Beullogeo's

The battle over immigration took a turn for the worse in Escondido earlier this month. The city council - which endured hours of nonsensical abuse and lecturing from a coalition of belligerent racists, self-interested black marketeers, and militant altruists - suspended their ordinance against renting to illegal aliens:

City officials said Wednesday night they would not proceed with the lawsuit because it would be "unnecessarily costly to the city, and (would) unnecessarily consume the court's time." Several civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, filed the lawsuit in November challenging the law's constitutionality.

U.S. District Judge John A. Houston last month temporarily barred the city from enforcing the law.

What happened is that the council deemed the fight futile with this particular judge.

The ACLU, MALDEF, and various bleeding heart media pundits tell us the biggest problem here isn't that federal and state officers not upholding the oath they swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, including Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

We are lectured that the big problem is that the Escondido city council's attempt to deal with the immigration mess is "unconsitutional". Cities should not "usurp the federal government's authority over immigration".

In order for this to be true the feds would have to be doing something worthy of usurping. And if there's anything unconstitutional going on it's our state and federal agents' dereliction of their duty to protect us from invasion. Escondido's civil servants are doing what their citizens have implored them to do. They've done it peaceably and democratically. Open to public scrutiny and criticism. Contrast this with the sneaking and bullying tactics of the open borders advocates.

Escondido's real problem is a too long tolerated flood of impoverished poorly educated English-lacking illegal aliens. It's second largest problem is identity grievance lawyers singing sob stories to sympathetic dictators in black robes. Their loyalty is not to the Constitution. They care not at all about the illegal aliens' disregard for government authority.

We need the National Guard to go door to door and haul off anyone who isn't a legal resident. What we'll get is more lame ordinances and more threats from the lawyers of the "oppressed".

A simple list. No "world peace" or "all the power/money in the world" fantasies. Only truly attainable desires. In no particular order.

Gingrich/Bolton sweep to victory in 2008. Whether or not it produces a Clinton/Obama sore loser hissyfit.

TWO solid fences on the southern border. Another to the north. Secure the ports and airlines too. And pronto. "How much will it cost?" No. The question is: How much will it save? So throw in a "virtual" fence. Or four. Si se puede.

A visit from God in which He transforms Richard Dawkins into a Flying Spaghetti Monster, scrubs the biosphere clean, tops off all the oil fields, and moves the large ones a tad closer to civilization. If He could also tune down political correctness, multiculturalism, moral relativism, envirowhacktivism, racial grievance mongering, and all the other crypto-totalitarian tendencies of man (not to mention the outright obvious ones) that would be just great.

And finally, my most fervent wish.

To never ever again hear: "Muslims want ...", "Muslims don't want ...", "Muslims are outraged by ...", "Muslims have attacked ..." It's getting tedious.

Humbug. I broke the rules. That last one is pure fantasy.

Senator Kerry urges dialogue with Iran, Syria

Following the fine tradition of Fonda, Dodd, Sheehan, and Belafonte... Kerry criticizes US policy from Egypt while fellow Democrat Bill Nelson meets with Assad in Damascus.

Why is it that the admirers of these people make such a fuss about Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in the 80s? Because Saddam eventually turned into an enemy? Isn't that it? And don't the same people make a similar point about the CIA and bin Laden? Never mind that Saddam and bin Laden served US interests at the time. Reagan should have considered the blowback. He should have known these snakes would turn against the US.

Well then why are moonbat heroes always so eager to meet and indulge every tinpot enemy of the US? After their hostility is well known. The moonbats don't even have to predict the future. They just have to read the news. Beyond hypocrisy.

The ISG report is so worthless its not worth criticizing. How embarrassing. No surprise that Kerry supports its most ridiculous proposal. After its worthlessness is well known. Iran and Syria are fueling the chaos in Iraq. Beyond stupidity.

UPDATE: Classic. Eight days after 9/11 they blame the CIA for bin Laden. Today they cheer for Chavez.



Reagan sang the praises of the native Afghanis. The Arabs, including bin Laden, played a late and very small role in expelling the Russians. More traveled to Afghanistan for jihad after the Russians left and US support stopped. Sorry to burst Norm Dixon's bubble but Reagan didn't praise or support the Arab jihadis, and he had retired and gone senile before the Pakistani-based Taliban even existed.

Ralph Peters says we can't win. Tim Russert says Rummy wants to cut and run.

Next stop, peace with honor. So many worthless words. When the US left Vietnam millions fled. Millions died.

The mass media is usually eager to connect Iraq and Vietnam. Not when it comes to the aftermath. Emboldened by the latest election results they've now narrowed the argument over Iraq to finding a way out. Our oh-so-war-weary society just can't stomach the costs and sacrifices anymore. Iran and Syria will help. Jimmy Carter stands ready too! They know our own paranoid and thoughtless actions have created these purely hypothetical so-called jihadis. Our boys shouldn't be dying over there for questionable causes like freedom and democracy. If it's not about oil (though it sure as Halliburton is) we've got no business being there at all.

That's a bit of a caricature, but only a bit. Even the military has a part in this latest episode of Let's Pick An Exit Strategy:

The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.

Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home."

The situation is serious, yet the chattering class is obsessed mainly with how the US will give up. The timetable. The euphemisms. Those who think further know withdrawal will only make a bigger mess. Many think it will only affect Iraqis.

In this surrealistic atmosphere there are quite a few other options.

Go Scapegoat - Read the Iraq Study Group report. Do exactly what they advise. Refer to them alone all future questions about Iraq.

Go Strongman - Return to the long and ignoble traditions of realpolitik typified by US support for the Shah, Saddam, Mubarek, Musharraf, and other secular autocrats. Identify the next Saddam. Back him.

Go Moonbat - Scream at the top of your self-important lungs about the incalculable injustice and misery already created by the US's pursuit of an arrogant imperialist vision of hegemony. Demand that they do something about it. Scream that it can't be done. Make them pay for it. Scream about how much it costs.

Go Team - What the rest of us wish we heard from the moonbats who see the members of our all-volunteer military as stupid misguided children who need protection rather than as noble capable protectors motivated by a powerful sense of duty, honor, and respect for their country and for civilization in general.

Go Fish - No WMDs in Iraq. Try the neighboring mud huts. The one to the east has potential.

Go Muslim - There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet. Keep it simple. Moonbats go Shia, Wingnuts go Sunni. Partisanship proceeds as usual except we all get suicide belts.

Go Easy - The problem is we're not being nice enough. We're not being fair. Our torture and eavesdropping the true crimes. The jihadis skulk and cut throats only because they're misunderstood victims. Pay no heed to their silly rhetoric about pigs and apes and unbelievers. What really ticks them off is Bush's police state. And his racist mishandling of Katrina.

Go Caveman - Off with the gloves. The jihadis eshew even basic civility. Their apologists say whatever works in war is fair. OK then. Ramadan? Not on my calendar. Sniper in a minaret? Knock it down. Imams preaching violence? Jail them. Everywhere, not just Iraq. Of course then we'll be called xenophobes, racists, invaders, infidels, inferior. Oh that's right. We already are.

Go Orgasmic - You expected more from heathen hedonists? If it weren't for the fact that they're consumed with pampering themselves and shooting blanks we might consider this option more seriously. Instead we'll just wait a generation or so until they party themselves into oblivion.

Go Figure - The only real option, notwithstanding the last, for those of us watching but nowhere near the controls.

Richard Dawkins has been foremost among Darwin's defenders for many years, speaking and writing to popularize and refine the Theory of Evolution. He also coined meme - the idea that ideas are replicated, altered, and selected and thus can evolve.

Not long ago Dawkins was spreading a meme about Brights:

Think about your own worldview to decide if it is free of supernatural or mystical deities, forces, and entities. If you decide that you fit the description above, then you are, by definition, a bright!

