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What They've Thought
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What They Thought 12-18-05 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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It’s always hard to determine exactly when a very huge, very bad, and very wrong idea dies in the wake of evidence that requires even the most reasonable person to conclude that it is, by and large, idiotic. It might be that global warming as a viable notion died when a Los Angeles Times reporter in early December wrote, “Scientists studying Yosemite National Park’s bountiful wildlife have found that several animal species have moved to higher altitudes, an uphill migration possibly spawned by the grinding effects of global warming on one of the nation’s most protected wilderness.” This is not news. It is mere speculation clothed in the majesty of journalism, but rife with the reporter’s opinion that Yosemite’s menagerie of mammals, birds, and reptiles are “possibly” responding to “the grinding effects of global warming.” For my part, global warming is a theory, a claim, and a façade for an agenda intended to destroy the economies of industrialized and third world nations alike. Why do I dare to mock global warming? Well, consider from whence it oozes forth to infect the world. I refer, of course, to the United Nations, sponsor of the recent 11th annual Climate Change Conference held in Montreal, Canada, and attended by more than 8,000 government folk, environmentalists, and scientists with nothing better to do. The United Nations has been experiencing its own meltdown of late considering the stench of corruption and criminality emanating from its headquarters on the East River in New York. There’s the largest fraud in history, the Oil-for-Food fiasco. There’s the sexual exploitation by its peacekeepers stationed in Africa. There’s its opposition to actually doing anything to dislodge Saddam Hussein despite seventeen Security Council resolutions over a dozen years. And then there’s its plan to impose global taxation, which the U.S. media has managed to hide from people whose nation was born out of a tax revolt. The progressive silliness of the various pseudo-scientific “proofs” put forth that global warming is real and demands massive sacrifices, et cetera, reached a perigee of nonsense when the spokesperson for a “feminist-based environmental movement accused men of being the biggest contributors to human-caused ‘global warming’ and lamented that women are bearing the brunt of the negative climate consequences created by men.” Hey, you cannot make up stuff like this! I am not saying that we shall be spared more global warming gibberish in the years ahead, but I do think we have turned some kind of invisible corner on it. Most certainly the UN’s Kyoto Protocol is deader than Morley’s ghost. Even the Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, has said as much. “No country is going to cut its growth or consumption…” Meanwhile, facing rising costs for natural gas, England is contemplating reopening its coal mines to keep Brits toasty warm and provide energy with which to turn on the lights. Good idea! Meanwhile, to our north, Canada’s emissions are up 24% according to a 2003 UN report. Its Prime Minister, who had just suffered a no-confidence vote, had the nerve to chide the U.S. as lacking a “global conscience.” No word about ending the sale of all the oil and natural gas we Americans import from Canada, though. Energy-loving Americans will not be denied. We have places to go, things to do, people to see! And the vast majority of us have quietly concluded that global warming is a crock; that global warming is a crackpot, half-baked notion that totally ignores the role of the Sun, the oceans, volcanoes, clouds, the total chaos we call our planet’s climate. Advocates of global warming claim, of course, that they have little to do with climate change while “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide are the culprit. In case you were asleep in science class, CO2 is what every human being and other creature on earth emits after taking in a good lungful of oxygen. CO2 is also produced when we burn various energy sources and so what? In earlier eras, such as the Jurassic, there was far more CO2 in the atmosphere than now. More CO2 today would insure healthier forests and greater abundance of food crops. Is this a bad thing? Ding-dong, the theory, the claim, and the hoax, global warming is dead. Let us get on with discovering new technologies to meet our needs. When my parents were born, automobiles were still a novelty. There was no such thing as radio, let alone television. Electricity for lighting and other purposes was catching on, but there were no refrigerators, washing or drying machines. The former was called an “icebox” that required a big block of ice and the latter activity involved hand-washing and then hanging out clothes to dry in the sun! Had you told anyone then that man would go to the moon in a flying machine, he would have thought you had been reading the novelist Jules Verne. Still, even then he would have entertained the notion as possible. As the 20th century dawned, just about anything was possible as invention after invention enhanced the lives of ordinary people. Just as surely, new inventions will solve new challenges, energy and otherwise. We need only have faith in our common sense and the vitality of our society. We need only ignore the scaremongers who want to turn back the clock. |
