Cooling heads over global warming

Please visit The New Birdblog for my full site postings!


Woody at GM`s Corner has linked to a piece by Senator Inhofe chronicling the many scientists who were former proponents of anthropogenic Global Warming but have since become skeptics. As the science progresses-and it becomes apparent to the public through casual observation-fewer and fewer scientists will be willing to soil their reputations by staying aboard this foundering environmentalist ship.

I had predicted this; that is the reason why we were being given the bum`s rush to implement draconian controls NOW. I suspect that many of those pushing global warming were fully aware that they were shooting blanks, and the need to panic the public into an irrevocable commitment weighed heavily upon them. They had hoped to rush us off the cliffs like lemmings while we were too lathered up to see what we were doing. It hasn`t worked, and now the science is overtaking them.

I guess the bee crisis will be their next big issue.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Hi everyone!

I`m going to try to maintain the old Birdblog as a mirror site-at least until I can get my computer woes straightened out. Please visit my new site at www.tbirdnow.mee.nu for the full, fresh Birdblog.

I will be posting to this site on a haphazard basis, just to keep it going.

Thanks to all of you for your loyalty, and for bearing with me through this!

The Decline of Our Common Language

Language is the glue that holds a society together. What defines a nation-state, as opposed to an empire, are shared cultural traits-principally among them language. Now, I realize that there are, and have been, many countries with multiple languages, and these have had varying degrees of success. Switzerland has done fine, for example. India is doing quite well, with English and Hindi being the lingua franca` (so to speak), but a hodgepodge of languages is generally a bad thing because it means a hodgepodge of different cultures without adequate ties. Look at the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Look at the more modern Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia never worked, although they parted amicably. Canada has been fighting to survive for decades. The entire Middle Ages was a lesson in multicultural failing; no Medieval kingdoms could survive for long, including Charlemagne`s, because there was no sense of cultural identity.

Generally an empire works because it is held by force of arms. China is a classic example of that today. The old Soviet Union was multicultural and multilingual, and the Red Army was the only thing which held it together. Rome, Alexander`s empire, Persia,the Aztecs, Incans, etc. survived because of fear of military action. They were able to impose an artificial comity among the subject peoples. India had a common culture imposed on her by the British, and they are doing well now, but it remains to be seen if old animosities between groups return. Certainly, Pakistan and Bengladesh were part of old India, but cultural differences were too great to avoid partition. Sikh seperatists today threaten the peace of the Indian republic.

But the need for a certain amount of cultural homogenaity is especially necessary for a country such as the United States. The U.S. has always welcomed huge numbers of immigrants and enforced enculturation on them, and our republic presupposes an informed citizenry with interests in common.

Which is why the last thirty years has been so destructive in the black community; there has been an increasingly dim view held by many African-Americans toward ``being white``-enculturating into the mainstream of American life-and efforts have been made to validate an unique culture of ``blackness``. We hear this all of the time with stories in the press asking if this fellow is ``black enough`` or that fellow. Is Barack Obama black enough? How about Condi Rice?

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the argument over linguistics. The idea that Ebonics-black English-is somehow a seperate language and that children should be taught using it ties in with the multiculturalism of our era. Teach immigrant children in Spanish! Teach the deaf in ASL! Now teach black children in the newly dubbed Ebonics! (Ebonics is a dialect, not a language.) It is a great disservice to do this, and it not only hurts the children so miseducated but it damages society by widening the wedge between the races here in America.

Dr. Bill Cosby has been fighting this trend, a lone voice in crying in the wilderness. Below is a frank assessment by Dr. Cosby:


