOM FRIEDMAN LAUDS CHINA, A TYRANNY AND THE WOLRD'S NUMBER ONE POLLUTER

IN TODAY'S COLUMN, FRIEDMAN LAUDS CHINA'S GOVERNMENT STYLE. AS HE LAMBASTS THE USA.

IT'S UTTERLY IDIOTIC AND INSANE FOR ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO LIKE DEMOCRACY AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND WHO BELIEVES THAT AGW IS A LOOMING CATASTROPHE FOR THE HUMANITY AND ENTIRE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM.

FRIEDMAN IS THE BIGGEST JERK IN THE WORLD, AND THE FACT THAT SO MANY ON THE LEFT LIKE HIM TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE LEFT TODAY.

PS: IT'S NOT THE FIRST TIME FRIEDMAN HAS PRAISED CHINA'S GOVERNING STYLE.

GLENN:

UPDATE: Friedman’s cheerleading for China comes one week after dissident Xie Changfa was sentenced to 13 years for trying to organize a political meeting.

• Update: more here and here.

NYTIMES' TOM FRIEDMAN - IDIOT

Friedman:

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

[...] So many of the things the Bush team has ignored or distorted under the guise of fighting Osama were exposed by Katrina: its refusal to impose a gasoline tax after 9/11, which would have begun to shift our economy much sooner to more fuel-efficient cars, helped raise money for a rainy day and eased our dependence on the world's worst regimes for energy; its refusal to develop some form of national health care to cover the 40 million uninsured; and its insistence on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an Army to deal with Katrina, Osama and Saddam at the same time.

These are stupid non-sequitors, which perpetuate a couple of falsehoods: that we have a "trade deficit" with China, one which makes us indebted to them and therefore makes us weak.

The first central flaw of Friedman's is that he hypostatizes a heurisitc device: the figure known as "trade deficit." This figure is derived by subtracting the goods we sell to a country from what we buy from them - AS IF THAT WAS REAL, AND AS IF IT WAS IMPORTANT. It is NEITHER. Here's why the concept "trade deficit" is PURE BUNK (HUGE hat tip Walt Williams):

(1) American companies buy things from China. They pay for them. With Letters of credit, mostly. Effectively: CASH. That's an even-steven/square deal. There is NO IMBALANCE. They get U.S. MONEY (as much as they wanted for the goods); the US company gets the GOODS (for EXACTLY what they were willing to pay for them).

We no more have a "trade deficit" with them (because we "BUY MORE FROM THEM" then we "SELL TO THEM" then you have a "trade deficit" with your grocer when you buy groceries! YUP: you buy stuff from your grocer; you don't sell him a dang thing! You do not have a deficit with him. He gets money; you have groceries. It's an even-steven square deal. You gave him assets, he gave you goods. There is NO DEFICIT.

(2) When the deal is done, China then has MONEY. They can do with it WHATEVER they want. Very VERY often they buy US T-Bills. Because, it s a good safe investment. When they buy T-BILLS, we GET THE MONEY BACK. They get another IOU, this time with a little interest.

(3) The fact that SO VERY MUCH of the dollars that China's get from selling us stuff ends up back here is GOOD for us. And it makes it LESS likely that China will ever do ANYTHING to upset our bilateral relationship.

So Friedman is WRONG. Again. Katrina and China and Osama are as related in REALITY as Moon-beams, salad dressing and firetrucks.

In the end, all Freidman was arguing for was... drumroll please: HIGHER TAXES. No surprise here: That's a liberal's answer for EVERYTHING. And Freidman is NOTHING if he is not a liberal. The "trade deficit" is most often used by isolationists; it's a staple of their demagogery to claim that "it will ruin our economy! And send jobs overseas"

Friedman, though, is pro-trade. So he uses the bogus figure called the "trade deficit" to argue for higher taxes on energy. It's a clever variation on an old favorite Left-wing theme. Which is why the Left loves him.

