Slavery: Then and Now

Oct 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach--and in the destruction of lives.

Weapons Grade

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

AP reports today: Iran Turns Over Nuclear Documents to U.N.

Iran on Thursday turned over to the U.N. nuclear agency documents on its past atomic energy activities, but the dossier apparently did not include the origin of traces of weapons-grade uranium found in the country.

Murdering Babies in North Korea

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

More gruesome details at the UK Telegraph

To Know or Not To Know

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

One error is the assumption that you can and should know everything. For example, you discover a better way of doing something. "Why didn't I know this before?" You get down on yourself and on life for not knowing everything ahead of time.

The other error is the assumption that you can't know anything. "What do I know? Who am I to judge?" This kind of error not only undercuts self-respect and self-esteem; it also acts as kind of an excuse for not having to think and take responsibility for yourself.

You can't know everything all the time. Yet it doesn't follow from this that you can't know anything.

North Korea Says U.S. Security Offer Laughable.

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Reuters reports: North Korea Says U.S. Security Offer Laughable.

Ledeen on the CIA’s Self-Imposed Blinders

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The problem is cultural, and that cannot be fixed overnight....Put simply, there are things the CIA does not want to know, and it acts to ensure that it will not know them. Of these important things, the most important is Iran. For 25 years now, we have had bad intelligence on Iran....

[I]n the last few years, the CIA has repeatedly missed the vital Iranian role at the heart of the terror network, typically chanting the false mantra that "Sunnis and Shi'ites don't work together." That nonsense prevented them from seeing that, as the Washington Post wrote on Wednesday... Iran was in cahoots with Al Qaeda.

...The CIA does not seem to have accepted this intimate relationship. If they did, it would be impossible for the State Department to believe, as it clearly does, that we can enlist Iran in the war against terrorism, or that Iran would ever deliver to us top Al Qaeda leaders.

Yet that information was not hard to obtain. Much of it was on the public record, including official court transcripts from Germany and Italy. Other pieces came from European intelligence services, with whom the CIA's relationship is surely better than mine or the Washington Post's. Over the past two years, the CIA has repeatedly refused to take seriously information about Iran's financing of international terrorism, Iran's close working relationship (often brokered by the royal family of Dubai) with Saddam Hussein, and, as the Associated Press has just reported, the claim that there is a cache of enriched uranium in Iraq, a portion of which was transported to Iran several years ago...

More Arbitrary Decrees in Zimbabwe

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

For the second time in less than a year, Zimbabwe's justice minister has seized a farm after forcing its white owners to leave.

In February, Patrick Chinamasa, the minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs, sent the police to arrest Peter Baker, a white farmer. Mr Baker had refused to vacate his farm, Rocklands, after successfully challenging its seizure in court. He went into hiding for two months as police searched for him, although no charges were ever laid. Eight months after the seizure, the farm's water supply has been squandered, undermining its future productivity and that of the neighbouring farms.

This weekend, Richard and Cally Yates... fell victim to the justice minister. Although there were no legal grounds for Mr Chinamasa to seize the farm, Mr Yates was powerless to resist, having been told by the police that if the minister wanted it, the couple must leave. In July last year, Mr Yates had accepted a government offer to subdivide his farm between himself and state-appointed "settlers", in return for being able to continue operating. He believed that having made this compromise his future as a farmer in Zimbabwe was secure. But three months ago he was told that his farm had been allocated to Mr Chinamasa.

The minister claims that he has been justly allocated the farm by the state under the land reform programme.... He added: "The courts should rule only on matters of compensation and not on the process of acquisition."

Education in New York City

Oct 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

This September's re-education sessions for teachers drove home the party line relentlessly: Your students must not be sitting in rows. You must not stand at the head of the class. You must not do "chalk and talk" at the blackboard. You must have a "workshop" in every single reading period. Your students must be "active learners," and they must work in groups. As one circular distributed to principals put it: Your teachers must transform themselves from the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side."

Stern has a longer article on the subject in City Journal.

France: At Least They Stand Up For the Freedom to Smoke

Oct 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

For the first time in their history, [Paris] tobacconists were on strike, in protest against a 20 per cent rise in taxes on cigarettes. Their action, copied throughout the country, sent shivers through the government... Plastered to the shuttered kiosks of Paris were signs berating the government for its hypocrisy and calling on smokers, and all those who care for personal liberty, to support them.... In its editorial yesterday Le Monde warned the government not to let its obligation to public health lead it to become too nannyish. "Smoking is a right," the newspaper said. If the government seemed to be making smoking socially unacceptable or even somehow illegal, it would be crossing a dangerous line.

They Use Them for Farming

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

In the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday, one person was killed in an explosion in the courtyard of the hospital. Palestinian security sources said the man apparently was playing with an anti-tank missile when it exploded.

America vs. Europe: Who’s Uncivilized?

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

One of the few serious "hate crimes" to occur in the aftermath of Sept. 11 was the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, in Mesa, Ariz. Yesterday a jury sentenced the killer, Frank Roque, to death for his crime. "The jury brought justice back to our family," Lakhwinder Singh Sodhi, the victim's brother, tells Reuters. "They brought the truth in front of the whole world and showed that we are all Americans."

United Press International notes that today is "World Day Against the Death Penalty," on which "the European Union will use the occasion to stress its outright opposition to the death penalty and urge countries that still believe in capital punishment to abolish what it considers a medieval practice."

Cartoon: Wesley Clark’s Patriot Act

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Slate: Wesley Clark's Patriot Act by Chris Suellentrop.

From FoxNews: Democrats Battle for Heart of Clark Campaign.

Niger Uranium: Bush Was Apparently Right All Along

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.

MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission....

