Month: October 2003

Cool shirts from Cox and Forkum: Bring ‘Em On, Allah

Normally, firing someone is anything but a pleasant task, but…

Used to the usual criticism from the White House whenever Israel took any steps to defend itself, I was surprised when Bush finally said something right.

What they hell are they thinking giving that pathetic, ignorant, lying, traitorous, drunken commie who recently accused our president of “fraud” and “bribery” a “George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service“??? Pathetic!

Update: Here is an editorial from the Wash Times. Nicholas at The Rule of Reason comments:

If we are defined by our heroes, one has to wonder what kind of man George H.W. really is to feel the need to honor Teddy Kennedy with his namesake award. Not one who cares about principles, it would seem.

You will find some new links among the blogs on the right. They are all good reading — sometimes informative, usually right, and always interesting. Let me know about any other websites you’d like to recommend.

My response to an ugly smear job:
In Praise of Sweatshops – In Response to Jonathan Steeds Editorial

Jonathan writes that sweatshops “represent the worst of capitalism.” In fact, sweatshops are a great example of the virtues of free trade and free markets. Consider what conditions the citizens of third world countries live in before the multinationals arrival. The great majority live in desperate conditions, with no jobs and no future to look forward to other than the backbreaking labor of subsidence farming. Healthcare is non-existent, children work almost from the time they can walk, and most die young from starvation or malnutrition.

The multinationals that build factories in poor nations face many challenges: oppressive and unpredictable governments, long distances, language barriers, primitive roads, and labor activists back at home. They choose to do so because the lower marginal productivity of the workers in poor countries allows them to save on labor costs. The workers of the sweatshops choose to work there because they consider it better than the alternatives: the endless toil of subsistence farming, prostitution, or crime. They are free to quit or look for another job anytime, but they remain at the factories because they consider it their best alternative. Their pay and working conditions may seem low to us, but they are heavenly when compared to their life prior to the multinationals’ arrival.

All the efforts to ban, boycott, or otherwise shut down third world factories will do nothing but lead to the starvation and death of the very people the activists claim to protect. The best thing we can do to help citizens of third world countries is to support free trade and free markets to bring the wonderful benefits of capitalism to every poverty-ridden country in the world.

Robert Novak comments on the Plame scandal:

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson’s “Who’s Who in America” entry.

For humorous takes on the story, go here and here.
Continue reading

Daniel Pipes writes about the Anti-Islamists Muslims “who wish to live modern lives, unencumbered by burqas, fatwas and violent visions of jihad”:

Although a TV journalist and personality, Manji – a practicing Muslim – brings real insight to her subject. “I appreciate that every faith has its share of literalists. Christians have their Evangelicals. Jews have the ultra-Orthodox. For God’s sake, even Buddhists have fundamentalists. But what this book hammers home is that only in Islam is literalism mainstream.

I have a hard time imagining an “Anti-Islamist” version of Islam. Unlike other religions, virtually every nation with a sizable Muslim population has problems with violent fundamentalists who try to impose their dogma on the rest of the population. Fundamentalism is deeply embedded in Islam, historically, politically, and literally. The Q’uran is full of lines like:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah (a tax paid by the heathens)with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Continue reading Anti-Islamists vs Islam

ALF, the eco-terrorist group responsible for a long string of attacks made a slight miscalculation it its latest scheme: “Mink eat each other after animal rights break-in.”