Dec 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Taranto found this item in the Financial Times:
"The European Union's racism watchdog has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined," the Financial Times reports. The senior staff and board of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia nixed the researchers' findings over objections to "their definition of anti-semitism, which included some anti-Israel acts. The focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators, meanwhile, was judged inflammatory."
Nov 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Harry Binswanger at HBList:Each year at this time I try to remind everyone that the first American Thanksgiving was NOT in Puritan, fanatical, theocratic Plymouth, but in the Corporate, for-profit colony of Jamestown.
Well, maybe not right in Jamestown--but nearby. The first Thanksgiving was at Berkeley Plantation, on the James River, about 30 miles from Jamestown (and the same distance from where I was raised, along the same river).
From the Berkeley Plantation website:
"Berkeley plantation was first settled in 1619, just twelve years after Jamestown. Thirty-eight brave men from Berkeley Parish in England, sailed to Virginia to seek their fortunes. They came ashore at Berkeley December 4, 1619, and gave thanks to God for a safe journey. Their instructions were:
"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
So, help counter the anti-American, pro-Kennedyland propaganda: spread the word about the first permanent English settlement, Jamestown 1607, and the first official (or non-official) Thanksgiving, in 1619. (As you know, the Pilgrims didn't even arrive on these shores until 1620).
Nov 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Words of wisdom from Thomas Sowell:The death penalty for the D.C. sniper was said to be because he "showed no remorse." When the law gives a price list for committing various crimes, why should there be a discount for acting ability?
For more words of Sowell's wisdom see his
Random Thoughts for November 2003.
Nov 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Bloomberg's Caroline Baum on the true roots of Thanksgiving, drawn from the memoirs of William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Bay Colony beginning in 1621:One of the traditions the Pilgrims had brought with them from England was a practice known as 'farming in common.' Everything they produced was put into a common pool, and the harvest was rationed among them according to need. They had thought 'that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing,' Bradford recounts. They were wrong. 'For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte,' Bradford writes. Young, able-bodied men resented working for others without compensation. Incentives were lacking.
After the Pilgrims had endured near-starvation for three winters, Bradford decided to experiment when it came time to plant in the spring of 1623. He set aside a plot of land for each family, that 'they should set corne every man for his owne particular, and in that regard trust to themselves.' The results were nothing short of miraculous. Bradford writes: 'This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other ways would have been by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave far better content...Given appropriate incentives, the Pilgrims produced and enjoyed a bountiful harvest in the fall of 1623 and set aside 'a day of thanksgiving' to thank God for their good fortune. ["Pilgrims' Progress, or the Story of Thanksgiving"]
Or more properly they should have thanked the man who came up with the idea of property rights. For the proper reasons to celebrate Thanksgiving see Dr. Gary Hull's article Thanksgiving: An American Celebration of the Creation of Wealth. [Hat Tip: Don Luskin]
Nov 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
From the Weekly Standard:Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by the Weekly Standard.The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.
More details in the article, which concludes: "[t]here can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." See also Edward Jay Epstein's "Prague Revisited: The evidence of an Iraq/al-Qaida connection hasn't gone away" on Slate.com.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum.Nov 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported yesterday: Chirac bullish on Iraq, EU defense.
On U.S. proposals for transfer of power to the Iraqi people, Chirac said: "It seems to me to be set to take place over too long a period. It seems to me to be incomplete."
It seems to me that Chirac is qualifying his statements in case things go bad after he gets his wish.