Can't Blame White People
>
> by: Bill Cosby
>
>
>
> They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.
>
> I can't even talk the way these people talk:
>
> Why you ain't,
>
> Where you is,
>
> What he drive,
>
> Where he stay,
>
> Where he work,
>
> Who you be...
>
> And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.
>
> And then I heard the father talk.
>
> Everybody knows it's important to speak English...
>
> except these knuckleheads.
>
> Mushmouth is what they speak!
>
> You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.
>
> In fact, you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.
>
> People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education,
>
> and now we've got these knuckleheads throwing that all away.
>
> The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
>
> These people are not parenting.
>
> They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers, for what?
>
> And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.
>
> I am talking about these people who cry
>
> when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
>
> Where were you when he was 2?
>
> Where were you when he was 12?
>
> Where were you when he was 18?
>
> And, how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?
>
> And where is the father?
>
> Or who is his father?
>
> People putting their clothes on backward:
>
> Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?
>
> People with their hats on backward,
>
> pants down around the crack,
>
> isn't that a sign of something?
>
> They're walking around with their nasty underwear showing, and
>
> holding onto their pants to keep them from falling to the ground!
>
> Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up?
>
> Isn't it a sign of something
>
> when she has her dress all the way up to her panty line,
>
> and got all types of needle piercings
>
> going through her body?
>
> What part of Africa did this come from?
>
> We are not Africans.
>
> Those people are not Africans;
>
> they don't know a thing about Africa .
>
> With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap,
> and all of them are in jail.
>
> Brown or black versus the Board of Education
>
> is no longer the white person's problem.< B>
>
> We have got to take the neighborhood back.
>
> People used to be ashamed.
>
> Today a woman has eight children
>
> with eight different 'husbands' --
>
> or men or whatever you call them now.
>
> We have millionaire football players
>
> who cannot read.
>
> We have million-dollar basketball players
>
> who can't write two paragraphs.
>
> We as black folks have to do a better job.
>
> Someone working at Wal-Mart
>
> with seven kids saying...
>
> you are hurting us.
>
> We have to start holding each other
>
> to a higher standard.
>
> We cannot blame the white people any longer.
>
> It is not for media or anyone of this time
>
> anymore to say whether I'm right or wrong.
>
> It is time, ladies and gentlemen,
>
> to look at the numbers.
>
> Fifty percent of our children are dropping out
>
> of high school.
>
> Sixty percent of the incarcerated males
>
> happen to be illiterate. There's a correlation.
>
> Tell the media to stop asking me what I think
> about people who don't believe what I'm saying,
> or feel that I'm too harsh or feel that I'm just running my mouth
> because I'm old.
>
> Seventy percent of the teenagers pregnant happen to be
> African American girls.
>
> Don't ask me to soften my message.

Bill Cosby


Children must be educated, be taught to speak properly, and that was done, and continually reinforced, in previous eras. Modern educational theory eschewed this idea of standard english in favor of free expression. We witnessed this in many forms of literature; free verse poetry, for example. The idea of formal rules to be followed was somehow ``oppressive`` and so discarded. We are now reaping the harvest from this rebellion against standards, with (as the New York Times would say) minorities hardest hit. They are the ones who need this disciplined approach the most, since they are coming from a position of disadvantage. Now the experiment has taken over, and those teaching in the poorer neighborhoods are as ignorant and ineloquent as those they are teaching. It has become a self-perpetuating cycle.

The rise of the Hip-Hop culture, and it`s acceptance among the mainstream of Americans, has exaserbated this problem since Hip-Hoppers are full of inventive new slang which is becoming mainstream in the minority culture. Booya! Hoe! Whasupwitdat! playa! Dimba! Crib! etc. are all linguistic abominations best scrubbed from our collective consciousness, and further dividing us as a nation. We need to be coming together, not building walls. Seperation of language builds walls.

Oh, and don`t forget what is happening with the illegals in this country who aren`t even bothering to learn to speak English!

Doctor Cosby knows what he is talking about!

New Birdblog

I have the new Birdblog up and running at www.tbirdnow.mee.nu/ and have hit the beaches with several new posts. Come on over and take a gander!

Birdblog to Move

Folks, I`ve been having some bad technical difficulties with Blogger, and will be moving (at least temporarily) to a new site. You can access the new Birdblog at www.tbirdnow.mee.nu.

I will be back to posting at the new site as soon as everything is up and running. Please visit me!

Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Apologies for such light blogging recently; I`ve had a very busy late week/weekend, and have been experiencing some serious technical difficulties.

For the good news:

I probably DO NOT have Ankylosing Spondylitis! I tested positive for this potentially debilitating disease (in which your spine fuses together), or rather, I tested positive for the HLA B27 gene, which means I am suseptible to this illness. I also had a number of symptoms indicative of the onset of AS, so I was sent to a Rheumatologist, who drained me of more blood than Dracula could have consumed. These exhaustive tests showed none of the tell-tale signs, such as high inflammation, so I am probably out of the woods. If things look good next year I`ll be discharged.

I also do not have heart disease. Because of my age and health issues my doctor sent me to have a stress test. I passed with flying colors (look, ma, no clogs!) My wife rewarded me with an enormous steak, plenty of beer, and extra butter on my potato! Of course, those veins are probably clogged now...

