"We can't drill our way out of the problem," goes the Democratic mantra on oil. So what would Democrats do? Some in the party have the worst possible answer: "Nationalize the oil industry."
This week, responding to President Bush's call for more drilling, Democrat Maurice Hinchey said "We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets into the market."
This is what it's about: "control." And it's extremely dangerous for our democracy because once government controls the economy, it controls you, too. Then the Constitution, which guarantees your rights as a citizen of our republic, becomes a dead letter.
What's especially shocking is these two extremists no longer seem out of step with what used to be a centrist Party.
Don't take our word for it. A Rasmussen Poll released Tuesday showed that 37% of Democrats think nationalizing the oil companies is a good idea. Only 32% disagreed with that.
Which makes us wonder: Do they even know that socialism — state ownership of the means of production — has been completely discredited by history?
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Friday, June 20, 2008
Nationalize This
THE LAW POOR
According to a new report from the United Nations:
• Two in every three people on the planet -- a total of 4 billion -- are excluded from the rule of law.
• Around 40 percent of the developing world's five-year-old children are not registered as even existing.
• India only has 11 judges for every 1 million people.
Later, people will find that the home they live in, the land they farm, or the business that they start, is not protected by legally enforceable property rights.
[The Point: the Rule of Law , and its incalculable benefits, is not a universal given: is was earned, it must be protected, by being followed or changed - never set aside {yes, there's a reason this appears in the immigration section of the Brief}]
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Media Ignore Minimum Wage Hike's Impact on May Unemployment Rise
What was shocking given the portion of May's unemployment rate rise attributed to high school and college students looking for summer jobs was that virtually no press outlets considered the impact last year's minimum wage hike might have had on young Americans finding temporary positions between school years.
Consider this op-ed published in Monday's Washington Examiner authored by Kristen Lopez Eastlick, the senior economic analyst at the Employment Policies Institute:
According to economist David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine, for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, employment for high school dropouts and young black adults and teenagers falls by 8.5 percent. In the past 11 months alone, the United States' minimum wage has increased by more than twice that amount.Interesting, wouldn't you agree? And, certainly newsworthy.
Yet, from what I can tell, results of Google News and LexisNexis searches didn't find one major mainstream news outlet that offered such analysis in its reporting of Friday's unemployment rise...
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NEW YORK'S NOVEL WAY TO KILL CHARTER SCHOOLS
Ten years ago, New York joined the charter school revolution by passing a law to allow these innovative public schools to open; but now, thanks to the state's Department of Labor and a labor-friendly state judge, building a new charter school just got a lot harder and a lot more expensive.
- Last fall, as a sop to labor unions, Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith ordered charter schools to adhere to state "prevailing wage" requirements, which mandate paying union wages for construction projects and which typically add 30 percent or more to the cost of a project.
- Although charter schools have always been exempt from this state law, state trial judge Michael Lynch erroneously applied labor law to charter schools, contrary to anything intended by the legislature or precedent.
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'Overheated and Amplified'
[HT:SJ]
Fortune magazine reports that Barack Obama is publicly backing away from his stated opposition to Nafta, confirming the private assurances he reportedly offered Canadians that he didn't really mean it...
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INNOVATION NATION
Americans like to think they live in the most innovative country in the world. But how do other countries compare?
One measure is the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), a survey of "innovation indicators and trend analyses," put together by the European Commission. According to the 2007 EIS, the gap between the United States and the European Union (EU) has declined in recent years, but America still leads in most categories. For example:
- Of the 15 possible indicators measured by the EIS, the United States performs better than the European Union in 11 indicators, while the European Union scores above the United States in 4 indicators.
- Although the United States leads the EU in 11 indicators, on 9 of those indicators the United States is outperformed by at least one European country.
- The only two indictors on which the United States outperforms all other European countries are tertiary education and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patents.
- Sweden is the single most innovative country, as a result of its strength in innovation inputs.
- The gross domestic product (GDP) share of early-stage venture capital is more than 50 percent higher in the United States than the European Union.
- There is a large gap between the United States and the European Union in business R&D expenditures, 1.17 percent of EU GDP as compared to 1.87 percent in the United States, which has not decreased; in fact, the United States is expanding its lead in public R&D expenditures and high-tech exports.
- America also leads the rest of the world in patent applications, a key measure of intellectual property.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
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House Democrats call for nationalization of refineries
House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.
Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply. (Snip)
We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.
[so, we're not racing down a path to socialism?]
