Le Ris de Veau de Thanksgiving

Demain, le 26 Novembre, on célèbre la fête de Thanksgiving, c.a.d, la journée d’action de grâce nationale. Ce jour est chômé dans tous les Etats-Unis. Il commémore la première récolte des Pères Pélerins, fondateurs spirituels du pays, à Plymouth (Nouvelle Angleterre) en 1621. Les Pélerins, tous anglais, avaient quitté l’Angleterre, puis la Hollande, à la recherche d’une plus grande liberté de religion et donc, de liberté de pensée. Comme la moitié seulement des partants avait survécu au passage transatlanlique et a l’hiver précedent, les survivants avaient de quoi célèbrer.

Depuis longtenps, cette fête consiste principalement en un diner commençant, selon la coutume, tôt, en fin d’après-midi. Participent, familles étendues pour l’occasion, y compris des membres qui viennent de loin, et amis. La dinde en est le plat principal. En partie, c’est parce que la tradition veut que cette volaille américaine ait constituté le plat de résistance des Pélerins de 1621. En partie, c’est parce qu’il faut bien un gros animal pour nourrir tant de monde. Le reste du menu varie selon les familles mais on sert presque toujours de la geleé de canneberges et de la tarte de potiron (un légume d’origine américaine). La canneberge est une petite baie rouge au goût un peu aigre, cultivée dans les marais et peu connue en dehors de l’Amérique du Nord, il me semble. (Mise a jour: Mon ami russe, Sergey, m’affirme que les canneberges existent a l’etat sauvage en Europe du nord et qu’elles font l’objet d’une culture en Pologne et en Bielorussie. Etonnant!)

 

Moi-même, et ma femme Krishna, allons participer à un dîner chez d’autre immigrants que nous connaissons à peine. J’y contriburai un grand plat de ris de veau braisés et un autre de jarret de boeuf au bouillon et ciboulette. Je tâche toujours de bien représenter mon pays d’origine, au moins sur ce plan là. Après quarante, je demeure l’un des conservateurs officieux de la cuisine de concierge.

PS J’écris rarement en Français à cause de ces putains d’accents!

Climate Change, for Real!

The monster two-thousand pages health reform bill is going to pass, I think. There are two silver linings to this disaster, First, I have never in my life seen Americans pay such attention to the mechanics of how legislation is made. (The 300 million bribe to Sen Landrieux of Louisiana is common currency.) Second, as I said, the Obama administration is making so many mistakes we may well have a one-term President and a groundswell of conservatism in three years.

Except, paradoxically, if there is a terrorist attack, it will save Obama. Americans rally around their leadership in times of calamity.

Don’t get discouraged. We can roll back everything, except massive debt, of course. We are stuck with it, especially you, starry-eyed, good-feeling young people who voted massively for Peter Pan.

The next disaster is going to be cap-and-trade legislation. There could be national security justifications for a tax on carbons, which include petroleum. We are getting too muchof it from bad neighborhood, Iran, for example and unstable Saudi Arabia. The fact is that Iran could shut down the Straight of Hormuz for a long time by sinking two dozen old ships in the right places. (Look up the Straight in an atlas; it’s good for you.)

Not the justification chosen by the administration, and with good reason. Instead, they insist on taxing carbon emissions because of our carbon footprint, because of climate change. Climate change was formerly called global warming. It was re-named because the climate stopped warming about ten years ago. Time to review systematically the absurdity of this set of beliefs. A systematic review is needed because, I noticed around me and among my radio listeners a tendency to lose the forest for the trees. Below are seven points worth keeping in mind that organize the issue somewhat. (My radio program, “Facts Matter” is available on ksco Santa Cruz 1080 AM, every Sunday, 11 am to 1 pm. You can also catch live on-line.)

1 There is no global warming trend, except over a very small number of years. Does not matter. Advocates have been caught repeatedly manipulating data to show a suddenly, abrupt climb in global temperature in the 19^th and 20^th century. (The “hockey stick.”) In fact, it was warmer in 1100 than it is now. The medieval viking settlers in Greenland ate beef. That means they grew grass in significant quantity, which you could not do now reliably in Greenland because it’s too cold. I got the information on the settlements and on their beef diet from Jared Diamond’ good book, Collapse. Diamond is a serious environmentalist and a climate change advocate but an honest man.

There is no scientific consensus on climate change, as the Obama Administration would have you believe. There is a a shared religious conviction among establishment scientists who depend on government funding. Advocates publicize every anecdotal item that could conceivably support the thesis and nothing that invalidates it: It’s unseasonably warm in NY in November, they say but early winter in Colorado does not get a notice.

