Nov 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
On the power grab in Russia:The arrest of Russia's richest man has prompted warnings from politicians and commentators that President Vladimir Putin's old comrades in the KGB are staging a creeping takeover of the Kremlin....Mr Khodorkovsky's error, analysts say, was to renege on an informal pact sealed by Mr Putin and Russia's tycoons in 2000, under which he agreed not to investigate the murky sources of their wealth as long as they steered clear of big-time politics....But Mr Khodorkovsky, head of Russia's biggest oil firm, Yukos, has openly financed opposition parties campaigning for December's parliamentary elections, and even hinted at a possible run for the presidency in 2008. [UK Telegraph]
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed an order relieving chief of staff Alexander Voloshin from duty.... Voloshin reportedly tendered his resignation after Saturday's arrest and jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Russian oil giant Yukos. [Yahoo News]
Nov 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From the Washington Post:Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton launched a blistering attack on Howard Dean yesterday, accusing his rival of promoting an "anti-black agenda."
"Howard Dean's opposition to affirmative action, his current support for the death penalty and historic support of the NRA's [National Rifle Association's] agenda amounts to an anti-black agenda that will not sell in communities of color in this country," Sharpton said in a statement. He said his comments were in response to a news report yesterday that Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) plans to endorse Dean....
Nov 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From the lead editorial in Friday's New York Sun:The 7.2% growth rate that the Commerce Department has measured for the American economy in the third quarter of 2003 is stronger than anything ever achieved under President Clinton's boom...The tax reductions on capital gains and dividends, along with the accelerated reductions in personal income tax rates, were signed by President Bush on May 28, 2003. These were pushed through by President Bush and the Republican Congress over the objection of Democrats like Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton, who voted against them. Every major Democratic presidential candidate wants to roll back these tax cuts. [NYSun]
Jerry Bowyer comments:
...some of President Bush's most prominent bashers were claiming that we were in "the worst economy since Herbert Hoover." That's a little difficult, even for them, to say with a straight face when we've just finished our best quarter since the fourth year of President Reagan....Some have suggested that this growth rate is somehow related to the president's "record high deficits." Aside from the fact that they're not record-high when you account for inflation and the size of the economy, this latest growth number owes nothing to the deficit, because it owes nothing to government spending. Government spending for the third quarter went up only 1.3%. Nor is this a war boom; defense spending was flat.... Some may also say that this is driven by inventory.... This does happen, but not today: inventories actually fell during the third quarter, as they have been falling during all of 2003. Yet sales remain strong.
...it's the application of new technology to inventory management to the effect that companies no longer have to pile up a lot of inventory in times of recovery...To some degree, it's an increase in retail consumption, up 6.6%. But to a much larger degree, this recovery is being driven by increases in investment, both business, up sharply at 14%, and residential, up double sharply at 20.4%. Now the reason this has happened is that Mr. Bush cut taxes. And when that didn't work, he cut taxes again.... [NySun]
And as if that weren't bad enough for the Democrats, they're also getting killed by their own campaign finance legislation:
[F]inding people who will fork over, say, $25, $50, or $100 has became critical with the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, or McCain-Feingold, as it is more commonly known.... And even Democrats admit that Republicans have had a decades-long head start in getting small donors to write checks....[A]ccording to the FEC, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have collected a total of $133,861,490 in small hard-money contributions so far in the 2004 election cycle, while the corresponding Democratic committees have collected a total of $45,662,730. [NYSun]
Oct 30, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Ann Coulter:Liberals are hysterical about Justice Brown principally because she is black. Nothing enrages them so much as a minority who does not spend her days saying hosannas to liberals.
Related reading:
A Lynch Mob Gathers Around Justice Janice Rogers Brown: Part 3 by Thomas Sowell (October 23, 2003)
A Lynch Mob Gathers Around Justice Janice Rogers Brown: Part 2 by Thomas Sowell (October 22, 2003)
A Lynch Mob Gathers Around Justice Janice Rogers Brown: Part 1 by Thomas Sowell (October 21, 2003)
Oct 30, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Now It's the Teachers Who Cheat:High-stakes standardized testing has led to high-level cheating -- by teachers trying to gain an advantage for their students...Teachers have read off answers during a test, sent students back to correct wrong answers, photocopied secure tests for use in class, inflated scores, and peeked at questions then drilled those topics in class before the test, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. [Yahoo News]
Oct 30, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Hillel Halkin writes in the NY Sun:If [such as Mahathir] are Islam's moderates, then Islamic moderation needs to be feared every bit as much as Islamic militancy. Or are the two simply different tactical expressions of the same mind-set? It has been a near-universal shibboleth, especially since the September 11 terrorist attacks, that Western democracies are not at war with Islam but only with violent Islamic fundamentalism....
