Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Taxing Wright-Off

An Ill-Gotten Capital Loss

So we’ve all heard how Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is so shocked at the words of his (former?) pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “Enough,” declares the Democratic Presidential hopeful. But it’s only now that you’ve had enough? What have you been thinking the last 20 or so years? For that matter, what has everyone else been thinking?

The one thing we should not say about Wright’s statements is that they are really anything new. Wright himself alludes to black liberation theology, particularly James Cone, who is known for his hateful rhetoric. From what I have gathered, many of the left-wing churches (and this is not limited to any ethnic community) have either looked the other way, or outright (out-Wright?) condoned and approved this sort of thing. It’s either a sense of “solidarity” with a left-wing cause, channeling anger at conservatives, or a sense of self-ashamed guilt. I also find it ironic that Wright talks a great game about oppression and slavery, but then associates with Louis Farrakhan (born Louis Eugene Walcott), a person who voluntarily joined a religion that was most responsible for putting blacks in “chains.”

The fact is, Obama knows quite well what Wright and his ilk have been about all these years. However, the congregation over which Wright presided represented an important stepping stone for a young lawyer with political ambitions, and besides, who would really challenge his associations? After all, that would be “racist!”

Even worse, this kind of behavior has been subsidized by all of us. Here’s what ABC News reported:



The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style," he said. "They have a different way of learning." And so on.

This is really not any different from what university students as well as workers in government and private industry are being fed day after day, year after year. In fact, universities, private corporations, and government agencies at all levels pay over $1,000 per hour for the privilege of hearing this sort of drivel.

You don’t believe me? Check out this article from the March 2000 issue of Reason Magazine called “Thought Reform 101" by Alan Charles Kors. He describes one such “trainer,” Edwin J. Nichols, a man who has been hired by my employer numerous times. Here’s the training that your tax dollars have paid for:


What does Nichols believe? He believes that culture is genetically determined, and that blacks, Hispanics, and descendants of non-Jewish Middle-Eastern tribes place their "highest value" on "interpersonal relationships." In Africa, women are the equal of men. Whites were altered permanently by the Ice Age. They value objects highly, not people. That is why white men commit suicide so frequently when they are
downsized.

Nichols calls his science of value systems "axiology," and he believes that if managers and administrators understand these cultural differences, they can manage more effectively, understanding why, according to him, blacks attach no importance to being on time, while whites are compulsive about it. Whites are logical; blacks are intuitive and empathetic. Whites are frigid; blacks are warm and spontaneous. Whites are relentlessly acquisitive; nonwhites are in harmony with nature. White engineers, for example, care about their part of something; Asian engineers, managers should know, care about the whole. Whites are linear; nonwhites have a spiral conception of time. Nichols has a handout that he frequently uses. Whites, it explains, "know through counting and measuring"; Native Americans learn through "oneness"; Hispanics and Arabs "know through symbolic and imagery [sic]"; Asians "know through striving toward the transcendence [sic]." Asking nonwhites to act white in the workplace is fatal to organizational harmony. Understanding cultural axiology is essential to management for the 21st century. Now, reread his list of clients.

[Note that the list of clients is in the article.]

Strangely enough, the “Best of the Web Today” column in today’s Wall Street Journal online quoted Brit Hume from “Fox News Sunday.” Hume had no recollection of Rev. Jesse Jackson using the same kind of rhetoric. Hume continues with, “And I said that to him [Jackson] here the other day, and he said no, no, no, I'm not going to touch that.” Maybe that’s for good reason. Remember, Jesse “Shakedown” Jackson has embraced much of the same politics and theology as Wright, and has shaken down corporations and other entities to “hire” the kinds of trainers just like Nichols.

The real pity is that charlatans like Wright and Nichols actually distract minority communities from achieving real solutions Again, today’s Wall Street Journal had a great article about the real outrage affecting urban communities: The sad state of education. Somehow everyone misses the fact that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have sent their children to private schools in order to avoid the voters they take the most for granted. Heck, when you can count on the Jeremiah Wrights of this world creating a distraction, why not?

I once heard a great speaker on the topic of “environmental justice,” Dr. Christopher Foreman. He wrote a book called The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice in which he also states that this is the kind of issue that distracts distressed urban communities from the real problems that they face such as high crime and failing school systems. Foreman, who happens to be black, was at the time a scholar at the Brookings Institution which is no right-wing think tank.

So basically, we pay for overpriced, crumbling schools in urban areas. We pay extra because of high crime that is not adequately prosecuted in many cities. We pay for bloated city bureaucracies. On top of it all, we also pay for hucksters and charlatans to teach us division and crackpot conspiracy theories. So, why are we all surprised only now?

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Solidarity Forever?

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has a "tête à tête" with the California Nurses Association. Read about it at Intercepts.

Another Clinton Health Care Treatment


Friday, April 18, 2008

Robocall UPDATE

I posted yesterday about how I received a robocall from a leftist group called “American Family Voices,” and how these idiots referred to my Congressman as “Tom Wolfe” instead of Frank Wolf. Anyway, here are a couple of updates to the story:

1) I did call Rep. Wolf’s office, and yes, they had been notified by quite a number of people about this funny call. Congressman Wolf has not, in fact, changed his name.
2) Yesterday’s blog post was quoted in James Taranto’s “Best of the Web Today” column in the Wall Street Journal online! See item titled “From Bauhaus to the House of Representatives.” Thank you!