I had work to do at the Ozark Hilton; as you all know, my hand-built cabin (read shack, hovel) has had a problem with the high-tech HVAC system. Whenever I use my fireplace I get smoked worse than a ham. I had built it out of cinder blocks, and had used an adobe mix to caulk the layers but had forgotten to chink the sides of the blocks, so smoke poured through the gaps, I tried to remedy this by caulking with fireplace caulk, but to no avail, so I threw a steel barrel with a hole cut in the top into the fireplace to act as a firebox-didn`t work.

So this weekend I decided to do everything the right way. I removed the chimney I was using, which consisted of an upside-down barrel adobe plastered onto the top of the fireplace with a furnace ventpipe coming out of the top and running out of the cabin (I used furnace pipe because I was able to get it cheap). I bought the larger, regulation black stovepipe with two turn pieces and built a new barrel fire chamber. I left some of the top metal hanging to block smoke from coming out, as well as left a bottom lip so red hot coals would stop sliding onto the floor.

The stove-pipe was a mother, let me tell you! The currogated end is supposed to slip into the non-currogated end, but they were the same size, unlike the furnace pipe which fit together easily. I would struggle to force these pieces together, cutting my hands on the sharp edges as I labored, then would be brought to fury as the piece I had just made fit fell off while I was working on the next piece. Word flooded forth from my mouth! Dark, forbidding words of a nature long forgotten, possibly used by Aztec Priests or Babylonian necromancers. I was speaking in tongues, possessed by the Norse god Locki, or some demon who hates construction work.

It was very cold and twilight was upon me when I eventually managed to make it work, sort of; I had to put the pipes in upside down to get them to reach out of the gable frame. Of course, since it had poured buckets earlier, all of my firewood was soaked through, and I only managed to get it going by using a huge amount of kerosene (at $5 a gallon). The fire smoked and smoldered out repeatedly, and I had to repeatedly relight it, wasting more precious fuel. Once it got going smoke puffed merrily from the joints of the pipe, since it was upside-down. Eventually I had a nice blazing fire-and smoke STILL poured out the front of the barrel to fill the cabin! I swear that thing is cursed! I probably built the cabin on some Indian burial ground or something...

Exhausted I lit a fire in the old weber to cook some hamburgers. It was pitch dark and freezing, and I couldn`t find my paper plates, so I used an old syrofoam one I found lying around. Stupid. The burgers collapsed the plate as I was taking them off the grill, and they all spilled into the leafy mulch and dirt. I scraped them off and ate them anyway, since I had no other food but potato chips and wasn`t about to waste them. I burned the left-overs in my smokey fireplace.

I awoke about 2 am to the rumble of my stomach, and realized I was on the verge of a nasty bout of diarrhea. Since it was late at night and freezing cold, I lay as straight as possible and hoped that it would pass. No dice! I spent the night laying still and straight, waiting for morning. I heard a mouse scratching on something throughout the night, and at first light found the little @$%@%% had ripped into my hamburger buns and chips. I didn`t have much time to reflect on this turn of events as I had to make a nearly disasterous 50 yard dash to the ``convenience``, my cinder block and toilet seat in the woods. While devoting time worshipping at the nature god, I had a wasp light on my shoulder and remain there (I`ve never seen less aggressive wasps). I wonder if it was my old friend, the one who used to sit with me on my futon? He didn`t bother me, anyway.

I made the three hour drive with great difficulty, thanks to my upset stomach. I was totally exhausted when I arrived home, and slept all afternoon. I tried to post some things last night, but was having system problems which erased a previous attempt to write this very thing. So I went to bed early, and slept like a stone through the night.

Then the real trouble began. Blogger thoughtfully switched me to their new and improved version (funny, I don`t remember signing up) and, sure enough, it didn`t work. To use the new version you must sign up for a Google account, which requires going through a secure server. I haven`t been able to do that for years, probably do to a virus which I forcibly removed. I still keep getting a ``this page cannot be displayed`` every time I try to get onto the Create an Account site, and have tried everything I can think of-including restoring a backup and downloading another web browser (Internet Discovery keeps giving me an error page demanding that I send a report to Microsoft) but to no avail. Firefox says my ssl is not enabled, but going into my security settings it is checked as on. I am at wits end, and have only been able to post this by using my computer at work. I pray that I can get in at my home site, or I may have to take drastic measures.