No shit? Where I come from calling yourself "bright" is a good way to get your ass kicked. Glibly denying any lacking in your worldview is another.

Dawkins rationalizes his bright idea like so:

I don't know whether gay - meaning homosexual - just happened, or whether it was launched. Either way, it has been a successful meme. The new definition is in the dictionary, and it is used more or less universally by heterosexuals. Did some syndicate deliberately release gay into the memosphere? Or did it spring up spontaneously, then take off as a brush fire? I don't know how, or when, gay got its start, but 2003 is seeing the deliberate launch of a new meme. It is bright, and we are at its birth. The bright meme is intentionally imitating gay's provenance in the explicit hope of copying its success.

The gay meme improved the image and, I dare add, the happiness of a once unpopular minority. Similarly, bright is intended to come to the aid of another beleaguered community in the US: those who, in the most religiose country in the Western world, have no religion, who are variously labeled atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, philosophical naturalists, secularists, or humanists.

Lately Dawkins is pushing a related but more in-your-face strain of the Bright meme. Not content with his own disbelief Dawkins would like all believers to stop. Now preferably. It's called New Atheism:

Richard Dawkins, the leading light of the New Atheism movement, lives and works in a large brick house just 20 minutes away from the Shelley memorial. Dawkins, formerly a fellow at New College, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He is 65 years old, and the book that made him famous, The Selfish Gene, dates from well back in the last century. The opposition it earned from rival theorizers and popularizers of Charles Darwin, such as Stephen Jay Gould, is fading into history. Gould died in 2002, and Dawkins, while acknowledging their battles, praised his influence on scientific culture. They were allies in the battle against creationism. Dawkins, however, has been far more belligerent in counterattack. His most recent book is called The God Delusion.

Dawkins' style of debate is as maddening as it is reasonable. A few months earlier, in front of an audience of graduate students from around the world, Dawkins took on a famous geneticist and a renowned neurosurgeon on the question of whether God was real. The geneticist and the neurosurgeon advanced their best theistic arguments: Human consciousness is too remarkable to have evolved; our moral sense defies the selfish imperatives of nature; the laws of science themselves display an order divine; the existence of God can never be disproved by purely empirical means.

Dawkins rejected all these claims, but the last one – that science could never disprove God – provoked him to sarcasm. "There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," he said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."

It is ironic that such a prominent man of science and reason can miss the point so badly. Decades ago other great men ruthlessly applied these principles only to discover fundamental, insurmountable limits to what humans can know or understand. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems utterly destroyed the classic basis for atheism: the assumption that man alone can sort everything out without any need to invoke God.

The achievements of science are truly breathtaking but as it turns out the most profound intellectual results of the last century inform us that hard study and cold reason will only go so far. Dawkins impishly focuses on the infinite trees we can't disprove and completely misses the forest. He is unable or unwilling to grasp that God is not Thor, a fairie, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster - God is all of these and the infinite other things we cannot know.

Science, after all, is an empirical endeavor that traffics in probabilities. The probability of God, Dawkins says, while not zero, is vanishingly small. He is confident that no Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. Why should the notion of some deity that we inherited from the Bronze Age get more respectful treatment?

Dawkins can tear down all the Bronze Age straw men he likes. Rather than delighting in the hyperbole of a Flying Spaghetti Monster Dawkins would be better off soberly considering the implications of Shrödinger's Cat or Maxwell's Demon.

The elephant in the room that he will not and cannot address is the meme that infinity itself is just another name for God. Gödel himself embraced the spiritual and theological components of mathematical philosophy. Reading other explanations of Incompleteness and its implications what is hard to escape, even when put in the most dry and secular terms, is a sense of wonder and delight far superior to Dawkins' ignorant sarcasm.

If memes are like genes then it's fair to see attempts to manipulate ideas as similar to the unnatural selection responsible for such wonderous advances in animal husbandry and cultivation. The very existence of civilization depends upon the free exchange and improvement of ideas. Pushed to the extreme however, whether by activist atheists or Islamofacists, the intentional hunting down and killing off of "unacceptable" or "foolish" ideas is nothing short of eumemics.

I'll take my thinking free, thanks. Without Mr. Dawkins or anybody else telling me what is or isn't allowed.

Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11
by Tim Kane, Ph.D. - November 7, 2005

Although Representative Rangel's bill to reinstate the draft failed by a decisive vote of 402–2 in the House of Representatives in 2004, the issue will likely be considered again, especially if there are more terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Some motivations for the draft are entirely patriotic in the sense that they aim to protect America from aggressors. Others see the draft as an instrument of equality, as well as an instrument of pacifism.

Well deja vu all over again. I get it already. Charlie Rangel isn't so much in favor of the draft as he is against war.

I remember he didn't like Gulf War I either and back then he was demagoging race, whining that the over-representation of minorities in the military meant they would necessarily shoulder an unfair burden in casualties. It turned out the predominantly non-minority airmen and special forces were the ones who actually absorbed the disproportionate casualties. Not counting Saddam's military. The way our military cuts through theirs you have to wonder why we stomach any tinpot very long.

At any rate Rangel hasn't changed. These days he's still requesting reports to support his race-based worldview. And as usual they reveal a truth that just the opposite of his expectations.

Unfortunately being wrong hasn't stopped him. His latest angle: We need a draft to ensure that every race class shares the burden of military service equally. Once this is accomplished we will never again see war because no leader will dare face the wrath of a public so united against it.

This is the same old demagoguery with but a subtle change in grievance group. What's remarkable about his thinking is that it is so obviously false in several ways. False in presuming that the draft's random selection is more fair than self selection. False in presuming any deviation of the military population from societal norms is by its very nature unfair. That the balance of support for war would be different with or without the draft. And the ultimate falsity - that all this talk of draft and fairness is nothing but an indirect attack on the President's ability to wage war.

Consensus within the military is against the draft and I'm inclined to agree, but I could be convinced otherwise through reasonable debate with the goal of making them stronger. I cannot be convinced to argue about it with someone whose purpose is to undermine them or our society's ability to defend itself. Not much of what Charlie Rangel says makes sense because fairness is not his true goal. If you didn't already you should watch this to understand my argument why.

His party's rhetoric is obsessed with the fact that the richest 1% own 99% of everything, so he should understand that no matter how biased its sampling of society the military will always have more soldiers from poor families and less from rich. There just aren't very many sons of senators and tycoons. By the way, who decides which biases are bad?

None of the military folk I know are in it for the money. They know the pay is crap and the work dangerous but they volunteer anyway. They like serving their country. They like the way of life. To my eyes they overly represent the cream of our nation.

Charlie doesn't like that the military offers re-up bonuses. Democrats ordinarily champion increases in civil servant compensation but in this case Rangel chooses to decry money going to the military rank and file. Besides actually working the bonuses are mutually beneficial. All of which doesn't appear to matter to Rangel.

Why? Because like John Kerry, Representative-for-life Rangel's view of the military was formed during Vietnam. And it seems stuck there. They and the many that think like them act as though the military is a huge heartless machine, good for nothing but gobbling up young lives, and whose every attempt to grow must be thwarted. In their eyes the military's rightful place is at home where it is safely forbidden by the Constitution from doing anything.

Many of us don't see it that way. There are indeed huge heartless machines in the world, the real world, the world where virtually every strongman who comes to power at some point adopts an anti-corporate anti-American stand. Every day such tinpots squelch liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. Which is why we need a strong military. But every day our media mostly ignores all that and focuses instead on the most nitpickety inane non-stories it can find, especially if they feed the storyline of America as villain.

The mainstream media is divided between scaring their addicts witless about bird flu, the environment, meteors, albino Gypsy-Irish terrorists, and spinning great gobs of slick sweet nothings. All of which we are urged to believe is something the government must urgently do something about. While on the other hand the fight against militant Islam, or "Iraq" as they like to pigeonhole it, should never have been started (as if we started it) and should simply be declared stopped (as if that will stop it). This is the conventional wisdom now.