For a small sample of the intellectual dishonesty among climate change advocates, follow the Times of London link below.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6926325.ece

The main part of the story is not how vile many advocates are. It’s simply the observation that if you need to lie on behalf of your cause, it’s a bad cause. Period.

2 If there were a significant warming trend, it would not be reasonable simply to attribute it to the burning of petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Water vapor and bovine burps play a similar role. (I am not making this up!) Climate change advocates should tell us clearly what part each type of gas plays in alleged global warming. Or they should tell us that they don’t know. Clarity and thoroughness matter when you wish to impoverish billions, as carbon emissions reduction would do without a question.

3 If there were increased emission of carbon and if we cared about it, advocates would have to show that the normal natural means of absorption of carbon emission are not working, or not working well enough. The National Geographic, a strong advocate, just showed (December 2009 issue) a graph indicating that 56% of carbon emissions are absorbed by earth and ocean. The National Geographic is a consistent advocate of climate change, of course. This unaided rate of natural absorption suggests solutions to alleged global warming other than the reduction of carbon emission and the consequent crippling of the world economies. I don’t know if it’s feasible but I want climate change advocates to tell me: How about planting more forests instead? I mention this because hardly anyone is against planting trees, not even mean-hearted conservatives like me. By the way, enlarging forests could create jobs where they are most needed, in the poor countries. I, for one, go on the record to say that I would not mind being taxed to pay poor Indians and South Americans to plant trees that would benefit me as well as them

4 Advocates have to show strongly that increased carbon emissions stay trapped in the atmosphere. There are big doubts expressed in some scientific milieus about this assumption. It’s too technical for this blog. See the Watts reference below. Of course, if CO2 escapes into the ether as we create it, there cannot be global warming according to the advocates’ own religious dogma.

5 It’s the advocates’ burden of proof to perform a serious and evolving cost/benefit analysis of the drawbacks and advantages of global warming if it exists. Carbon is plant food. Warmer weather means bigger crops of the most important plant foods, especially wheat. Think Canada and Siberia. If the northern limit of wheat maturation moved as little as one hundred miles north in each region, the harvest gains would be enormous. Same thing for the southern limit of wheat maturation in Argentina. Climate advocates are, by and large, the same people who tell us that much of the world population is going hungry. You can’t have it both ways. You want to feed the hungry first or second, or third, or not at all. Just make yourselves clear!

6 If there were global warming and it were sure to be deleterious on balance, we would need to establish how urgent the problem is. Let’s take an easy measure proposed for years by climate change advocates: the supposedly rising sea level. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, winner of the 2007 (laughable ) Nobel Peace Prize, the maximum rise in sea level is less than three feet in one hundred years. That’s disturbing for many coastal areas but not an emergency. Gives us time to think better solutions. Again, that’s the maximum estimate.

7 Those who buy the whole climate change religion should be strongly in favor of nuclear energy. It’s the surest and quickest way to slow down petroleum and coal consumption. It’s not experimental, it’s well proven. The Japanese and the French have been relying on this form of energy for thirty years. Nevertheless, climate change advocates are not in favor of expanding nuclear energy production. This alone puts their good faith in doubt.

Overall, most of us don’t have time to consider everything in detail. Movements followers are trying to swamp with impossible quantities of info and pseudo-info regular people who need to make a living and to raise their children, I think. There are shortcuts, however. You don’t have to become an expert to form a valid opinion on this attempt to curtail your standard of living. Here is one: Judge a movement by the quality of its leaders.

The undisputed public leader of climate change-based policies is Al Gore. Al Gore is an ignorant moron. He proves it every time he goes on television. He said recently that the center of the earth is several million degrees hot. (It’s 5000 degrees F.) That was in defense of geothermal energy. I heard him with my own ears. This is not an Internet rumor. It’s also not a small mistake on an arcane point. A reasonably good high-school junior would know better.

Here are a couple of things you can do to make yourself informed without turning the endeavor into an unpaid second job. First, visit the eminently readable and scientifically respectful website :Watts Up With That

Second, if you take the trouble occasionally to read carefully reports put out by advocates of global warming themselves, you will often find statements that don’t conform with their views. That’s what I did above with Collapse and with the National Geographic.

Whats’ really going on? As is always the case with left-wing movements, you have a small elite of cynics, supported by religious frenzy, leading an army of dupes.

