Think about it!

"Wake Up, America."

The degraded Onion.

In response to a “Point” article that is written without any attempt at wit that focuses on Sarah Palin’s alleged lack of experience and ignorance of economic matters – in contradistinction to the experience and facile grasp of all things economic of the Democrat slate – The Onion has a putative "Counterpoint" from Ms. Palin in which she harps on the fact that she has a baby with Downs Syndrome in an attempt to draw attention away from the points made by her critic.

It concludes with

Now, if you'll please back away quietly without saying anything else . . . I'll forget this whole thing ever happened.

And so will my vote-stealing retard baby.

The Onion is almost always a treat to read and its deft, understated wit is in virtually every article.

However, this particular piece is far removed from that and in publishing it The Onion has degraded itself with a scurrilous -- and lame -- attempt to paint Ms. Palin as a cheap political opportunist.

"Counterpoint -- Please Keep Your Voice Down, My Poor Retarded Child Is Sleeping." The Onion, 9/24/08.

The wisdom of B. Hussein Obama.

Sweden remains a high-tax country overall, with individual rates well above 50% plus pension and payroll obligations. Maria Rannka, president of the Swedish think tank Timbro, has reported that entrepreneurship had become such an alien concept that more than half of Sweden's 50 largest companies were founded before World War I and only two after 1970 -- the period when taxes and social welfare programs proliferated.

Now, however, Sweden is discovering that it must cut taxes to compete with Ireland, Eastern Europe and fast-growing Asia. Three years ago Sweden eliminated its inheritance tax. The U.S. death tax rate is still 45%. John McCain cited Ireland's low rate in his Friday debate with Barack Obama, who continues to insist that U.S. business is undertaxed.

"The Stockholm Curve." Wall Street Journal, 9/29/08.

No infantry needed.

All we, the non-Muslims of the world, need do is to sufficiently inform ourselves about Islam so that we comprehend, and can explain to ourselves and to others (including Muslims), that we can make that connection, between

• Islam and the habit of submission that encourages despotism,
  
• Islam and inshallah-fatalism that discourages hard work and entrepreneurial flair,
  
• Islam and mistreatment of women and non-Muslims that represents a social and moral failure, [and]
  
• Islam that discourages most forms of artistic expression, and free and skeptical inquiry that the conduct of scientific investigation requires, and is thus an intellectual failure.

Let Muslim societies seek their own level. No lifelines, no lifeboats, no nothing. Watch, and let the world’s non-Muslims learn enough to recognize the connection of what happens to Islam itself, and thereby force Muslims, too, to start to arrive at the same understanding that they wish so ardently to avoid. Boots on the ground will then prove quite unnecessary.

"Societies Suffused With Islam Seek Their Own Level." By Hugh Fitzgerald, New English Review, Sept. 2008 (bullets added).

Societies suffused with Islam.

The government and people of Israel need to recognize, grimly but soberly, the real nature of the aggressive and violent tribes, clans, families of which the Gazan Arabs, and the “West Bank” Arabs consist. And they must recognize that societies suffused with Islam are naturally violent and aggressive, and are held in check only by despots, with their secret police, and their army, and their torture, and their everything. That is the way of Islam, a Total Belief-System that encourages submission to Allah, and mimicry of that Model of Conduct Muhammad, and whose canonical texts overflow with violence and hatred for Infidels. . . .

. . . “Democracy” has never been a force for moderation, such as it is, in the Muslim world. It has been the enlightened despots – Mohammad V of Morocco, Habib Bourguia of Tunisia, Kemal Pasta or Ataturk of Turkey, and Shah Reza Pahlevi of Iran – who have been able, in ways little and big, to limit the power of Islam. And where they have been able to systematically constrain, for a long period, the power of Islam, then a class of relaxed, or even nominal Muslims, can be created.

"Societies Suffused With Islam Seek Their Own Level." By Hugh Fitzgerald, New English Review, Sept. 2008.

The betrayal of Western elites.

God bless men like Mr. Wilders who exhibit such enormous courage to articulate unpleasant truths for Westerners and risk their lives in the process:

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called: “the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands. Speech, New York, 9/25/08.

Reported at "Geert Wilders: Wisdom and Courage." By Andrew Bostom, 9/28/08.

H/t: "Wilders In NYC." New English Review, 9/28/08.

Bill Ayres’s grisly wife.

Within three years of his return, he also became deeply involved with Bill Ayers, a former leader of the so-called Weather Underground. This leftist terrorist group, akin to the German Baader-Meinhof gang or the Italian Red Brigades, specialized in bombing government buildings. Ayers later wrote boastfully that he had personally carried out an attack on the Pentagon. Ayers's wife and closest collaborator was Bernardine Dohrn, whose views were so extreme that they seemed to cross a line from ultra-leftism to Satanism. At a meeting of the Weather Underground, she hailed the murders then recently committed by Charles Manson's demented followers. "Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! " she exulted, giving a three-fingered salute to signify a fork.

It’s all MY friends can do to stop THEIR wives from celebrating murder and the mutilation of corpses too.

"Obama's Leftism." By Joshua Muravchik, Commentary, October 2008 (emphasis added).

H/t: "View from the Right."

Blogging excellence.

I recommend HDGreene’s blog "Kddington, Oh!"

See especially his:

"Cartels of Caring." 9/26/08.

"The Washington Party." 9/20/08.

Geert Wilders on Glenn Beck

You Tube interview segment.

H/t Klein Verzet.

Viva Barack!

Letter to the Editor from a Cuban . . .

A most interesting and foreboding letter.

From Richmond Times-Dispatch, Monday, July 7, 2008 ~

Dear Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day, and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40Th anniversary of my independence.

On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba, and a few months later, I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.

I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.

When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said, 'Praise the Lord.' And when the young leader said, 'I will be for change and I'll bring you change,' everyone yelled, 'Viva Fidel!'

But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent, the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education, it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented, Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over, more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.

Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?

Would we?

Comment by jlewisbass on 9/2/08 on Obama camp connects the dots for Jews: McCain ... Palin ... Buchanan ... "Nazis." By Marc Caputo, Miami Herald, 8/30/08.