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March to Socialism
I just want to mark our place in time. And here's the latest. A new Rasmussen report telephone survey found -- you ready? Dan, if I asked you how many Americans, what percentage of Americans would oppose the nationalization of our oil companies, Americans, what would you say is a reasonable number? [snip]
DAN: I would say 90? Only crazy activists would be on the other side of that.
GLENN: Yeah, it's a little, a little lower than that. A little lower.
It's actually 47% of Americans are now opposed to nationalizing our oil industry.
By the way, in a completely unrelated story, front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, my favorite quote from Barack Obama. He cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to older style big government Democratic platforms skeptical of market forces.
He said, "Globalization and technology and automation will all weaken the position of workers." Hey, workers of the world, unite. "It will weaken the position of workers. He said a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably."You know, here's the thing. Could somebody just call up and just say, hey, Glenn, really want to socialize the oil companies because the government is so good at... fill in the blank. Go ahead. Just give me one thing. Give me one thing the government is really, really good at. Anything. Throw it my way. Go ahead.
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[ok, the only 'news' in the congressional Democrats piece is that they evidently consider it acceptable to voice such blatantly socialists intentions.
But the Rasmussen poll is truly alarming, not just in it's demonstration of some combination of education failure & media brain washing success that's resulted in a majority of Americans somehow not knowing the inevitable failure that nationalization entails, but in the scary precedent it represents:
it tells the government that it can cause the failure of an industry through regulation, and then use that failure as justification for its assuming control to 'fix' the problem it itself caused.
Scary. Sad. What will our grand children's America look like?]
Obama's Red Roots
It's natural to be skeptical of excessive claims about Obama's radical associations. After all, there are so many. But one bears attention — because it helped him get his start in politics. In 1996, he won an Illinois state senate seat on a "fusion" ticket of the Democratic Party and leftist group called the "New Party."
The New Party, founded in 1992 with 7,000 members at its peak, had been an explicitly anti-capitalist party of ex-Communists, socialists and activists from ACORN, the hard-left group that's constantly in trouble over voter fraud. The New Party didn't ask for Obama's association; he asked for the New Party's endorsement. [snip]
Obama actually had to audition for it. According to a September-October 1995 update on the New Party-aligned Chicago Democratic Socialists of America Web site: "About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates." [snip]
The New Party also has advocated a bill of rights for children, a shorter work week, a universal "social" wage and military spending cuts. These will undermine parental rights, lower competitiveness, lard up welfare and make the U.S. less secure. All are echoed in Obama's proposals. They are the hardest battle cries of the left.
Obama should come clean on why he sought these radicals' support and, better still, disclose just how he intends to pay them back.
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Obama’s Buddy, Bill Ayers Stomping the American Flag
The question that remains is, will the media pick this up or will they write it off as old news?
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Chgo Sun-Times: Now Greely Says It's Racist Not to Vote Obama
Apparently, the Chicago media have decided that the meme for the 2008 general election is going to be that anyone who doesn't vote for Barack Obama is a racist because this is the second editorial (that I've seen, anyway) in Chicago stating such a theory. Last week the Daily Herald voiced the assumption and this week it's the Sun-Times with the volatile Andrew Greeley taking up the cause of ridding the world of racism one Obama vote at a time.
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How the Media misrepresents the Candidates' Tax Plans
One might argue that in the current economic environment, not raising tax rates is a good idea. There are no new tax reductions of course, when you merely maintain the current rates. But the way things are scored in Washington DC, keeping rates the same is treated as a tax cut, and hence scored as a big revenue loss for the government, since the current rates are supposed to expire in two years, and go back to the levels where they were prior to the Bush tax cuts in 2001. [snip]
Barack Obama supports ending the Bush tax cuts -- in other words he wants individuals' tax rates to go up. However, the way this is scored in Washington , Obama's plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire, is "revenue neutral". So if rates go up, that is not treated as a tax increase. If rates stay the same, that will be reported as a tax cut for federal revenue purposes. [snip]
In reality, Obama wants higher individual tax rates, McCain wants them to stay the same. Obama also supports much higher tax rates on dividends, and capital gains, and to raise the ceiling on the level of income taxed for social security- in total, a massive federal tax grab, designed to support major new entitlement and programmatic spending. The federal government with Obama gets much larger, individuals' after tax income, and share of the economy, gets smaller. That is what you need to know.