The second major flaw in Friedman's column is that he perpetuates the LIE that the Bush Administration budget cuts were somehow reposnible for some of the damage which Katrina wreaked on New Orleans. Chief of Engineers LTG Carl A. Strock of the Army Corps has flatly and repeatedly DENIED THIS on TV interviews MANY TIMES - including an appearance tonight on TV. First, the LEVEES DID NOT FAIL. A few canals failed. And the canal which failed MOST (the 17th Street Canal) was one which was COMPLETELY FUNDED AND JUST COMPLETED ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT DESIGN SPEC'S. Here's STOCK at a DoD briefing:

"The area where the levee leaks -- where the levee breaks occurred was at its final design configuration. So that was as good as it was going to get. And what does that mean? Actually we knew that it would protect from a Category 3 hurricane. In fact, it has been through a number of Category 3 hurricanes. The intensity of this storm simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee. And those two points-- and others were over top, but those are the two main points of trouble. But that is the basic problem here, is that this storm exceeded the design capacity. ... The other question is, in general is the civil works budget of the Army Corps of Engineers suffering because of the war in Iraq? Not in my opinion. And the reason I say that is that if you look at the funding levels of the corps from pre-war days of 2001 and 2002, it has been a fairly steady level. We are spending a lot of money and the Corps of Engineers is involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're able to balance that with our human resources and it is not directly affecting our budget. "

ALSO: Clinton cut the Army Gulf Coats budgets. And the NYTIMES caslled them BAD LEGISLATION. SO - if Freidman wanted to be fair in how he applied a lie to fabricate a smear - he would have also criticized Clinton and his OWN editorial board. He did not. He deliberately used discredited line-of-attack against Bush in spite of the fact that it is false, and that he applied it in a biased way. You CANNOT get much lower than that! Only Krugman can, I think. And Herbert. And Dowd. (HEY: That has a kind of catchy ring to it: "KRUGMAN AND HERBERT AND DOWD - OH MY!"

BY THE WAY: does Friedman REALLY think that ANYONE can get elected in this country by calling for HIGHER energy prices or HIGHER engery taxes!? So, he's not only wrong on his facts, and incorrectly applying his incorrect deduction (and idiotically connecting it to the war on terror); he's suggesting that his incorrect conclusions be used to pass bad legislation which would only raise the cost of gasoline, increase unemployment and decrease personal discretionary spending. ON TOP OF THAT (as if that wasn't IDIOTIC enough) campaigning on his suggestion would cost Democrats seats! (This is the only part of it I like! And I'm a Democrat - but a Zell Miller one, NOT a Pelosi-Reid-Dean one!)

His idea - raising the gas tax - would have, though, increased the money the feds could have to spend on whatever pork-barrel projects they like. And that's music to a liberal's ears.

[ASIDE: I suggest that if Friedman really wants high taxes and pretty flood photo opp's (standing in carefully scouted floodwaters - like so many overpaid TV newsanchors!) that he move to GERMANY! He can watch as floodwaters his socialist president (chancellor), wades into floodwaters, and he can have high taxes (on gas and everything else!) and the high unemployment which high taxes cause.]

MORE AT POWERLINE.

AS USUAL: TOM FRIEDMAN GETS IT ONLY HALF RIGHT

Friedman wrote another fairly mediocre piece in the NYTIMES ;(it's his specialty). (Hat-tip Glenn.) Here's how he concludes it:

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

Tom left out jail, interrogate, and KILL. And THAT'S what it'll take - on the part of Islamic nations. So far, very few Islamic states are FIGHTING them: Afghanistan and Iraq are doing their utmost; the Gulf States are doing a fair job; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are schizo; Egypt cowardly and Jordan PHONY.

Until Islamic states FIGHT, KILL AND DEFEAT THE JIHADOTERRORISTS, there will be no peace. We can pressure them into doing this: by threatening them (with some of the measures Friedman outlines in his column). As Bush correctly stated in 2001: either your with us, or against us. The choice is theirs.

TOM FRIEDMAN: "THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING!!!"

