This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Society

  • Lazy Sunday Night Links

    I wondered where Robin at Chickenhawk Express was hiding. I hadn’t heard a peep from her since early Thursday. I was beginning to get worried. But then I popped over there tonight and I see why – she’s written a legal brief that should be enough to get the media indicted entitled “They Indicted the Haditha Marines Without a Trial – Part I Newsweek“ Please read it – truly a masterpiece. The best thing about it – it’s only Part I.

    COBDanny reports that Hugo Chavez tells the world that su Tio Fidel will never die. Mora at Babalu Blog says Oogo let the cat out of the bag.

    You have to watch this video of Chris Wallace verbally smacking Bill Moyers around at Hot Air.

    Jules Crittenden’s “Little Saddams“ is a must read if you think we need to leave Iraq.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal is getting Katrina Fatigue – I passed that point when I listened to a supposed Libertarian complain that the Feds weren’t doing enough to bail his whinin’ ass out.

    Curt at Flopping Aces discovers that the DUmmies twigged to our evil plan in “Bush has Killed the Birds!”

    mRed at Invincible Armor has an excellent article on the extermination of Black children (something I’ve been saying for years) in “One quarter of the Black population is now missing“  – I’d add “…just like Margaret Sanger planned”.

    Gateway Pundit reports that the mullahs are pleased they’ve finally got a smart bomb. Well that’s hardly news in Iran – Kamangir translates that Amadinejad just got through telling a group of students that Iran has much to teach the world about rocket science. Even though they still engage in public executions.

  • Saturday links

    There’s just so many good writers out there saying all of the things I wish I’d written, I’m just putting up their links today.

    COBDanny reminds me to take my meds before reading that he agrees with Dean on at least one thing.

    Dadmanly puts President Bush’s speech last week into historical context and disputes NY Times interpretation.

    At Flopping Aces, Curt blows a New York Times article about suicide rates in the military out of the water, while Todd Anthony reports that a Democrat turns the tables and calls for continued US presence in Iraq.

    Republicanpundit at Hang Right Politics, twice, here and then here, disputes the history revision we’re experiencing now as the media takes up the torch for the Democrats to dispute their shameful participation in the murder, imprisonment and dislocation of millions in Southeast Asia.

    Shiro-Korshid Forever (hat tip to Dreams Into Lightening) writes the most heart-swelling and heart-breaking post describing his journey into the final moments of the life of a recent victim of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

    Gateway Pundit reports that Iraqis in the US protested terrorism yesterday at the Saudi embassy – wonder why they chose the Saudis? Well, GP’ll tell you.

    Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters warns “AP Spins Record Low Unemployment as Problem That Could Get Worse“.

    Marc Masferrer at Uncommon Sense reminds us that while we’re waiting for word on Castro’s death (or the lack thereof) there are still living Cubans wasting away in his prisons.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views explains Chavez’ plan to move the Venezuelan clock 30 minutes and his plan to rename the city of Caracas.

    Kate at A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective reports that Chavez is dumping $6 million into Bolivia’s military and buying Russian transport planes despite food shortages and stunning poverty in Caracas.

  • $12,000 per student for what?

    I keep saying that living in DC is like living in a third world country, and I have more proof today. The Washington Examiner reports that DC schools are reporting that they need another $120 million to finish repairs to the schools for this year. The totally clueless mayor, Adrian Fenty says of the situation;

    The $120 million will finance essential and long-neglected repairs at roughly 70 schools including fixing roofs and bathrooms and clearing health- and fire-code violations. It will also be used to ensure heat and air conditioning systems are installed and working in every classroom. “Why these things haven’t been addressed in years past is unexplainable and inexcusable”, Mayor Adrian Fenty said during a news conference outside Coolidge Senior High School, home to a freshly turfed and painted football field. “So we’re going to address them, and it’s going to cost probably about that much”.