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Putin’s statement that Russia is the defender of Islam is one of the most absurd comments I’ve read in a long time. It is just like Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy saying they are the defenders of women’s rights, which they have claimed several times. To them I say, Juanita Broderik, Paula Jones, Mary Jo Kopechne, and too many others to mention here because I’d never get to Putin’s agitprop comments. To Putin I say, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Oh, yeah, and the piles of rubble that used to be Beirut and many other formerly beautiful cities of the mid-east. The Russians — along with our media — should be held accountable for the wasteland that area has become. Russia created Arafat and many of the other radicals in the mid-east for the express purpose of driving the west out of the mid-east. They have historically used third parties to do all of their dirty work. It’s called probing and plausible deniability. It is a tactic that is quite effective. Russia has quite a few similarities to the mid-east in that they did in more Jews and people in general than Hitler did. Not a word out of our media. They only talk about Hitler and now they’re kind of drifting towards the new line of "it never happened." You’ll hear that out of Iran’s new leader. If it walks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Russia won’t address their crimes in that area, however, because silence is the best way for them to address it. They have their minions in our media and in the mid-east to make whatever claims they want. As I’ve written before, Russia had discussions in the Duma regarding the up and coming attacks of 9/11. That was several months before the attacks occurred. Many of us in the west began using that piece of propaganda against them and it went away. It is now impossible to find those in the Pravda archives in English. I doubt they’re present in the Russian archives either. They appeared for one reason only and that was to say, “Don’t worry. We’re still in control here, and it ain’t over yet.” Their friends abroad were quite pleased to see not only that article, but also the results. It was done to energize their core base of useful idiots. Right now they are as energized as the Democrats or the "West Wing" of the Supreme Soviet are. We will continue to see them ratchet up their radical leftist agenda and destroy themselves unless we have an economic failure in the west. That is something that is more and more possible with each passing company that exports technology and equipment to countries with agendas that are counter to ours. Anatoliy Golitsyn made a series of predictions regarding what Russia would do in the long term. The media has said many times as it attempts to deflect attention away from Golitsyn’s predictions that the predictions were too general to be provable. Here’s why that’s a lie: Golitsyn laid out something called a strategy, and what is used to accomplish or follow through on a strategy is something called a tactic. A strategy has to be general. It can’t be something that provides dates and times. It is something that is implemented based on conditions or certain predetermined parameters. When one those conditions are in place the next set of tactics required are determined and then implemented. The tactic you’re seeing now out of Russia is called nuclear blackmail, and it is over another problem Russia is creating in the mid-east. They are helping Iran with its nuclear program. The last time they did that it was Iraq with its reactors, which were bombed after the radioactive materials were in the reactor. Now that their internal attack is well underway with the radical leftists, they feel comfortable threatening us with war. You can be sure that the radicals here will be blaming Bush for this new problem. Sheehan and the rest of them will be quite noisy. For those of you who don’t understand why I subtitled this "Dobby Speaks," I did it because as soon as Dobby the house elf made his appearance in one of the Harry Potter movies, there was a group of people in Russia that wanted to sue the makers of that film because Dobby looked a little too much like Putin for their comfort. It really was pretty funny. I think what bothered them the most was Dobby ironing his hands and bashing his head against furniture as self-flagellation for errors he made. It was some imagery I enjoyed a little too much. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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I like how people these days are out of their goddam minds. When I was a kid, nobody cared if you said “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” Both phrases had the same degree of utility. I distinctly remember this. Back then, “Merry Christmas” was the odds-on favorite just because more people celebrated Christmas than any other holiday. This is still true, but the difference is, back then, it didn’t matter if you said “Merry Christmas” to someone who didn’t celebrate Christmas, because you didn’t really mean they should be merry about Jesus. You just meant they should have a festive month of December. For all intents and purposes, “Merry Christmas” was the “shalom” of holiday greetings. People used it the same way they used “hello” and “goodbye.” “Happy Holidays” was exactly the same, except slightly different. It didn’t mean you should enjoy every holiday in December whether you liked it or not; it just meant you should enjoy whichever ones you celebrated. For some people, this meant Christmas. For others, it meant Chanukah. And for others, it meant Hanukah. It would’ve meant Kwanzaa, too, if Kwanzaa existed back then (which, to the best of my