MORE "THE WORLD IS ENDING CRAP" FROM TOM FRIEDMAN:

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, who described this moment in a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.” “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required.”

Gilding cites the work of the Global Footprint Network, an alliance of scientists, which calculates how many “planet Earths” we need to sustain our current growth rates. G.F.N. measures how much land and water area we need to produce the resources we consume and absorb our waste, using prevailing technology. On the whole, says G.F.N., we are currently growing at a rate that is using up the Earth’s resources far faster than they can be sustainably replenished, so we are eating into the future. Right now, global growth is using about 1.5 Earths. “Having only one planet makes this a rather significant problem,” says Gilding.

This is not science fiction. This is what happens when our system of growth and the system of nature hit the wall at once. While in Yemen last year, I saw a tanker truck delivering water in the capital, Sana. Why? Because Sana could be the first big city in the world to run out of water, within a decade. That is what happens when one generation in one country lives at 150 percent of sustainable capacity.

“If you cut down more trees than you grow, you run out of trees,” writes Gilding. “If you put additional nitrogen into a water system, you change the type and quantity of life that water can support. If you thicken the Earth’s CO2 blanket, the Earth gets warmer. If you do all these and many more things at once, you change the way the whole system of planet Earth behaves, with social, economic, and life support impacts. This is not speculation; this is high school science.”

It is also current affairs. “In China’s thousands of years of civilization, the conflict between humankind and nature has never been as serious as it is today,” China’s environment minister, Zhou Shengxian, said recently. “The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the worsening ecological environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to the nation’s economic and social development.” What China’s minister is telling us, says Gilding, is that “the Earth is full. We are now using so many resources and putting out so much waste into the Earth that we have reached some kind of limit, given current technologies. The economy is going to have to get smaller in terms of physical impact.”

We will not change systems, though, without a crisis. But don’t worry, we’re getting there.

THE LEFT HAS BEEN SAYING THIS SHIT SINCE 1968:

Ehrlich is a biologist whose specialization is butterflies. But for 27 years he has promoted himself an expert on ecology and human population. And what are his feelings about human population? He loathes it. The opening page of The Population Bomb (1968) made that memorably clear:

"The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people."

All those yucky people, deplored Ehrlich in The Population Bomb, have ruined the world. Result? Apocalypse now:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines -- hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate."

A year later Ehrlich claimed that "most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born." By 1975, he expected, "food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions." He amended his prediction in 1978, perhaps noticing that he and his neighbors were still alive. Those hundreds of millions of people would be starving to death in the 1980s, not the 1970s, he said. Sorry for the delay.

Meanwhile, as Ehrlich awaited -- awaits -- what he called "the Great Die-Off," people's lives kept improving. The world death rate in 1965, measured in deaths per thousand, was approximately 16.4. By 1990 it had dropped to 10. The steepest declines were in Africa, South America and Asia, the regions Ehrlich had predicted would suffer most.

Worldwide, infant mortality keeps declining. Life expectancy keeps stretching. The average human being is better nourished today than at any time in history. Famine due to natural causes (i.e., not caused by civil war or dictatorships) has almost been eradicated. The number of people affected by starvation has been falling for decades. It is one-10th what it was a century ago, even though the world's population has quadrupled.

To convey the full scope of Ehrlich's false predictions would consume this whole page. But here's a small sample. Ehrlich forecast:

• The "extinction" of Lakes Erie and Michigan. (They thrive.)

• "A genuine age of scarcity" no later than 1985, with "supplies of many key minerals . . . nearing depletion." (They're more abundant than ever.)

• "Los Angeles killer smogs" that would wipe out tens of thousands of Angelenos. (No such luck.)

• Global warming severe enough to melt the "West Antarctic ice sheet . . ., raising the level of the sea by 20 feet." (The ice sheet is expanding.)

• Nuclear winter severe enough to plunge the Northern Hemisphere into subzero temperatures. (Been outside lately?)

