An Important Explanation Of The Thinking Behind 9-11

We are approaching the ten year anniversary of 9-11.

Ten years is a long time.

As memories fade, it is important for those of us that cannot forget that awful day to remind those that have of what happened - and even more importantly, "why" it happened.

The "Why" of it all has been the subject of much debate and argument over the last ten years. Lee Harris' Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology, written in the summer of 2002, offers an explanation that is worth thinking about.

See: Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology

"KNOW YOUR ENEMY” is a well-known maxim, but one that is difficult to observe in practice. Nor is the reason for this hard to fathom: If you are my enemy, it is unlikely that I will go very much out of my way to learn to see things from your point of view. And if this is true even in those cases where the conflict is between groups that share a common culture, how much more true will it be when there is a profound cultural and psychological chasm between the antagonists?

That is just the first paragraph.

Read the whole thing.

The BP Gulf Oil Spill, Regulatory Capture and Government Failure

As the BP Gulf Oil Spill crisis drags on, the calls and screams to have people criminally prosecuted will become ever more shrill and demanding.

Who and what is ultimately to blame?

Looking at BP's role and lobbying efforts in American politics reveals something very interesting about the nature of political systems and the human condition.

See: Feel the Rage

The liberals' fury at the President is almost as astounding as their outrage over the discovery that oil companies and their regulators might have grown too cozy. In economic literature, this behavior is known as "regulatory capture," and the current political irony is that this is a long-time conservative critique of the regulatory state.

The Nobel economist George Stigler of the University of Chicago was one of the concept's main developers, and it is a seminal plank of the "public choice" school of economics for which James Buchanan won the economics Nobel in 1986. Ronald Reagan warned about this in different words in one of his farewell speeches.

In the better economic textbooks, regulatory capture is described as a "government failure," as opposed to a market failure. It refers to the fact that individuals or companies with the highest interest or stake in a policy outcome will be able to focus their energies on politicians and bureaucracies to get the outcome they prefer.

See: Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

Making government more powerful, makes it more corruptible.

Government is corruptible because people are corruptible. There is no getting around or away from that fact.

As government grows and is given more control over the details and minutia of our daily lives, the scope of corruptibility of the government grows with it.

When the government makes a law, a rule or a regulation regarding a behavior, it affects peoples lives. Laws, rules and regulations are created with the specific intent of affecting peoples lives. Since laws, rules and regulations affect peoples lives, they create an incentive for those most affected to be able to influence those that are making the laws, rules and regulations.

There is a give an take to this. Everyone has things that they want. Everything becomes negotiable. Anything can be bought if the price is right and a seller has something that a buyer wants.

The process that this all gets worked out in, where the negotiations are made, the horse trading is done and back room deals are dealt, we call politics.

People's property and lives are at stake. The costs and prices become greater as the scope and power of the laws, rules and regulations increase.

The end results can be disturbing and very predictable.

How is that "Hope and Change" working for you?

It seems it ain't working so well for Obama's "progressive" supporters.

See: Progressives Ask: Is It Obama, Or Is It Us?

Left-wing activists described the year leading up to Barack Obama's election as exhilarating, empowering and exciting.
Now, if you ask progressives gathered for the America's Future Now conference in Washington, D.C., about the first year and a half of his presidency, they say:

"Frustrating."

"Sobering."

"Brutal."

At least, those were the reactions of, respectively, union activist Nick Weiner, University of Minnesota political science professor Dara Strolovitch, and Steve Peha, who heads an education reform consultancy.

"I had hoped for something different," Peha explains. "I had hoped for the president who ran for office, and not so much the one who's in office."

Peha says he's a pragmatist -- he knows that campaigning and governing are different. But "what I wish is that President Obama had worked a little less for his ideal of bipartisanship and a little more for the people who elected him," he says.

This is the prevailing feeling at this week's America's Future Now conference. And no one is hiding it.

There are several things to remark upon here.

One, the Obama administration has easily been the most partisan administration that this country has suffered through since Johnson. His "take it or leave it" strategy for ramming through his health-care scheme is example enough of that. On that charge, the progressives are talking out their ass. They wouldn't know what "bipartisanship" was if it reached across the isle and slugged them.

Two, Obama is the most progressive President this country has had since Woodrow Wilson. Again, his health-care scheme is proof enough of that. We could also talk about his high tax policy and his regulatory policy per Cap and Trade. Then there is that whole financial crises fiasco created by the progressive geniuses Barney Frank and Chris Dodd that Obama managed to make much worse. He even seized control of GM for goodness sake. GM is now a government run enterprise strait out of the Mussolini play book. What do the progressives want! Any more progressive and and this administration would be considering controlling political speech by taxing internet news aggregators or bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" to radio.