At any rate, I will hopefully be a bit more dilligent with my blogging. Thanks for your patience!

An Incredible Lightness of Bee-ing

I first called attention to the dire crisis of bee extinction a while back. Now, it appears my prescience is uncontestable, and the left will be coming for your cell phones as a result.

I warned everyone; Global Warming is fizzling out, and the Left will need a new crisis. The U.K. Independent article states;

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

Sounds a bit like ``An Inconvenient Truth`` or the old Rachel Carson tombe ``Silent Spring`` doesn`t it?

How long before they tie this to microwave transmissions, to power lines, to the necessary framework of an industrial society?

A Taxing Economic Situation

Our old friend Wil Wirtanen passes along a couple of good pieces about free markets and the restrictions imposed on them.

This piece from The Art of War blog illustrates what is wrong with our current thinking on economics:

However, the source of the problem here is not that people are “needy.” The problem comes from the other side of the coin. These people have few skills and virtually all are living in societies where they cannot acquire skills. In a reverse of the professor’s analysis, almost all of the truly needy live in societies where the needs of the elites are satisfied by coercing everyone else, preventing them from developing assets by and for satisfying each other. If these governments’ elites left their people free, these low-skilled/needy would naturally develop their skills as they worked to satisfy the unmet needs all around around them.

Of course, in Western societies, our low-skilled/needy have a different problem. They have plenty of opportunities to develop those skills, but, in a rich society, they find various incentives NOT to develop those skills. Often, these incentives are drug and alcohol related but various forms of “help” from the elites perpetuate this lack of learning through a lifetime. Everyone, no matter what their natural abilities, can learn to produce value for others (and live more meaningful and rewarding lives if they are allowed to do so), but politicians, the media, and our educational establishments want to promote a sense of entitlement that says we should all be able to consume without having to produce.


Be sure to read the entire piece!

Also, Wil sends this from the Wall Street Journal:






************************************** See what's free at
http://www.aol.com.

Forwarded Message [ Download File | Save to Yahoo! Briefcase ]

From: "Wil Wirtanen"
To: Bgoccia@aol.com
Subject: Interesting Facts
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:29:28 -0500

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Tim,

With tax time here, below is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal.



Wil Wirtanen

W Squared Research

(W) 314-664-9110

(C) 314-302-0986



The Taxpaying Minority
By ARI FLEISCHER
April 16, 2007; Page A15

If the tax forms you're filing this year show Uncle Sam entitled to any income tax, you increasingly stand alone. The income tax system is so bad, and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40% of the country's households -- more than 44 million adults -- pay no income taxes at all. Not a penny.

Think of it this way. After dropping off your tax forms at the Post Office, you find 100 people standing on the sidewalk. Forty of them will be excused from paying income taxes thanks to Congress. Twenty of them, the middle class, will pay barely a thing. The 40 people who remain, the upper middle class and the wealthy, will pay nearly all of the income taxes.

Look at that crowd again and find the richest person there. That individual will pay 37% of all the income taxes owed by those 100 people. The 10 richest people in the crowd will pay 71% of the income-tax bill. The 40 most successful people will pay 99% of everyone's income taxes. Yet for some lawmakers in Washington , these taxpayers aren't paying enough. Our tax system comes up short in a lot of areas. It doesn't foster economic growth. It isn't very simple. And it certainly isn't fair. The one place where it does excel is at redistributing income.

According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40%) pay 99.1% of all income taxes, the taxes that support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan , and, for example, fund the federal portion of transportation, education, environmental and welfare spending.

Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10%, paid 70.8% of all income taxes, an increase from their share of 48.1% in 1979. Think about it. Ten percent pay seven out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

And those super-rich one percenters? Their share of the nation's income has risen, but their tax burden has risen even faster.

In 1979, the first year of the study, these affluent individuals made 9.3% of the nation's income and they paid 18.3% of the country's income tax. In 2004, these fortunate few made 16.3% of the nation's income but their share of the income tax burden leaped to 36.7%. Think about that. One percent take in less than 17% of the country's income, but pay almost 37% of the country's income tax.

As for the middle class, CBO reports they make 13.9% of the nation's income and their share of the nation's income tax dropped to 4.7%. In 1979, they made 15.8% of the nation's income and paid 10.7% of the nation's income tax.