The cynics want three things:

1 A massive transfer of wealth from relatively civilized areas, like the US, to the poor countries that don’t know how to govern themselves;

2 The foundations of a future world government where we would have to end up having our lives determined in part by bloody and grotesques dictators. (Think of Libya and North Korea as the next Illinois and New Jersey.)

3 As always, more power for themselves. The fastest way to rise to the top is not hard work or initiative but the confiscation of public resources under the guise of government

The dupes are psychologically the same kind of people who believed in Stalin, and who were slaughtered by Stalin and whose lives were ruined by Stalin for several generations. They cried by the tens of thousands at the tyrant’s funeral. Some are genuinely ignorant. Many more are intellectually lazy. They also love to believe the world is going to pot in general. Good people will assent to anything if they are scared enough.

Man up, America! (That goes for you to, Miss.)

Breast Cancer and Political Idiocy

A Federal Government health panel announces sweeping changes in breast cancer detection practices. All the changes seem to imply savings, spending less health care money upfront. It looks for all the world like a trial balloon for health care rationing: Choose a topic known to be an emotional one for the 52% of the population that seem to care the most about health, women; tell them the corresponding care will be cut; wait for reactions. Then, plan for future rationing on the basis of what you learned on this occasion. Assume that private insurance companies, daily if covertly threatened with nationalization, will comply with whatever the Federal Government decides.

It does look like a trial balloon but I am not joining in the paranoia the announcement triggered. I am taking another path, in line with what I have been saying about President Obama and his camarilla, on this blog and on my radio show (“Facts Matter” ksco Santa Cruz, 1080 AM, Sundays 11a.m to 1p.m.) They are not Machiavellian; they are mindless, in their own peculiar way.

First, I would not be surprised at all if independent audits demonstrated that current practice, in force for at least 20 years , are economically wasteful, or very wasteful. Much preventive care is. (48 hours after the announcement, I have not heard a single argument to the effect that changing the standards will improve, or adversely affect, anyone’s health.) The hard fact is that we cannot, as a society, with current methods, afford to test every person for diseases that occur only once in ten million people, to make up an example. That’s a hard fact Americans are not used to. Health care, including and especially preventive care, has to be rationed and it has always been rationed. It’s only now coming out into the open, which is what all freedom-loving conservatives should want.

The issue is whether government experts should make the crucial decisions. I don’t trust government to act competently; I don’t trust left-wingers in government to act without regard to their political advantage. I prefer any other method of rationing but I want it transparent. If it’s not, people of conscience have no chance to influence the criteria used. To give an example of why transparency matters: I am angry to have learned after the fact that Guantanamo inmates received the swine flu vaccine before millions of American babies. True, I don’t know which ones are guilty; I just know for a fact none of them is a baby.

Second, private advocacy organizations, impelled by feminists, have made breast cancer a politically favorite illness, almost on par with HIV. In fact, of one hundred American women who died last year, fewer than three died of breast cancer. This is not to deny the particular horror this disease inspires in women. Yet, in reality, American women die of the same things as their husbands and brothers, mostly of heart disease. (based on Center for Disease Control figures for 2006).The politicization of illness in the past twenty or thirty years is not helping honest reformers. Instead, it creates a perceptual fog that facilitates the task of those who would implement changes that the population would reject if it understood them.

It seems to me that the sudden proclamation by the Federal Government of the rolling back of standards, on a sensitive and emotional matter, at a time when the party in power is trying to pass a difficult, much despised health care reform bill, is not a trial balloon. I think it’s another formidable demonstration of incompetence, of political incompetence, specifically.

The Obama administration never listened to anyone because it feels invested with a historical mission. It never listened to most of those who voted for the President because the top-echelons frankly believe there is nothing to be gained by listening. I hear an echo of the Communist notion of “dictatorship of the proletariat.” It says that the people don’t know what’s good for them, that if “we” let them make their own decisions, they will screw up almost for sure. I am familiar with this way of thinking because it used to be common, among European Communists, of course, but also among their social-democrat cousins. That would have included some of my close friends.

The Administration fucked up royally on this one, and in ways that were predictable. Same scenario with the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohamed in New York City. As soon as it was announced, that decision raised a storm of protests, including in the liberal media. The President is an idiot, the way many college professors are idiots. He is sure he knows better; he does not know what he does not know.

Remain attentive; there are going to be more monumental mistakes because the President and his collaborators are incapable of listening. The question is whether they will self-destruct before they destroy our country.

PS Don’t be shy about linking this blog, or this particular posting, to your Facebook.