Three, Obama cannot realistically satisfy his hard left supporters. These are the people on the fringe of reality, more inclined to look at working through the constraints of the law and the constitution as backsliding and evidence of a spiritual weakness. These people were going to turn on him no matter what. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the schadenfreude while watching his own snakes turn on him.

Heh. . . Here is some "Hope and Change" good and hard you "progressive" dip-shits.

Is The Medicare System Beginning To Implode? How Will Politicians Respond?

How will politicians respond if the Doctors refuse to participate in the Government medical care schemes?

See: Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

How long before some Congress Critter proposes forcing Doctors to accept Medicare (think Obama-care) patients at whatever compensation rate the government sets?

Rushing The Sale. A Look At An Environmentalist Propaganda Technique.

With the Cap and Trade bill comming up again, there will be many examples of crude environmentalist propoganda to highlight.

Here is one that claims that Anthropogenic Global Warming will cause the sea-levels to rise and destroy a coastal city.

See:How global warming might transform Vancouver’s shoreline

Rather typical of one of the most dishonest forms of Anthropogenic Global Warming propaganda, the article starts out by suggesting a picture of a well known place transformed (as if in an instant) into a devastated landscape of watery ruin. Many of these propaganda scare stories use this technique to induce an emotional response in the reader.

Granville Island, Kitsilano and Jericho beaches, the Stanley Park seawall, the Downtown Eastside, and the port all help to define Vancouver in the eyes of the world. But try to imagine what this city would look like if all of these local landmarks were underwater.

Ridiculous, you say? Perhaps. But it’s not so far-fetched if all of Greenland’s glaciers were to disappear, causing sea levels to rise—and if Vancouver didn’t take steps to ameliorate the effects.

Of course it is ridicules. It is an extreme picture painted in the most frightening and immediate terms possible in order to rush people into accepting a ready made prescription.

The AGW activist have a solution readymade. You are to transform your life, from everything that you are allowed to do and even everything that you are allowed to think. You are to surrender your body and soul to their benevolent guidance.

If you resist or ask troubling questions, you will be called a “denier,” akin to the insane people that deny the holocaust. With this type of rhetorical slight of hand, they will try to make troublesome AGW doubters into social and political pariahs.

Asking questions will not be allowed in the beautiful future they offer.

"Serve the state" you will be told. "Be happy. Surrender all of your cares and worries to those that can better manage you and the world around you."