    Well, I know you can start looking at the former school adminstrators for answer into “why” – from another Examiner article;

    Last year, Examiner reporter Bill Myers investigated Brenda Belton, who recently pleaded guilty to making $649,000 in illegal payments and sweetheart contracts to enrich herself and her friends while serving as executive director of D.C.’s Office of Charter School Oversight. Instead of making sure that every available dime was going to help special education students attending the 17 charter schools she was hired to oversee, Belton was brazenly stealing from them by forging signatures, handing out illegal kickbacks like Halloween candy, and depositing public funds into phony businesses and her own private accounts. Children in special ed already face an uphill academic climb and an uncertain future. Despicable doesn’t even begin to cover such behavior. Now, Myers reports that a teacher’s aide was also being paid two salaries for the past four years, one from the special ed department and another from outside contractors. Other special ed employees apparently collected full paychecks even after leaving the system, while their asleep-at-the-switch supervisors continued signing off on phony time sheets.

    Hmm, pretty disturbing that this sort of waste of taxpayer dollars can go undetected by the people who think that children’s education is the most important thing in their lives, huh? From Jonetta Rose Barras, also of the Examiner;

    During a news conference Monday, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced there were 70 teachers who did not have assignments; their skills and subject area did not match current DCPS instructional needs. These individuals are called “excess teachers.” They are some of the folks about whom I wrote last week. They are destined, because of their seniority and rights inscribed in labor union agreements, to bump other teachers who may have more to offer the DCPS at this time in its history and, thus, could have a greater impact on children. […] Rhee, the reformer, says those 70 excess teachers with no place to go will continue to be paid. She couldn’t say how much. (Didn’t Rhee just a few weeks ago lambaste workers who couldn’t describe their jobs? Now we understand how the practice of employing adults without a portfolio is perpetuated: They want the paychecks; the government wants to placate the unions.) “I’m contractually obligated to keep those folks,” the reformer tells me. “There is a possibility we might do some kind of layoff, but nothing can happen until October.”

    Well, there are enough lawyers on the payroll to find a way out of those “contractual obligations”, I’m sure – if the city was really concerned about the money they waste. The hard-earned money that taxpayers send them every payday. See, that’s the problem – everyone forgets that those millions, billions that are wasted come out of our paychecks. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the arguments about repairing roads and educating children and all of things that Leftists claim are essential – but that’s not what tax money is doing anymore. It’s lining pockets. That’s why bridges collapse, That’s why DC streets are lined with illiterate morons – GOVERMENT CAN’T DO WHAT THEY COLLECT OUR MONEY TO DO!!! When are the American taxpayers going to get that through our thick heads?

  • The Liberty Alliance

    You’ll notice at the top of my blogroll in the right column are several blogs under the heading Liberty Alliance. It was started by my new friends Mike from Lamplighter (in Arizona) and Lady Vorzheva from Spanish Pundit (um, from Spain). I’ve been reading their blogs for months when they very kindly asked me to join this group of bloggers from around the world. I guess they needed a Homer Simpson-type to round out their otherwise brilliant and urbane bunch – even brain surgeons keep a hammer in the operating room.

    Regardless, of their reasons, I’m grateful and I urge my readers to drink deeply from their intellectual well.

    The group is loosely formed and generally dedicated to writing as often as possible about real human rights issues (as opposed to those fake human rights issues that usually turn out to be a way for some power mad lout to usurp people’s rights) that are really the core of western democracy.

    There’s Kate from A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective who lives here in the Metro DC area, but she pops up from all over the world. A couple of weeks ago she made comments here from Managua. Her perspective on Latin America is unique and valuable.

    And one of the most facinating blogs I’ve ever read is Kamangir. He’s an Iranian student in Canada and translates news reports from behind the Iranian curtain and shows us the real Islamic Revolution. I can spend hours just reading his archives.

    I’d write an introduction to Fausta’s Blog, but anyone who has been on the internet more than a minute knows the Puerto Rican firecracker. I almost lost control of all of my body functions when I found out I’d be associated with Fausta.

    In Partibus Infididelium is a Spaniard in Saudi Arabia – he really tests my Spanish skills, but he’s worth the work. Martha Colmenares blogs in Spanish, too, from Venezuela – a great perspective that we don’t get here from the pro-Chavez media. Another Venezuelan in the group is Julia from The End of Venzuela as I know It. She is on the inside of the White Hands (Hands of Freedom) movement and writes in English – she claims it’s not her first language, but you’d hardly know it.

    jcdurbant blogs from France – now, I can read a bit of French sometimes (don’t make me write or talk, though – my wife and I lived on crousants and coffee the three days we were in Paris because that’s all I could say) and what I’ve translated for myself at this blog is a unique view of the world from France.