Obama in China; Palin in Wonderland

President Obama spent his time in China apologizing to the local mafia dons. Mostly, he apologized for our values of personal freedom. He is right, so far; we are still not censoring the Internet. His own speeches were censored from Internet access by the Chinese mafia. At least, there is some logic to his abasement in this case: We owe the Chinese a lot of money.

The liberal media are alternatively shaking with rage and overcome with panic about Sarah Palin. This is fairly strange since they keep describing her as stupid. If you are afraid of a mindless youngish mother who owns only a couple of hunting rifles and holds no political office, what does it say about you?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/obamas_mind_game.html

Follow this link, please.

American Muslims and Terrorism

I am on a difficult mission today. I am attempting a brief and dispassionate observation and analysis of American Muslim responses to the Fort Hood mass murder. I want very much to do it in a way that hinders my fellow conservatives from yielding to blind anti-Muslim sentiment. I have to do all this without regard to political correctness, of course. I have to do it also without lying, the way the main, liberal media are dissembling right and left about the Fort Hood massacre. (The ineffable Chris Matthew of MSNBC said recently that trying to contact Al Qaida was “not a crime.” I don’t know if it is. That’s a technical question. It was sure a reason to tell Major Hasan’ s superiors, up and down the chain of command. They might have kept a better eye on him. But, this is an unfair representation of the media, perhaps: Matthew is the guy who confessed on air that he felt a tingle run up his leg when he thought of candidate Obama!)

First, personal considerations, because they matter. I have known Muslims all my life, from kindergarten. I spent a significant amount of time in Muslims countries (Senegal, Turkey, Morocco). I like many aspects of the cultures of some Muslim countries, especially the music. There are Muslims in the favorite branch of my family. I have Muslims friends currently. No, I did not say, like the racists of old, “Some of my best friends are Muslims.” I am simply claiming that my numerous personal contacts, however “anecdotal,” matter a little. The long and the short of it is that I find Muslims easy to like and even to love. There is usually a personal warmth among them that is fairly rare in the US and among Hindus in India, and absent in Western Europe and in Japan, I think. The point is that if I found the company of Muslims detestable, many people would agree that it is useful information.

Second, some facts. Consider all the unarmed people intentionally murdered, assassinated by strangers and near-strangers. Consider only the unambiguous cases, such as shooting people and detonating bombs. Since the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka were destroyed last year, 99% and more of the victims of terrorism were killed by criminals who called themselves “Muslims.” I know there are still ETA Basque terrorists but they kill mostly inadvertently. They are mostly old guys who should have retired from handling explosives. As for the IRA terrorists, they have not killed anyone for years. So, my back-of the envelop estimate is correct. If you don’t like it, make it 95%, or even 90%; it does not affect my argument.

As I have said before repeatedly, the terrorists who call themselves Muslims have killed many more Muslims than Christians, or any other category of non-Muslims. This undisputed fact does not alter my question in the least: Is there a Muslim propensity to slaughter those with whom Muslims disagree and /or don’t like for some other reason?

Confronted with these raw facts, the good people I know who are Muslims go into denial, I think. Their denial takes two forms. First, they seem to say, there are bad apples everywhere. Second, they deny that the assassins can’t possibly be good Muslims because good Muslims don’t do this sort of things – which are explicitly condemned by their religion. My view is that there are too many bad apples and that the public ethical vagueness of contemporary Islam has something to do with this high number. (I say “public” because I don’t know what Muslim preachers say to the faithful in the mosques, obviously.)

I like to check my perceptions in ways that go beyond, I think, what the average reasonably educated working person my be expected to do. Accordingly, on the 11th of November, and on the 12^th of November (a week to the day after the Fort Hood massacre), I visited the websites of four important organizations. My selection may be arbitrary but it’s not biased. It’s the product of limited time and of ordinary but not pronounced laziness. And that’s my first point: If responsible American Muslims want me to understand their perspective better, they are not trying hard enough.

The first organization I consulted was the English website of the mostly Arabic-language news channel Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera has earned my respect for two reasons. First, every tyrant in the Middle-East has tried to get it shut down. Second, it’s the only organization worldwide that consistently supplies in depth news of the Middle-East (and much beyond). I went to Al Jazeera because Hasan was identified as an Arab-American.

What I read on Al Jazeera was a straightforward news report of the Fort Hood massacre, of the kind that you could have got from United Press in the good old days when that news agency was still doing straight reporting. No analysis, no editorial view.

