"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt

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Thursday, December 31, 2009

Obama Surfing Figurine... For the New Year!

"What is this-- your Iranian protesters?"

Just when you thought the tacky commemorative plates and Chia Obamas were all over... Once more the Obama kitsch imprints itself upon the national consciousness. Still, I must ask who could resist this depiction of our president, with his bronzed pecs immortalized in sculpted plastic? I'm sure this will make some MSNBC hosts' legs tingle. Place your little Obama on your dashboard and watch him hang ten as the unemployment rate climbs above 10%! And remember it's all Bush's fault...

My thanks to good friend Quite Rightly at Bread upon the Waters for informing me of this wonderful little piece of 21st Century Americana.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Sorry for the Absence...

I'm sorry about the long lay off. As I posted before, a lot of my family's birthdays fall into this stretch of the year and I've been distracted with all this holiday-family-togetherness and stuff. Fortunately my health has improved (or at least held reasonably steady), and I'll be posting regularly again after Jan. 1. In the mean time, check out any one of the links in the blog list... all great sites.

I hope everyone out there had a merry Christmas!

Yukio Ngaby

Sunday, December 20, 2009

BREAKING: Senate Passes Health Care "Reform" Cloture

In a move that seems destined to be remembered as a historic debacle, the Senate has passed health care reform cloture 60 - 40. In the dead of night and less than a week from Christmas, the Senate is foisting this unpopular, intrusive, and likely unconstitutional nonsense upon the American people. The actual bill will likely be voted on within a week.

While people like Tom Harkin pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves for ignoring public outcry, the Democrats have basically given the Republicans the perfect platform for the next election. How many borderline Dems will be running against a Republican "repeal the bill" campaign? How many will lose their seats based on that? And how many believe the Republicans can and actually will repeal this travesty? I'm afraid we're going to be stuck paying, through the nose, for worse health care from now on.

What's actually in this bill? The last incarnation included $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $400 billion in taxes new taxes. But who knows what the current bill includes, since the Senate believes that it is none of our business to know such trivialities. We'll have to wait and find out, and most likely very few of us will know until it has passed its final vote and has been signed into law.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a post "Cash for Cloture: Demcare bribe list, Pt. II" listing some of the political payoff and backroom deals for the 60 votes. Check it out.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Health Care Reform: What's Left in the Bill?

I've been avoiding the current health care "reform" bill as it is rent and glued by the Senate. After reading two versions of the bill (the ill-fated HR 3200, the Senate HELP Committee bill), plus a decent portion of HR 3962 before it was quickly passed by the House, I've been pretty much burnt-out on reading health care regulation bills. After weeks of wrangling, onerous debate, political attacks on spouses, Reid's attempt to massively expand a bankrupt Medicare (a bluff perhaps?), we must ask what are we left with?

Well, according to Jennifer Rubin it's this:

"Really, what’s left after they take out the public option and the Medicare buy-in? A GOP leadership aide put it this way: '$500 billion in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in tax increases, raises premiums, raises costs, onerous regulations, individual mandates, employer mandate, and expensive subsidies.' So what’s not to like? Well, just about everything. Perhaps, in a moment of clarity, everyone will go home, think this through clearly, and come back with a list of a few discrete reforms that will have bipartisan support. Then they can declare victory. Makes too much sense. Instead the Democratic leadership seems hell-bent on coming up with the umpteenth version of ObamaCare no matter how unpopular it may be with the public and making vulnerable members walk the plank. Seems crazy, huh? It is."

$500 billion in cuts, $400 billion in taxes... And exactly what is gained by all this?

Does anyone remember way back in September when Obama solemnly took to the political stage of Congress and promised no new deficits (h/t Pundit & Pundette)? "Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period." Just words... just words... But here's some more anyway: "That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan."

Ah well...

As Obama promises that we that we are "on the precipice" (not the best choice of words) of passing the health care "reform," even as Howard Dean demands that the bill be scrapped, we "commoners" are left standing on the sidelines wondering what will become of it all. Members of the Senate seem completely flummoxed as to what the current proposals actually entail. And Obama's disingenuous promise that it contains "all the criteria that I laid out" has as much authority as his clumsy red pill/blue pill analogy, and that Benadryl is a viable alternative to a tonsillectomy.