recollection, it didn’t). But the point is, no one ever accused you of bowing at the altar of diversity if you said “Happy Holidays.” No one ever said that the phrase was “just another example of political correctness run amok.” Back then, people said whatever they wanted to say. And for better or worse, they thought nothing of it. Now everything’s all screwed up. According to Fox News, there is a War on Christmas going on in this country. And because of this war, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” are politically loaded phrases. In fact, they’ve come to be known as natural rivals. Whichever greeting you choose, it says something about where you stand ideologically now. If you say “Merry Christmas,” you lean to the Right. And if you say “Happy Holidays,” you lean to the Left. As someone who doesn’t like to put much thought into the things I say to people, I find this somewhat annoying. Every year, right around Thanksgiving, you start to hear horror stories about nativity scenes being banned from town halls, or Christmas carols from public school holiday concerts. Then Bill O’Reilly comes on and lets you know about the stores you should avoid, like Target and Sears, because they used “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” in their circulars (which is nothing like Bill’s nemesis, Jesse Jackson, who calls for boycotts for not hiring black people). This year, there’s even a book about the War on Christmas called The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought, by John Gibson, which provides 256 pages of documented proof that Christmas is the central front in a larger war between secular liberals and conservative Christians. For this reason, you’re not supposed to say “Happy Holidays” anymore, because “Happy Holidays” is no longer an innocent seasonal greeting. It’s an insidious weapon, designed to “take Christ out of Christmas.” If you say it, swarms of card-carrying ACLU members will come to your town and unplug your Christmas tree and ruin America. You’ve got to stand up and say “Merry Christmas” and watch Fox News instead. Now, personally, I don’t doubt that the things being reported as War on Christmas skirmishes are actually happening. Whether they constitute a concentrated anti-Christmas campaign is another story. They could just be a series of isolated incidents. I wouldn’t know. Part of me wants to believe that this war is legitimate. I mean, it’s the only way to explain why some people would be calling Christmas trees “holiday spruces” now. At least with a war that term would have context. Otherwise, it’s just plain irritating in that let’s-show-how-intelligent-we-are-by-being-inclusive sort of way. But then part of me thinks this whole War on Christmas is only so much paranoia. Calling Christmas trees “holiday spruces” may be stupid, but what’s it matter? There’s nothing inherently Christian about Christmas trees anyway. They’re pagan symbols. Christ was born in a manger—not under a pine tree. And he was probably delivered by Joseph—not Santa. I think there will always be non-Christians who resent Christianity’s overwhelming influence on our culture, just like there will always be Christians who resent non-Christians for not being Christian. That’s just the way it is. I’m over it. But this is what leads me to my overall point. I’m not bringing up the War on Christmas because I want to resolve the differences between the two sides. I’m not even bringing it up because I’m trying to prove or disprove that the war is actually happening. No. I’m bringing it up because its coverage alone directly affects me. Because of this war, I’m supposed to watch what I say around this time of year. All of a sudden, I’m supposed to put thought into whether I say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” Why is this a problem for me? It’s a problem because putting thought into these phrases defeats the point of saying them in the first place. I’m the kind of person who appreciates convenience and expediency in my dealings with fellow human beings. Put another way: If I don’t know you, then I don’t really like you; and if we’re going to talk to each other, I’d like to make it brief. I don’t say things like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” because I care if people are merry, or because my words will somehow make them happy if they aren’t already. I say these things because they humanize me. They make me seem like a normal person, when, deep down, I feel like I’m too good to talk to people. To me, saying “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” is the same thing as if I blessed you after you sneezed. I realize your soul isn’t escaping through your nose holes. There’s nothing you need me to bless here. I’m just saying “God bless you”—or the secular “Bless you”—because that’s what people say when someone sneezes. If I partake in these small little gestures, then I can get away with my regular attitude, which tends to be curmudgeonly. That’s all phrases like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” really exist for. They have nothing at all to do with religion. They’re for people like me to let people like you know we can successfully co-exist with one another. That’s what bugs me about this War on Christmas. Before it started, I could use “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” whenever I wanted. I could use one for a while, and then use the other when I got tired of it. It didn’t matter who I said what to, because even the people who didn’t like it weren’t about to complain. But now? All that’s changed. Now, if I say “Happy Holidays,” and the person I say it to celebrates