Dec 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Barbara Amiel, from before Thanksgiving:
The atmosphere [at the UN's Third Committee] remained clubby and cordial as the Ambassador of Israel came to the microphone to present a resolution on behalf of Israeli children....He mentioned the deliberate bombing of discos, pizza parlours and school buses, almost exclusively used by children. When he finished, the session chairman did not ask the names of co-sponsors for the Israeli resolution. Because there were none. A discussion followed. The Syrian delegate strenuously opposed assistance of Israeli children and said the resolution was procedurally wrong. The Palestinian Authority's lady complained that the Israelis had "copied" their resolution. The situation of Palestinian children was "unique" she said--which it may well be, since most children of the world are not used as human shields for terrorist camps or encouraged to be suicide bombers so their pictures can be put up in grocery stores as "martyrs." [UK Telegraph, Nov 17, 2003]
Dec 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton says: "George Bush has no vision for a future that will make America safer and stronger and smarter and richer and better and fairer."That's because, Hillary, George Bush is for the most part implementing your policies: increased government control of health care, including nationalization of the prescription drug industry; increased domestic spending; trade restrictions; internationalism based not on self-defense but on reshaping people (e.g. in Iraq and Afghanistan) who can't or won't be reshaped; appeasement of Arab terrorists at the risk of Israel (our only friend in the Middle East); waffling and uncertainty in Iraq; and limitations on free speech called campaign finance reform.Your intellectual honesty in this regard, Mrs. Clinton, is most definitely appreciated--if not a bit surprising.Recommended Reading:Dec 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post (Noember 27, 2003) on some of the reaction to President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad:
Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, said that "in this day and age, there should have been a way to take more reporters. People are perfectly capable of maintaining a confidence for security reasons. It's a bad precedent." Once White House officials "decided to do a stealth trip, they bought into a whole series of things that are questionable."
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, criticized the White House correspondents who made the trip without spilling the secret. "That's just not kosher," he said. "Reporters are in the business of telling the truth. They can't decide it's okay to lie sometimes because it serves a larger truth or good cause."
James Taranto comments:
Is it any wonder Americans don't trust the press? Here we have an editor of the New York Times insisting that reporters can keep a secret, then in the very next breath, a self-styled rabbi of reportorial "excellence" denounces them for doing just that.
Rosenstiel's comments are especially idiotic. The reporters didn't lie; they just waited 2 1/2 hours until Bush had left Baghdad before reporting that he had been there. Journalists often get information that is "embargoed"--i.e., not to be released until a time of the source's choosing--and by and large they comply with such embargoes. Moreover, withholding facts "because it serves a larger truth" is precisely what reporters do when they use anonymous sources.
Rosenstiel adds that Bush's trip "was much bigger news on a slow news dayif it was unexpected. What reporters have done by going along with this is to help Bush politically." Well, it's true that the element of surprise helped make this one of the most dramatic political gestures in recent history.... But what Rosenstiel seems to be saying is that reporters had an obligation to diminish the news value of the story in order to hurt Bush politically.
Dec 5, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Looks like Canadians will have to wait longer for surgery--as "by six months or more"--as the Canadian government outlaws private citizens from going to private medical doctors in Canada, and paying for their own medical care out of their own pocket, because they tired of unnecessarily waiting for "hip replacements, twisted ankles and cancerous lungs" to be treated by the public health care system. Quoting the Vancouver Sun:
...legislation allows the province to crack down ["crack down"???] on private sector health clinics that may be breaking the Canada Health Act by charging patients for medical procedures...The bill, which was rushed through the legislature this week, has sent shockwaves through B.C.'s medical community, which says medical waiting lists will increase as private clinics offering surgeries or diagnostic MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT (computed tomography imaging) scans go out of business. "If the private sector is closed down, people have the option of either waiting in the public system or going south of the border to facilities there," said Dr. John Turner, president of the B.C. Medical Association.
Thanks goodness Canadians have America to turn to. But if America adopts Canada's health care system where will American's turn to? The Bahamas?
The legislation, which likely won't be implemented until early in the new year, imposes enhanced powers to audit medical facilities and fines of up to $20,000 for those found providing fee-for-service care contrary to the Canada Health Act. Dr. Brian Day, medical director of the Cambie Surgical Centre, said the legislation will increase waiting lists while forcing private sector care providers into bankruptcy. [December 04, 2003, "Patients face surgery delays as B.C. cracks down on clinics", Vancouver Sun]
[Hat Tip: S. Liesenberg]Dec 4, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
CNN can't stop FOX News, but Dictator Howard Dean can. From Hardball with Chris Mathews:MATTHEWS: Would you break up Fox?...Would you break it up? Rupert Murdoch has "The Weekly Standard." It has got a lot of other interests. It has got "The New York Post." Would you break it up?
DEAN: On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but...
What about the right to free speech and association?
MATTHEWS: No, seriously. As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?
DEAN: I don't want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not, because, obviously [...]
Because, you would not get elected, Mr. Dean?
MATTHEWS: So what are you going to do about it? You're going to be president of the United States, what are you going to do?
DEAN: What I'm going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.
"Democracy" does not mean freedom, a freedom that Dean is seeking to "regulate", i.e., extinguish. Democracy means majority rule--where Dean is the "voice" of that majority, and is so empowered to violate the rights of the minority, the minority in this case being the owners of the "big" conglomerates. In principle, there are only two fundamental political viewpoints. That is, two contradictory ends of the "political spectrum." Those two principles are freedom and slavery. So the issue is not: what number of stations are in a given local, or what portions of the political spectrum have radio stations. The fact is you could have five hundred Dictator Dean approved local radio stations and still be in a worse position then if you had only one radio station. What is essential is that if anyone desires to start a radio station--whether they are a large conglomerate or a local mom and pop operation--that they are not physically prevented by law from doing so. Freedom only requires one thing: freedom from the initiation of physical force--freedom from Howard Dean's totalitarian fist. It is only the enemies of freedom that require Howard Dean's particular kind of "rules and regulations."
Dec 4, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum: 
Recommended Reading:
- Why We're Losing the War on Terrorism President Bush, who insists that we are winning the war, has failed to confront the enemy states that sponsor acts of war against the United States.
- America's Timid War on Terrorism Despite America's military prowess, she is not winning the war. The tragedy is that we lack not weapons, nor military prowess, nor bravery; our military is the most powerful in the history of the world. The problem lies not with our armed forces, but with the ideas guiding our military campaign.
- In Defense of the Cowboy If America fully embraces American cowboy wisdom and courage, then the Islamic terrorists and the regimes that support them had better run for cover. They stand no chance in the resulting showdown.