My second visit was to the Arab-American Institute. I went there because I have always liked its director, James Zogby. He often comments on Middle-East affairs on television. I have always found him a fair-minded and rational man. In particular, he does a better job than anyone at presenting the Palestinian viewpoint, in the American media. (And, yes, I know that not all Muslims are Arabs and I know that some Arabs are not Muslims. Don’t be boring!) Zogby learned of the the massacre while traveling overseas. Here is an excerpt from his column on Nov 10, five days after the bloodbath:

Though I wanted to be with them [ his staff at the Institute], to provide whatever guidance I could, as I continued to read their emails, I found that, for the most part, they had the complex demands of this situation well in hand. Since some had sent questions to me (not knowing when I would get them, or whether I would be able to respond in time), I used my wait in the airport lounge to give my best advice on next steps: what a follow-up statement might include; what messages to avoid (I noted that among the emails I had received were statements for some other groups with headlines condemning the killings and warning against anti-Arab or anti-Muslim backlash. My advice was “don’t go there”. This is not about us right now, it’s about the victims and the pain of their families. (My bolding – JD) If it were to be about anyone or anything else, it shouldn’t be about the potential this horrible act poses to Arab or Muslim American groups. Rather concern should be shown for the challenges all this will pose for the thousands of patriotic Arab Americans currently serving with distinction in the US military, some of whom, may now unfairly be targets of suspicion.; how to log and deal with threats should they come, and who should do what before I return.

Zogby’s sentiment is understandable and fair but it lacks any causal analysis. Perhaps it was too early. I shall be watching the Arab-American Institute.

Then, I consulted the Islamic Center in Washington DC. I don’t know what the reality is but the Islamic Center often seems to style itself as the official representative of Islam in America. I found nothing there. The Islamic Center apparently considers that the Fort Hood event is none of its concern. I can’t help but think that sometimes, silence speaks louder than words.

Further, on November 12^th , I visited the site of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) where I found the two relevant announcements reproduced (incompletely) below:

1 (The ISNA) announced Monday, November 9, the launching of a special fund, The Ft Hood Family Fund, for the benefit of the families of the Ft Hood victims in collaboration with various national Muslim and interfaith organizations.

The fund is a collaborative effort involving national Muslim organizations and mosques. The national organizations that have already endorsed the fund include American Arab Anti Defamation Committee (ADC), American Muslim Armed Forces Veterans Affairs Council (AMAFVAC), Freedom and Justice Foundation, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and Islamic Relief USA.Several Islamic centers, particularly Islamic centers based in Texas, have also endorsed the fund and agreed to raise money for the fund, including Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH) – Houston, TX., Dallas Central Mosque – Richardson, TX, Islamic Association of Carrollton – Carrollton, TX, All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) – Dulles, VA, Islamic Center of Irving – Irving, TX, Islamic Center of Southern California – Los Angeles, CA,

2 The Fiqh Council of North America – Press Release :

We, the Fiqh Council of North America, have become aware that statements by some individuals and groups around the world have been issued on the internet and elsewhere praising the brutal killings and attacks last week at Fort Hood in Texas and condemning the American Muslim community and major American Muslim organizations of “betrayal of Islam and of hypocrisy” for denouncing the massacre committed by the suspect Major Nidal Malik Hassan. These statements are shocking to us and are totally unacceptable.

We at the Fiqh Council of North America emphasize adherence to Islamic values and principles of peace, justice and fair dealing with all people in every situation. We are deeply saddened with the death and injury of many people in the Fort Hood attack. We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims and pray for the health and well being of the injured.  We denounce such acts of violence and consider them against the teachings of Islam.

The Fiqh Council of North America as a body of Muslim jurists supports the denunciation of this violence as stated by major American Muslim organizations and considers it in keeping with the spirit and values of Islam.  Islam teaches that all Muslim wherever they live must respect the life and property of all people, whether Muslims or non-Muslims.  Muslims must also abide by their pledges. Those who serve in the army should abide by the rules that they have pledged to follow within the general principles of justice and fair dealing as ordered and mandated by God.

The first announcement is heart-warming but it does not address my concern. No one knowledgeable doubts the charitable customs and the generous inclinations of Muslims’ hearts in general.

The second announcement constitutes an unambiguous condemnation of expressions of support around the world for the massacre. (At the same time, note that it acknowledges these expressions of support as real.) This condemnation is important because it emanates from a body of jurists, and therefore, of moralists, in the tradition of Islam. Conservatives, take heed: There are, in our country, Muslims leaders with complete moral clarity on the issue of terrorism.

Yet, and as always, I worry about what’s not there. I see no attempt at analysis. The Fiqh avoids ( so far) what is to me an obvious question:

Is there anything in the teachings of Islam that could have led this very well educated, American man, to think, mistakenly, that it was acceptable to deal with his problems, personal and/or political, by murdering innocent people with great deliberateness?