The list goes on and on and on, lengthening with each book. Ehrlich rarely admits that his prophecies have failed. He just replaces them with new ones. Ehrlich's 1990 book "The Population Explosion," co-authored with his wife Anne, offers this vision:

"One thing seems safe to predict: Starvation and epidemic disease will raise the death rates over most of the planet . . . enormous rise in the death rates . . . deaths of many hundreds of millions of people in famines . . . nuclear terrorism . . . epidemics, water shortages . . . local disasters . . . food riots or epidemics leading to a breakdown of transport systems . . . collapse of civilization."

Imagine being told by a doctor that you had incurable cancer and would be dead in a few months. Imagine being told you would suffer horrible symptoms, which never materialized. Imagine being told this for 27 years, even as your health grew steadily better.

WE HAVE NEVER RUN OUT OF RESOURCES.

THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ECONOMY IS THIS:

ONE OLD LESS-EFFICIENT RESOURCE IS REPLACED BY A NEW MORE EFFICIENT ONE.

MORE PEOPLE - AND A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE - ARE LIVING LONGER HEALTHIER MORE PROSPEROUS LIVES NOW THAN AT ANYTIME IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY.

THIS CARTOON SAYS IT ALL:

THE ONLY FREAKING THING THAT STANDS IN THE WAY OF ENDING POVERTY IS SOCIALISM. (LEFTISM. LEFTIST POLICES.)

CHINA BECAME AN ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE WHEN THEY BECAME A FREER MARKET.

CUBA, NORTH KOREA, ZIMBABWE ARE ALL POOR AS A RESULT OF LEFTISM.

THE USSR - THE UNION OF S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T SOVIET REPUBLICS WAS POOR; RUSSIA IS RICH.

DITTO EASTERN EUROPE.

ALL BETTER OFF WITHOUT LEFTIST POLICIES.

WHICH IS WHY IS HAVE LONG SAID:

"IF WE WANT TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY,
THEN WE HAVE TO MAKE LEFTISM HISTORY."

AND WE NEED TO CONSIGN AGW AND MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE TO THE SAME DUSTBIN AS MARXISM.

IF WE COULD, THEN ENERGY PRICES WOULD COME DOWN AND SO WOULD THE PRICES OF FOOD AND ALL MANUFACTURED AND SHIPPED PRODUCTS.

THAT WOULD DO MORE FOR POOR PEOPLE THAN ALL THE WELFARE PROGRAMS IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY COMBINED.

AGAIN:

THE PROBLEM ISN'T THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY LEFTISTS -

MEANING THERE ARE TOO PEOPLE BELIEVE THE LEFTIST CRAP THAT IDIOTS LIKE FRIEDMAN SPOUT.

THEY NEED TO HAVE THEIR EYES OPENED.

IT'S POSSIBLE: I WAS ONCE A LEFTIST.

NYTIMES IDIOT FRIEDMAN'S FIRST REVISION OF HISTORY: BUSH, OBAMA AND LEBANON

Not the first draft of history - the first revision!

While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened.

Mr. Bush helped create the space.

Power matters.

Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.

Tom Friedman - he gives Bush A LITTLE credit and some to Obama, when in fact Bush deserves a HUGE amount of credit and Obama doesn't deserve even a passing mention.

But it's a start.

In a decade, the left will act as if they had always supported Bush!

THE UN, MUGABE, RUSSIA AND CHINA: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS TOM FRIEDMAN BY FIVE DAYS

• FRIEDMAN TODAY BASHES RUSSIA AND CHINA FOR DEFENDING MUGABE AND HIS COMRADES/THUGS.

• THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS DID IT FIVE DAYS AGO.

• (WITH A HEADS UP TWO DAYS BEFORE THAT, AND A FOLLOW UP POST A DAY LATER.)

• REGULAR READERS KNOW WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME.

• SPREAD THE WORD.

• BLOGROLL US.

PLEASE.

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.

BROWNER, SOCIALISM AND THE RED SCARE

WASH MONTHLY:

THE RIGHT'S NEW RED SCARE....

