The problem with Arabs?

'The Developed Peoples are Those Whose Women have High Status in Society'

"The U.N. 'Arab Human Development Reports' of recent years show that in comparison with other peoples, the Arab world is at the bottom [of the scale] culturally, socially, politically, and otherwise. There is no need to reiterate what these reports say, since they can be found online. But there is a need to place our finger on the roots and causes of this situation, and to attempt to point out ways and means to be rid of this tragic, dead-end [situation]...

"If we glance at the world around us, we see that the developed peoples are those whose women have high status in society. This status did not did not emerge out of thin air, but rather has developed and grown in the past centuries against a certain economic, cultural, and religious backdrop which facilitated the advancement of women and their rise to an active and organic role in these societies. In contrast, it appears that in Arab societies women have not yet overcome the nomadic tribal [social] order that is the founding principle of Arab societies…

"There is no escape from viewing the Arabs today as being similar to the nomadic Arabs of the past - even if they travel by airplane, drive cars, and surf the Internet. Even if they were born and raised in Western countries, their notions have not changed. We often hear of so-called 'honor' crimes among the people of the [Arab] diasporas in Scandinavia, Britain, France, and other countries. These crimes, that traverse seas and continents, take place because Arab societies developed within a patriarchal mentality at their primitive, animal stage. And if these things occur in Europe, then they clearly occur with greater frequency in the Arab world."

Bush is now a weather threat

There are bill boards in Florida claiming the hurricanes there were made worse because of global warming and it is Bush's fault. I also heard that he was responsible for all the leaves on your trees turning colors and simply dropping to the ground. You can see this happening right in your own yard. The depressing thing is I am convinced that there are people out there who will believe this and vote accordingly.

U.N. Madness

The following is a quote from The Desert Sun:
"The head of the United Nations’ nuclear inspection arm told the UN Security Council on Monday that nearly 380 tons of high-grade explosives that could be used in nuclear bombs or terrorist weapons are missing from a storage facility in Iraq ..."

This story was first run on the front page of the NYTimes and has bestirred all the main stream media and Kerry is now citing this as evidence that Bush has seriously mismanaged the war by not guarding weapons caches well enough. Now NBC is saying that these particular dangerous weapons were gone before we invaded. I guess we can now conclude that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction except the ones Bush failed to protect after the invasion or the ones which were there before the invasion but are now gone.

Election Status

It looks to me that with only one week to go that President Bush is going to lose. I have decided the polls are screwed up and the main problem Bush has is job approval numbers and right way/wrong way sentiment. There are too few voters like myself who feel that Bush's job approval is not one justifying another term but will vote for him anyway. The election laws have expanded the time to vote prior to Nov. 2 and the dems have been using the time in the urban areas to haul every drunk and nursing home patient to the polls. Similarily, the absentee ballot has been corrupted and misused to Bush's disadvantage. Unless Bush is well over 50% next Monday in the popular vote and comfortably ahead in Florida and Ohio, he is toast. The Republicans won't go to the mat to contest the election in the courts like the Democrats will if it is close, so we need to get ready to have another Jimmy Carter in the White House and Hillary Clinton on the Supreme Court. The only way to avoid this I think is to bring out the heavy ammo and put Kerry's dishonorable discharge out there in a couple of days.

Just what I need

I will be taking a couple of trips in the next few weeks. This is not helpful as I look toward them!

The latest airplane accident occurred earlier today when a twin-engine plane owned by Hendrick Motor Sports crashed in the Blue Ridge Mountains as it was approaching its destination, Martinsville, Virginia. All 10 aboard, mostly relatives of the owners of Hendrick's Sports, died.
Last Tuesday, a small plane en route to Kirksville, Missouri crashed, killing 13 of the 15 people aboard, as it approached the airport.
Two pilots died as their plane crashed approaching the Jefferson City, Missouri airport Friday, October 15.
The FBI are investigating small puncture holes discovered in two US Airways jets in Charlotte Monday October 18. Similar punctured holes were found on another aircraft in Orlando the prior week.
On two separate trips from Chicago, busses crashed in southern Missouri and southern Illinois. The one in Missouri resulted in 14 fatalities.
I am not a conspiracy buff, but all of these plane and bus crashes condensed in such a short period of time baffles me. Are they connected? Is there a common thread, such as local terrorism? Or are they all just isolated incidents?

Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

"Who said, "if you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you"? It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt and he said it on May 27, 1941. It applies even more today.
If you are going to go to war against terrorists in a nuclear age "only as a last resort" and also only when it meets international approval, you might as well not bother. You could see a mushroom cloud before you see the whites of their eyes."

Assisted Living

There was a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal this morning about problems in assisted living facilities. As these become more popular for seniors, it is becoming more widely apparent how much the social structure there resembles problems common to high school. There are cliques which exclude those with annoying habits and some of the same sexual interactions teachers in high school have to monitor are also evident in these facilities. Conflict can occur when someone tries to eat lunch or dinner at a table where others have staked out territory. Some facilities have to contact the children of residents who develop romantic involvements to indicate how far the relationship should be allowed to go. This can range to holding hands and kissing to more private time in closed rooms. Interesting.

An alternate election speech

The following was written by Ronald J. Watkins who publishes the sunnyblog.com.


If Bush had not invaded Iraq
10/19/2004
The Election
Democrat Presidential nominee John Kerry delivered a speech today condemning President Bush for failing to invade Iraq in the follow-up of military action against the Talaban and Al Qaeda in Afghanastan. "Leaving this tyrant in power in contravention of numerous United Nations resolutions is unconscionable," Kerry told the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "He has left available a base of operations and a source of supply and money."
Kerry went on to criticize the war against terror as "stalled" while the real threat to America, "Saddam Hussein’s Iraq goes untouched." Kerry said, "People are murdered daily in Baghdad and throughout the country. Rape rooms are a tragic reality. Torture chambers are full as Saddam’s sons carry out their sadistic impulses on the helpless and hapless victims of this regime. President Bush has done nothing as this brutal dictator takes the money from the Oil for Food to build palaces while his people go without food...
"There can be no doubt of Saddam’s ties to our terrorist enemies. We know that in 1998, after bin Laden issued his public fatwa against the United States, two al Queda members went to Iraq where they met with Iraqi intelligence. Within weeks, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden and extend to him safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden remained with the Talaban, but the invitation from Saddam was always there. Al-Zarqawi has long received refuge in Iraq. The terrorist Forouk Hijazi is known to train his forces there. Abu Nidal has safe haven in Baghdad as he plots murders. Abu Abbas, who planned the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, lives in safety in Iraq. And at Salman Pack, just south of Baghdad, terrorists train using the fuselage of a commercial jet airline. The trail of evidence revealing Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorists is self-evident to all but those in the White House.
"Our own intelligence organizations and those of Great Britain, France and Germany, agree that Saddam is aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. For all that, he has been left free to further develop his weapons of mass destruction which he can deliver into the hands of those who make war against us at any moment. Saddam Hussein has trained, financed and armed terrorist who attack and murder us, yet our President stands stalled on the border of Iraq, preoccupied with wiping up the last remnants of the Talaban in Afghanistan. To leave this cancer in the midst of the Middle East is to have assured defeat in this so-called war against terror. We need fresh leadership, a President with the vision to remove those who support our enemies from power. To have not invaded Iraq, when the whole world acknowledged the necessity, is to leave a job undone and is the height of arrogance and criminal stupidity."

As I have long expected

This came from a web site that is very informative if you are interested in politics and this election. http://www.electoral-vote.com

Are the voters stupid? It is not considered politically correct to point out that an awful lot of voters don't have a clue what they are talking about. A recent poll from Middle Tennessee State University sheds some light on the subject. For example, when asked which candidate wants to roll back the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 a year, a quarter thought it was Bush and a quarter didn't know. And it goes down hill from there. When asked which candidate supports specific positions on various issues, the results were no better than chance. While this poll was in Tennessee, I strongly suspect a similar poll in other states would get similar results. I find it dismaying that many people will vote for Bush because they want to tax the rich (which he opposes) or vote for Kerry because they want school vouchers for religious schools (which he opposes).

Scary Thought

For months I have waited to see how Bill and Hillary would sabotage Kerry's election chances. The insertion of his former campaign advisers into the Kerry camp may have been designed to do this, but what about a different scenario? What if the fix is in and in return for Clinton's assistance, Hillary would be the first Kerry nominee to the Supreme Court? As a sitting senator, she would eventually be confirmed and then we would have her for life. Is that scary enough?