Most of us see the world beyond our small travels only through this distorted and schizophrenic media lens. In the US we're presented a constant drip of frightful stories about the misdeeds of our military, but until recently we heard next to nothing about what Islam and its Jihad are really about. Many people haven't watched what little has been shown. Hands up how many tuned in for The Path to 9/11?

What would public opinion be, on any topic, if the public actually knew what the jihadis want and just how large the "tiny minority" of extremists was before Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, Bush, their oil riches or colonialization? Well what the public understands is one thing. What is almost criminal is that to this day Charlie Rangel and many other politicians are still ignorant of the threat.

During Vietnam those who didn't want to fight went to Canada and didn't fight. The argument then was without the draft the military would wither away because nobody would be stupid enough to volunteer. Thus war would be ended and the flower power orgies could begin. Today we still have war. Of course. But nobody has to run to Canada. They just don't join. Those who do volunteer for military service, especially after 9/11, know full well they are putting their asses on the line for the rest of us. Including, they well know, those against war.

One last point. We don't draft garbage, fire, or policemen just because the job is dangerous or attracts the wrong proportions of people. We expect garbage to be picked up, fires fought, and criminals apprehended without having to join the neighborhood brigade. Different people are either happier or more productive doing different things. If the goal is fairness then nothing is more fair than leaving people free to choose, with special glory and appreciation reserved for those who choose to promote and defend the freedom from which the possibility of fairness, among other things, springs.

UPDATE 28 Nov: Rangel Adopts the Logic of Kerry's ‘Joke'.

Fourth time's the charm for the media cheerleaders. Their side is finally back in power. It doesn't matter to them that the senior leadership - Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Rangel, Murtha, Conyers, Kennedy, Kerry - all reek of scandal strongly enough to have driven any Republican from office. These guys stir up macaca-like goofs once a year just for giggles.

The Alice in Washington wackiness has already begun. Kids in a candy store. Drunk with power. Will they practice what they preach? Listen to what the generals say? End earmarks and the culture of corruption? Protect us from the jihadis and the Norks? Riiiiight. In this Age of Treason we can only count on the Democrats for ever higher levels of partisanship and ever lower standards of conduct. If they follow their principles we can expect things like this:

• Tax rates will go up, revenues will go down.
• Judicial nominees right of Ruth Ginsburg will be rejected.
• The Nuclear Option will be renamed the Getting The People's Work Accomplished Option. It will be used repeatedly.
• The war in Iraq will be defunded. The work and sacrifices of many people will be discarded. But for good reason. Because any part of the Bush Doctrine succeeding would just be too painful for those who truly detest Bush.

A signal has been sent. The reaction of our adversaries was predictable. They are happy. Emboldened by the feebleness of a divided America. To win they see now they don't have to kill US soldiers, they just have to kill each other. The media guilt-trip eventually does the rest. For 30 years this has been the template. It doesn't always work, but that doesn't stop them from trying. In Iraq today as with Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia before the media has convinced nearly everyone the cause is lost. The majority is now officially "unhappy with how things are going in Iraq". They've done a splendid job glossing over the differences between the polar opposite mindsets they've choosen to lump together: Peaceniks who never would have invaded Iraq and hawks who want to redeploy to Iran and NK. Good luck pleasing that "majority".

Alot of people hate Donald Rumsfeld. I don't understand why.

He knows we're at war and acts accordingly. He's frank, arrogant, bossy, mean. He's not a politician. He was one of the early few who realized we faced a new kind of threat. He championed a transformation of the military out of its Cold War sumo posture into a lighter, faster, smarter force more suited for global anti-terrorist whack-a-mole. Swift takedowns of the Taliban and Saddam followed. And since then the US military has done an outstanding job policing and rebuilding, helping locals who have known nothing but war and oppression for decades.

Of course the fighting and dying continues. Why? There are many reasons but the jihadis and their bigoted totalitarian ideology surely eclipse the other factors. If you're going to blame Rumsfeld and not acknowledge the history of Iraq, the goals or actions of the jihadis, or others who are just as much or more to blame, then you'll get an argument from me.

Rumsfeld asserted strong civilian control over the military, challenging entrenched interests of both the military and the defense industry. It surely made him lots of enemies. In spite of his abrupt departure it's hard to imagine him ever betraying his president or his country like so many others have.

What motivates a man in his twilight years to endure the kind of stress it takes to serve at such a level? Imagine your job 24/7 is to outthink the Islamofacists, the Norks, the Chicoms, and a zillion lesser threats, given crappy intel, constantly hounded by a host of pacifists and backseat quarterbacks who harp on costs then decry shortages, and who think we should listen to retired Generals but not the current leadership. Most of us would be curled in a fetal position sucking our thumb within a week.

So for what is Rummy to blame? Every stupid thing subordinates many levels down and thousands of miles do? The failure of Iraqi politicians to rise above petty rivalries and appreciate the values of liberty and democracy more quickly? Implacable religious zealotry?

If any part of the US government has blown it over the last few decades it's intel. From the failure to forsee the Soviet collapse, to Jamie Gorelick's infamous wall, to George Tenet's WMD "slam dunk", to the habitual leaks aimed at undermining their boss. They're probably doing something right, they just can't tell us about it.

Then there's State. Vietnam taught Powell his Doctrine, the key to which is overwhelming force. This surely was a sore point between him and Rumsfeld, whose preference tends toward light and surgical, but Powell's job was State not Defense. It was Powell's job to convince Turkey to let the 4th Infantry enter Iraq from the north. He blew it. As swift and decisive as the invasion was it could have been swifter and more decisive. It was Powell's job to convince Iran and Syria and the Saudis to police their borders.

Powell's celebrated Pottery Barn wisdom - you break it you buy it - overlooks the fact that Iraq and the most of the Middle East has been broken for a very long time. The US and its allies have sent far too much money there for far too long. Mostly to the wrong people.

If Rumsfeld is accountable for the ongoing insurgency in Iraq then those who continue to hold out the juicy carrot of US capitulation redeployment are even more to blame. The jihadis know they can't beat Rumsfeld and his military, but they also know they have powerful allies inside the US who can win the war for them given enough time and a steady stream of violence.

Dynamic as he was Rumsfeld just couldn't transform a well-oiled death-dealing infrastructure-busting machine into a police-training school-building democracy-lifesupport system fast enough. How can any readymix democracy be expected to withstand such an influx of men and money from across the Islamic world intended not to help but to disrupt? Is this Rumsfeld's fault? Please. If George Tenet rates a Medal of Freedom, Rummy rates five.

It's pretty clear by now that the Blue Wave was nothing but the leftist media's code name for this year's effort to boost Democrats. The pattern has become so predictable it's painful watching it unfold yet again.

It starts months before with the slow drumbeat of stories portending an inexorable D victory. The pre-election polls show Ds way ahead. The early election day exit polls show Ds way ahead. The networks call it for the Ds, pretty much everywhere, on average of one hour before the polls close. By evening it has, surprise, become too close to call. The next morning they briefly mention an R landslide and move quickly to video of a bombing in Iraq.

Then come the sour grapes. The Leftard blogs light up with conspiracy theories about the exit polls, Diebold, and any Republicans - especially relatives of powerful Rs - who might work in election-related media or government. For two years we'll hear how the election in <insert random flyover state> was stolen, the pissing and moaning getting more bitter and pathetic right up until the next election, when it's deja vu all over again.

Until John Kerry put his foot in his mouth the Ds were telling anyone who would listen that this election should be all about Iraq. Then Kerry's "botched joke" reminded everyone how they see the military. Oooops.