Fear not, dear reader. I am not "hooking up" with any anti-war group. I mean, they really flunked that "electric Kool-Aid acid test!" ;)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Famous Novelist Becomes Virginia Congressman

Based on a Phone Call I Received

I came home from work to find a robocall message from a group called “American Family Voices.” It said:


Under the watch of Bush-Cheney and Congressman Tom Wolfe, America has grown weaker. Despite billions of dollars spent to enrich private contractors in Iraq, not a single active duty or Reserve brigade in America is considered combat ready. Call Congressman Tom Wolfe at [district office number] and ask him what he is doing to change this. We can’t allow our military to be stretched so thin that we become vulnerable. Tell Congressman Tom Wolfe that something’s got to change.
[Emphasis added]

Now I do like some works of novelist Tom Wolfe, but I didn’t know he was also in Congress! Now you know this is a bit of snark, because, of course, the Congressman for the Tenth District of Virginia is, in fact, Frank Wolf. I checked his web page just now, and it does not show that he has changed his name. (Perhaps I will call his office during business hours tomorrow to confirm this.)

Now I looked up “American Family Voices,” and found some interesting information. Their director, one Mike Lux, is a former Clinton Administration official who started his organization with a lot of Big Labor funding. AFV has also received a lot of funding from leftist film producer Steve Bing (currently in a paternity dispute with actress Elizabeth Hurley). Lux is apparently collecting money for Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Now those of you familiar with the Virginia blogosphere know that this is the kind of idiocy we expect from the “Say no to war unless a Democrat is President” Clinton supporters like Nasty Leftist Schmuck (who certainly never will be "a man in full") and his moronic friends. Aside from the factually challenged message, it is obvious that these kinds of people can never appreciate the military victories, engineering accomplishments, and humanitarian work being performed by American military, civilians, and allies from a wide range of countries.

Clearly, the AFV people do not have “the right stuff.” They are so deranged by Bush hatred, they may well end up setting a “bonfire” to their “vanities.”

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

DC Madam Moving to Denmark

As Soon as She Gets Out of Jail

Hat tip: Ace

Convicted DC Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey has stated that she is moving to Denmark as soon as she finishes her prison sentence. Ms. Palfrey made the statement upon hearing the news that Denmark provides prostitutes for the elderly at nursing homes. “I have always wanted to help old people who can’t always help themselves,” said Ms. Palfrey. “’Escorting’ them to meet their basic needs is one way I can use my expertise to help society. I am glad that Denmark is enlightened enough to have a system in which my talents can be put to good use.”

Ms. Palfrey added that “Of course, I will not make it a requirement that anyone do anything illegal or immoral. Why would anyone say that my high-class health care workers would even think of such a thing?”

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Elementary Thoughts XI

Wisdom from Ron's Seven-Year-Old Son

I think it's a very funny clock. I think it's tricky to tell time. I think it's curvy.

What happens if every hour it makes the house go into outer space?

[Daddy notes that he's really excited about the clock in the previous entry, but knows that Mommy would think it's a waste of money. Daddy actually does have a backwards clock in the office.]

For the Person Who Has Everything



Available (appropriately?) at Stupid.com

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Let's Turn Obama's Words Around

Shall We?

You go into these big cities in Illinois and, like a lot of big cities in the Midwest, the schools have been gone now for 45 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the NEA administration, and the AFT administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to crime or radical ministers or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-white sentiment or anti-Jewish sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

All of a sudden, it sounds offensive, right, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.?

Monday, April 07, 2008

Water, Water, Everywhere

And Even a Drop or Two to Drink!

Our good friends at UCV posted an interesting item about the opening of a new water treatment facility in Iraq. The information, supplied by U.S. Central Command, speaks of how 60,000 people in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah now have clean water to drink.

As we know, lack of clean water is a huge problem in developing countries, and providing water treatment gives some of the biggest bang for the environmental buck. As we have seen here, though, most of the public attention is directed towards more scientifically shaky concepts like “global warming.”

What really gets me, though, is how many of today’s left wing “environmentalists” were against the liberation of Iraq. Not only did Saddam Hussein develop chemical weapons, fund terrorists, and murder hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen, but he also imposed vast environmental destruction. He deliberately drained marshlands in southern Iraq in order to punish the “marsh Arabs” of southern Iraq. He also played favorites with what populations got better access to clean water and electricity (not that any infrastructure was maintained properly). In fact, it is reasonable to attribute several thousand more deaths in Iraq to Saddam’s environmentally destructive practices.

Now that Iraq has been liberated from this thug and our troops, contractors, NGOs, and volunteers have helped to clean up the place, where is the gratitude from the lefties? Apparently, deranged hatred is more important!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Elementary Pranks

My wife and I were watching TV last night. I decided to get a glass of water and put some ice cubes in it. As I was drinking the water, I noticed it tasted funny. Then I saw something floating in the water. What was the stuff? Onion!

My seven-year-old had put onion in the ice tray (Monday, when my wife was making dinner and needed onion as an ingredient for something), filled it with water, and put it in the freezer. So when I got the ice, it slowly melted and released onion. He did admit to having pulled this as an April Fool's prank yesterday. I told him that it could have backfired if he got a glass of juice and put ice in it. He could have had "onion grape juice" or something like that. We can only just imagine the funny story he gets to tell his friends in school today!

As that Annals of Improbable Research always tells us, "Children are naturally good scientists. Help them stay that way."

You all can stop laughing now!