Nov 08 2009

Let’s just call him a terrorist and be done with it

Category: Islam,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 9:27 am

it would appear that there is a pretty clear connection between the Fort Hood murderer and a radical imam who was also influential on some of the 9/11 killers:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam
said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked
America on Sept 11, 2001.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US
soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in
Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September
11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an
American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting
in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting
attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for
al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort
Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance
at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki
moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast,
and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and
Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended
his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the
FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the
Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives
in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to
three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with
radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home
in Yemen”….

I wonder how much coverage this connection will get in US media.

H/T:  Robert Spencer

Nov 07 2009

The etymological roots of the verb “to diss”

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 9:43 am

Recently, on another comment thread, I had some comments to make about the origin of the verb “to diss”

That’s because it comes from the ancient Hebrew word “dissohnia” which means, roughly (go with me here, some words don’t translate well between languages), “without ownership.” Most scholars believe it is the root word for the modern verb, “to disown.” But I digress. Or maybe disgress.

The main point is that in modern socialist thought, no one really owns anything except the government (which occasionally deigns to give something back to us, and calls it a “refund,” as if someone is getting some fun back). So the suffix of the word “dissohnia” has been dropped in contemporary usage. That’s how the word got shortened to “diss” (the second “s” being retained to aid proper pronunciation), which simply means “without.”

That’s what makes “diss” (meaning “without”) the perfect word for conversation about socialism, since indeed, in socialist economies, most people eventually ARE without… without opportunity, without redress, without options, without hope, and without lunch, let alone cancer treatment or a heart transplant.

The common phrase “I’m gonna disownya, baby,” can now be understood as a transliteration into colloquial English that retains both the original meaning and original pronunciation of “dissohnia.”

So if you’re feeling dissed by the feds, don’t sweat it. So do the rest of us. And if some sectors of society continue in their current trends, and the government continues to encourage them to do so, we’ll soon be without a next generation, too….

Call it the ultimate DISS.

Congress, of course, is about to DISS us, bigtime.  Today they’re going to try to take over our healthcare, and through the new federal bureaucracy they will create to do that, they plan to regulate about a million other things that you don’t normally think of as relating to “healthcare.”  You think the nanny state is overactive now?

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

There is a slight chance it can be defeated.  Call your congresscritter, today, before 6 PM Eastern Time, when the vote is scheduled to happen.

Nov 06 2009

Say it again, Mike

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 10:45 am

Nov 05 2009

Seeing the light

Category: abortion — harmonicminer @ 9:36 am
Sorry about the commercial at the top, but this is a fascinating story.  What, exactly, is it that Planned Parenthood doesn’t want revealed by a former employee?
h/t:  Melody

Nov 04 2009

Hardly enough people for a decent party

Category: environment,Group-think — harmonicminer @ 9:08 am

Some people think there are just too many of us, and are telling us to do Family Planning to Save the Planet?

What’s the best way to save the planet? Don’t have kids, say researchers from Oregon State University.

“Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle,” the report states.

Hmm. I suppose I’m OK with people who believe this being the ones doing the family planning.

The myth of over-population is exploded here.  But even the pessimists now accept that the world’s population will peak at around 9 billion at mid-century or so, and then begin a slow, steady decline.  Runaway population growth is no more a given than runaway global warming.

The worst thing is for people in developed nations to reduce their own numbers by reducing fertility, though exactly that is happening.  Yet, it is people in such nations who are the only ones likely to follow the benighted advice of the population doomsayers.  The maintenance of the technical and professional base that is required to feed and serve a large world population is crucial, and that technical and professional base will not be coming from the third world, even though third world population growth rates are higher.

At bottom, fear of greater human numbers is evidence of a kind of misanthropically misguided, myopic ideology that values worms, exotic rats, unusual trees and interesting insects more than it values humanity.  The earth is plenty big enough to hold and feed 10 billion people, the most we are ever likely to have. 

What’s more likely is that in about 70 years, real estate prices will start to drop as demand falls from the peak.  My great-grandkids will probably be able to pick up a mansion in sunny Wichita for a song….  right next to the super-farms that will have been feeding the world for decades.

Of course, people will have higher heating bills, due to the gradual onset of another ice age.

Nov 03 2009

Sometimes it’s cheaper to just pay the fine

Category: government,healthcare — harmonicminer @ 9:44 am

Here is a young man who currently buys his own health coverage, who saysWhat He’ll Do If We’re Forced To Buy Health Insurance.

If the Max Baucus iteration of health care reform eventually becomes law, then as soon as the federal mandate for individuals to carry health insurance goes into effect, I will very likely defy the mandate, cancel my health insurance, and pay the $950 annual fine. It will not be done out of protest, but out of sheer rational cost-benefit calculation.

And so it goes.

The primary fallacy of government (and most other bureaucracies) is that when they create a policy to try to make a certain group of people act a certain way, they change the circumstances for everyone, not just the group that is targeted by the new policy.