Since none of this is vitally pressing, one would think that this would indeed be a time to step back and reorganize... to look at what is now being presented within the twisting and convoluted structures of the unpopular current proposals. That seems unlikely, even with Dean's coincidental endorsement of such a course of action. It seems Rubin is right. "[T]he Democratic leadership seems hell-bent on coming up with the umpteenth version of ObamaCare no matter how unpopular it may be with the public and making vulnerable members walk the plank." Sanity must return eventually, but great amounts of lasting damage can be done with historic follies such as this bill.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Modern Conservatism and the Need for Definition

The holidays are a busy time for most people. Not to suggest that my holiday is more hectic than the next person, but in the four coming weeks is my birthday, Christmas, my wife's birthday, my mother-in-law's birthday and my father-in-law's birthday. So, I'm afraid I'm going to be a little pressed for time.

Recently there's been a lot of buzz about a third political party in the blogosphere. A lot of it seems to stem from this Rasmussen Report survey that has the Tea Party topping the GOP in a generic three-way ballot. As some have pointed out, this would inevitably lead to a Democratic plurality victory, much the same way that Ross Perot handed Bill Clinton his first term.

I think in light of this, in might be important to remember the infrequently discussed roots of modern conservatism, and the rather recent history that has shaped the conservative movement. For that reason I'm re-posting a piece I originally put up in early May. I don't suggest that this is any sort of last word on the subject, but I hope that it can illustrate the dynamic changes that occur in politics. Also, I hope that it can help readers think about exactly what kind of conservative they are (if indeed they wish to label themselves as such), without the tribalist value judgements so often accompany discussions of this subject.

So here you go:

A few days ago, I was reading through Suzanna Logan's insert clever s.logan here blog. Logan had written a post describing her dislike for Eric Ulrich, a Republican New York City councilman. Check out the posting here. While there I was perusing the comments section of her post and got into a minor exchange with another commenter on the nature of conservatism. You can read it at the above link to see what I mean.

This exchange brought to mind, the need for definition of certain complicated terms that are oftentimes taken for granted. In this case the term being conservative. According to this commenter, my value system lauding individual freedom and liberty, small government respectful of its citizenry and ideally responsive to its constituency's morals and values, is not truly conservative.

I wrote: "One of the most important aspects of conservatism, for me, is the inclusiveness of it. A person is judged by their own actions, their beliefs, and not their handy race or 'type.' It champions leaving people alone to allow them to develop themselves the way they wish. Liberty and freedom are far more important than tradition."

Apparently such remarks are "liberal," and, in a way, that is true. They are indeed classically liberal. Yet, liberalism-- as the word is used today-- is not in any way classically liberal. The term liberalism has been corrupted, and shifted its meaning to being synonymous with the current Left, i.e. socialism. Being progressive has been defined as necessarily "progressing" toward Marx's Communist utopia-- an inevitable utopia according to Marxists (Hegel's influence evident). In fact classical liberalism, as a term, is as dead as the Liberal Party of Great Britain.

My 1980 Oxford American Dictionary defines liberal (way down at definition 6) as "favoring democratic reform and individual liberty, moderately progressive." Does that honestly coincide with the modern idea of liberal? When the media and others use liberal to describe political positions that imposes taxes on cigarettes to pay for government medical services, or institutionalizing political correctness, or nationalizing banking and auto industries, or just generally enlarging government at the expense of citizens' freedoms and income, do they refer to this definition? When Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schummer, Phil Donahue, or Michael Moore describe themselves as liberal, are they referencing this definition?

The source of this confusion is probably mostly due to the current and prevalent Hegelian idea that the world is chiefly made up of binary opposition-- the idea of a thesis confronted with an antithesis e.g. the Left vs the Right, theists vs atheists, Conservative vs Liberal, Democrat vs Republican, etc.--that results into synthesis and "progress." This is a position encouraged by the Left as it reinforces the Marxist's Hegelian tenants upon which Karl Marx based his theories. The fact that this naively simplistic model is demonstrably untrue (Hegel seemed to believe that the Prussian monarch Frederick William III was the eventual end of this thesis/antithesis/synthesis chain, and Marx's apocalyptic predictions have not been proven to be in any way accurate [communism was supposed to be an antithesis to the industrial revolution and the tyranny it inflicted]) has not seemed to stop the vast majority of academicians and the general public to give it great amounts of credence. Perhaps this is because of the superficial similarities between the Hegelian model and the scientific notion of progress towards truth-- but perhaps that is the topic for another post.