My Muslim friends and acquaintances (but one) frustrate me in this connection. They tend to respond to every crime by a Muslim with a quote from the Koran to demonstrate that Islam is “a religion of peace.” That’s either disingenuous or silly. At the very least, it’s insufficient. Prophet Mohamed surely said the words they quote. At the same time, he was a celebrated war leader. I realize good Muslims would argue that his were all defensive wars, and that may be completely true. However, his successors, certainly engaged in war of outright conquest. I think Muslim tradition itself says that the Prophet married the wives of some of his defeated enemies. (If I am wrong on this, someone will correct me and if the correction is authoritative, I will immediately post it.) That’s enslavement, in my book, not happy matrimony. It’s warfare on non-combatants, although short of killing them. Many Muslims seem to confuse two things: It could be the case that Muslim soldiers fought more humanely than their pagan and/or Christian contemporaries then. But, that was in the seventh century. There are armies whose policies today include the systematic, deliberate mistreatment of non-combatants. They are considered savages by everyone else, not moral leaders. My point is this: You can’t have it both ways. Either the Prophet’s own conduct is relevant today or it’s not. You can’t simply cite his words as evidence of anything and then argue that his behavior was proper nearly fourteen hundreds years ago though it would not be now. It’s possible to make the transition between actual conduct then and the perennial nature of the Prophet’s words in a truthful way. You have to do it explicitly. Here is what happens when you don’t:

In 1099, an army of Europeans captured Jerusalem from Muslim control. The Crusaders murdered either all or most of the defenders, and nearly the whole population, Muslims mostly, but also the Jews while they were at it. Contemporary chronicles in French, by participants, report that the attackers wielded the sword shouting, “Dieu le veult.” (“It’s God’s will.”)

Why would any rational person think if anyone argued that the Crusaders were not “real Christians” because Christ preached universal brotherhood, as the Gospels show clearly? How would any rational Muslim react if I contended that Christianity, the religion, its teachings, had nothing to do with the Jerusalem massacre, however perversely?

Muslim jurists, moralists, and intellectual have no dealt with this inherent ambiguity in the presentation of Islam, to my knowledge. I would like to be corrected if I am wrong. It’s in the interest of Muslims that this question be tackled because not doing so feeds the growing prejudice against all Muslims in this country and in the world in general.

I will post anything that attempts to answer my question in reasonably polite language. I will not post any excerpt from any sacred scriptures.

Answers to the Quiz for Those Born After 1980

Only fifteen people took the quiz about the Berlin Wall. Either I have few readers born after 1980, or many are wimps. I am disappointed either way.

The answer to all four questions is: “False.”

The GDR, Communist East Germany, built the wall in the middle of Berlin in 1961 to stench an hemorrhaging of East Berliners moving to ( capitalist) West Berlin and to (capitalist) West Germany. Between 1961 and 1989, 61 people were murdered trying to cross the wall from East to West. No one died moving in the opposite direction. West Berlin and West Germany never even thought of stopping people from leaving. I don’t know if a single person left West Germany for Communist East Germany, ever. If they did, all they had to do was buy a subway ticket.

There was a no peace conference at all around 1989.  The (Communist) GDR was then (again)  losing tens of thousands of its citizens anyway (again) because still nominally Communist Czechoslovakia had declined to stop East German “tourists” from crossing its border into (capitalist) West Germany for good.

The Soviet Union was falling apart from inside and the Soviet elites, including and especially the KGB, knew it well. Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, then. He had made several speeches condemning the Soviet Union and Communists everywhere on completely moral grounds. At the time, American liberals laughed at him for calling the Soviet Union, “The Evil Empire.” Reagan’s  moral clarity  was not lost however on the then-current leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev. Thought still a Communist, Gorbachev understood that the system was a massive and terminal failure. He could see that the mass exodus of East Germans was the final nail in Communism’s coffin. That’s because the East Germans had the highest standard of living in the Communist world and the GDR was the most economically successful Communist State. If Communism did not work in Germany, it could not work anywhere, he knew.

Gorbachev did not negotiate anything. He did not “help” remove the wall in any way. He simply had the immense good sense to order the thousands of Soviet soldiers stationed in the GDR to stay in their barracks. And that’s how President Reagan won the last battle of the  fifty-year Cold War, without firing a single shot.

Every other Communist regime fell in Europe soon afterwards, including Soviet rule over Russia itself and over associated non-Russian republics.