Kerry will forthwith be knifed in the back, thrown under the bus, and quickly forgotten by the media. Watch now for them to turn attention back in desperation to something the Ds were really scoring points on. Mark Foley.

UPDATE, 2 Nov: Seymour Hersh sums up the leftist opinion of the military and the deeply cynical mindset that produces such beliefs:

If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said. "In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation," he said. "It isn't happening now, but I will tell you - there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq."

Hersh came out hard against President Bush for his involvement in the Middle East.

"In Washington, you can't expect any rationality. I don't know if he's in Iraq because God told him to, because his father didn't do it, or because it's the next step in his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program," he said. Hersh hinted that the responsibility for the invasion of Iraq lies with eight or nine members of the administration who have a "neo-conservative agenda" and dictate the U.S.'s post-September 11 foreign policy. "You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants," Hersh said. "How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?"

Hersh is apparently fishing for another Pulitzer prize. In front of a foreign audience of course.

If you know nothing of the ongoing Jihad or think it overblown then I can only suggest you make the effort to read a bit more about it. Please.

The Islamic fundamentals of Sharia and Jihad (Islamic law and its universal imposition) are not compatible with the one fundamental of civilization, which is of course Liberty. The 1400 year history of jihad, painfully reinforced by what is unfolding in Europe right now, make it plain enough that the essence of Islam is intolerance. The symptoms are most notable when Muslims near or surpass plurality.

People need to stop looking the other way. Reject the suicidal premises of multicultural political correctness rather than using them to stifle criticism of the principles of Islamic ideology. There are good reasons to believe Islam threatens civilization. Questions must be asked. Lines must be drawn.

In defense of liberty
By Andrew C. McCarthy/Herbert London
October 20, 2006

We believe that being in denial about Islamic militancy profoundly compromises U.S. national security. Our system's toleration of religious belief does not immunize religions from criticisms of the tenets or practices of those belief systems. This is particularly true when the criticized practices, though rhetorically labeled "religion," are actually elements of an imperialistic social system antithetical to equality, liberty, separation of church and state, and other core Western values.

Activist efforts to limit America's free marketplace of ideas -- such as the tactic of slandering commonsense criticism as "Islamophobia" -- are contrary to the very foundation of democratic governance. The West cannot cure Islam's propensity to spawn radicalism; this is a matter only Muslims can address. But we must do whatever is necessary to protect our liberty and security.

Since the United States is in the midst of a long war for the survival of our way of life, the following steps should immediately be taken:

• Congress should enact legislation stating forthrightly that our enemy in the ongoing war is radical Islam.

• Immigration from and aid to Muslim countries should be drastically reduced. Upward adjustments should be contingent on measurable reforms that promote liberty while reducing the role of religion in politics. (Provision should be made for asylum for reformers.)

• Any Muslim foreign national who will not concede under oath that American law must be followed in the U.S. when it conflicts with Islamic law should be subject to exclusion or deportation.

• It should be made clear that a person's status as a Muslim (particularly if he is also a male under age 45 who is a citizen of a country with a substantial Islamic population) is palpably relevant to investigations of terrorist threats. To do otherwise wastes finite investigative resources and challenges the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement by treating all Americans as if they were potential Islamic radicals.

• Mosques in the U.S. have been used by Islamic radicals to spread their ideology, as hubs for terror recruitment and paramilitary training, and even for storage and transfer of weapons. While the war ensues, it should be made clear that the FBI and other authorities do not require a criminal predicate to collect intelligence or conduct investigations. Mosques in which violence or unlawful activity is encouraged should be subject to forfeiture and loss of tax-exempt status.

• Rigorous examination should be required for certification of Islamic chaplains in the military and the federal and state prison systems.

• Congress should create a National Security Court with jurisdiction over terrorism and other national security matters. Alleged alien-terrorists should be designated unlawful enemy combatants (apprehended either inside or outside the U.S.) and be accorded the minimal rights required by American due process standards. Removing their cases from the civilian and military courts will increase the quality of justice in those systems.

• With radical Islamic sentiment gaining traction in oil-rich nations, it is imperative that U.S. energy independence become a national priority. Congressional action must be taken to remove the onerous legal and regulatory barriers to the construction and expansion of refineries, production of oil and gas from offshore wells, construction of gas pipelines and other energy transportation infrastructure, and the building of power plants, including alternative generation sources such as solar stations, wind farms, tar sands, nuclear power plants, etc.

• Treaty obligations, alliances with other countries and membership in international organizations need to be consistent with national goals. Where they have become obsolete or harmful, they must be reshaped or eliminated.

The 20th century was filled with massive assaults on liberty by totalitarian aggressors who questioned the resolve of the defenders of liberty. This flawed assumption of weakness led to vast and unprecedented death and destruction. We make this statement in an attempt to diminish the chances of another such bloody miscalculation, and we pray that the rich benefits of the American model of government will gain a new appreciation around the world.

That would be a damn good start.

The Liberals' War
Why is the left afraid to face up to the threat of radical Islam?
BY BRET STEPHENS
The Wall Street Journal Sunday, September 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the most to lose when Islamism gains--namely, liberals--are typically the most reluctant to fight it?

It is often said, particularly in the "progressive" precincts of the democratic left, that by aiming at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and perhaps the Capitol, Mohamed Atta and his cohorts were registering a broader Muslim objection to what those buildings supposedly represented: capitalism and globalization, U.S. military power, support for Israel, oppression of the Palestinians and so on.

But maybe Ms. Newman intuited that Atta's real targets weren't the symbols of American mightiness, but of what that mightiness protected: people like her, bohemian, sexually unorthodox, a minority within a minority. Maybe she understood that those F-16s overhead--likely manned by pilots who went to church on Sunday and voted the straight GOP ticket--were being flown above all for her defense, at the outer cultural perimeter of everything that America's political order permits.

Hmmm, yes I see. And what does Ayaan Hirsi Ali say?

"Many Europeans feel that a confrontation with Islamism will give the Islamists more opportunities to recruit--that confronting evil is counterproductive," says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born, former Dutch parliamentarian whose outspoken opposition to Islamism (and to Islam itself) forced her repeatedly into hiding and now into exile in the United States. "They think that by appeasing them--allowing them their own ghettoes, their own Muslim schools--they will win their friendship."

A second factor, she says, is the superficial confluence between the bugaboos of the Chomskyite left and modern-day Islamism. "Many social democrats have this stereotype that the corporate world, the U.S. and Israel are the real evil. And [since] Islamists are also against Israel and America, [social democrats] sense an alliance with them."

But the really "lethal mistake," she says, "is the confusion of Islam, which is a body of ideas, with ethnicity." Liberals especially are reluctant to criticize the content of Islam because they fear that it is tantamount to criticizing Muslims as a group, and is therefore almost a species of racism. Yet Muslims, she says, "are responsible for their ideas. If it is written in the Koran that you must kill apostates, kill the unbelievers, kill gays, then it is legitimate and urgent to say, 'If that is what your God tells you, you have to modify it.' "

There's nothing wrong with criticizing an ideology. Like Islam. Or Leftism. If you believe your ideology, then defend it. Responding to criticism with censorship or violence is a sign of either sadism or insecurity, perhaps both.

This poor lady lives in fear for her life because she criticized an ideology. How many bedwetting Bush Police State hallucinators can say that?

Yeah, yeah. More local politics. Stop whining and pay attention. The national media and both major political parties are doing their best to ignore immigration during this election season. Escondido is part of California's 50th District, where a race between an anti- and pro-illegal immigration candidates is on for control of a seat formerly occupied by bribery convict Duke Cunningham. Have you heard about this anywhere else? Probably not.

Yes Iran, Iraq, the Jihad, and our problems with various overseas strongmen and their nuclear playthings are bigger, longer term problems... if the US can get its immigration problems under control. If it can't then all those other causes are as good as lost, or at least alot harder to win.