Kerry's Hometown

A couple of weeks ago the MSM (main stream media) made much of the endorsement Kerry received by the editor of the Crawford newspaper down by Bush's ranch. Some 32 years ago, Kerry started his political career in the Lowell, MA communities. The Lowell Sun just endorsed George Bush citing his steadfastness in the war on terror. Have we seen much made of that on ABC, CBS, etc.? I haven't.

It had to come to this

Now it is coming to light that our military in Iraq is pleading with the idiots in Washington to let them sidestep some of the beaurocratic rules and regulation and speed money to projects fixing the infrastructure over there. The problem was easily predictable when Kerry and the dems started demogoging against the no bid contract which went to Halliburton. For political gain they ignore the fact Halliburton also got one from Clinton's administration for Bosnia because they have unique abilities. So, the desk jockies in Washington sit there insisting that all the usual guidelines required to spend our money are followed to the letter. It makes no difference to them that our troops are placed in ever increasing danger because the Iragis are unemployed and expected improvements in their lives are not being realized. As a result they join the insurgency.

We are talking about more than 100 billion dollars in the pipeline here and much of that will be wasted anyway. I think we should waste it as quickly as necessary to get some work done over there so we can get out.

An Iraqi appraisal

The following was submitted to another blog I read. I found it to ring truthful and decided to copy it over here.

I’m an Army battalion commander currently serving in the heart of Baghdad. Its difficult for me to express how important this election is to those of us currently in harm’s way. First, let me say that my brigade combat team has been here 6 months. In this time, we have lost over 25 soldiers and had over 300 seriously wounded. Yet, in my battalion alone I have reenlisted over 100 soldiers. I have less than 20 soldiers a day go on sick call out of over 600. Amazing when you consider the oppressive heat during the summer. I you tell this because our soldiers know they are making a difference, and absolutely believe in this mission. We don’t give a rat’s ass about WMDs and know we are not fighting for oil. Truly, first and foremost we believe that we are defending America by attacking the enemy on his turf. For God’s sake what do people think the likes of Zarqawi/OBL would be doing if they were not on the run trying to prevent us from establishing modern states in the Islamist world? There is no safe haven! This is only true because the US Army and Marine Corps is in his back yard. Also, we are providing hope for people who have been brutally oppressed for a generation. What an insult to tell those of us who know, and are doing the fighting and dying, that this is the “wrong war, wrong time, wrong place”. Imagine the effect on our military if we have a commander in chief that believes our brothers and sisters have died in vain. Like you I am more liberal than the President on most social issues, but these issues can wait, and probably will seem irrelevant if a nuclear devise is exploded in NYC, or we experience a couple of Breslan’s in the United States. I beg, plead that my friend’s on the left or undecided, cast there ballot for the President this election, on only one issue, the war on terrorism. Ask yourself what does Ed Koch, an east coast liberal Jew, know that I don’t know. Sorry for the length, be proud of your military.LTC Bob Hope

Pretty good insight on the election

This is a liberal blogger's conclusion on the choice available to us next month. I like it. The article is entitled "The Tiki Barber Metaphor" and was published on October 12, 2004.

Vaccines

It is flu season and the big news is a contamination problem in England affecting the Chiron flu production facility which will prevent them from providing vaccine this year. This will cut our supply by about 50% and many U.S. citizens will get no additional protection this year. Why do we only have two companies making a vaccine which is known to prevent thousands of deaths each winter? The better question is why we have any companies making vaccines. This sad situation is brought about by trial lawyers who take any adverse outcome and rush to court to collect large slices of awards designed to punish the cruel drug companies which make these instruments of death. The fact is, there is no drug or vaccine which is completely safe and punative damages which fail to recognize this put the vast majority of us at considerable risk. If you have a vaccine which is 99.99% safe, you have 0.01% of all who take the vaccine experiencing some untoward reaction. This is a large number of customers for the lying, thieving lawyers to exploit and use to sue the company and their insurers. This is simply not a situation which makes economic sense for the companies which make only pennies per injection. The solution to this problem is not only obvious, but one which is not likely to be reached if we elect two lawyers next month.