Conclusion: Communism sucks! The Chinese Communists have saved themselves by losing communism and becoming the world’s most successful mafia. Cubans are awaiting the death of a few old men, both on the island and in Florida, to get rid of the old “communist” Halloween costume. There will be a phone call in the early morning and Cuba’s remaining Communists will have surrendered by mid-afternoon to a flotilla of pleasure boats from Miami. Rolls of Charmin’ toilet paper will be the invaders’ weapon. Remember, you read it here first.

For really good info from inside Cuba,  follow the “Generation Y” link on the front page of my blog. It’s written by a courageous single young woman he regime is afraid to shut down.

 

Today is the anniversary of the end of Wold War One. My grandfather died in it. That was both an especially bloody war and an especially stupid one. It was fought between people who had very similar world views and no intention of enslaving each other. It was the last big war like that. The people we are figthing now want to kill us unless we agree to subscribe to their grotesque beliefs. Thats’ worth fighting againt.

Pas exactement un ras-de-maree populiste!

J’ai l’impression, en lisant Le Figaro tous les jours et les commentaires des mes amis francophones sur Facebook  souvent, qu’on ne sait pas trop de quoi il retourne dans le projet de reforme de la sante aux Etats-Unis. C’est important parce que les EU continuent, malgre tout a posseder et de loin. la plus grande economie du monde. C’est important parce que les depenses de sante constituent a peu pres 15% de l’economie americaine. (Il n’y a pas de desaccord au sujet de ce chiffre. ) Voici de breves precisions qui jettent un peu de lumiere sur le debat, j’espere.

Le projet de loi de 2000 pages passe il y a quatre jours par la Chambre des representants prevoit une peine de prison pour ceux qui auraient les moyens d ‘acheter un police d’assurance-sante mais qui refuseraient de le faire. Ce n’est pas une rumeur Internet. Confronte a une question directe a ce sujet, Le President a refuse de dementir dans une interview avec ABC,  il y a trois jours.

Le Parti Democrate possede une majorite de plus de quarantes voix a la Chambre. Pourtant, le projet de loi n’est passe qu’avec une majorite de deux voix Democrates. Pas exactment un ras-de-maree populiste!

Pop-Quiz About World Politics for Those Born After 1980

The questions below are all True/False. Correct answers soon on this blog. (It’s stupid to cheat on an ungraded test!)

The Berlin Wall was built by the (Communist) German Democratic Republic to stop West Germans, citizens of the other, capitalist German Federal Republic, from taking refuge in their orderly, prosperous socialist country.

The Berlin Wall was built by the (capitalist) west German  Federal Republic to prevent its own citizens from emigrating to the socialist East Germany (to the GDR).

The Berlin Wall came down as the result of a peace conference that included the GDR (Communist East Germany), the west German (capitalist) Federal Republic, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Jimmy Carter was President of the United States when the Berlin Wall fell.

Political Correctness Kills Americans at Fort Hood

Note: I wrote this on Nov. 7th, before much relevant information came to light. My instincts were right on (as usual).

An Army officer with a Norwegian last name, affiliated with the Lutheran Church, murders thirteen people at Fort Hood. The mainstream media, more pathetic than ever, are trying like hell to pretend that the Fort Hood mass murderer is not a Muslim with an Arab name. Newsweek came very close to calling the killer a victim of traumatic stress syndrome by proxy. Even Fox News followed suite within tow days. (Our limitless faith in clinical psychology is the second form of our collective insanity.) Hasan had not been deployed anywhere more dangerous than Maryland and Fort Hood itself. He was apparently complaining about being soon deployed to the Middle-East.

Some media try to excuse the mass murder by suggesting he was “harassed.” I am sure he heard the word “raghead” almost thirteen times. So? He was a fucking psychiatrist, not a fourteen year-old! He chose to work in a military environment, not in a progressive convent! Did he expect to hear only references to: “a gentleman of Middle-Eastern origin belonging to one of the sister monotheistic faiths”?

I am not going to wait for two months, or three months, or more, for the official investigation to be completed, to ask some more rude questions.

The man is a doctor. He spent much of his time in a medical environment, surrounded by other doctors and nurses. He is a psychiatrist, specifically. He was not practicing alone in the desert. There were other psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses around him, professionals specifically trained to detect dangerous emotional dispositions in military personnel.

Did they notice nothing in this guy or did they notice and not report it because the Army does not provide a form to say, “ There is a Muslim-American  in our unit who is much agitated about going to war against other Muslims” ?