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Obamanomics
Barack Obama hit the road this week with an economic tour to convince voters he is not a traditional tax and spend liberal. This will be tough because he likes tax increases and spending the tax payers’ money and is very liberal. [oh c'mon; that was funny - anyway >]
The McCain team, anticipating Obama’s offensive, kicked off the week with this statement:
“While hardworking families are hurting and employers are vulnerable, Barack Obama has promised higher income taxes, Social Security taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and tax hikes on job creating businesses. In fact, during just three years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has already voted 94 times for higher taxes...READ MORE
Obama's Defense Policy
Senator Obama has made quite clear that he intends to eviscerate our most advanced defense programs. In a message to Caucus 4 Priorities, a liberal pacifist organization, (available on YouTube), the Senator called for major cuts in defense spending, for slowing or suspending the development of future combat systems, for the abolition of spending on the "weaponizing of space" [China will be pleased] and the slashing of investment in our ballistic missile defense program. More broadly he promised to support the group's policies. These include:
reducing the National Missile Defense program to a basic research program; cutting spending on platforms like the F-22 Raptor, the Virginia-class Submarine, the V-22 Osprey airplane/helicopter hybrid, the DDG-1000 destroyer, and the Army's Future Combat System. Also, the group advocates reducing America's force structure by eliminating two Air Force fighter wings and one aircraft carrier battle-group.By signaling his intention to unilaterally halt development of advanced defense systems he will reduce our bargaining strength against our adversaries while gaining absolutely nothing, geopolitically speaking, from them. Our defense programs are inextricably linked to our diplomacy -- a lesson that Barack Obama seems never to have learned.
Barack Obama's defense policy plans threaten foreign policy consequences inimical to American interests, and would pose perilous problems for some of our key allies around the world...
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“I Will Slow Development of Future Combat Systems”
In a strange video address intended to somehow reassure American voters regarding his military bona fides, Senator Obama ends up doing just the opposite.
Among other things, he promises to cut “tens of billions of dollars” from the military budget, at a time when our armed forces are already stretched and in need of new weapon technologies and armor; to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” which in reality have already proven remarkably effective; that he “will not weaponize space” even though other nations such as China do exactly that; to terminate the Iraq war just as the surge proves itself remarkably successful; and he rails against what he calls “unnecessary” military spending. He concludes by promising to remove our inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from what he calls a “hair-trigger alert,” embarrassing himself via his ignorance regarding our deliberate targeting and launch protocol.
Most alarmingly, however, Senator Obama literally promises to “slow development of future combat systems.”
Think about the frightening implications of this pledge for a moment.
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Two Reasons not to Vote for Obama
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Iranian sees 'change' in U.S.
Iran's foreign minister offered his view on the U.S. presidential campaign today, saying that foreign policy will play a key role in the election and that American voters are "looking for change"
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Barack Obama beats John McCain in European vote
Senator Barack Obama emerged as Europe's favourite candidate for America’s presidency today when a poll conducted for Telegraph.co.uk gave him 52 per cent support
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Obama says fuel prices will change car habits
CHICAGO - Barack Obama said on Saturday Americans would start changing the kinds of cars they drive if gasoline prices continue to climb and said he owned a hybrid vehicle, though he doesn't drive it much.
[how nice for him. Doesn't sound like he's particularly worried about rising fuel costs. Q: and truckers? Airlines? All the motion fueled by liquid energy to deliver our standard of living to us?]
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Palestinians in Gaza Are Phonebanking for Barack Obama
Phil Klein calls our attention to an al-Jazeera news report that sounds like a parody, but is genuine: A report on Palestinians in Gaza who are phonebanking in support of Barack Obama's campaign. I transcribed the most jaw-dropping parts: REPORTER: It may be hard to believe, but working in this tiny Internet cafe in Gaza City may just be one of Barack Obama's biggest fans. Before every U.S. primary, 23-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab gathers 17 of his friends to try and rally support for Obama's campaign in the U.S...
[Q: why would they do that?]
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Teamsters Defend Endorsement of Obama
The Teamsters union vigorously denied on Monday that its decision to endorse Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race was in any way tied to Mr. Obama’s statement that federal supervision of the union had run its course...
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Not in My School Yard
... They frequently raise school choice as a cause Obama could take up to show his independence from Democratic interest groups. It doesn't look as if that's going to happen, as ABC News's Jake Tapper reports:
On the same day that he was extolling the need to shake up the "status quo" in education, Obama also defended his opposition to school vouchers.Our colleague Bill McGurn notes that Congress is on the verge of killing a small voucher program in the District of Columbia, where "parents have a question for Mr. Obama.
"We don't have enough slots for every child to go into a parochial school or a private school. And what you would see is a huge drain of resources out of the public schools," Obama said.
McCain advocates giving every parent a voucher to essentially choose which school they'd like to send their child.
Is Mr. Change-You-Can-Believe-In going to let his fellow Democrats take away the one change that is working for them?"