The combination of across the board marginal income tax rate cuts and repeated expansions of the earned income tax credit (EITC) for lower-income Americans has created this situation in which fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of the income tax. When President Bush in 2001 cut the lowest tax rate to 10% from 15%, several million additional workers were excused from paying any income tax. Raising top rates, as Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton did in 1990 and 1993, also shifted the burden to a smaller group of Americans.

The EITC program redistributes money from those who pay income taxes to 22 million families and individuals with incomes less than $36,348. These workers not only don't have to pay any income tax, they're given a government check as a subsidy to help make ends meet. The EITC is also designed to relieve them of the cost of paying for their share of Social Security and Medicare.

If Republicans, including their presidential candidates, wonder why their calls for tax relief don't resonate like they used to, it's because there aren't that many income taxpayers left. They've been taken off the rolls.

As for the Democrats, they historically have raised taxes and redistributed income as a core philosophy. It doesn't matter to them how much money some people pay -- the argument is that the wealthy can always pay more. According to this point of view, it's immaterial that the tax code is highly progressive; it can always be made more progressive. While raising taxes on the few to benefit the many might be a political winner, it's an increasingly risky policy to pursue.

If, as now happens, 60% of the people in our democracy can force 40% to pay the bills, what's to stop 65% from making 35% pay it all? Since no one wants to pay taxes, what's to stop 90% of people in a democracy from making 10% pay it all? Or why not let 99% of the country off the hook, as long as the remaining 1% picks up the tab?

The problem is that there is a tipping point after which piling taxes onto the rich will leave the government unable to meet its obligations. And perhaps we're already reaching that point, where most people won't have a serious stake in what the government does because they don't pay for it. They want services and benefits, but they don't pay the price. That's a formula for runaway spending and no accountability. In other words, a system that looks a lot like the one we already have.

This can't last forever. When government revenues derive mostly from the wealthy, the fortunes of a few determine the fate of us all. Surpluses and deficits will be driven less by the economic strength of the country, and more by the gains made by the rich in hedge funds, mutual funds, equities and stock options. Like a spinning top that twirls on a narrow point, the top will stay up so long as it continues to go round. Once it slows down it falls, and the government's main source of tax revenue will plunge with it.

What a Catch-22. Members of Congress who want to fund antipoverty programs will have to hope the rich get richer, because the wealthy will need to make more to pay for all the federal programs.

The usual rebuttal made by those who support raising top rates is that lower income Americans pay Social Security and Medicare taxes and therefore need "relief." Of course they pay these taxes. But then, they alone get a good return on their money.

Top earners, on the other hand, pay payroll taxes so their money can be redistributed to others. According to the CBO study, the top 20% of workers, those with incomes over $64,300, pay 44.2% of the payroll tax while the bottom 20%, those who make less than $17,300, pay 4.2%. In return, when it's time to retire, lower-income workers typically receive more in Social Security benefits than they paid in, while the wealthy, who paid the most in taxes, simply can't live long enough to get back what they paid. For much of the middle class and the wealthy, Social Security isn't a retirement program -- it's another program that redistributes their income.

As for Medicare, it doesn't matter that the rich paid far more in taxes; all recipients receive the same benefits. Think of it this way. If Medicare were a car, its price for a low-income worker would be $145 and its price for a millionaire would be $14,500, even though it's the very same car.

Here's why. A taxpayer who makes $1 million a year pays $14,500 in Medicare taxes while a worker who makes $10,000 a year pays $145. But when they retire and visit their doctors or go to the hospital, Medicare reimburses both an equal amount of money. That's a pretty big redistribution of income and a pretty good deal for the low-income worker.

At the end of the day, everyone in this county is in it together. We have an obligation to help the neediest among us and the wealthy should pay more. But a system in which almost half the country pays no income taxes and 40% pay all the income tax has gone too far. Instead of raising taxes and punishing the successful by making them pay even more, it's time to junk the current system and start anew with a code that fosters economic growth for all, not increased redistribution of income for some.

Stealing Values from the Poor

Tony Blair echoes former Vice President Dan Quayle when he stated that the problem isn`t poverty but a poverty of values.

From the U.K. Guardian:



Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd
Thursday April 12, 2007

Guardian

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.
One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.

Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.

Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".

Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation".

Last night, British African-Caribbean figures leading the fight against gang culture condemned Mr Blair's speech. The Rev Nims Obunge, chief executive of the Peace Alliance, one of the main organisations working against gang crime, denounced the prime minister.