Does it make sense for all levels of the command chain to refrain from asking the question in general: “Is it good management policy to send people of Arab origin near a battle-front where Arabs are sure to be killed (Iraq), to send Muslims, where Muslims will die at our hands if we are successful (Afghanistan)”? Is it wise to send them there without real military necessity. I provide this exclusion because people of such origins may obviously be useful on the battlefield itself. That’s a risk worth taking.

That guy was just a psychiatrist listening to soldiers’ mental and emotional complaints. He brought nothing special to the act of doing it in the Middle-East theater of operations, specifically. Does politically correct blindness have to extent that far?

By the way, the French are more rational on the same issue: They avoid sending to Afghanistan any of their many Muslim soldiers. They don’t find it hard to understand that if one such soldier is seized by the spirit of jihad in the middle of a French base he may do extensive damage.

Yes, the First Amendment applies to members of the military, and a good thing too. However, the protection of the First Amendment does not require the Government to be deaf to its soldiers’ utterances. You don’t have to shut them up to avoid posting them where they might act out their preferences with guns. There are jobs in Greenland or in Alaska for such people. Not segregating Muslims who oppose aloud war against Muslims is not a constitutional requirement, it’s passivity fed by the stupidity of political correctness.

Here is the elephant in the Army’s room it will not notice because of the cowardice political correctness induces: Since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, 99% or more of unarmed people killed deliberately are killed by criminals who call themselves Muslims. The fact that most of the victims are Muslims changes nothing to the factualness of the statement.

The practical implications of this observation are not hard to understand. I don’t need a sophisticated study to know how to act: If I get threatened by a yellow dog on Monday, bitten by a yellow dog on Tuesday and Wednesday, my neighbor is bitten by another yellow dog on Friday, and me again on Saturday, by Sunday, I beware of yellow dogs.

All of this was avoidable. The insistence that everyone in the military is just like everyone else just killed 13 innocent people and degraded forever he lives of others. This happened in a location calculated to undermine military morale and to heighten military prejudice against Muslims and against Arabs.

Although Americans have shown admirable forbearance, since 9/11 lynchings would not bee surprising. Again, it was all avoidable. It will happen again because the Army does not have what it takes to do the obvious. Under a less silly administration, some general would be court-martialed for this event.

The FBI is also sick with political correctness. A couple of hours after the murders, it hastened to announce that the crime was not connected to terrorism. I am sorry, Mr FBI, whether or not the killer shouted “Alluha Akbar,” or not, if you murder in cold blood (or hot blood) thirteen unarmed people, most of whom you don’t know, that’s terrorism. It’s terrorism whether the killer is a member of an organized group or not. Might be a terrorist who is Muslim rather than a Muslim terrorist.

We can’t just profile, say the liberals manslaughter proponents. Of course, we can. Courteously conducted ethnic profiling if a minor inconvenience for the 99 999.99 out of 1 000 000 of the target categories who have no criminal intent. Having to take off my shoes at the airport is an inconvenience too. Period.

Ethnic profiling protects me, them, and their children. Let rational people start protesting imbecile policies loudly.In a less silly administration, some general would be court-martialed for this event. I am not holding my breath.

CORRECTION: I WROTE IN A PREVIOUS COLUMN ( “THE A.A. PRESIDENT” )mTHAT I DOUBTED PRESIDENT OBAMA HAD EVER PASSED THE BAR EXAM ANYWHERE ANY TIME. A FRIEND OF MINE, A GOOD LAWYER I HAVE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME AND WHOSE UTTERANCES I TRUST SAID OTHERWISE. MY ATTORNEY FRIEND TOLD ME THAT THE FACT THAT BARACK OBAMA HAD BEEN ADMITTED TO PRACTICE BEFORE THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT PROVED THAT HE HAD PASSED THE BAR. THAT HE WAS SO ADMITTED CAN BE FOUND ON THE SITE OF THE ILLINOIS BAR ASSOCIATION. I ACCEPT MY FRIEND’S JUDGMENT IN THIS RESPECT. I AM STILL PUZZLED ABOUT WHY THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT OF PASSING THE BAR EXAM – WHICH CAN PRESUMABLY NOT BE EASED BY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CONSIDERATIONS – IS NOT MENTIONED ON THE PRESIDENT’S WIKIPEDIA ENTRY. MR OBAMA ‘S LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IS SHORT AND THIN; THE BAR EXAM SHOULD BE THERE TO THICKEN IT. PERHAPS ONE OF THE PRESIDENT’S SUPPORTERS WILL DO THE JOB. I AM WATCHING.

THIS IS THE THIRD CORRECTION ON THIS BLOG REGARDING THIS MATTER.