Islam is not a particularly "peaceful religion." In fact, historically, it is the world's only major religion that has been spread mainly by the sword....
The only significant parts of the world that can be said to have been Islamized peacefully are Indonesia and areas of Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
...not only has war been a legitimate way of spreading Islam; for them, military victory has been the ultimate proof of the truth and validity of Islam....
Until modern times, nearly always the winner in its encounters with other cultures and religions, Islam never has learned the art of losing, which is why military and political defeat is so humiliating to it. And of all its modern defeats, none has been as shaming as its defeat by Israel and the Jews, who are seen as a small and contemptible people that Islam had always subjugated.
Oct 30, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Edwin A. Locke from the Ayn Rand Institute:President Bush recently announced that he would supply $157 million to help Indonesia's school system. The Indonesians will apparently accept the donation but have made it very clear that they would have total control over how the money would be spent and that they would not teach American values.
Given that Indonesia is a hotbed of Muslim terrorism, it is obvious that this money will be spent, in part or in whole, to teach hatred of America and everything she stands for: reason, freedom, individual rights, capitalism, technology, and progress.
In short, this money will be used to subsidize the teaching of ideas aimed at bringing about our own destruction. Karl Marx said that capitalists would sell communists the rope with which the Marxists would hang them. But what President Bush is doing is much worse. Rope is simply a material object, but Bush's subsidy will help spread the ideas that encourage others to kill us--with rope or any other weapon at their disposal.
Giving this subsidy to Indonesia is simply suicidal; it would be like giving educational subsidies to the Nazis or Communists. It would be the most shameful act of President Bush's career. Let us hope that more rational members of the administration will change the President's mind.
Oct 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The DailySun on Education in the New Century:Under the guise of reforming public education, [New York City schools'] Chancellor Joel Klein has been sending down directives covering everything from the arrangement of chairs in the classroom to the number of minutes teachers can spend on extracurricular activities. One controversial order insists that teachers sit in rocking chairs while reading aloud to the class. Just to punctuate the point, a middleschool math teacher told the story of being reprimanded in front of the class by her new math "coach" for giving too much praise to her students for doing their homework right. [DailySun]
Oct 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From Reuters (beware of their scare quotes): Syria: Red Cross Attack Harmed Iraqi Interests.
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -- Syria condemned as "terrorism" Wednesday a deadly suicide attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Baghdad this week, saying such attacks harmed the Iraqi people's interests."Syria strongly condemns the destructive attack on the ICRC offices in Baghdad," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bushra Kanafani said in remarks run by the official SANA news agency.
"Such operations that target innocent life and humanitarian and international organizations, severely harm the interests of the Iraqi people. They are terrorist acts," she said.
The attack on the ICRC was one of four suicide missions that killed 35 people and wounded 230 Monday in Baghdad's bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein was overthrown.
A U.S. general has said one attacker captured alive in an attempted suicide bombing on a police station on that day was carrying a Syrian passport.
President Bush has blamed violence in Iraq on members of Saddam's ousted Baath party and foreign "terrorists," and has said he expects Syria and Iran to enforce border controls to stop infiltrators.
Washington has accused the Damascus government of turning a blind eye to militants crossing into Iraq. Syria has also long been on the State Department's list of states that support terrorism.
Oct 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute:After closing off 12 million acres of California land to human use and enjoyment in the last 30 years--allegedly to protect desert tortoises, horned lizards and scarab beetles-- environmentalists are now actively seeking to close California's Imperial Sand Dunes to bikers and off-road drivers. The alleged reason this time: to protect milk vetches. Once again, environmentalists are showing their desire to sacrifice man's needs and happiness for the sake of animals, plants and wilderness. Once again, they are showing whose side they are on, and it is not humanity's.
Oct 28, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From FoxNews last week: Rumsfeld Memo to Inner Circle
[In the War of Terrorism] My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?
We agree with the Secretary of Defense. Bold moves are needed, namely a focus on stopping Iran's sponsorship of Islamic terrorism. We're grateful that there is someone in the administration who is willing to say so.
Oct 28, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Communication is the trade of personal relationships. To hold back on communication in a personal relationship is like holding back on paying what you owe in a business relationship. Those who seek not to communicate with spouses and loved ones are not merely lacking in skills; they are perpetrating a fraud.Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From MSNBC:"On Wednesday, NBC News reported on a man who helped the Pentagon develop the Islamic chaplains program for the U.S. armed forces, a man who was later stopped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his possession -- and some serious questions about his background. Now there is more, and if federal prosecutors are right, this is a man who moved from the shadowy world of terrorism to the centers of power in Washington and back again."