The US won't be able to effect squat overseas whether it balkanizes into a schizophrenic mixture of wealthy law-abiding and poor lawless communities or simply degenerates into an anarchic bloody mess like Mexico.

We've sent thousands and spent billions to fight head-sawing savages halfway around the world. Do you think we could spare a bit to keep the same kind of people from overstaying their visas or walking across our borders? Do you think we could go further than that, but no less called for by our duty to the law, and go house to house to find and deport anyone who isn't a legal resident? I say yes. And I'm getting old waiting for our government to do what the law and the people say is right.

Marie Waldron on Immigration - Escondido City Council, 18 Oct 2006:

Some people say the cost to defend this is too much. Hogwash! What is the cost of not doing it? Can we afford to sell out the future of our country, sell out the future for our children?

Enough is enough. That's why we need to take control of our own communities. One city at a time. We want our cities back, we want our country back. Enough is enough.

The only political motivation is that of those unwilling to enforce our laws. When I came into office I swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution of our nation against all enemies foreign and domestic so help me God. Not to be popular, do nothing, and get re-elected.

There is a moral right and a moral wrong. We as a city have every right to enforce occupancy standards the best way we can. We as a city have every right to enforce Federal law.

The ACLU will say otherwise. Section 8 U.S. Code 1324 Federal Immigration and Nationality Act states that harboring an illegal alien is a violation of federal law. Although the ACLU will say we're creating new law, we're not. We're just enforcing the law that already exists.

We're dealing with the direct effects of the federal government not doing their job. To look the other way is treasonous. Not supporting this ordinance and I've said this before is by de facto supporting sanctuary status plain and simple. Sanctuary laws are illegal in all US states and cities. Not to enforce our Federal immigration laws is purely a political decision that has no legal basis.

Section 8 U.S. Code 1324 says:

(A) Any person who—

(i) knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever such person at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Commissioner, regardless of whether such alien has received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States and regardless of any future official action which may be taken with respect to such alien;

(ii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;

(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;

(iv) encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or

(v) (I) engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or (II) aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,

shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).

My emphasis on the paragraph relevent to Escondido's new ordinance.

Now at least one person argued to the council that because the code is titled "Bringing in and harboring certain aliens" that the "and" means you have to both bring in and harbor aliens in order to be guilty of anything.

This argument, like most others from the pro-illegal side, is absurd. As if we must interpret "1185. Travel control of citizens and aliens" to only apply to people who are both citizen and alien.

Even though 1324's list is incomplete it obviously tries to be specific about various components of an enormous illegal human trafficing system. It is a shock and disgrace that such a system has been tolerated by our government without debate and without the consent of the governed.

Now the criminals and their co-conspirators want debate and consent - a debate over how they are to be legalized, and consent from them that it is enough. It is disgusting that such a clear wrong, already well addressed in current federal law, has to be reiterated over and over again to morons who ordinarily spend their time clamoring for government to act on things not even enacted into law.

Do listen to Marie's whole statement. She covers very well much more than I've excerpted and extrapolated on above. We need more patriots like her at the State and Federal levels.

Another small step in an ongoing struggle to state the obvious.

Calif. city bars illegal immigrants from renting
Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:11pm ET

ESCONDIDO, California (Reuters) - Local authorities in Escondido, California passed a controversial measure on Wednesday to prohibit landlords from renting to illegal immigrants, a law which opponents say is racist.

The city is the latest of several from California to Pennsylvania which have passed laws in recent months to deny access to housing or jobs to illegal immigrants in their communities.

Lawmakers in Escondido, which lies about 50 miles north of the Mexican border near San Diego, passed the measure by a 3-2 vote following a heated debate that was interrupted by shouts, chants and catcalls.

Police officers removed two men from the council chamber after an argument erupted, while outside city hall dozens of police and sheriff's department officers separated boisterous supporters and opponents of the law. There were no arrests.

The law is set to come into effect in 30 days in the community of 140,000 residents, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.

There you go America. Be glad this law passed, but it won't be worth much unless the Feds not only close the border but also begin actively seeking out and deporting illegal immigrants everywhere, and quickly.

Marie Waldron, the woman behind the Escondido ordinance, is running for reelection. Please support her. Send her an email and tell her what a hero she is.

If you've never seen or heard a politician like her challenger, Olga Diaz, then steel yourself. Chicano politicians are coming your way. Loud. Angry. Insulting. Arrogant.

Why take my word for it? I created a YouTube account and took a crash course in video editting just so you could watch Olga in action:

I'm gonna add to my list of greatest hits and call you people nuts. You're either incompetent or malicious and neither speaks well for our council. You have given us a black eye in this community. Sam and Ed you have held this city down while Marie kicked it around. That man just told you that study you keep waving around in the air as proof in the pudding that this city is pouring down the drain, you have misused it. You have violated the trust of this community, you have angered the community, you have divided the community. Hell, we don't even have a community any more. Do you feel happy about that?

And it occurred to me the other day you might not know how to turn back. You just might not know how to look these people in the eye and tell them that you're not going to support this ordinance. You're probably afraid of them. Most of the people here are. They're unreasonable. They're not even nice. There is no conversation going on about this. There is no dialog. You are in a position of power when you should consider it a position of service. You have done a disservice to this community. That's unfortunate. I don't know how else to tell it to you other that straight up. You are wrong.

Which community is Olga talking about? The illegals and their compadres?

Over the course of months, during several public meetings dozens of people had an opportunity to speak, including some who spoke only in Spanish or broken English. They pleaded for compassion. They cited the UN. They said not having illegals would hurt their businesses, or simply hurt their feelings.

The arguments in favor of illegal immigration make no sense. But they've been heard. Loud and clear. How can anyone pretend there has been no dialog, or that anyone but the scofflaws are being unreasonable or divisive? Divisive, as a subsequent speaker well put it, is waving a Mexican flag at a demonstration in the USA. Divisive is ignoring the law. Divisive is demanding special treatment for yourself or your compadres. Divisive is hurling insults.

The common theme of pro-illegal arguments is: leave this alone, or else. Or else the economy will suffer. Or else God will disapprove. Or else we will make trouble. Which of course only reinforces their image as lawless sociopaths led by treasonous rabble rousers.

The difference between what the Escondido city council is doing and what Olga Diaz would prefer is the difference between night and day. On the one side you have a group doing its sworn duty in the full light of public scrutiny. Holding open discussions broadcast to anyone who cares to watch and recorded so posterity can understand.

On the other side are the low and slimy tactics of a group who knows the immigration status quo is wrong and unfair. They have silently defied the law for decades - with no announcements, no hearings, no consent from the people. Motivated by financial gain, leeching directly or passing the costs off to others. So accustomed to the crime that for them it is no longer a crime, or for that matter even a source of shame. They can "migrate" wherever they like and those who already live where they feel like migrating can go to hell.

This past spring they thought they were strong enough to finally come out in the open. The reaction they got was probably not what they expected. Even the illegals have by now noticed that "migrants" have "migrated" to almost every corner of the US. Hence the nationwide outcry. A ton of bricks, real and electronic, shipped to Congress indicates the depth of American's dismay at how out of control immigration has gotten. They want it fixed, pronto.

So. Now completely exposed and clearly unwelcome, what do the pro-illegals do? Complain there is no dialog. Cry racism. Make demands. Threaten lawsuits. And through it all show no regard for the rights and desires of legal residents.

Fortunately the heroes serving on the Escondido city council are aided by ordinary people speaking out. America has been and still can be a wonderful melting pot, given a reasonable rate of influx. The best evidence of this is that her most moving defense comes from legal immigrants. Inoculated against slurs of xenophobia and racism these people waited in line, and have friends and relatives who are still waiting. They came not only to escape a bad situation elsewhere, but to become Americans. They have integrated into society. They respect its norms and laws, and lend their support to it.