    Pastorius, from Southern California, at Cuanas is just a pleasure to read – the words just melt into my brain. I envy people to whom writing comes so easily.

    Reading Molten Thought‘s Teflon is like reading my own thoughts – only more coherent and much funnier.

    But the most intriguing is Incognito of Confessions of a Closet Republican. She admits she’s a Hollywood actress who’s crossed over from the darkside, but since she wants to continue working, she has to remain…well, incognito. I love a mystery. She’s commented here a few times and besides being the mysterious lady behind the curtain (who, in my stuck-in-the-thirties-Bogart-movies mind, is tall, blonde and always wearing a black evening gown and a glass of red wine in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other), she’s much brighter than my personal stereotype of a Hollywood actress.

    Please take the tour and I hope you enjoy these new friends of mine as much as I enjoy them.

  • Remember Stalin

    In her article “Reins on Rememberance” Marsha Lipman in the today’s Washington Post laments Russia’s tendancy to forget it’s own bloody history during the Stalin purges of the late 1930s;

    This month marks 70 years since the drastic surge of Stalin’s terror: In 1937 the Kremlin butcher scrapped even the faintest appearance of court procedures. The infamous “troika trials” — a system of justice by rubber-stamped death sentences — killed more than 436,000 in one year. The anniversary observances were intended to honor the victims. But the ceremony held earlier this month at Butovo, the site of mass killings on the outskirts of Moscow, revealed the government’s desire to keep the public’s mind off reflections about terror and its perpetrators.

    The Russian Orthodox Church oversaw the ceremony, a religious service focused on the martyrdom of the executed, not on the crimes or who committed them. In an interview about three years ago, the superior of the Butovo church said he thought it best not to differentiate between those who were shot and those who shot them: “One shouldn’t search for who was right and who was wrong.”

     

    Well, that might be convenient for the Russians today, but publicizing who was “wrong” could save another million-or-so lives in the near future.

    There are still purges occuring throughout the world – most notably, in Iran, but the Serb government was just purging it’s territory of Kosovars just a scant few years ago. The Rwandans were ridding themselves of each other less than ten years ago. Zimbabwe is busy freeing themselves from starvation by killing farmers and their families.

    I used to read voraciously about the Stalinist years since I was a teenager when Alexander Solzhenitsyn finally published his books in the west. My favorite has to be “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” which described in great detail a single day as a prisoner in the gulags – the reader can’t help but feel relief at the conclusion of the book/day. Another was Robert Conquest’s “Harvest of Sorrow” and perhaps a fitting appendix to the era was Martin Ami’s “Koba the Dread”.

    I guess my point is that, although it’s probably to be expected that a Church would urge people to forgive and forget, to forego judging our antecedents – because afterall, it’s up to God to make final judgements. But in the meantime, all of us mortals should remember what misjudgements of the past brought to the world, and how close to the brink of total anhilation we came all in the name of a single man

  • Expand the war to end the war

    Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Examiner fuels the anti-Iran debate with more evidence that the Quds Force which President Bush recently designated as a terrorist organization is operating in Iraq;

    One analyst estimates that more than 300 members of al Quds Force, the terrorist arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, are operating in southern Iraq. The Revolutionary Guards answer directly to Tehran’s ruling mullahs.

    The intelligence about al Quds comes from an Iranian resistance group, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney told The Examiner.

    “They have penetrated into the Tehran system,” McInerney said of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). “Everything they have put out has always check out.” He said that despite new U.S.-Iran talks in Baghdad, Quds operations inside Iraq are increasing, not decreasing.

    Army Maj. Rick Lynch, who oversees U.S. troops in an area south of Baghdad, told reporters on Sunday he believes 50 Quds operatives alone are operating in his sector.

    While al Qaeda’s main weapon is the vehicle-borne suicide bomber targeted at civilians, Quds Force specializes in building huge roadside bombs (explosively formed projectiles) primarily designed to kill American troops.