The headline from the conservative Washington Times yesterday was certainly attention getting: "Obama climate czar has socialist ties."

The article reported that Carol Browner, set to become the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, was "listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change."

This, as one might imagine, caused quite a stir among far-right bloggers and media personalities.

Glenn Beck pointed to the story to insisted that "almost everyone who does believe in global warming is a socialist."

Townhall ran a similar item, arguing that some [sic] in the "environmentalist movement " are "merely fronts for the some collectivist, totalitarian, statist impulses that have reared their ugly heads throughout the 20th century with such devastating results for so many." Drudge, naturally, promoted the story heavily.

Brad Johnson has a helpful piece, not only documenting how this story worked its way up through the conservative movement, but just as importantly, explaining why there's less here than meets the eye.

The [Commission for a Sustainable World Society] first convened in November 2007 to "articulate from the world of progressive politics a way forward to address global environmental concerns, climate change and the issues of governance required to deal with these common challenges" at 10 Downing Street, hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Leader of the British Labour Party.

The Socialist International is "the worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties" from Albania to Zimbabwe. Its members include the center-left New Democratic Party of Canada, the center-left Israeli Labor Party, and the ruling Labour Party in Great Britain. The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, founded by the U.S. government to support democracy in developing nations, works with Socialist International and other political parties "to help foster open, accountable and responsive political systems."

Also, it has the word "Socialist" in its name. Not only that, the press is calling Carol Browner the "climate czar." In a leap worthy of Stephen Colbert or Monty Python, the radical right wing is claiming these are signs that Barack Obama is going to transform the United States into a leftist dictatorship. [...]

That's right, according to conservatives, Carol Browner's meeting with the prime minister of Great Britain to discuss global warming is equivalent to the genocides of Stalin and Hitler.

When environmental organizations are led in part by former heads of state and convene meetings at 10 Downing Street, it sounds pretty mainstream. The right's apoplexy is badly misplaced. Again.

—Steve Benen 4:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)

Comments

Socialist dictatorship sounds like a damn good plan to me.

Instead of denying that powerful Democrats are socialist and strongly implying that socialism is an ipso facto bad thing, can we please acknowledge the following FACT:

On November 4, 2008, the American people, by an 8-point margin, elected as president a man the top news organization in the country had spent months condemning as a socialist.

The American people were given a clear, well-publicized choice between a warmongering capitalist pig and a big-government socialist, and they voted overwhelmingly for the big-government socialist.

How about we start celebrating that fact, instead of apologizing for it?
Posted by: Yellow Dog on January 13, 2009 at 4:04 PM |
PERMALINK

I AGREE WITH YELLOW DOG THAT THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD JUST GET OVER IT AND CALL THEMSELVES WHAT THE SOCIALISTS IN EUROPE CALL THEMSELVES: SOCIALISTS.

AND ANOTHER THING:

• THE "RED SCARE" WAS NOT AN INSANE PHOBIA BASED ON PURE FANTASY.

• THERE REALLY WERE SOVIET AGENTS HERE, WORKING VERY HARD TO UNDERMINE OUR NATION, OUR ALLIES AND OUR WAY OF LIFE.

• THEY HAD PENETRATED THE MILITARY, THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND THE CIA.

• FOLKS LIKE MCCARTHY - WHO TRIED TO GET THEM OUT OF THE GOVERNMENT -WERE HEROES, NOT NUTS.

BTW: MCCARTHY HAD ZERO TO DO WITH THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST, OR THE HOUSE - REPEAT HOUSE - UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE. MCCARTHY WAS A SENATOR TARGETING SOVIET AGENTS IN THE GOVERNMENT.

• SHITHEAD LEFTIES LIKE BENEN ARE THE ONES WHO WERE EITHER IN DENIAL ABOUT THE USSR BACK DURING THE COLD WAR - OR DUPES OR WILLING COMRADES.