Take for example Saul Lisauskas, who spoke right after Olga Diaz. And make sure to watch Olga's face in the backgound.

Federal government has failed to do the job it is supposed to do for us. Thank you very much for you doing the job. The federal government doesn't do it, we have to do it. This is We the People. This is We the People government. For the people by the people.

Just consider this - what she just said. They are being the ones insulting us. They are attacking us. They are coming here breaking the law. They continue to break the law. And you know what's going to happen next? You do not fit the mold. You're not brown enough. You're not Mexican. You're not from the south of the border. You will be voted out even if they even if they succeed in doing what they're trying to do.

This is what's called Aztlán, Reconquista, la MEChA, La Raza is coming here. So please stand up and thank you very much for doing the job. You are doing it correctly. Thank you.

I took the liberty of adding the links. If you haven't heard these words before go read a bit about them.

Did you see Olga's face? You can practically hear her thoughts. "We the people? Yeah whatever. Attacking us? Smirk. That's right gringo, you better be afraid. The law? Well shit, I got nothing for that. Squirm. Toss hair. Brown? Feign shock. Reconquista? Oh crap. Feign ignorance. Do the other gringos understand him? Ohhhh man I hope not. Ok, act natural..."

Olga showed a different face in a previous appearance:

If you're gonna do this, do it right. And know what you're getting us into and know what we're getting out of it. I'd just like to speak in support of making sure we are all aware of the costs and again then we can measure the benefits.

"Make sure we know what we're getting into" indeed. While we're at it let's find out what we're already into. How much has illegal immigration already cost? How much will it cost if we do nothing? We're told immigrants are a boon to the economy. Whose economy?

Max Boot defends America's Wilsonian Instinct:

Admittedly, American attempts to safeguard liberty abroad were limited in the 19th century, when the U.S. was still a third-rate power. But Americans were excited by liberal revolutions, whether in Latin America, Greece or Hungary. Even John Quincy Adams—the secretary of State who said that the U.S. “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy”—horrified the monarchs of Europe by urging their subjects to rise up and seek their freedom. The Monroe Doctrine that he helped write was an attempt to keep Spain and other European autocracies from expanding their domains in the Americas.

The U.S. was not willing to fight for purely idealistic motives—something we’ve never done, not even in Kosovo or Iraq. But whatever other motives were present, there was a powerful idealistic impulse behind all of the nation’s 19th century wars, from the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and numerous smaller forays abroad to safeguard American traders and missionaries.

Contrary to the animadversions of Iraq war critics, there is nothing new about spreading democracy at gunpoint. The central philosophy behind Manifest Destiny was the belief that Americans, as the champions of liberty, had a right to annex not only all of North America but also territories from Hawaii to the Philippines. So successful were the Americans in establishing their “empire of liberty” (Jefferson’s phrase) that today almost no one realizes that the “winning of the West” was imperialism in another guise.

Properly understood, it is not the Wilsonians who are outside the mainstream of American foreign policy. It is their realpolitiker critics who seek to import an amoral approach to foreign policy that flourished in 19th century European chancelleries but has never found a home in the land of the free.

To which I would add that an Empire of Liberty offensive is especially appropriate in light of and in response to the recently rejuvenated and metastasizing Jihad. And that Jihad's existential threat to free civilization should fill its members with resolve - not fear, self-doubt, nor self-loathing. Wilsonian or not, who cares? Speak up. Do your part. We can only hope it is not too late to change the ugly course of history.

A history Spengler confidently describes from a theological angle:

Pope Benedict XVI's September 12 speech provoked a fruitless debate over the remarks of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor about the evils that Mohammed had brought to the world. Nothing ever will be learned, much less proved, by this tedious and sophomoric exercise. Gathering dust half-read on my desk are a number of books recounting the supposed evils of Islam - by Ba'at Yeor, Oriana Fallaci, Serge Trifkovic, and many others. There is not a speck of theological insight in the stack of them.

Western policy toward the Muslim world appears stupid and clumsy because its theological foundations are flawed. It is not what it is, nor what it was, but rather what it does that defines a religion: How does a faith address the paramount concern of human mortality, and what action does it require of its adherents? I addressed these issues under the title Jihad, the Lord's Supper, and eternal life (September 19), explaining that jihad does for Muslims precisely what Communion does for Christians. It is not a doctrine but a sacrament, that is, a holy act that transforms the actor.

If you have a taste for barbequed neocon be sure to read the rest. Pity pithy Spengler doesn't think much of Boot or other pundits with similarly sensible opinions. I doubt he's read even half of their books. Even so Spengler's oxymoronic theo-logic and Boot's Americentric secu-logic complement rather than contradict.

Never mind these retards.

The flood continues and our leaders seem capable of nothing but excuses. Here's something you may not know:

According to a RoperASW poll, the majority of Americans favor reductions in immigration levels, severe penalties for using false identification, and more involvement at the state and local level to help locate and deport illegal aliens.

What's incredible is that this poll was taken more than three years ago, long before the pro-immigrant rallies forced the media to report on the issue, at least a little. News of the prevailing opinion can only surprise a member of the majority because it is never mentioned. Not the polls. Not the results. You have to be a sinning racist xenophobe to even be curious.

It was in fact only because I stumbled on the following claim in the November Playboy that I became aware just how clear and consistent public opinion is on immigration.

Three quarters of PLAYBOY readers think illegals should be deported, only slightly lower than the national rate.

I had never heard of such results before, and I'm not exactly uninterested in the subject. The news media grows ever more obsessed with polls, except apparently when it comes to immigration. Thankfully the internet and its search engines are not run by the government or mass media. Yet.

Most legislators either lay low or pass new immigration laws they have no will to enforce. Some do both. No new federal laws are required to immediately stop the flow of illegal immigration. Man the border. Build a wall. If you're in Congress try working more than 50 days a year. Your job is to represent your constituents and uphold your oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

If you have misgivings, or feel oppressed to be placed in the unthinkable moral dilemma of having to choose sides (Allah forbid), then you should bow out of the job right now. The oath is meant to weed out the weak-willed. Well, that and to ensnare traitors who would harm the country from the inside.

Social servants, for example, who should be looking for ways to detect illegals and make it harder for them to stay, not easier. Their treason is less overt and perhaps even unconscious but it does as much damage as the example set by Azzam the American. Plenty of Azzam's buddies have already come to the US and overstayed their visas. We can be sure they really appreciate how concerned we are for the comfort and convenience of illegals aliens.

Federal Reserve Helps Illegal Immigrants
October 11, 2006

As the immigration debate heats up, the U.S. Government agency that serves as the nation’s central bank has quietly created a program that provides low-cost banking services to illegal immigrants.

To facilitate the process for immigrants sending money home, the Federal Reserve graciously created “Directo a Mexico,” which enables remittances to be transferred through the agency’s own automated clearinghouse linked directly to Mexico’s central bank (Banco de Mexico).

Since we're so desperate to encourage even more illegal immigration let's make sure everyone knows just how easy it is to come over, drop a baby (for free), and go on food stamps.

Food-Stamp Program Finally Speaks Their Language
By Jennifer Delson, Times Staff Writer
October 13, 2006

Though it goes against the conventional wisdom of anti-illegal immigration supporters, those who enroll the poor in the federal food stamp program say they've struggled for years to get immigrant Latino families signed up.

Now a Spanish-language news report and television ad campaign have spurred thousands of immigrants in Orange County over the last several weeks to contact a nonprofit organization that offers a Spanish-language class called "Food Stamps in Four Hours."

. . .

The Orange County strategy has been lauded throughout the state as a way to reach immigrants who are reluctant to get help from the government.

"They won't come on their own," said Jerry Sanders, food bank manager of the nonprofit Community Action Partnership of Orange County in Garden Grove. "They come from countries where they think the government isn't to be trusted. They figure there's a catch to free food."