And in whispers they will ask - (You aren't a “denier” are you?)

~~~

Climate change is real. The planet's climate is not static. It never has been. It never will be.

AGW is politics. It is a scheme to frighten enough people with something as natural as the rising and the setting of the sun to force the whole world's population to surrender to statist totalitarianism.

It's a Brave New World that the AGW activist are going to bring about. Their paradise of universal totalitarian chattel slavery will do nothing to freeze the climate. The climate can't be made static. Only the mad and the evil would try to shape people's lives on the AGW premise that the climate can or even should be made static. Unfortunately, there are mad and evil people in the world.

Investing The Souls Of Children In A Deep Evil

One of the worst things about evil is that all too often, those that are the principle actors of evil, believe that they are doing a good thing with the best of intentions.

Take for example the teachers that had their students send letters to the Israeli Ambassador to Spain in Madid that asked "Mr. Ambassador, how many Palestinians did you murder today?"

See: Israel Demands Explanation from Spain on Letters

This is a deep evil that has been done to these children. It invests them personally in the hatred by making them participants.

Everyone wants to believe that they are good. They also want to believe that the people that they love and respect are good. Now that these children have participated in this, they will have to confront their participation in something that is not good. A thing that they have been persuaded to participate in by people that they love, trust and respect.

The personal struggle that they will have to confront will be too much for many if not most of them. "How" they will reason "can people that I trust and respect goad me into evil? If they are good and deserving of my respect and my love, then what they have made me do must not be evil."

The teachers and others involved in this project surely believed that what they were doing was right and good.

What these teachers have done was a deep evil.

Who can repair the damage done to these children?

Hat Tips Weasel Zippers,
RealWest & Kosh of C2

Zuckerman Versus Obama

Zuckerman is rumored to be considering a run for the Senate.

If he does, it looks like it will be a candidacy that is a reaction to Obama's extremism.

Read Zuckerman's own words: He's Done Everything Wrong

Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.

One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”

I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.

There is talk that if Zuckerman decides to run for the Senate, he will do so as a Republican or as an Independent.

I could respect Zuckerman as an Independent. I would have a hard time trusting him as a Republican. He really should run as a Democrat. The Democrats need a few sane people in their Party. Mort could help them reduce the influence of the kooks in the Democrat Party and still stay true to his political ideals.

Audi, Eco-Nazis and the Green Police

Audi fucked-up.

You have to wonder what would posses a German corporation to sponsor an ad like this.



The Green Police?

Fucking Eco-Nazis!

Towards A More Productive And Useful Understanding Of North Korea

Christopher Hitchens reviews B.R. Myers' The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he'd heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity.

I was struck at the time by how matter-of-factly he said this, as if he took it for granted that I would find it uncontroversial. And I did briefly wonder whether this form of totalitarianism, too (because nothing is more "total" than racist nationalism), was part of the pitch made to its subjects by the North Korean state.

When Christopher Hitchens is good, he is very good. His review of B.R. Myers' book, flavored with his own personal in person observations of North Korea, make it clear that the oft ignored and shunned little crazy kingdom of North Korea may be far too dangerous to just ignore and shun.

I think I will head on over to the bookstore this weekend.

Hat Tip To FinallyFree at Correspondence Committee

Conclusive Environmentalist Insanity

New Zealand authors, Robert and Brenda Vale, are promoting their book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living."

From the AFP

PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

It is not a joke. These people are serious. Deadly serious.

They are representative of the logical conclusion of the environmental movement.

Hugo Chavez And The Essence Of The Climate Change Hysteria

Among the many world leaders that went to and spoke to the delegates of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, stood one angry ugly little man. This ugly little man spoke to the very essence of what drives the Climate Change Fear Mongers. He reveals that science and the climate are only magicians props that are used to gull the ignorant and the impressionable.

Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Chavez, and those that gave him his thundering standing ovation, have at that moment stripped away their masks and revealed their real intent. There goal is to advance socialism and to end capitalism where ever it exists.

The Climate Change Fear Mongers know that the science of weather and climate change is full of so many variables and unknowns that it is easy for them to use it to gull the impressionable and to frighten the fearful. They aim to frighten people with the threat of global destruction in order to get them to give up their rights as free human beings.

It has been fairly effective.

That it is all a ugly hoax matters not a bit. Fear is what gives them power.

The Climate Change Fear Mongers have used half truths to hide huge lies. Climate Change is real. It is not something that you should be frightened of anymore than you should be frightened of the rising and the setting of the sun.

Climate Change is as natural to our earth's long existence as are the tides of the sea.

The Earths Climate will change. Mankind can not do anything to prevent that from happening.

In Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Hank Morgan uses his knowledge of eclipses of the sun to fool the locals into believing that he has magical powers. Hank Morgan was good guy. The Climate Fear Mongers are not. But like the character in Mark Twain's fable, the Climate Fear Mongers hope to use something as natural and as normal as the changeable weather and the inevitable climate variability of our planet to frighten you and your friends into freely giving up your rights as a free person.

Do not be afraid.

Have the courage to live free.

A Glossary Of Environmentalist Newspeak

The BBC has very helpfully provided a short glossary of Environmental Newspeak.

Here are three for your amusement.

Carbon footprint The amount of carbon emitted by an individual or organisation in a given period of time, or the amount of carbon emitted during the manufacture of a product.

Carbon intensity A unit of measure. The amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.

Carbon leakage A term used to refer to the problem whereby industry relocates to countries where emission regimes are weaker, or non-existent.

Its kind of like Pirate Jargon - a code language of thieves and scum.

Make Them Work For Free Dammit!

The Left's war against the productive continues.

The UK has imposed an onerous tax on Bonuses paid out to bank executives and employees. (See this CNN Article.)