    “The damage to U.S. forces right now is greater from Quds than from al Qaeda,” McInerney said.

    We’ve known since the inception of this war against terror that Iran has been behind every move that’s been made against us. Some Taliban and al Qaeda leaders escaped from Afghanistan into Iran, there is supported evidence that Hussein moved some of his weaponry to Syria and Iran before the US bombs fell. He famously flew his jets to Iran to protect his air force before the Gulf War, it stands to reason he sent more stuff before this war.

    Now we have evidence (but really who needs evidence in war – I ask you) that Iran is physically operating against our interests and against democratic Iraqi interests. So what do we do? Shrug our shoulders and bow to the wishes of the US anti-war crowd? Or do we light up the Iraqi borders between Syria and Iran?

    In the realm of diplomacy, the Europeans, despite the fact that they support sanctions against Iran for their nuclear program, won’t participate out of pure greed. From the Washington Times’ David Sands;

    Among them: EU members Germany and Austria, as well as India, which just signed a major nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States that Mr. Burns had a central role in negotiating, and Turkey.

    Mr. Burns said the United States had not insisted on a “quid pro quo” with India to give up its lucrative oil trade or pipeline projects with Iran. But he said the United States was forcefully telling India and Iran’s other trading partners that Tehran does not represent a good investment or credit risk with a package of U.N. sanctions hanging over its economy.

    “If countries around the world want diplomacy to be the way to resolve problems with Iran, then there has to be a harder-edged diplomacy. There has to be some teeth,” he said.

    And at home, the political wing of radical Islamists (otherwise known as the US Congress) is busy undermining the democratically-elected government of Iraq, says the Washington Post;

    Declaring the government of Iraq “non-functional,” the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq’s parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

    “I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.

    I guess it’s much easier to criticize our allies than it is to criticize the enemy. Why doesn’t Levin grow a pair of cojones and announce that Ahmadinijahd is “non-functional”?

    The same goes for the inhuman way that prisoners are treated in Iran. Nearly every week we’re subjected to the lies and scare-mongering of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, but what about the treatment of Iranians by their own government?

    My new friend, Kamangir, an Iranian student who toils from the safety of Canada to translate Iranian news sources, report some new tragedy nearly every day. Yesterday, he wrote;

    Mahmoud Moghimi and the brothers Mohammad and Davood Sharei were executed in Saveh, Iran,  despite the controversy surrounding their case. The execution was announced for Monday, but was carried out a day earlier, disrupting their lawyer’s efforts in proceeding with legal actions to stop it. Jahani, the defense lawyer of the executed individuals stated “if they had not executed them before noon, we had gotten the cancellation verdict.

    Two weeks ago, Kamangir translated;

    “The executed individuals have been tortured beforehand”, stated Shiva Nazar Ahari, a human rights’ activist, to Rooz.

    The interview was carried out right before the execution of fifteen individuals, a short while ago. Shiva says “They were arrested more than eighty days ago and fifteen of them are to be executed today. The families do not know if their sons are among the ones to be executed. Whenever they talk about execution, all the parents get excited. To my understanding, the Judiciary is intentionally doing this to hurt the families. That is while according to the Human Rights Law, the detainee’s family must be informed of their whereabouts and health immediately.” 

    Yet, we get to hear the Left whine about our “mistreatment” of the killers and thugs in Guantanamo. I guess because it’s so much easier to cricize someone when you know they won’t retaliate – sissies.

    Where is the NY Times and the Washington Post on these REAL atrocities? Well, when the Islamists finally get themselves a nuclear weapon, I guess all of the pain and suffering in the world will end, won’t it?

  • Becoming a third world nation

    Wall Street Journal’s Ian Vasquez writes an excellent article about Peru and their failing infrastructure today. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons while I was reading it to our own system and it’s failures;

    The water monopoly — which loses some 40% of its water through leaky pipes or in ways otherwise unaccounted for — is only one of Peru’s monuments to government incompetence. Peruvians were reminded of another last month when the communist-led teacher’s union went on strike, paralyzing schools and triggering violence across the country. The union was protesting a law requiring that teachers be tested and held accountable for competency. An evaluation earlier this year found that one-third of teachers are deficient in reading comprehension and that nearly half cannot do basic math.