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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Don't miss Wednesday's huge moon illusion
The moon illusion, as it's known, is a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger when it's near the horizon.
The illusion will be particularly noticeable at this "solstice moon," coming just two days before summer starts in the Northern Hemisphere. The reason, according to NASA, lies in lunar mechanics: The sun and full moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging moon and a strong, long-lasting version of the illusion.
Many people swear it's real, suggesting that perhaps Earth's atmosphere magnifies the moon. But it really is all in our minds. The moon is not bigger at the horizon than when overhead. If it's any consolation, space station astronauts report the same effect.
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Haditha Hoax: Apparent Last Chapter
A military judge has dismissed the charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani.
The hoax screeches to its final terminal -- as we predicted it should two years ago.
[expect a PBS Frontline* piece investigating who's responsible - soon ... ]
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FLASHBACK:
'Frontline' Haditha Story Short on Facts
“Frontline” story on PBS, “Rules of Engagement,” omitted key facts that help exonerate the Marines accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.
”Frontline” accepted without question the legitimacy of the so-called Hammurabi Human Rights Association and allowed its alleged head man Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani to tell their story even though the organization consists solely of himself and one Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi — the original source of the video excerpts “Frontline” showed.
Moreover, “Frontline” neglected to inform viewers that the same Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani had just been released from almost six months captivity for insurgent activities.
There were other serious flaws in “Rules of Engagement,” ...
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When Will Murtha Apologize?
Democrats in Congress -- led by Jack Murtha and echoed by no less than Senator Kennedy -- gleefully picked up the refrain that our military was rapists, murderers, uncontrolled criminals.
Murtha, Kennedy, and all the others that piled on here owe all of these people and the people of the United States of America the US Marine Corps an apology on public television with everybody knowing that it's coming, so as many people as saw their accusations see their retraction.
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Obama’s America Is September 10th America
Sen. Obama, the Democrat’s presumptive nominee, made some astounding statements yesterday which provided his views on confronting the most urgent challenge facing the American people — that of radical Islam.
Taking aim at the Bush approach of regarding our terrorist enemies as, well, enemies, rather than criminal defendants clothed in all the rights and privileges of those American citizens whom these enemies pledge to kill, Obama asserted:
What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.This is a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism. In point of fact, while the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution...
And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, “Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.”
[And remarkably dangerous. We arrested those responsible for the 1st WTC attack after they'd successfully conducted it. The mechanism of law enforcement deterrence is retribution - after the crime. How can that possibly work against suicide bombers? They cannot be 'deterred', they must be found and removed before they can do harm.]
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GIULIANI ENTERS FRAY
"Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores a fundamental lack of understanding regarding our national security. In a post-9/11 world, we need to remain on offense against the terrorist threat which seeks to destroy our very way of life."
As Politico's Ben Smith notes, both John Kerry and former counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke fired back in defense of Obama. Said Kerry: "[McCain] has fully embraced, willfully, openly, fully embraced the failed tragic policy of the Bush Administration over the last 7 and a half years, and he’s really defending a policy that’s indefensible."
[no 2nd successful attack in America in 7 years - indefensible ]
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Obama advisers say bin Laden can appeal to U.S. courts
WASHINGTON Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain. Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen. John Kerry and former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said bin Laden would benefit from last week's Supreme Court decision giving terrorism suspects habeas corpus, the right to appeal their military detention to civilian courts...
[>300,000 prisoners after WWII, zero were given lawyers - and that after the war was over, not still in progress...]
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Europe Needs America
[HT:KW]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced France’s new defense policy and it represents an historic departure. Despite the media chorus telling us that the last eight years have driven a wedge between the U.S. and Europe, Sarkozy wants to cuddle. France will be an active part of NATO’s command structure for the first time since Charles de Gaulle turned his back on the transatlantic alliance in 1966.
In the end, it’s Europe that has to do something about its go-it-alone attitude. With American operations in Iraq meeting greater success and with Muslim integration in Europe proving evermore challenging, savvy European leaders know whose post-9/11 model they need to follow in both civil and military affairs. The truth is, the only way George W. Bush could have destroyed U.S.-Europe relations would have been to broadcast American weakness in a free world under threat... [snip]
Sarkozy has proved himself an admirable leader and reliable friend of the U.S. He, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, and Silvio Berlusconi are part of a wave of European heads of state who unabashedly cop to appreciating American strength.
[Charles Krauthammer recently observed: Don't listen to Europe's media, listen to its voters; in the last few years they've elected pro-American governments in Britain, France, Italy and Germany simultaneously for the first time in over 50 years...]
