Mar 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Edwin A. Locke of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which increases the fines for the broadcast of "obscene, indecent, and profane language," is itself an indecent obscenity.
The FCC's power to regulate any speech is a violation of the right to free speech. The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Such freedom requires that the airwaves, like the printing press, be used in complete freedom--any way their owners wish (short of libel, fraud and the like). Just as each individual should determine what he sees or hears, so each media company should determine what it broadcasts.
Parents--not media professionals or government bureaucrats--are the ones who have the responsibility for supervising what their children see and hear in the media. If people find a program objectionable, they are free to turn it off. It is as simple as that.
Mar 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Hamas founder killed in Israeli airstrike.Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that it intentionally targeted the Hamas leader, saying Yassin was responsible for planning and directing terrorist attacks. "This morning, in a security forces operation in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF targeted a car carrying the head of the Hamas terror organization, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his aides," an IDF statement said. "Yassin, responsible for numerous murderous terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, both Israeli and foreign, was killed in the attack." Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. [...] Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thanked the security forces who carried out the operation and said the "war on terror is not over."
"The ideological essence of this man was one -- the murder and killing of Jews wherever they are and the destruction of the state of Israel," Sharon said.
Mar 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The widespread condemnation of American companies for outsourcing their operations has no legitimate moral basis. American companies have the moral right to cut their costs and maximize their profits by doing business with anyone anywhere on earth (excluding, of course, people or businesses in countries that threaten or are at war with America).
The claim that outsourcing jobs hurts Americans misses the big picture. If companies that need to outsource to be competitive won't do it, they won't remain in business for long, and thus won't be able to offer Americans any jobs. Moreover, while true that Americans who would have taken the outsourced jobs will have to look for work elsewhere, the fact is that all American consumers benefit from the lower production costs and prices that result from outsourcing.
Just as Americans are right to shop for the best deals, American companies are right to shop for the best hires. And just as Americans have no moral obligation to buy American goods, American companies have no moral obligation to employ American workers.
Mar 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Last week, presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry defended his labeling of GOP critics as a 'crooked, lying group'.
This week he's defending his claim of support by unnamed world leaders. CNN reported yesterday: Bush challenges Kerry comments.White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Monday urged Kerry to "be straightforward" with American voters and disclose which international leaders told him they support him. If he won't, McClellan said, "then the only alternative is that he is making it up to attack the president of the United States.
InstaPundit has lots of links on this latter issue here and here.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee and other prominent Democrats are trying to to raise $10 million for Kerry in 10 days, which will no doubt be used to further obscure what Kerry is really for and against.
George W. Bush Blog is keeping tabs on the latest of Kerry's "for and against" positions, this time concerning Cuba and troop funding: Kerry Tries to Have It Both Ways on Issue After Issue.What Kerry is doing here is playing a Washington game that enables him to be on both sides of virtually every issue. [...] The bottom line is this: when it really mattered, on final passage, Kerry voted against funding for our troops in Iraq. He's now trying to say he voted the other way.
Included in the post is a link to Slate's Whooper of the Week awarded to Kerry. Timothy Noah comments:Kerry aides told [The Miami Herald's Peter] Wallsten that Kerry voted against the final bill because he disagreed with some technicalities added at the last minute, but that he voted for an earlier version of the bill. But every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate is subjected to a succession of votes, many of them tactical in nature. The only vote that counts is final passage. If it were otherwise, any legislator could claim to have voted for or against almost any bill, depending on the audience, and there would be no accountability at all.
Mar 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Bombs 'to split Spain from allies'.The strategy spelled out in the document, posted last December on the Internet, calls for using terrorist attacks to drive Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Partido Popular from power and replace it with the Socialists. [...]
"We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it," the al Qaeda document says.
"If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party will be almost guaranteed -- and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on its campaign manifesto."
That prediction came to fruition in elections Sunday, with the Socialists unseating the Popular Party three days after near-simultaneous bombings of four trains killed 200 and shocked the nation.
FoxNews reports: New Spanish Leader Vows Iraq Pullout."It's a terrible message to send. It's very divisive," David Gergen, former communications adviser to several U.S. presidents, told Fox News. "This weakens U.S. policy in trying to bring unity to the West as we try and fight terrorism."