Mr Obunge, who attended the Downing Street summit chaired by Mr Blair in February, said he had been cited by the prime minister: "He makes it look like I said it's the black community doing it. What I said is it's making the black community more vulnerable and they need more support and funding for the work they're doing. ... He has taken what I said out of context. We came for support and he has failed and has come back with more police powers to use against our black children."

Keith Jarrett, chair of the National Black Police Association, whose members work with vulnerable youngsters, said: "Social deprivation and delinquency go hand in hand and we need to tackle both. It is curious that the prime minister does not mention deprivation in his speech."

Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London's mayor, said: "For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with. The PM is spectacularly ill-informed if he thinks otherwise.

"Every home secretary from [David] Blunkett onwards has been pressed on tackling the growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities, and government has failed to respond to what has been a clear demand for additional resources to tackle youth alienation and disaffection".

The Home Office has already announced it is looking at the possibility of banning membership of gangs, tougher enforcement of the supposed mandatory five-year sentences for possession of illegal firearms, and lowering the age from 21 to 18 for this mandatory sentence.

Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

Some people working with children knew at the age of five whether they were going to be in "real trouble" later, he said.

Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models.

He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong - it has not - but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold."

The Commission for Racial Equality broadly backed Mr Blair, saying people "shouldn't be afraid to talk about this issue for fear of sounding prejudiced".

Mr Blair spoke out as a second teenager was due to appear in court charged with the murder of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon, stabbed to death in east London on Friday. He was the seventh Londoner under 16 to be murdered since the end of January, and his 15-year-old friend, who was also stabbed, remains in hospital.


He`s right, though it is not a problem limited to race, but is a poverty of respect; respect for life, for property, for fellow man. We see this same issue in any high-crime area, because those who will prey upon their fellow men generally have similar traits, whether they are blacks in Detroit, Mexicans in Southern California, Whites here in St. Louis, people in India, in China, in Singapore, etc. The common denominator is a lack of appreciation for what their fellow is suffering, coupled with a sense of entitlement.

THAT is where the problems of crime are so exacerbated; the welfare culture has changed the attitudes of the poor to make them believe that they can behave in any fashion they choose since they have been ``cheated`` in this world. The entitlement culture leads to a belief system where what you can grab for yourself is all that is important.

There was a time when the poor had a dignity which demanded honorable behavior. Theft was looked down on, and engaged in only out of absolute necessity. No more, thanks to a culture which values the material over the spiritual, which values what you have over who you are. We hear it all the time-kids killing other kids to steal their $200 tennis shoes, this while the family lives on welfare in a section 8 hovel. Gang violence, drugs, illegitimacy, etc. are all aspects of this disintegrating respect for others, for the objectification of people and concepts for the pleasure of the individual. Liberalism and the nanny state have given this gift to the poor, have made their lives far worse by destroying the ties of family and friendship which make a community-however poor-worth living in. Dan Quayle was dead on; this is a poverty of values, and the Left has stolen those values from the poor they claim to care for.

Thanks, Beerman!

Who`s Your Daddy?

A nice little argument has started at Free Citizen over the paternity of Sally Hemmings` children; was it Thomas Jefferson as so many liberals insist, or was it his ne`er-do-well brother?

Anybody interested in this kind of thing will find this the kind of thing they are interested in.

Wait it Out

My timing this morning was almost as bad as Al Gore`s; I confidently declare that the troop surge is working, and here we have a deadly attack in the so-called ``Green Zone``, the safety parimeter heavily patroled by U.S. forces. Of course, this attack gives ammunition (I wish the President`s critics would give more ammunition to our troops and less to themselves for political purposes) to those who say that we cannot win, that war is unwinnable in general, etc.

Robert Novak, an inside-the-beltway journalist, had this to say about the surge in general:

Iraq: The troop surge in Iraq is getting mixed results, but so far most of the feedback is negative.

The heightened U.S. troop presence, according to the top commanders, appears to be pushing the violence out of certain areas, but it has increased in others. Meanwhile, U.S. troop deaths are skyrocketing, with very little attention being paid to this fact at home. The first quarter of 2007 saw 244 deaths, far more than the same period last year. On April 10, the Pentagon reported 35 troop deaths in the first 10 days of this month. The grand total is approaching 3,300.