When a national health care program along lines currently proposed by Democrats gets enacted, we will see floods of people changing their behavior to get the most they can from the new situation.   That’s why Obama’s promise that “you can keep your coverage if you like it” is laughable when the government has created incentives for business to stop offering coverage and simply dump employees into the government plan.

And in the meantime, a lot of young people are going to simply pay for the fine for not being covered and then use the free government health care, right up until they start having age related issues that the government plan won’t manage so well, at which point they’ll take advantage of new laws requiring private insurers to take anyone, regardless of previously existing conditions.  In other words, they’ll game the system.

Bureaucracies are always beset by unintended consequences when they try to get people to do something that they don’t want to do for other reasons.  That’s because when you change the rules, everyone will act out of self-interest, and no one is smart enough to foresee all the creative ways people will have of doing that.

The classic model of this is the IRS code, which is so huge and complex because of attempts to try to “game the system” by tax payers when the code was simpler.  The Social Security code and regulations isn’t much better.

Prediction:  if health care is nationalized, we’ll see a whole NEW profession.  It will be the profession of people who help other people navigate the health care system.  It will be modeled after the tax preparation industry.  Expect to see TV ads for services to help you get the “health care your entitled to.”  And expect lawyers to make a lot of money “fighting the government” to get them to pay up.

And expect a lot of creative people to find all kinds of ways to game the system.

Nov 02 2009

We know who leaked, but the reporter apparently doesn’t

Category: media — harmonicminer @ 9:44 am

You have to wonder how any reporter could write an article today about the Plame affair and title it Cheney told FBI he had no idea who leaked Plame ID.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA.

The entire article is an attempt to cast doubt on Cheney’s truthfulness… which is a silly exercise on the part of the reporter, a case of simple occupational ignorance, I suppose, since it is now well-known to anyone who cares to know that Richard Armitage, out of Colin Powell’s state department, was the source of the leak.

This is, by now, such old news that one must wonder if the reporter, Pete Yost, is just willfully ignorant, or merely too lazy to do a tiny bit of background research.

When Cheney said he “has no idea” who the source of the leak was in 2003 or 2004, he was probably telling the truth, since Armitage hadn’t confessed yet, and given the enmity between the Powell State Department and Cheney, it’s unlikely they were comparing notes.

However, this line from the news story is priceless:

According to courtroom testimony, Rove was one of Novak’s sources for his column disclosing Plame’s CIA identity and Rove and Libby were sources for Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, who also wrote a story identifying Plame.

The phrase, “According to courtroom testimony,” represents a clear dodge of the facts to try to sling mud at Rove, since it doesn’t really matter what “courtroom testimony” indicated, given that Armitage didn’t confess until after the proceedings were over.    Note well that the source of the “courtroom testimony” incriminating Rove is carefully not mentioned.  The most Rove may have done is not to deny the information that Bob Novak, the person who broke the original Plame story, already had from Armitage.  You know how that conversation is likely to have gone:

Novak:  Karl, we have a confirmed report that Valerie Plame is a CIA agent and we’re going to print it.

Rove:  Bob, I really wish you wouldn’t do that…  that would be unwise, and possibly illegal. 

Novak:  Ah, so she IS a CIA agent?

Rove:  I didn’t say that.

But, of course, the cat was already out of the bag, from Armitage, and it was futile to deny it at that point.

I have no idea what Mr. Yost’s politics may be, but this particular piece of reporting is not a confidence builder.

And the broader point is that the Associated Press is simply not a reliable news organization.  You can believe about half of what you read in it…  but unfortunately you don’t know which half.

Nov 01 2009

Race: Issue or non-issue?

Category: race,racism — amuzikman @ 8:46 am

There is an article in the Washington Times today, describing the current mayoral race in Atlanta.  From the headline to the last paragraph, the content of the article is almost entirely about race – the race of the candidates, the racial mixture of city residents, the race of past mayors in the city, etc. What generated the article is the fact that Atlanta may be about to elect the first white mayor in 36 years.

After reading the article I was struck by its misleading tone. In fact I think the headline, “White candidate scrambles vote, attitudes in Atlanta race” is not only misleading, it is just plain wrong.   What is most newsworthy about the article is the fact that race of the leading candidate, a white woman, seems to be a non issue for most voters.

So why not a headline that reads, “Race plays little or no role in current election”?  The answer of course is that there are many who simply don’t believe such a thing is possible.  Loud voices remind us daily how our racial past is the lens through which all things must be viewed.  But what if it’s just not true anymore?  What if racism is no longer a major factor in elections?  Will our current climate of color-coding and color-obsession even allow us to acknowledge such a thing?

I can’t help but think Martin Luther King would be rather disappointed if he saw what his great civil rights struggle had become, for in some ways his dream seems even farther off today than it was in 1963.  For in spite of significant evidence that people are being judged by the content of their character, there are many in the public forum who would have us believe it is all about the color of their skin.

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