Christmas, I run the risk of offending them. They’ll start to think I’m some kind of diversity-worshipping liberal tree-hugger who only hugs holiday spruces but wants to cut down all those good old-fashioned Christian evangelical pine trees. I don’t want that reputation. It’s not accurate. I don’t worship diversity. In fact, I’m not even sure I like people who aren’t like me. But at the same time, I can’t go around saying “Merry Christmas,” either. Because now that people have decided they care whether you say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” to them, I run the risk of coming across like some self-righteous bigot who wants to shove Christmas down non-Christian throats. I’m nothing like that. And even if I was, I wouldn’t want that reputation, because I’d hate to give John Gibson the satisfaction. So I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m at a loss. The way I see it, people need to get over themselves and stop being so easily offended in this country. I know a lot of people like to say exactly what I just said in the previous sentence, but I don’t think most of them believe it, because most of them turn around and get offended by things like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” anyway. These phrases were never meant to be political weapons. They’re a common courtesy, like free mints and toothpicks on the counter in a restaurant. It’s like when you see someone that you haven’t seen in a long time, and they tell you, “Say hi to so and so for me.” You always say that you will, but only to bow out of the conversation gracefully. It’s not like you’re actually going to tell so and so that such and such said hi to them. That’s ridiculous. If that’s how people communicated, nothing would ever get done. The point is, anyone who can figure out a way to be offended by “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” probably deserves to be offended. Instead of getting all self-righteous and outraged about two simple, meaningless words, you should be thankful that anyone’s going out of their way to wish you well. I don’t know what I’ll say to people this December. Maybe I won’t say anything to anyone. Or maybe I’ll find the strength within me to say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” in spite of how uncomfortable I now feel with using them. I don’t know. But at this point, I’m leaning towards an altogether different seasonal greeting. The way I figure, if people are going to be offended by what I say anyway, then I might as well get the most out of offending them. So from now on, I think I’m just going to say, “Whatever your faith, go f--- yourself,” to complete and total strangers. Just lay it on them out of nowhere while I’m walking down the street or picking up breakfast one Saturday at the bagel store. I know it isn’t as catchy as “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” And it probably won’t help me come across like a normal member of society, either. But I still sort of hope it catches on. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Congress is poised to consider an immigration reform bill this week, but as usual the devil will be in the details. A sensible bill would bolster enforcement of existing immigration laws, reject any form of amnesty, and address the underlying welfare state that adds to the problem. I fear, however, that Congress will bow to the president and accept some sort of amnesty. Even worse, I fear Congress may use the immigration bill to create a national employment database that has nothing to do with border control and everything to do with monitoring American citizens and employers. Most Americans understandably want Congress to do something about illegal immigration, which has become a national embarrassment. One important solution is better enforcement of the laws we’ve got — which plainly call for illegal immigrants to be arrested and deported. Congress can pass any law it wants, but unless federal agencies enforce those laws they are meaningless. The ultimate responsibility for our immigration mess, therefore, lies squarely with successive presidents, not Congress. For decades our chief executives simply have lacked the political will, the manpower, or the desire to police our borders and deport lawbreakers. It’s been nearly impossible politically for presidents or candidates to suggest the obvious, namely that illegal immigration mocks the rule of law and creates huge social and economic problems. But the tide is turning, and a majority of Americans will demand real action on immigration by the next administration. Real immigration reform will be difficult, but it need not be complicated. First, enforce existing laws by controlling the borders once and for all. We must recognize that true national defense means defending our own borders and coastlines. This is the primary constitutional responsibility of the federal government. This means it’s time to stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on overseas military adventures and countless alphabet soup domestic agencies. Borders should be the number one national priority, plain and simple. Does the federal government have something better to do? Second, we must end birthright citizenship by constitutional amendment, if necessary. House Joint Resolution 46, which I introduced earlier this year, begins the process in Congress. As long as illegal immigrants know that their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong. Citizenship involves more than the mere location of one’s birth. True citizenship requires cultural connections and an allegiance to the United States. Americans are