Well, gee Mr. Novak, did anybody think it wouldn`t move out of certain areas and into others? What happens when law enforcement cracks down on crime in select neighborhoods? OF COURSE the terrorists are going to move to easier pastures. The whole point is that they are on the run, fleeing our forces. We can`t just lay back and wait for them to come to us anymore than the F.B.I. can wait for John Gotti`s crime family to resettle across the street from the Bureau; they have to be pursued. Also, why should we expect less troop deaths when we are aggressively chasing them? How many cops are killed in Dunkin Donuts? You may have less police deaths there, but you aren`t getting the villains. We should expect an increase in casualties if we are doing our job properly.

The real problem, though, is that the enemy knows full well that he can wait us out. The key is to attack and run away, hiding like cockroaches until the next sneak attack. In a year or two the Democrats will get their way, and the terrorists know that. How can they be demoralized, be beaten if they are constantly being told BY AMERICANS that America cannot win and must run away with tail firmly planted between legs? War is all about psychology; the loser generally sees a hopeless situation before they give up-and that means a unified enemy. The sissies in the anti-war movement, in the Democrat Party, keep giving moral comfort to these killers by talk of ``redeployment`` and claims that the war is unwinnable.

What they fail to see is that this will lead inexorably into our own back yards if we quit. These people are not going to let us take our ball and go home; they fully intend to make America hell on Earth, to punish the ``Great Satan`` for what they perceive is a wrong done to them. (That wrong consists of not letting them conquer the world for Allah.)

When the Soviet Union was beaten in Afghanistan, the West rightly concluded it was because of pressures applied on the corrupt Soviet system and U.S. aid to the resistance in Afghanistan. What the Islamic world concluded was that the Mujahadeen, the Holy Warriors of Islam, destroyed the Soviets through their mighty resistance, and they believe they can do it to America as well. If we leave Iraq without finishing the job we will verify this belief and, heady with their perceived victory, they will launch an aggressive campaign against our interests throughout the world. Meanwhile, anyone willing to fight on our side will run from us, since we will have shown ourselves to be the cowards the enemy claim. Civilization hinges on our success in Iraq, but too few people understand this.

The surge will work if we stand united, but will fail if those self-seeking scoundrels who seek political profit from our failure carry the day.

The Jaws of Victory

``Mookie`` Al-Sadr is clearly frightened by the success of the troop surge; he has been in hiding, changing tactics, and desperately trying to make amends with his Iraqi competitors in an effort to save his Mahdi Army and his own oily skin. Here we see Old Sadr calling for an end to internecine bloodshed and unity against the ``treacherous occupation``, the ``armies of darkness``.

He states;

The armies of darkness represented by the occupation spearheaded by America, the overarching evil, have started sowing sedition among the people of the one country directly or through its agents and lowly followers who sold their religion, land, and people. Regretfully, the malevolent fruit of their strange and loathsome actions have transpired. God says:" And the parable of an evil Word is that of an evil tree: It is torn up by the root from the surface of the earth: it has no stability. Allah will establish in strength those who believe, with the word that stands firm, in this world and in the Hereafter; but Allah will leave, to stray, those who do wrong: Allah doeth what He willeth. Hast thou not turned thy vision to those who have changed the favour of Allah. Into blasphemy and caused their people to descend to the House of Perdition?- Into Hell? They will burn therein- an evil place to stay in!" [Koranic verse]

and,

An honorable resistance man does not hope from God other than one of two glorious things- Martyrdom or victory. But at the same time, a resistance man cannot at all kill an Iraqi for the blood of Iraqis is a red line. This is not only my opinion but also the command of God as He said:" Take not life, which Allah hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law: thus doth He command you, that ye may learn wisdom." [Part of a Koranic verse]

Infighting among brothers is not right at all nor is following the dirty US sedition. Defending the occupier by some people is not right. Thus, fear God and stand out firmly for justice.


This is clearly a departure for Al-Sadr, this call for unity against America, and illustrates the desperation that the troop surge is producing. Al-Sadr knows that his little game of hide-and-seek can`t continue with enough soldiers-and friendly Iraqis-hunting him, and so he cowardly calls for help from the fellow countryman he would oppress and kill if Coalition troops were withdrawn.

This letter illustrates that time is not on the side of the insurgents. Unfortunately, given the Antenoran policies of the ``loyal opposition`` here in the United States, time may not be on the coalition`s side, either; our troops have to win this thing before the sniveling self-absorbed scoundrels in the Democrat (sic) Party pull the plug while victory lies in our grasp.