Jay Leno from October 8, 2004

Friday Night October 8
Leno
I'm sure you all heard the report is in and no weapons have been found. But enough about Martha Stewart's strip search.
As I’m sure you know today, Martha Stewart is off the streets and millions of housewives feel safer. Finally they can have a dinner party without some know-it-all telling them they screwed it all up.
Martha reported to prison before dawn, so no one could see her. It's the same thing she does when she shops at K-Mart.
Martha Stewart entered Alderson Prison this morning at 6:15. But this shows you how efficient she is. By 6:30 she'd cleaned her cell, planned a riot and made ten license plates. She's going to get prisoner of the week.
The prison that Martha Stewart has been sentenced to is nicknamed "Camp Cupcake". The bad news - today, she met cupcake. She's a 280 pound trucker named Madge.
Tonight was the second presidential debate, which was be a town hall format. That's where everyday Americans, not just reporters, get a chance to have their questions avoided.
To relax President Bush spent today fishing in the rain. Am I missing something - are they afraid he was a little too prepared for the last debate.
Last night John Kerry stayed at a hotel in Colorado to get ready for the debate today. A hotel in Colorado. Today, Kobe called him and said, "Whatever you do, don't order room service!"
Do you know there are now dating services that fix people up based on their political leanings? If you're a Republican they fix you up with a Republican. If you're Democrat they fix you up with a Democrat. And if you're a Nader supporter, they actually fix you up with Ralph Nader.
How stupid is this - a Minneapolis company has come out with a credit card size shotgun that fits in your wallet. The inventor says he invented it to give people a sense of security. Oh yeah, what makes you feel more secure than sitting on shotgun?
Now how doers this work? What's the first thing a thief steals? Your wallet, oh, now he's got your gun too!
Did you hear about this? This is one of those only in California stories - elementary school students in Berkeley are receiving a class credit for "lunch". Since they learn about nutrition, lunch is now considered a class. See, that's when you know we're getting too fat in this country, when students are actually majoring in lunch!
What if you flunked lunch? How embarrassing would that be?
You know parents will walk around going, "My Timmy is an exceptional child. Only 8 but he's eating at a 9th grade level."
I got a hell of a deal today; I went on eBay and bought a flu shot.
The Dodgers got killed again last night in St. Louis. You know that last people to have this much trouble with the Cardinals were Boston alter boys.
Anheuser-Busch is coming out with a fruity-smelling beer called "B to the E" - it has caffeine and herbal supplements in it. Apparently their research showed a lot of consumers felt that wine coolers just weren't gay enough.
Starbucks has raised their prices. Starbucks is so expensive now, a lot of people are going to AA meetings just for the free coffee.

Sad but true

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/bb20041008.shtml

I recommend this commentary by Bruce Bartlett. The last line is the most compelling:


"It looks more and more like the Republicans have become the Democrats they overthrew in 1994."

Makes sense

"We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about." - Joseph Epstein

Sad Story

I just read an article in the Columbia, S.C. paper about 2 college professors who were fired and are now suing the school (Benedictine College) and its President alleging all manner of discrimination and ill-treatment. It seems the President of this black school had decreed that the school had to do more to help student enrolled there to keep their financial aid. Too many simply weren't making the grade. So, he told the faculty to give students grades based on 60% effort and 40% on actual class performance. When these two professors declined to go back and change grades based on their effort, they were fired. The professors both stated that they were not able to make such a subjective judgement on student effort.
I have several immediate reactions to this story. The first is disappointment that there are only two professors who declined to participate in this idiocy. My second thought was that if I were presented with this situation, I might be inclined to go back and lower the grades of the whole class based on the contention that they all could have worked harder and none put in maximum effort. My third thought was I am really pleased that one of the two professors has a doctorate in Microbiology and the other was also a scientist.

Global Test

Senator Kerry last night said he would be all in favor of a preemptive military action if the circumstances passed a "global test". Bush didn't understand what he meant by a global test and I must admit I am a bit ignorant on the subject myself. So, here are some questions about that test.


1) Is there an old copy of it floating around we can get our hands on?
2) Is it multiple choice or essay form?
3) Is the test written in French, German or English?
4) Who determines if we can retake the test?
5) Is it pass/fail or is it more like the SAT?

I suspect it is written in French.

From Jay Leno

You know what’s interesting about this whole Martha Stewart case? People think she was convicted for insider trading, but she was only convicted for lying to prosecutors. Her prison term is for giving false information and covering it up. And today Dan Rather said, "You can go to jail for that?