Advocates say immigrants, if here illegally, are also worried about being deported if they apply for food stamps. Or they fear jeopardizing a pending application for residency or citizenship. Illegal immigrants can apply on behalf of their minor children here legally.

Other immigrants say they were simply embarrassed.

"The Mexican man is macho. He doesn't want to come to this country and beg," said Alfonso Chavez, the Community Action Partnership's outreach coordinator. "I tell them this is a program that will help the children. The kids are American-born, and they have a right to this program."

Wonderful. We've got so much money we can blow some getting the word out that we're giving it away.

Aliso Viejo resident Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minuteman Project, which fights illegal immigration, said the Orange County program encouraged illegal immigration.

These immigrants and their children "should only be given life-saving medical care," Gilchrist said.

"If we encourage illegal alien families to come forward and exploit the … system, aren't we encouraging more illegal immigration? We have to cut these benefits off."

Thank Allah for the Minutemen.

If you live in the US you may not think such incentives are a big deal. Don't neglect the coupled impact of clear and supportive pro-immigrant messages coming from official sources. The government is saying in effect that the situtation for illegals is going to change. It's going to continue to get better.

In Mexico they're calling their coyotes.

And Canadians are revolted at the idea they'll soon be flooded with Americans. Thanks to johkiter for the link.

Almost half of this week's South Park episode, Mystery of the Urinal Deuce, was Mr. Mackey pinching off one hilarious scat euphemism after another. All because someone left a chocolate hotdog in the urinal.

The other half mercilessly ridicules various 9/11 Bush cabal conspiracy theories. If you're one of the "retards" who thinks neocons brought down the WTC change the channel because you will not be amused.

As for the rest of us, the next time some ninny claims the Pentagon was hit by a missle make sure you point them to this brief video. Clockwork Orange gear may be required to get them to watch.

Even if that works there are plenty of other retarded theories. See for example 911Truth. Cartman says there's a 25% chance you're a believer. 911Truth says Zogby says polls say it's more like 46%. We are now entering another dimension.

This past Wednesday there was a skirmish over immigration in Escondido, a small city just a bit north of San Diego. Three of the five city council members voted to pass a law prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal aliens. Although it is a small and local victory we can only hope it's effect will reverberate nationally much as Hazleton already has.

For those who don't live along a major invasion artery this might give you some idea what the situation will shortly be like for you:

ESCONDIDO – The immigration debate raging here and across the nation seems to attract metaphors about rushing water – flood, deluge, awash, rising tide – to describe the numbers of people flowing illegally across the border.

City Councilman Sam Abed prefers precise figures to metaphorical references. Abed's numbers are startling: One Escondido resident in four, he contends, is an illegal immigrant.

Emphasis mine. Chew on it a moment.

Would you believe there are some who quibble over the numbers? And at any rate they have a problem with local government getting involved.

(Escondido Mayor Lori Holt) Pfeiler doesn't see it that way. Illegal immigration, she said, is a federal issue.

“If you want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, you have to stop it at the border and on the job,” she said. “This whole debate about quality of life – how do you measure that? How do you define it?

“If the figures here really were 25 percent, what would happen if we removed 25 percent of our workers, 25 percent of our renters, 25 percent of our customers, in one fell swoop? It would be fascinating to do that and see what would happen.

Fascinating, yes. Is this a trick question? What would happen is there would be 25% less people. Less production and less consumption. Less load on the infrastructure. Less impact on the environment. Less crowded classrooms and hospitals and jails. Lower taxes. In fact, because the group that would be reduced tends to be more poor and less educated we can expect the positive effects of sending them away to exceed what would happen if we simply selected 25% at random.

What's the illegal ratio where you live? There are 10-20 million illegal immigrants in the US, whose legal population is just topping 300 million. That would be about 3-6% on average. What numbers would impress you? Whatever they are they'll be reached soon enough if the US maintains the status quo.

In defiance of such fatalism Marie Waldron, Sam Abed, and Ed Gallo voted to act:

Action begins when a resident, an official or business files a valid complaint with the city.

Landlord is then required to produce proof of a tenant's legal status.

City verifies documents with the federal government.

Property owner would be notified of a violation.

Business license suspended if illegal tenants not removed within five days.

This hardly seems unreasonable to me, and in support I appeared outside city hall before the meeting Wednesday. Later I watched the preceedings on local cable.

If you want to see what real people really have to say in an area inundated by illegal immigrants, unsquelched and undistorted by the overwhelmingly pro-immigrant mainstream media, then go watch the meeting.

Allow me to summarize.

Those showing up in support of the new law were fewer, older, and frankly a bit more loner/oddball. Their speakers were generally respectful and thankful to the board. They see the flood of illegal immigrants bringing poverty, crime, and disease; and consuming the city budget. To stop this they want US immigration laws strictly enforced. They ask local government to act mainly because the Mexican, US federal, and state governments have not.

Those opposed to the new law were greater in number (outside at least), and generally younger. They included many children. Their speakers generally showed distain for the board. The most honest among them were obviously motivated by compassion. Their God knows no borders. No one is illegal. The immigrants are poor and we should help them.

This is understandable, though it seems hopelessly naive. There is no end to poverty. Once the other 9/10ths of Mexico have moved north who shall the US import next? Where will everyone go once the US has been turned into the same sort of 3rd world shithole Mexico already is?

Far worse than the compassionists are the slick and well-educated weasels who pursue instead one of several angles with a thuggish flavor.

First there is the ACLU lawyer who questions the constitutionality of the new law and threatens to sue. Does the A in ACLU stand for Alien now? Escondido taxpayers harmed by the ACLU's actions might consider a class action lawsuit of their own.

The mayor agrees with the ACLU that immigration is entirely a federal responsibility. Law-abiding citizens are left to wonder why when a cop spots a bale of marijuana in a car driving through Escondido they don't say, "whoa drugs, that's a federal issue, and we can't even call the DEA"! The notion that state and local government has no right to protect its citizens and carry out their democratically expressed will is nothing but the wishful thinking of criminals and their apologists.

Then there are the self-proclaimed activists who should know full well the generousity and tolerance Escondido has shown immigrants for decades. Even so they can't keep themselves from throwing wild accusations of unfairness and rasism, obviously getting very wound up in their projected hatred. Their tone and demeanor at times becomes menacing.

Then there are the landlords and business owners. Does everyone realize this law will cost them money? Funny, they didn't mention that it's black market money. And they seem not at all concerned about the costs to their law-abiding neighbors.

Landlords also say they don't know who is illegal or how to check. In this they have a good point. A point that puts in perspective the modest progress that has been made in the fight against open borders and how long a road there is left to travel.

Why won't the government provide a secure, reliable, and drop dead easy way to verify anyone's citizenship or immigration status? Why won't they make this seemingly definitive service of government available at little or no cost? Why won't they apply this database to anyone who interacts with the government in any way? Voting, traffic stop, DMV, hospital visit, ... How if the government lacks the wherewithal to this can they require small business owners to shoulder such a burden?

I recently stumbled across some very interesting comments on the vast gulf between the elites and ordinary folk on immigration. It goes a long way toward explaining why US borders are open and why they will stay that way unless we continue to fight against it. Thankfully the Escondido city council isn't yet controlled by either the elites or their imported lackeys.

As if Jimmy Carter wasn't bad enough last week we got a visit from Llib Notnilc.

No, not this notnilc. I refer of course to affable ol' country boy ex-President Bill Clinton's angry alter ego. You know, the man we see every so often when Bill "Chuckles" Clinton steps back and Llib "Moonbat Superhero" Notnilc steps forward. The eyes get squinty, lips purse. A finger wags and a raspy voice rails in a petulant tone against the injustice, the impudence of the mere posing of a question. As of late, the performance ultimately devolves into a fulsome little turgid screed against the ever conspiring right-wingers.