Another reason for confusion is the notion that political ideas and stances are largely intractable and have remained mostly unchanged over the years. While at first it seems extraordinarily foolhardy for people to believe this (when has a politician himself remained unchanged?), it is an intensely popular view. I used to believe that Republicans and Democrats could be easily traced back to their origins, and that, although ideas may change, the basic tenets of their policies are unmalleable.

It is a belief that both political parties reinforce. Republicans love to trace their heritage back to Lincoln and herald Theodore Roosevelt, and likewise Democrats love to tie their pedigree to Thomas Jefferson (although a more realistic tracing would be to Andrew Jackson) and celebrate John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The implication being that the tenants that these people derived their popularity from remains largely unchanged today, or at the very least today's parties are directly evolved from policies, values and beliefs espoused by these great past names. Indeed, even the Constitution has been reworked in our minds to be something almost religiously continual-- not merely principles that guide our political thought, but guiding principles that have continued unabated for over 200 years.

Yet in reality, political parties and their positions, like all human endeavors, are finite and changeable things. While some may argue that principles may be universal and absolute truths, human translations of them (if possible) are, by definition, flawed, interpretive, and dynamic. The current relevance of the Constitution is derived from the recognition of this fact. The Magna Carta, while an extraordinarily important event in Western history, deals mostly in feudal rights and has relatively little direct bearing in contemporary political or legal thought. The Ten Commandments, while seemingly permanent, are supported by both ardent religious belief and literally millennia of theological study which has resulted in subtle adaption.

For the modern definition of conservative, one must begin in the years following World War II. This is at the nexus of three defining moments in 20th century American history: the Great Depression, World War II, and the beginnings of the Cold War. The Great Depression ushered in Roosevelt's New Deal, a fundamental shift in both government and political thought, not simply to the Left but toward the Socialist Left. World War II ended up positioning the US as one of two global superpowers, while the resulting Cold War instituted a prolonged competitive stare down of different ideologies.

Old conservatism is typified, not by by the great names of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt (both 19th century progressives), but rather by presidents Coolidge and Hoover. Old conservatism tended to lean toward international isolationism and laissez-faire economics. The Old Right (a phrase coined later with the advent of the New Right) formed itself in opposition to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Like most reactionary political movements it tended to be amorphous and disorganized, being without clear political principles. Generally they could be said to be strongly isolationist and anti-socialist, but mostly they defined themselves according to what Roosevelt did and as such added little to the political spectrum except to offer largely token resistance to socialist movements.

With the shadow of communism in the form of both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China looming, conservatism was redefined, in a very real sense under the gun, in the post World War II era. Convinced of the success of the New Deal, many on the Right considered laissez-faire economics to be a thing of the past, and the main conservative debates were to what limits federal government interventions should run economic theory. And still the GOP saw themselves as Democratic foils rather than a cohesively principled political party. While the conservative reorganization that followed was complicated and involved a wide variety of people, for the sake of brevity I will focus on the two major influences of Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley.

Russell Kirk (1918 - 1994) was heavily influenced by Edmund Burke an 18th Century British politician, philosopher, and political theorist. Kirk's work The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, published in 1953, laid down the groundwork for what would eventually become Traditional Conservatism, a subset (although it eventually separated itself) of the New Right. Kirk's influential writings and views helped form the New Right from the chaotic scramble following Roosevelt's unprecedented expansion of the federal government and World War II. A reactionary at heart, Kirk's Six Canons of Conservatism lay down the groundwork for his viewpoint (from wikipedia):

"1) A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
2) An affection for the 'variety and mystery' of human existence;
3) A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize 'natural' distinctions;
4) A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
5) A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and
6) A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

"These Six Canons were much later (1993) expanded into The Ten Conservative Principles currently espoused by The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. Not pretending to be self-contained like the Six Canons, they are titled:

"1) First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order.
2) Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity.
3) Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription.
4) Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.
5) Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.
6) Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability
.7) Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked.
8) Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.
9) Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.
10) Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society."

With William F. Buckley and others, Russell Kirk helped found The National Review in 1955, and then founded the quarterly Modern Age himself in 1957. Modern Age reflects far more Traditional Conservative policies than The National Review.

