November 20, 2007

Dr. Watson indifferent to feelings.

Nobel prize-winning scientist Professor James Watson voiced the opinion that differences in skin color are not the only thing that could have resulted from lengthy periods of geographical separation between the races – which resulted in the loss of his job. A college student makes this excellent observation about the danger of expressing even scientific truth in the U.S.:
What is most ironic of all, is that those same people that championed the theory of evolution to their own political and social ends, now seem totally incapable of accepting where those theories lead… to the possibility that natural selection combined with thousands of years of geographic separation produced more differences than just skin color. But the point is not whether Watson was right or wrong, but that he is not allowed to express an opinion. The moral outrage witnessed made a mockery of true science. Instead of being told how and why Watson was wrong, we were told that he can’t say what he said because it offends people. The cry that scientific truth is subordinate to people's feelings is of course the height of hypocrisy. Where were people’s feelings when they were being told that they descended from monkeys?
Anonymous student quoted in "Racial Racketeering." By Nikola, Victory or Death, 11/4/07.

Subversive "rights."

These ‘rights’, always in opposition to long-standing tradition or community custom, require large governmental, if not international, force to institute their authority.
Paul Johnson's The History of the English People states that in medieval England and before, the people believed that the way to correct abuses is to restore ancient practices. Often enough, naked innovation was concealed under the rubric of "restoration" but this was the tribute that vice paid to virtue. "Virtue" as commonly understood by the people. Johnson states that it is only in modern times that the idea of reform has come to mean the devising of some new, hitherbefore-never-encountered-who-knows-what scheme to remedy "ills" and "abuses." I've added my own twist so that's not exactly what Mr. Johnson said, though I'd like to think that there'd be no objection from as to the substance.

Given a choice between the two positions, I'd much prefer the "medieval" outlook and see restored a healthy skepticism toward concepts that are right out of the box. No doubt there are ideas that simply must be incorporated wholesale stat but is it always wisdom – when confronted with the known practice of 500 years -- to cleave to the unknown practice of the next 10 as though there can be no doubt that the old ways must be jettisoned?

Clearly the answer to that is a resounding "no," but which do you suppose is the default practice of the 20th and 21st centuries?

"The Wrongs of 'Rights'." By Matthew Roberts, Taki's Top Drawer, 10/15/07 quoted in "Egalitarians and the 'rights industry'." By Vanishing American, November 20, 2007.

Everything you wanted to know about immigration.

And I do mean everything:
Those who don’t want to uphold national borders are actually tearing down the very foundations of our democratic system, which is based on nation states. The fight for national sovereignty is thus the fight for democracy itself, since nobody has so far made any convincing model of a supranational democracy.

We now have a political class who . . . no longer feel as attached to the people they are supposed to represent as they did in the past. . . . We need to remind our political leaders that we pay national taxes because they are supposed to uphold our national borders. If they can’t do so, the social contract is breached, and we should no longer be required to pay our taxes. National taxes, national borders could become a new rallying cry.

The West is declining as a percentage of world population, and in danger of being overwhelmed by immigration from poorer countries with booming populations. . . . The West must first of all save itself. We have no obligation to “save” the Islamic world . . . . We are not all-powerful and are not in the position to help all of the Third World out of poverty, certainly not by allowing all of them to move here. We should take a break from massive immigration, also non-Muslim immigration, for at least a generation, in order to absorb and assimilate the persons we already have in our countries. The West is becoming so overwhelmed by immigration that this may trigger civil wars in several Western nations in the near future. We already have massive Third World ghettos in our major cities. Future immigration needs to be more strictly controlled and ONLY non-Muslim.

This immigration break should be used to demonstrate clearly that the West will no longer serve as the dumping ground for excess population growth in other countries. We have cultures and countries that we’d like to preserve, too, and cannot and should not be expected to accept unlimited number of migrants from other countries. But above all, the West, and indeed the non-Muslim world, should make our countries Islam-unfriendly and implement a policy of containment of Dar al-Islam.
"Recommendations for the West." By Fjordman, Gates of Vienna, 10/10/07 (emphasis added).

Do as I say.

MOSCOW — Officials were talking with more than two dozen doomsday cult members holed up in a snowy forest near the Volga River to await the end of the world, which their leader says will come in spring.

* * * *

Self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, who established his True Russian Orthodox Church after he split with the official church, blessed his followers before sending them into the cave earlier this month, but he did not join them himself.
"Officials Work to Coax Doomsday Cult Out of Russian Cave." Associated Press, 11/17/07.

November 9, 2007

101 uses for the burqa.

Celebrate diversity.
There's nothing like being able to mask up when you positively, simply must get your chores done and over with. And avoid North Carolina criminal laws against wearing masks in public.

"Burqa-Wearing Bandit Baffles Detectives." By David Schoetz, abcNews, 10/18/07.

Greatest scam in history.

Global warming, in case you were wondering.

Check out what the founder of the Weather Channel has say about it:
Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam.
"Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History.’" By John Coleman, ICECAP, 11/7/07.

ICECAP stands for the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project which "provides access to a new and growing global society of respected scientists and journalists that are not deniers that our climate is dynamic (the only constant in nature is change) and that man plays a role in climate change through urbanization, land use changes and the introduction of greenhouse gases and aerosols, but who also believe that natural cycles such as those in the sun and oceans are also important contributors to the global changes in our climate and weather. [Its members] worry the sole focus on greenhouse gases and the unwise reliance on imperfect climate models while ignoring real data may leave civilization unprepared for a sudden climate shift that history tells us will occur again, very possibly soon."

November 6, 2007

Bankruptcy and futility of America’s Kosovo policy.

Srdja Trifkovic discusses some of the points made at an October 23, 2007 Washington conference on “Kosovo, a Preventable Disaster.”
According to James Jatras, Washington’s irrational and destructive Balkan policy is to a significant extent the product of the ignorant and misguided notion that the U.S. can curry favor in the Islamic world by sacrificing Kosovo’s Christians to the violent jihad-terror elements that dominate Kosovo’s Albanian leadership. Such an unfounded notion shows a breathtaking incomprehension of the worldwide jihadist threat.

* * * *

Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam Bill Warner presented a devastating account of the fate of various minority non-Muslim populations in predominantly Muslim societies. What has happened to the Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo fits in with the tradition of intolerance that is endemic to the Muslim mindset, Warner argued, and that in Kosovo combines with a particularly virulent form of ethnic nationalism to produce a lethal mix. This theme was also developed by Ben Works, Director of SIRIUS. His focus was on the phenomenon of “predatory migrations”—of which Kosovo provides a classic example. Independence under whatever name and with whatever “guarantees” would only reward the process of ethno-religious cleansing that has been going on since June 1999.

* * * *

Doug Bandow started his closing remarks by noting that the only consistency in the U.S. policy in the Balkans is the odd insistence that the Serbs have to lose on each and every account. . . .

. . . The rising opposition to the Bush Administration’s policy of bringing about Kosovo’s independence by hook or by crook is taking place at a crucial moment. . . . Predicting a sudden attack of common sense in Washington is always a risky proposition.
For much more on the Balkans visit Julia Gorin and Serbianna among our links on this page.

"Debate on U.S. Kosovo Policy Brewing in Washington." By Srdja Trifkovic, www.Chroniclesmagazine.org, 11/5/07.