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The odds aren't on its side, but a bonus tax could happen in the United States too.

The United Kingdom this week slapped a 50% tax on bankers' bonuses above about $40,000. The one-time tax will be paid by all banks with employees in the country. France pledged it would adopt the same policy, while Germany's chancellor called the idea "charming."

What would stop US Politicians from bringing this onerous tax to the US?

What would stop them from making it applicable beyond just bank employees?

Can you really trust them to not make it apply to you?

Climate Change extremist Al Gore Protested in Florida

Al Gore is finding that his message of social control through Climate Change fear mongering is ginning up some vocal opposition.

From the Palm Beach Post.

The former vice president spoke on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.

Climate Change is real. The insanity promoted by Al Gore and his fellow travelers that would give government ever greater control of our personal lives is at its core more about controlling people than it is about controlling climate. Power is what motivates these eco-wackos, all masked in the guise of altruism.

Venezuelan Water and Electricity Shortages.

Socialists always seem to be in the dark about why life in a socialist paradise sucks.

There is an interesting article in the New York Times on the confusion in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela — This country may be an energy colossus, with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and one of the world’s mightiest hydroelectric systems, but that has not prevented it from enduring serious electricity and water shortages that seem only to be getting worse.

President Hugo Chávez has been facing a public outcry in recent weeks over power failures that, after six nationwide blackouts in the last two years, are cutting electricity for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana. Now, water rationing has been introduced here in the capital.

The deterioration of services is perplexing to many here, especially because the country had grown used to cheap, plentiful electricity and water in recent decades. But even as the oil boom was enriching his government and Mr. Chávez asserted greater control over utilities and other industries in this decade, public services seemed only to decay, adding to residents’ frustrations.

[Emphasis added.]

A private business must make a profit to survive. A government bureaucracy is not so encumbered.

The incentives are different. A private business thrives off of profit. A bureaucracy thrives off of rationing. With a private business, there is always push for surplus. With a bureaucracy, there is always a necessity for shortage.

Venezuela Is Drying Up

Water is becoming scarce is Venezuela. The ugly tyrant is trying to blame "the rich" for the shortage of water.

Water is not a luxury. A city without water will fail. This could be the beginning of the end for Caracas. They are discovering that you can't drink the oil.

Weather forecasters blame the "El Nino" weather phenomenon, saying the periodic weather system has markedly reduced rainfall and created drought conditions.

Others blame the shortage on poor government management of the country's water resources, while President Hugo Chavez faulted the excesses of capitalism.

"What will the rich fill their swimming pools with?" the country's leftist leader asked recently.

"With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods," he said, blaming the lack of sufficient water on "capitalism -- a lack of feeling, a lack of humanity."

What will they do?

That is an easy one Hugo.

The smart ones will pack their bags, walk away from their houses and flee with their talent and their remaining wealth to freedom in the US or some other country.

The stupid and the poor will remain in Venzuala.

"Wolf! Wolf!" Cry The Anthropogenic Global Warming Activist.

I think that Climate Change is real. I have some serious doubts about Anthropogenic Global Warming. In, short, I think it is over-the-top bullshit put forth primarily by people with a political (socialist, statists, authoritarian, totalitarian) agenda.

Climate Change IS fact.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is Politics.

Mark Henderson, the Science Editor of Times Online discusses the toll of the AGW Activist's "Cry Wolf" strategy.

Exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risk undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change, senior scientists have told The Times.

Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers and journalists who distort climate science to support an agenda erode public understanding and play into the hands of sceptics, according to experts including a former government chief scientist.

Excessive statements about the decline of Arctic sea ice, severe weather events and the probability of extreme warming in the next century detract from the credibility of robust findings about climate change, they said.

Such claims can easily be rebutted by critics of global warming science to cast doubt on the whole field. They also confuse the public about what has been established as fact, and what is conjecture.

They are crying "Wolf! Wolf!" so much that they are destroying the trust that people have and need to have in science.

The AGW Activist are turning Science into a farce.

Dancing with the Devil in the pale moonlight.

The problem with accepting the Devils coin is that you will end up dancing to the Devil's tune.

This is proving to be undeniably the case for those companies who have accepted a portion of the 2008 - $700 billion dollar bailout.

It was a Faustian deal. For a pittance, they have sold their corporate souls to the Obama Administration.

Now, day by day, instance by instance, they are discovering that they no longer own themselves. They no longer can decide for themselves what they should do, what is best for their company or what is best for their shareholders. Those decisions now belong to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and his minions.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration plans to order companies that received huge U.S. government bailouts last year to sharply cut the compensation of their highest paid executives, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced.

This person said Wednesday that the Treasury Department will announce the deep pay cuts within the next few days.

Kenneth Feinberg, the special master at Treasury appointed by Obama to handle compensation issues at the seven firms getting exceptional assistance from the government's $700 billion financial bailout package, is making the pay decisions.

The seven companies are: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

Total compensation for the top executives at the seven firms will decline, on average, by about 50 percent, according to the person familiar with the administration's decision.

Read these articles.

U.S. Said to Order Deep Pay Cuts at Bailed-Out Companies

Pay Czar to Slash Compensation at Seven Firms

US plans big pay cuts at bailout firms

Some people think that Fascism is when the corporations own the government. They have it back-ass-wards. In actuality, Fascism is when the government owns the corporations.

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Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?