As previously noted, William F. Buckley (1925 - 2008) founded The National Review, and used the publication to further refine conservative beliefs, and moved away from the big government Republicans of the time (Eisenhower, a centrist of the time, supported most of the New Deal policies). Indeed most tenants that mainstream society considers conservative (supply side economics, reduced size in government, anti-socialistic tendencies, etc.) were reinvigorated out of this New Right movement championed by the magazine. The television commercial's image of William F. Buckley, dressed smartly in a suit and sitting by a blazing fireplace while dryly extolling The National Review is an indelible image of modern conservatism.

Yet, it was out of the 1960s that modern conservatism was truly formed. The counter-culture's unmistakably Marxist beliefs saturated popular culture, while the Civil Rights Movement called into question the moral authority (as Shelby Steele succinctly points out in his essay "Why the GOP Can't Win With Minorities") of both Left and Right American values (and created strange bedfellows in the mission to eradicate racial segregation). When the socialism (often opportunistically tied to the hot topic and moral imperative of racial politics) contained within the now mainstream counter-culture was adopted into the Democratic Party, the term "liberal," already politically redefined (perhaps intentionally) during Roosevelt and the New Deal, jumped the tracks further becoming synonymous with Socialist progressiveness.

This move toward socialism also created the opportunity for fusion within the conservative movement, combining American political conservatism, libertarianism, classical liberalism (and with it much of historic progressiveness), laissez-faire economic theory, and strident anti-communism that abandoned isolationism. Alienated moderate Democrats were redefined or moved to the right and joined in the GOP. Fear of socialism swelled the ranks of libertarians, Traditional Conservatives, and social conservatives.

This occurrence of fusionism, already having been openly encouraged by The National Review and William F. Buckley, is what has shaped the New Right into the mainstream conservative of the modern day. Kirk, grounded in tradition and with only a passing interest in economics, was highly critical of this fusion and the Traditional Conservatives became largely excluded from the New Right. Ronald Reagan is often used to illustrate the New Right and the results of fusionism. This also illuminates why so many of John F. Kennedy's policies closely mirror conservative ideals, while Eisenhower's seem somewhat foreign.

I will not go into neoconservatism nor paleoconservatism mainly because I don't feel enough time has passed to see the full structure, history and precepts of the movements. This is especially true as battle lines are currently being formed to oppose the far-Left policies of Obama. Likewise Ayn Rand's Objectivism is absent being rejected early on (mostly likely because of its atheism) by what would become the more mainstream New Right.

I hope this quickie review of the last fifty years of conservative thought was helpful. This is by no means an exhaustive history and analysis, nor is it meant to do anything other than give a a very general overview of the recent evolution of conservative theory. Hopefully, it also, in a small way, illustrates the inadequacy of Hegel's synthesizing chain and how ideas organically evolve rather than collide in presupposed opposition. Yes, I know Hegel was talking in great, sweeping generalities, but I'm addressing more of the modern Marxist conviction that world history is made up of collisions between progressives and conservatives. A political science professor I knew back in California taught his courses that way and it drove me nuts.

People now talk of the GOP being in disarray (as people so often do when a party loses an election) and that Republicans need to pull back to their ideological roots. It should be realized though that conservatism's roots are actually quite complicated and a fusion of various political outlooks. Rather than regression and fracture, perhaps a better strategy would be to reinvigorate the enthusiasm for the principles that created modern conservatism. Perhaps it would be best to clearly articulate and celebrate the doctrines that won the Cold War, that ushered in an era of historic prosperity and economic growth, that incorporates individual liberty as one of its cornerstones. Can the Left lay claim to any of that?

Thursday, December 10, 2009

New Link Added! Annotated Margins

Check out fellow Oregonian Mike McLaren's Annotated Margins.

It's not a political blog. And, so as not offend, I'll use Cut & Paste McLaren's own words as his blog description:

"The words of this blog abide in silence, waiting for the one or fewer people with time to kill at work who, accessing the internet, seek a diversion from the mundane nine-to-five thrum. Or perhaps of the six and half billion people on this planet, you made a sudden click and unwittingly arrived at this particular arrangement of a-b-c’s, deciding that these words will sufficiently put you to sleep. If these words do not meet your expectation, I apologize. Do not let these words offend. This blog exists simply because: an orange is how it tastes, and life is what we think, so to know the meaning of an orange, one must know the taste of the orange. To know life, one must know the nature of thought; writing is a way to taste thought. Making thoughts public should make one mindful of the words written."