    Yeah, who needs competent teachers? It’s similar to schools here in the US – teachers’ unions rail against competency tests as an insult, but what’s insulting to the rest of the country is that they think they’re above proving that they can understand what they teach. Nearly every job I’ve ever had required that demonstrate that I maintain a level of proficiency in that job – why do teachers think they are above investment advisors, doctors, lawyers, and so on?

    Peruvians have discovered the same solution that Americans discovered;

    By chance, during my visits I learned that the rejection of state services has extended to education as well. One day, a woman in Villa El Salvador confirmed to me that the large building in the distance was a public school, and volunteered that she did not send her son there. Instead, he goes to a private school that charges a fee. “It hurts, but it’s well worth it,” she explained.

    Somewhat surprised, I then asked if many other parents there send their children to private schools. She estimated that at least half do so. Standing on the dusty hillside overlooking the town, with the putrid smell of human waste wafting through the air, the mother pointed to building after building where private, informal-sector schools educate the poor.

    As it turns out, Peru’s shanty towns are full of such private, for-profit schools. Yet to my knowledge, the phenomenon has not been carefully studied. The anecdotal evidence is, however, consistent with the pathbreaking work of University of Newcastle Professor James Tooley, who documented how private schools in the African and Indian slums he studied have arisen to educate the majority of the children there. Mr. Tooley found that students in private schools performed notably better than those in public schools, and private schools rated better on most indicators, including teacher attendance.

    A majority of teachers have shown more interest in the betterment of their own condition at the expense of children’s futures and parents have taken the matter into their own hands. In Peru, as well as the US, homeschooled students perform better than public-educated students because homeschooling cuts out all of the “innovative” BS. Innovation in education used to be about teaching methods and student understanding – now it’s about teachers not teaching. When I was in school, innovation meant television – the teachers turned on Public Television and left the room while we watched the tube. Now it’s computers.

    In the 90s, teachers unions convinced an easily persuaded Bill Clinton that they needed computers to keep children competitive with the rest of the world – nevermind that children were falling behind the world in reading, writing, science and math – they needed to learn how to play games on massively expensive computers. Innovation has come to mean a way to keep kids occupied, and a way to make teachers highly-paid playground monitors.

    Today an innovation would be to turn out literate students. Even Peru’s poor have figured out that their only hope for a decent future is an educated child – when are Americans going to figure it out? 

  • Edwards profited from Katrina forclosures

    Oddly enough, I’d just finished reading Dadmanly‘s excellent post critiquing John Edwards’ article in Foreign Policy when I happened across this Page One story from Christopher Cooper from the Wall Street Journal;

    As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.

    The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.

    Asked about the matter, Mr. Edwards yesterday pledged that he would personally provide financial assistance to New Orleanians who are facing foreclosure by Fortress-affiliated businesses or have lost their homes already. “I intend to help these people,” the former North Carolina senator said.

    He also promised to cleanse his portfolio of any investments that may be profiting from their losses. “I am going to divest” from any Fortress funds that have a stake in the subprime lenders that filed the foreclosures, he said in a telephone interview. “I will not have my family’s money invested in these firms.”

    Mr. Edwards didn’t give details on how or when he was going to proceed, either to alter his holdings or to aid borrowers. He said he plans to begin making amends to New Orleans homeowners first by contacting them and “seeing where they are in the process.” He said his help may come from his own cash or in collaboration with a charity that specializes in repairing homes.

    Seems to me, Edwards, the prettiest girl running for President, is such a great humanitarian, he would have already been aware of the money he’d made in conjuction with foreclosures on Katrina victims and he’d have already made amends – it was nearly two years ago, afterall – and while he was an advisor for Fortress Funds. But then again, the entire $16 million he has invested in Fortress is somehow tainted, wouldn’t you say?

    But, if he really wanted to make things right, he’d just hand each of those victims of the evil hedgefund 1/2 million bucks each out of his $16-large. I mean that’s what he’d do if he’s meant what he said all along.

    Ack! I just noticed that Michele Malkin has the same story on her front page – and as usual she does a much better job.