• AND THE LEFTIES - THE SOVIET UNION'S APOLOGISTS AND FELLOW TRAVELERS - WERE ON THE WRONG SIDE IN HISTORY, NOT THOSE WHO SOUGHT TO TOPPLE THE USSR AND EXPOSE THE USSR'S AGENTS HERE.

• BENEN IS LIKE THAT OTHER SHITHEAD IDIOT TOM FRIEDMAN WHO OPENLY CALLED FOR THE USA TO ABANDON DEMOCRACY AND BECOME "CHINA FOR A DAY" SO A USA "POLITBURO" COULD PASS LAWS B FIAT IN ORDER TO SAVE THE EARTH FROM THE AGW BOGEYMAN.

• BENEN AND FRIEDMAN AND OBAMA ARE SOCIALISTS; THEY WOULD BE MORE HONEST IF THEY JUST ADMITTED IT.

I WAS RAISED BY CARD-CARRYING COMMIES. I KNOW OF WHAT IO SPEAK.

DAVID BROOKS: THE CHUCK HAGEL OF "CONSERVATIVE COLUMNISTS"

• MORE PROOF BROOKS IS A CENTRIST WIMP.

• RIGHT NOW, DEFEATING OBAMA IS THE MOST CRITICAL THINGS WE CAN DO FOR AMERICA, DAVEY - NOT JUST FOR CONSERVATIVES OR REPUBLICANS.

• AND YOU'RE NOT HELPING ONE BIT.

• DAVID BROOKS IS PROVING HE BELONGS AT THE NYTIMES WITH THAT IDIOT TOM FRIEDMAN AND THAT MORON KRUGMAN AND THAT SLEEZEBAG DOWD AND THAT LOON HERBERT.

• YIPES: WHATTA CREW!

THE NANNYSTATERS: MORE PROOF THAT THE LEFT AND THE ISLAMISTS HAVE A LOT IN COMMON

THE LEFT IN THE USA HAS LONG BEEN FOND OF COMPARING CONSERVATIVES TO THE TALIBAN AND THE LIKE.

BUT THEY'RE WRONG.

ACTUALLY, THE LEFT IS MOST LIKE THE ISLAMISTS; THEY'RE BOTH STATISTS AND UTOPIANISTS WHO THINK THE STATE CAN MAKE HUMAN SOCIETY PERFECT - IF THERE WAS ONLY A STRONG CENTRAL STATE TO IMPOSE THE POLITICALLY CORRECT LAWS AND RULES AND REGULATIONS.

THIS IS WHY TOM FRIEDMAN WANTS THE USA TO BECOME "CHINA FOR A DAY".

HERE ARE TWO HEADLINE FROM TODAY;'S NEWS WHICH FURTHER PROVES THIS POINT:

Iran Unveils Approved Hairstyles

Iran has unveiled haircuts that according to officials are in line with Iranian and Islamic principles.

The new haircut models approved by Iran's Culture Ministry are aimed at preventing haircuts deemed "Western" among Iranian youth.

Barbers and men with haircuts considered "Western" and fashionable have been warned in recent years.

The unveiling of the "Islamic" haircuts comes amid a new crackdown on "bad hijab" or veiling among women and also men.

AND:

Sugary-drink ban starts to affect S.F. sites

Coca-Cola is out, and soy milk is now part of San Francisco's official city policy.

Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property, although their diet counterparts are - up to a point.

Newsom's directive, issued in April but whose practical impacts are starting to be felt now, bars calorically sweetened beverages from vending machines on city property.

LEFTISTS AND ISLAMISTS BOTH THREATEN INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.

CONSERVATIVES THINK THAT PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET WHATEVER SOFT DRINK AND HAIRCUT THEY WANT - EVEN IF THE DRINKS ARE AWFUL AND THE HAIRSTYLES WORSE.

IF YOU VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT THIS NOVEMBER, THEN YOU'RE VOTING FOR LESS LIBERTY.

AND LESS PROSPERITY, TOO - FOR PROSPERITY IS A BY-PRODUCT OF LIBERTY.