And I also must add my apologies for not linking to his blog sooner.

UPDATE: For some reason I was unable to get a link to the blog listed on My Blog List. Again my apologies. It's up now.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Scientific American Proopses Spending $100 Trillion Dollars on "Sutainable" Future

In the middle of the Copenhagen farce, Scientific American has published an article extolling the building of wind, solar and water stations to replace our carbon-based power system. The cost of this sustainable system according to their own estimates? An unsustainable $100 trillion.

ClimateSanity has put their own estimates at $200 trillion and offer this critique. Check out their post and analysis here.

From ClimateSanity:

"Jacobson and Delucchi [the writers of the Scientific American article] say…

"'Our plan calls for millions of wind turbines, water machines and solar installations. The numbers are large, but the scale is not an insurmountable hurdle; society has achieved massive transformations before… In 1956 the U.S. began building the Interstate Highway System, which after 35 years extended 47,000 miles, changing commerce and society.'

"The Interstate Highway System is 'largest public works program in history.' The concept was first approved by congress in 1944. But it was more than a decade until President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. The plan evolved to building 42,500 miles of 'super-highway' by 1975. 40,000 miles were completed by 1980.

"The expected cost in 1958 was $41 billion. By 1995 the total construction cost amounted to $329 billion (in 1996 dollars). This translates into $58.5 billion 1957 dollars. That is not too far off from the original estimate. Converting the $329 billion 1996 dollars to 2009 dollars gives $453 billion.

"So if Jacobson’s and Delucchi’s estimate for the cost of their energy system is correct, then their energy plan would cost over 200 times as much ($100 trillion / $453 billion) as the Interstate Highway System to which they like to compare it.

"If my calculations for the cost of their energy system are correct, then it would cost more than 400 times as much ($200 trillion / $453 billion) as the Interstate Highway System! And since they propose building their system in just 20 years, then it would be like building 20 interstate highway systems (which took about 30 years to build) every single year for twenty years."

[...]

"Jacobson and Delucchi claim that the expense of their energy system 'is not money handed out by governments or consumers. It is an investment that is paid back through the sale of electricity and energy.' This is a soothing argument that overlooks an obvious fact: We already have a power energy system that pays for itself 'through the sale of electricity and energy.'

[...]

"It’s almost like swallowing poison so you can reap the benefits of good health after you recover."

There's much more interesting stuff in the post. Read the whole post at ClimateSanity. It is rather enlightening.

But hey, $100 trillion or $200 trillion... What's the difference? Both will essentially bankrupt the U.S. for no purpose... It almost sounds like a threat, doesn't it? Better start working those third world population offsets right now! Geez...

Monday, December 7, 2009

UK Enviromentalist Group: Prevent Third World Births to Offset Your Own Carbon Footprint

Of course it would come to this. It was just a matter of time.

It has long been the contention of "knowledgeable" people that there are just plain too many people on the planet. White House Science Czar John Holdren co-authored the 1977 book Ecoscience with fellow enviro-alarmists Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich. After seeing Soylent Green one too many times, these three advocated forced abortions, forced sterility, and "compulsory population-control laws." In the mainstream, movies such as The Three Days of the Condor and Seven Beauties both ended with the rather dire prediction that very soon we'll all be at war for food. And, of course the aforementioned Soylent Green had humanity eating each other.

And then there's assuaging of the enviro-guilt of living the good life. I mean vague pledges of turning off the lights and having your personal assistant plant a tree is easy, but if the truth be known, that sort of stuff only does so much. Jet-setting, conspicuous consumption, and air conditioning and all that stuff that's just too much fun or too uncomfortable to give up is carbon-costly. But such is the mindset of many wealthy environmentalists that some believe you can always just but their way out of guilt. So, recycling the old indulgence idea that you can buy morality and forgiveness-- now buying responsibility and forgiveness-- enterprising scammers came up with the carbon offset business. Set up a kiosk in the San Francisco airport, calculate the carbon footprint for your pigeon's flight, and then present a bill. Voila!