happy to welcome those who wish to come here and build a better life for themselves, but we rightfully expect immigrants to show loyalty and attempt to assimilate themselves culturally. Birthright citizenship sometimes confers the benefits of being American on people who do not truly embrace America. Finally, we must end welfare state subsidies for illegal immigrants. Some illegal immigrants — certainly not all — receive housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care, and other forms of welfare. This alienates taxpayers and breeds suspicion of immigrants, even though the majority of them work very hard. Without a welfare state, we would know that everyone coming to America wanted to work hard and support himself. Immigration admittedly is a difficult issue, and nobody wants America to become an unwelcoming fortress. On the contrary, we need to attract the best and brightest people by remaining an entrepreneurial society that rewards initiative and hard work. But we must gain control of our borders not only to strengthen our national security, but also to preserve our national identity. Rep. Ron Paul Web Site Back to Top |
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When I was in Junior High School, I remember my mother complaining to me that the athletes at school received all the attention but if you were smart the only public accolades were having your name listed in a paragraph of very small print letting the community know you received Honor Roll or that you were a National Merit Scholar. She thought the priorities of our school system were all wrong. Apparently she wasn’t alone in her beliefs back then because I recently had the opportunity to read an article, “The Adolescent Society” in the winter 2006 edition of Education Next, in which James Coleman (“The Coleman Report”) essentially said the same thing. Interestingly he wrote his piece in 1961, a year before I was born and about 15 years before my mother made her personal observations in our kitchen during a conversation in which she was referring to my brother’s unheralded academic accomplishments. It was Coleman’s suggestion that in order to generate social pressure to excel academically, there needs to be intellectual games. group competitions to change the norms and values to encourage academics. Well, its 2005 and I can honestly say there is at least one program doing this, and I might add, doing this very well. I recently had the opportunity to judge at the Illinois Hearings for the Center for Civic Education’s “We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution” which took place on the campus of McDonalds Corporation’s Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois. Teams from 6 area high schools competed against each other for the opportunity to represent our state at Nationals. I must say that I was extremely impressed by the apparent time and effort put in by each group of students in preparation for the unit questions which they would have to answer with a prepared statement and for the follow up questions they would have to answer, without referring to notes or discussing their answers with teammates I listened to the various statements put together by 6 sets of students, explaining our system of federalism and what differentiated it from other forms of government. They then answered questions posed by us judges about such things as how federalism enters into NCLB and Hurricane Katrina. In their statements and answers were references to historical cases illustrating precedent for the more current situations we’re facing today, as well as pertinent quotes from the founders and framers of our country. I was so very proud of each student because from what I could tell, they had put hours and hours into learning about the federal system of government in such depth that they made it look easy to have an informed discussion about what was happening in our country today. I could only imagine how nervous they had to be drawing on that reserve of knowledge to pull out the most compelling facts to convince us of the correctness of their opinions and illustrate that they were brilliant enough to earn the coveted spot at Nationals. Although only one team, Maine South High School, won the Illinois competition, all the students were truly prepared to take on the responsibilities of citizenship and leadership which the framers believed are necessary to maintain the rights and privileges guaranteed under our Constitutional form of government. As for Maine South High School, their team will represent Illinois at the We the People: National Finals, a three day academic competition in Washington, D.C. April 29-May 1, 2006. More than 1200 students will demonstrate their knowledge of constitutional principles and their relevance to contemporary issues in a simulated congressional hearing before panels of judges composed of constitutional scholars, lawyers, journalists, and government leaders from across the nation. The ten finalists with the highest scores, based on the first two days of hearings, will compete for the title of national winner on the final day in congressional hearing rooms on Capitol Hill.” I left the hearings with hope for our future; hope in the knowledge that future generations understand the importance of arming themselves with the information necessary to take care of this country which we inherited from our forebears so long ago. Nancy Salvato Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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©2004-2005 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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