The most recent sighting came during Chris Wallace's interview of Clinton on Fox.

A few years ago Llib Notnilc lashed out at Peter Jennings.

Back on November 18, 2004, in the midst of a quite positive ABC News prime-time special about the dedication of the Clinton presidential library, Bill Clinton angrily wagged his finger at Peter Jennings, accusing ABC of conspiring with Ken Starr to "repeat every little sleazy thing he leaked" during the investigation into Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice.

And then there is of course this classic from 1998.

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time – never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.

Liar. He was too distracted to worry about bin Laden, al Qaeda, or the resuscitation and spread of jihad. And too small a man to take responsibility for that fault.

The Roots of Islamofascism run deep.

Know Our Enemy
by Rod Dreher
03:58 PM CDT on Sunday, August 27, 2006

The pious life and martyr's death of Sayyid Qutb, and the legacy the Islamic theologian left behind, extend a powerful challenge to the West. Until we provide an answer to him and his followers, we can't hope to prevail in the war of ideas with Islamic extremists. And most of us have no idea who this man even was. Sayyid Qutb (pronounced KUH-tuhb) has been called "the philosopher of Islamic terror." He rose from humble origins in rural Egypt to become an influential theologian and leading light of Egypt's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood movement. He advocated global Islamic rule imposed by the sword.

The Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered him hanged for treason Aug. 29, 1966.

Yet, his ideas have spread like a prairie fire over the parched landscape of Islam's last generation. As writer Paul Berman observed, Qutb was "the intellectual hero of every one of the groups that eventually went into al-Qaeda."

. . .

What is to be done? Lenin famously asked about Czarist Russia. Qutb's answer to the same question about the West was, in part, "Milestones," a Leninist-style tract advocating worldwide Islamic revolution.

In this thin volume, Qutb argues that the Islamic nation must overthrow modernity if it wishes to continue to exist. Only Islam, with its divinely given law regulating all aspects of daily life, is capable of rightly ordering the soul and body, and of being most true to God-given human nature. He believed the West, whether or not it realized it, was engaged in a fight to the death against Islam. Though the conflict had military, economic and cultural aspects, for Qutb, this was essentially a religious war.

"Milestones" calls for the subjugation of all non-Islamic peoples, the total crushing of all non-Islamic institutions and entities, and the universal imposition of harsh sharia law. Reading "Milestones" as a guide to the mentality of jihadists is a bone-chilling exercise (even more so when you consider that Muslim teens participating in a 2004 quiz competition at the Dallas Central Mosque were assigned "Milestones" as part of their contest reading).

His is the voice of the genocidal utopian, an apocalyptic idealist who – like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao – will stop at nothing to create an earthly paradise on the bones of the Crusaders, Zionists, moderate Muslims and sundry infidels.

Via Rocco DiPippo at The Autonomist.

A common refrain from the Coalition of the Unwilling is that US arrogance upset the jihadis and neocon aggression made the problem worse. In other words the jihadis are not attacking, they are counter-attacking. They are acting only in self-defense and thus are not to blame.

Nice try. The logic is familiar because it is also used by those who support a vigorous defense of civilization against the jihadis. The distinction of course is that the silly infidels arguing in favor of the jihadis are, generally speaking, spectacularly ignorant of the ideology they defend or even the basics of its history.

The way they fit Sayyid Qutb into their worldview is to ignore him.

Confederate Yankee points out a similar Shia-flavored situation:

To admit that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad means precisely what he says, and has said time and again, is to admit to larger dangers that neither the press nor the Democratic party they overwhelming support can admit. To admit to the truth—to show what Iran and its leader represent as a threat to the world—is to shatter a carefully crafted illusion they have formulated that most of the problems of the world originate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

When faced with revealing a truth that would create cognitive dissonance, the media has made the subconscious decision to simply excise, and then ignore, the facts that undercut their "larger truth." They’d rather risk lives than admit the possibility that President Bush's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran are precisely on target.

They aren't scared about the possibility of millions of people dying. That are far more fearful that the President is right, and that the world they've created for themselves is all too wrong.

A month ago in a review of Militant Tricks I dropped a reference to something that deserves more attention:

The 36 Stratagems stands out among the military classics of ancient China for its emphasis on deception as a military art; most other military classics are about battlefield tactics. Unlike many books of its genre, The 36 Stratagems focuses on the use of deception, subterfuge or hidden tactics to achieve military objectives. Hence its title, Secret Art of War: The 36 Stratagems.

The 36 stratagems are grouped into six sets; the first three are designed for use when one holds the advantage, and the second three when one is at a disadvantage. The categorisation, however, was never meant to be rigid. On the contrary, several millennia of practising and refining battle tactics have taught the Chinese strategists that the highest principle of all was flexibility.

Nevertheless, it may be argued that many of the stratagems are no longer applicable in today's hi-tech world where technological superiority and sheer firepower would outweigh other factors.

That is not true. There are still many military operations today that uses variations of the 36 Stratagems. There has also been cases of the stratagems being used in the business world. As said above, the highest principle of all is flexibility.

Lesser known but more to the point than its sister work Sun Tzu's Art of War both Chinese texts are a distillation of lessons learned during a millenium of warfare. Required reading for any modern student of strategy and tactics.

One of several traits the Chicom, Nork, Islamo, and Caribbean tinpots share is a talent for unscrupulous deeds. Deception and subterfuge. They lie, they cheat. Some wage proxy wars, fund terrorist attacks, toy with missles and nukes to blackmail neighbors. They sign treaties they have no intention of abiding. They mouth words of peace and democracy to disguise their polar opposite aims.

Here is some of what Hugo Chavez had to say to the UN today (via Drudge):

"Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it. Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.]

"It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet. The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.

Well done Noam. You and Cindy Sheehan and Danny Glover and Harry Belfonte have befriended a real live dictator.

It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself]

"And it smells of sulfur still today."

Hmmm. That kind of Devil talk would make the militant secularist moonbats bay for days if it came out of Bush's mouth. Hugo? Crickets.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

Yes, call that psychiatrist. For yourself Hugo. It could be reality inversion or simple transference. Chirac Syndrome perhaps, the drive to unite countries in opposition to the US. Hugo's manifestation is a tad déclassé.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

These taunts were well-received at the UN. The would-be Dictator of the World however not only lacks the gumption to smoke Osama out of Tora Bora, he can't even muster the cojones to snatch Chavez and Ahmadinejad when they serve themselves up on a silver platter. A true student of the 36 Stratagems would have seized the opportunity to decapitate his enemies:

To catch rebels, nab their leader first
Destroy the enemy crack forces and capture their chief, and the enemy will collapse. His situation will be as desperate as a sea dragon fighting on land.

The Axis of Evil certainly knows the stratagems. With the UN they're pursuing this one:

Host and guest reversed
Whenever there is a chance, enter into the decision-making body of your ally and extend your influence skilfully step by step. Eventually, put it under your control.

Not long from now I fear civilization will look back with deep regret at our missed opportunity.

UPDATE 9/23/2006:


Via LGF:Chomsky says "I'm not dead yet..."

Proving that he was still up for a lively debate, Mr. Chomsky then went on to talk about income inequality in Latin America, the history of the United Nations, Iraq, Iran, Fidel Castro and, finally, the man who so fervently admires him, Mr. Chávez.

“I have been quite interested in his policies,” Mr. Chomsky said. “Personally, I think many of them are quite constructive.” Most important, he said, Mr. Chávez seems to have the overwhelming support of the people in his country. “He has gone through six closely supervised elections,” he said.

So the feelings are mutal between Chomsky and Chavez. Where is the debate?

Chavez attracts Moonbat Heroes like moths to flame. Or jihadis to OBL.