Unbelievably, the UK's Optimum Population Trust struck upon the brilliant insight to put these two ideas together.

From Brendan O'Neill at the NRO:

"Rushing to the front of the race for the prize of Most Vomit-Inducing Environmental Initiative Ever Devised, the UK’s Optimum Population Trust — which counts such grandees as David Attenborough and Jonathon Porritt among its supporters — has just launched PopOffsets. This quirkily named campaign is actually deeply sinister: It invites well-off Westerners to offset their carbon emissions by paying for poor people in the Third World to stop procreating.

"In short, if you feel bad about your CO2-emitting jaunt to Barbados, or the new Ferrari you just splurged on, then simply give some money to a charity which helps to 'convince' Third World women not to have children, and — presto! — the carbon saved by having one less black child in the world will put your guilt-ridden mind at rest.

"The Optimum Population Trust is a creepy Malthusian outfit made up of Lords, Ladies, and Sirs who all believe that the world’s problems are caused by “too many people.” It recently carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the best way to tackle global warming and “discovered” (I prefer the word “decided”) that every £4 spent on contraception saves one ton of CO2 from being added to the environment, whereas you would need to spend £8 on tree-planting, £15 on wind power, £31 on solar energy, and £56 on hybrid vehicle technology to realize the same carbon savings.

"How can a mere £4 on condoms save one ton of carbon? Well, it prevents more people from being born, and in the eyes of the OPT, people are nothing more than carbon emitters and polluters — filthy, destructive, toxic beings. As its new PopOffsets website says, next to a picture of lots and lots of stick men and a counter telling you how many people were born while you were visiting the website (3,153 while I was there), 'More people = more emissions. Rapid population growth is a major contributor to global warming.'

"So you click on the PopOffsets Calculator, tell it how much carbon you have emitted and give your carbon emissions a title (something like “Summer Holiday 2009,” it suggests), and then it tells you how much money you must donate to baby-blocking initiatives overseas. For example, if you fly round-trip from London to Sydney — which emits ten tons of carbon — you must pay around £40 ($70) and help prevent the birth of one child in Kenya. Visa and Mastercard accepted!

"This is how the value of human life is calculated by climate-change alarmists. A baby in Kenya is equal to ten tons of carbon, or one Londoner’s holiday in Australia. It has no more value than that, no intrinsic worth, no moral or cultural or human meaning; it is simply reduced to a bargaining chip in some wealthy Westerner’s desire to absolve himself of eco-guilt."

O'Neill goes on to succinctly put his outrage at the thought process behind this nonsense.

"This odious campaign — and the relentless rise of neo-Malthusianism more broadly — has two devastating impacts. First it presents fixable social problems, such as poverty and global inequality, as demographic problems, problems of overpopulation. So in keeping with every population scaremonger from Thomas Malthus to Paul Ehrlich, it shifts the blame from society, with its failure to eliminate hunger or to eradicate pollution, and heaps it instead on to people — and, in this instance, on to the poorest people."

[...]

"And second, neo-Malthusianism has a seriously detrimental impact on Third World women’s freedom and autonomy. The most glaringly disingenuous thing about PopOffsets is the OPT’s claim that it is merely helping women to deal with unwanted pregnancies; it is simply providing much-needed reproductive services to the poor of the world. It even uses feminist-sounding lingo to justify its campaign, arguing that it wants to use “education and equal rights” to 'empower women.'

"In truth, when you promote condom use in the Third World in the most scaremongering terms imaginable, as the only sane and scientific way to prevent an apocalypse, as the only thing that can guarantee the safety of the planet and of future generations, then you are not promoting freedom and choice; you are using blackmail — emotional, political, and financial blackmail — to coerce women into doing the 'right thing' as defined by the OPT and numerous other NGOs that problematize population growth. Those of us who do believe women should have unfettered autonomy in reproductive matters (and I am one of those people) should reject the OPT’s warped idea of 'choice,' where women are strongarmed into making one 'choice' only: the responsibly green, planet-saving one."

Okay, this African Offset garbage is going nowhere. Yet, it does illustrate the callow view too many environmentalists have of human beings, and the lengths that they will go through to keep their own consciences "clean" while not impinging on their own lifestyle of course.

UPDATE: Carol over at Carol's Closet also has a post about Oneill's article. Check out her take.