British officials admitted that the country was Niger but insisted that the intelligence behind it was genuine and had nothing to do with the fake documents. It was convincing and they were sticking with it, the officials said.

They dismissed a report from a former US diplomat who was sent to Niger to investigate the claims and rejected them. "He seems to have asked a few people if it was true and when they said 'no' he accepted it all," one official said. "We see no reason at all to change our assessment."

The fake documents were not behind that assessment and were not seen by MI6 until after they were denounced by the IAEA. If MI6 had seen them earlier, it would have immediately advised the Americans that they were fakes.

Smearing Schwarzenegger

Oct 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

On the CNN Web site, even after Gray Davis had conceded, they were sticking to the loser's talking-points:

''Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria . . .''

CNN? Oh, that's that network with Larry King, who, like the Son of Sam, is a native of Brooklyn. Used to be owned by Ted Turner, who, like the Cincinnati Strangler, is a native of Cincinnati. Now part of Time Warner, founded by the Warner Brothers, the oldest of whom, Harry Warner, like many Auschwitz guards, was a native of Poland....

Before Election Day, the official line was that the recall was part of a pattern of hardline Republican subversion of the democratic process, going back through the Florida recount to the Clinton impeachment. In an about-turn so fast poor old DNC honcho Terry McAuliffe must have gotten whiplash, the new line was that the recall reflected a voter anger against incumbents that would spell disaster for Bush next year....

The two Republican candidates -- Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock -- pulled 62 percent of the vote between them; the Democrat, Cruz Bustamante, got 31.7 percent.... Just to recap: Republicans 62 percent, Democrats 31.7 percent -- in the most liberal state in the nation. As long as all those angry voters keep expressing their anger by voting for Republicans over Democrats by two to one, I think I can live with it.

There's also amazing article by Jill Stewart relating how the LA Times warped the news to try to defeat Schwarzenegger-- to the point that the Times apparently leaked its "groping" story to the Democrats before publication. 24 reporters devoted to digging up dirt on Schwarzenegger, and no interest whatever in investigating the rumors of Gray Davis' violent fits.

Iran Shelters Bin Laden’s Son

Oct 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Traditionalist clerics in Iran are blocking the extradition of senior al-Qa'eda members, including one of Osama bin Laden's sons, amid growing evidence that they are masterminding terrorism in other countries. Western and Arab intelligence sources quoted in The Washington Post said up to 400 al-Qa'eda terrorists were being sheltered in eastern Iran close to the Afghan border by an elite religious militia, the Jerusalem Force.

Stupidity from the Archbishop of Canterbury

Oct 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognize that terrorists can "have serious moral goals". He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality. "It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable." He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality."

I.e., "everybody is right, by his own standards." Whether the standards are based in reality or not, whether they are honest or not, is irrelevant to people like the Archbishop--who by the fact that they don't care about reality, condemn themselves as dishonest. And what are these goals that Al Qaeda shares with "those who would not dream of acting in the same way"? The imposition of a theocracy and the subjugation of the Jews, perhaps?

Why the Bureaucrats Hate Charter Schools

Oct 18, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Quite a commotion has erupted at Michigan this month as the mayor of Detroit and governor turned their noses up at a $200 million gift offered to the public school system by philanthropist Robert Thompson. A retired asphalt magnate, Mr. Thompson offered to give the money to set up 15 new high schools.The catch was that the new schools would be charter schools....

"Every time a kid leaves the Detroit system that's $7,000 walking out the door," [Detroit mayor Kwame] Kilpatrick told the Detroit News.... [Daily Sun]

Get that? They don't want to save the taxpayer money. They just want bigger budgets to play with. Ride them out of town on a rail.

Rush Limbaugh in the Spotlight

Oct 18, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Rush Limbaugh's "Offended" Critics are Wrong by Harry Binswanger
Racism is judging a person's character or actions by his race instead of by his individual merits. That's the sin Limbaugh was accusing the media of committing; he wasn't doing it.

Racial Censorship and the Witch-Hunt Against Rush Limbaugh by Walter Williams
Limbaugh's statement is opinion that can be characterized as correct or incorrect -- but racist, no.

An Open Letter to ESPN on Rush Limbaugh by Joseph Kellard
ESPN was uncomfortable with Limbaugh's comment because it's true. It is just as racist to hope a man will succeed because he is black.

Rush Limbaugh and Racial Censorship by Thomas Sowell
It is one of the sad signs of our times that a furor was created because Rush Limbaugh expressed an opinion as to why a particular quarterback seemed to him to be over-rated.

Rush Limbaugh: Hearing the American Sound by Edwin Feulner
Rush Limbaugh doesn't just talk about the values Americans hold dear, he puts them into action.

A Rush Limbaugh For the Left? by Thomas Sowell
The liberal vision of Rush Limbaugh is that he is some guy who appeals to ignorant rednecks and Joe Sixpacks. As with so many things that liberals believe, they feel no need to test their notions against reality. Actual research on Rush Limbaugh's audience has shown that they are above average in both education and income.

A Tribute to Rush Limbaugh by Jeff Jacoby
"I approach my audience with enormous respect," Limbaugh wrote in a 1994 article for Policy Review, the journal of the Heritage Foundation. "These are the people whose most heartfelt convictions have been dismissed, scorned, and made fun of by the mainstream media. I do not make fun of them."

Media Bias on Media Bias by Thomas Sowell
Anyone listening to Rush Limbaugh knows that what he is saying is his own opinion. But people who listen to the news on ABC, CBS, or NBC may imagine that they are getting the facts, not just those facts which fit the ideology of the media, with the media's spin.

Senator Daschle vs. Rush Limbaugh: Who is Promoting Violence? by Thomas Sowell
Liberals can be very "understanding" about violence -- provided it is violence from the left.