Comments the Concord Crier:
This suggests, as I've long suspected, that jihadis have infiltrated the highest levels of government, as the Reds had, because there is real philosophical acceptance of the tenets of Islam among the Washington types -- and I believe they may be more deeply entrenched and higher up than this man, who founded the U.S. military's Moslem program.
Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Congratulations for Florida's Marlins!
Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From a review in the Oct. 20 New York Sun of Anna Politkovskaya's A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya:In the recent presidential election in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov won with 81% of the vote, despite being so despised by the electorate that his own press secretary admitted that in free voting his man would receive no more than 5%. Fortunately for the Kremlin-backed gangster, the election was not free. The Chechens, Seth Mydans reported in the New York Times, were told, "You must vote for Kadyrov or there will be a mopping-up operation and you will lose all your young people."
...In [an] interview... Mr. Kadyrov said that "A dictator is needed here, in the literal sense of the word." He then went on to praise the NKVD and describe a pacification scheme he would implement were he in power, modeled on the NKVD's midnight visits....
This war is being waged not against terrorists but against civilians.... "The activities that the antiterrorist operation has sought to eradicate--violent hostage-taking, slavery, ransoms for 'live' goods--are now being performed by the new masters, the soldiers."
The atrocities Ms. Politkovskaya documents--routinized slave trading by Federal soldiers, filtration camps where ordinary Chechens are held in pits and tortured until their relatives can pay ransom, deliberate infliction of mass starvation on the population, the destruction of medical equipment at children's hospitals--are entirely comparable to those committed in Bosnia. Not only is there no accountability for soldiers who routinely massacre civilians; they are actively encouraged and given special commendations. Chechens may be rousted from their sleep and made to crawl on all fours for hours while being spat on and beaten by troops of the Ministry of the Interior.
Oct 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun continued with the last three installments of a four-part Jewish Telegraphic Agency series on how Ford Foundation money has been going to Arab groups who support terrorism and the destruction of Israel. Here's a taste from the Tuesday, Oct. 21 installment:In May and June of this year, USAID informed American tax-exempt charities it funds that if they partnered with any Palestinian NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations], those NGOs would be required to sign a Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing. The certification pledges that no funds have made or will make their way into organizations to "advocate or support terrorist activities."
The Palestine NGO Network, or PNGO, an umbrella group of 90 Palestinian organizations that is funded in part by the Ford Foundation, was outraged. On July 12, PNGO published a statement declaring: "Some donor agencies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are setting unacceptable conditions for providing financial support to Palestinian NGOs. Such conditions include a pledge titled 'Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing'..."
PNGO program coordinator Renad Qubaj complained in a telephone interview, "Who defines what is terror? All funds received by the NGOs should be unconditioned--no political conditions."
Another Palestinian NGO railing against the terrorist certification was the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, which has received three Ford Foundation grants totaling $350,000, according to foundation records. In late August, Al Mezan's director was quoted in the Arabic press as stating: "There is no legal basis for this document. This document should be boycotted, including the local authorities, political parties, and universities. These institutions should reject this document completely, as it puts them in great danger. We should publicize a list of any institutions that agree to the conditions in the document."
...PNGO steering committee member Allam Jarrar said that although many of the umbrella group's members depend upon USAID for funds, PNGO itself gets much of its money from Ford, and "Ford does not make us sign this agreement. For us, Ford is a very credible organization."
Oct 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:Rowan Williams, the leader of the Church of England, recently declared that al-Qaeda terrorists may have "desirable" and "serious moral goals." Given that al-Qaeda's goals are the destruction of Western Civilization and the establishment of Islamic theocracies around the globe, Mr. Williams belief amounts to a moral sanction of evil. Someone should remind Mr. Williams that were al-Qaeda to succeed, all freedom (including the freedom of religion) would cease to exist (as would the Church of England). Mr. Williams belief is a glaring example of the moral bankruptcy of many intellectual leaders in the West--and of how they are abetting civilization's enemies.
Oct 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Mark Steyn on some remarkable coincidences--Interesting item from the London Evening Standard last week:
"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group. Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence. The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year."
Hmm. Might be nothing. Might be just another coincidence. Lot of them around at the moment -- like that Saudi Cabinet minister who coincidentally stayed in the same hotel on the night of Sept. 10 as some of the 9/11 terrorists. Just one of those things. But the authorities seem to be taking the links more seriously than when they first surfaced a year ago.
Here's another coincidence: The guy who heads up the organization that certifies Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military was arrested at Dulles Airport last month and charged with illegally accepting money from Libya. The month before that, Abdurahman Alamoudi was caught by the British trying to smuggle some $340,000 into Syria.
As usual, it's worth reading the whole article.