Mar 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From a BBC News report that "Spain may withdraw Iraq troops" (the BBC link to the piece is labeled "Spain 'to withdraw Iraq troops'"):
Spain has more than 1,300 troops in Iraq Spain's Socialist Party prime minister-elect says he will pull troops out of Iraq - unless the UN takes charge.
This is because the U.N.--led by the French and Germans--has done such an excellent job in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the rest of the world.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said: "The war in Iraq was a disaster, the occupation of Iraq is a disaster."
If Saddam had won apparently it would have been a "success"? Since Iraq has not been turned over to the theocratic mobsters it is a disaster?
He called for a grand international alliance against terror and an end to "unilateral wars."
Yes we need Zimbabwe, North Korea, and the French to take part.
The Socialists won a shock poll victory after voters appeared to turn on the government over its handling of the Madrid bombings that killed 200 people. Spain, with more than 1,300 troops in Iraq, supported the US-led war on Iraq despite much domestic opposition. He made clear that he would withdraw Spanish troops in Iraq if the United Nations did not take charge of running the country...
Because the U.N. worked their damn hardest to protect Saddam and undermine the freeing of the Iraqi people from the Middle East's Adolph Hitler?
Observe how the Germans and the French absolutely love the Iraqi dictator Saddam (Saddam enslaved people like the German dictator Hitler) in comparison to the American President Bush (Bush freed people from the Iraqi Hitler Saddam) judging by their vitriol against Bush. You'd think after starting two world wars "Old Europe" would have learned that the appeasement of dictators--and their terrorist brethren--only further emboldens the terrorist (a dictator without government powers).
He said the soldiers would be pulled out if there was no change in Iraq by the 30 June deadline for transfer of sovereignty.
Sovereignty to whom? Saddam's remaining loyalists? The Shites operating under instructions from Tehran? How will such sovereignty be maintained?
On the face of it, the Spainairds comments are a real French way to weasel out, because as "[BBC] Our world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says that the situation in Iraq may well have changed by 30 June....". Continuing,
"Wars such as those which have occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate," Mr Zapatero said earlier on Monday.
Is this because Mr. Zapatero thinks that Saddam was a man of love, peace, and charity before America's George W. Bush attacked him? What of the millions of Iraqi mothers who had their sons and daughters tortured, raped, and slaughtered?
...the US and UK hope that the Security Council will have given UN approval to the handover plan.
That is, since the US and the UK are on the Security Council, they (the US and UK) are hoping their diplomats have kissed enough French and German-behinds.
...the late swing to the Socialists raises one disturbing thought - if al-Qaeda was responsible for Thursday's attacks, it appears to have had significant influence in changing the government of a leading Western democracy.
What is disturbing is not the influence of al-Qaeda which is powerless against the West, but the Western intellectuals who disarm and undermine al-Qaeda's estern pro-freedom opponents.
...A videotaped claim of responsibility by a man identifying himself as al-Qaeda's military spokesman in Europe forced the government to change its stance on the most likely suspects. The tape -- claiming revenge for Spain's "collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies" -- was found in a litter bin on Saturday following a tip-off to a TV station.
Observe that the bulk of the vitriol for the bombings is against the U.S. and not the terrorists. 'Old Europe' lives.***
Observe the comments posted on the BBC site by those who live in Europe, as compared to those comments posted by those who live in the Middle East:
It doesn't surprise me at all, in Spain like the UK there was a lot of anti-war feeling. I just hope that the terrorists who planted the bombs last week see this as a victory - Spain pulling it troops out, but that Bush and Blair see it as a warning. One down two to go.
Scott Herbert, Leicester
The Terrorists, whoever they are, must be delighted that their actions have had such a successful impact on the democratic process. They will no doubt be encouraged and continue with this strategy.
Ian Leake, Dubai, UAE
Very surprised. This is a victory for terrorism. The Arab Islamic terrorists will be encouraged that their strategy for world domination and subjugation works. More bombings will follow in Europe and elsewhere.
Jamil Baroody, Saudi Arabia