December 7, 1941 - A Date Which Will Live in Infamy




Let us not simply forget, even after the healing and the passing of time.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Tiger Woods, the AP, and The Interracial Marriage Fight

Okay, I wasn't going to post until Monday but this kinda peeves me a bit. As some of you may know, I'm married to a black woman and the issue of interracial marriages is kind of a thing with me. I've pretty much ignored the whole Tiger Woods car crash incident. I don't like playing golf, I don't follow golf, and I'm not a big fan of celebrity scandals. I really just don't care if Woods is cheating on his wife or not. Whatever...

But then the AP pushed this article upon us: "Tiger's troubles widen his distance from blacks." What's it about? Well, a lot of it's about the race of Woods' mistresses and the black community's attitude toward interracial marriage. My favorite quote from the article:

"On the one hand, Ebonie Johnson Cooper doesn't care that Tiger Woods' wife and alleged mistresses are white because Woods is 'quote-unquote not really black.'

"'But at the same time we still see him as a black man with a white woman, and it makes a difference,' said Johnson Cooper, a 26-year-old African-American from New York City. 'There's just this preservation thing we have among one another. We like to see each other with each other.'"

Preservation thing? This kind of language is the same crap that various white supremacist websites push. All the time these idiot sites blast that the white woman is under attack and that that the white breed and "white beauty" is an endangered species (oftentimes complete with pics of white bikini or lingerie models-- classy). Take my word for this. Normally I would set up links for evidence of my claims, but I will absolutely not link to that crap, nor will I give unlinked references to those sites. What was I doing on these sites, particularly conspiracy minded readers might ask? Answer: I like to know the ideological stances of my enemy.

This kind of language in an AP article is just plain scary. Scarier still is the fact that few people will call them on it, call Johnson Cooper on an obviously racist standpoint (what if she were white and saying such things about a white celebrity married to a black woman?), and then justify the whole mess as being black authenticity. I mean nothing in the article is new to me, but to put up such a biased article and offer not a word of a different stance or a contrary viewpoint is irresponsible. I know... this is the AP. Why should even begin to expect journalistic integrity?

I'll probably post more extensively about this when I feel better. Meanwhile, Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, JammieWearingFool, and Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters all have decent posts. Sheppard especially has a good round up of the AP article.

From Sheppard: "Add it all up, and Woods is racist for cheating with white women, Americans are racist because they wouldn't be interested in this story if his mistresses were black, and it's okay for blacks to resent black men that are involved with white women.

"Any questions?"

Saturday, December 5, 2009

My Thanks, and I Will Be Back Soon

My thanks to all the well-wishers from whom I've received thoughtful comments and messages. I appreciate every thought and prayer and such kind words make me feel great.

Just for clarification, I'm not going through any sort of life-threatening problems. I simply have an acute, chronic pain whose source seems to be beguiling the various doctors I've seen. The multiple tests I've been going through the past several weeks have been very uncomfortable and thrown me for a loop. I wouldn't say the cure (or in this case the attempts at diagnosis) is worse than the disease, but the last few days have been particularly rough. I hope that doesn't sound too whiny. This is not to make things sound worse than they are, though. I know people go through much worse and have far greater medical issues than I do, and I have confidence that my health will improve in the future.

The latest batch of probings and blood leachings are over and, after a few days to sleep and recover, I should be back to this blog soon. I hope to be posting regularly by Monday. This has been quite a year for me. Hopefully, the next one will be better.

Again all my thanks for your kind words,
Yukio Ngaby

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Response to Obama's Afghanistan Speech

I was unable to watch the speech last night. I did read the transcript though and man... Maybe I'll post about it when I feel better. I'm afraid I unable to write much right now.

In the meantime, check out Victor Davis Hanson's dead-on response to the speech (h/t Pat @ So it Goes in Shreveport).

"That was such a strange speech. Deploring partisanship while serially trashing Bush at each new talking point. Sending more troops, but talking more about when they will come home rather than what they will do to the enemy. There was nothing much new in the speech, yet apparently it took the president months to decide whether even to give it."

Click on the link and read the rest. It's well worth the time.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Personal Announcement

Sorry for not posting recently. I'm currently undergoing a very unpleasant medical procedure. I will begin posting in a few days after I have (hopefully) recovered from this physically difficult medical testing.

Thank you.
Yukio Ngaby