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Report Shows U.N. Development Program Violated U.N. Law
[HT:GM]
After more than two years of accusations and probes into the operations of the United Nations Development Program in North Korea, a weighty report finally reveals how routinely, and systematically, the agency disregarded U.N. regulations on how it conducted itself in Kim Jong-Il’s brutal dictatorship, passing on millions of dollars to the regime in the process. (Snip) The report depicts an organization that for years apparently considered itself immune from its own rules...
[not to worry: it's a UN report; probably fabricated]
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New front opens on evolution wars
A battle over science education could soon spill into the courts in Louisiana, where looming legislation would allow teachers to bring up scientific criticisms of evolution, global warming and other hot-button topics. The state House approved the bill Wednesday on a 94-3 vote.
[we now need legislation to allow teachers to 'bring up scientific criticisms' - in our schools. Heaven forbid we inject varied opinion into 'learning'. we need universal vouchers]
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"Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt. Environmentalists, who ordinarily would demand a full-fledged environmental assessment before a highway or a power plant can be built, are silent on the need to question proponents or examine alternatives."
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NYT Double Standard Alert: GOP 'Death Tax' in Quotes, Dem 'Windfall Profits' Not
In Wednesday's off-lead story by Michael Cooper and Larry Rohter, the New York Times found both McCain and Obama retreating to home base when it comes to economic solutions. But the Times' unconscious embrace of liberal conventional wisdom was evident in how it treated much-argued political terms like "windfall profits", "the death tax," and even "victory" in Iraq.
And look how the Times used quotation marks as warning flares or to suggest a conservative position was dubious. While "victory" and "death tax" were seen as partisan Republican terms and secured in protective quotes, Democrat-loaded terms like "windfall profits of oil companies" weren't put in quotes but stood unencumbered and presented as fact, even though the phrase "windfall" is calculated to make it appear oil company profits are somehow unjust or unearned...
[minor but legitimate: quotes in this context are used to convey dubiousness, or alleged, claimed etc. Conversely, their lack implies a phrase is ordinary, mainstream, accepted (often factually). Play along: note how quotes are/aren't used in this fashion when you read - the prevalence of this {sophomoric} tactic will surprise you {or not}]
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UNHEALTHY SITUATION
California
One of Sacramento's great laments is the number of Californians without health insurance. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators ought to look eastward to find a solution. Not to Massachusetts, where government-imposed, so-called universal health care has increased costs and taxes, is running at a deficit, doesn't cover everyone as promised, and imposes fines on anyone who won't buy state-mandated coverage.
Instead, Sacramento should look to Florida and even New Jersey, which point the way to substantially reducing health insurance costs with a more market-based approach.
In Florida:
• The legislature unanimously approved allowing insurance companies to sell stripped-down, no-frills policies, exempted from more than 50 state-imposed mandates.
• Floridians now can shop cafeteria-style, picking and paying for only the coverage they desire, trimming their costs dramatically and getting only what they deem necessary.
In New Jersey:
• A family's annual health care policy costs $10,398, compared with the national average of $5,799.
• Responding to this exorbitant cost, a New Jersey Republican assemblyman is introducing a reasonable remedy, which would permit New Jersey residents to buy low-cost health insurance from any registered policy in any of the 50 states.
• Allowing purchases across state lines gives buyers alternatives to New Jersey's expensive coverage, inflated by multiple mandates on in-state insurance sellers.
Knocking down the props that hold up prices can be done in California without adding a dime to anyone's tax burden or policy premiums. If more-affordable coverage really is what the Legislature and governor want to accomplish, Florida and New Jersey point the way...
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When I Was a Boy, America Was a Better Place
When I was a boy, America was a freer society than it is today. If Americans had been told the extent and number of laws that would govern their speech and behavior within one generation, they would have been certain that they were being told about some dictatorship, not the Land of the Free. Today, people at work, to cite but one example, are far less free to speak naturally. Every word, gesture and look, even one's illustrated calendar, is now monitored lest a fellow employee feel offended and bring charges of sexual harassment or creating a "hostile work environment" or being racially, religiously or ethnically insensitive, or insensitive to another's sexual orientation.
Meanwhile, all employers in California are now prohibited by law from firing a man who has decided to cross-dress at work. And needless to say, no fellow worker can say to that man, "Hey, Jack, why not wear the dress at home and men's clothes to work?" An employer interviewing a prospective employee is not free to ask the most natural human questions: Are you married? Do you have a child? How old are you? Soon "How are you?" will be banned lest one discriminate on the basis of health... [snip]
One might argue that these are the same laments that every previous older generation has expressed -- "Ah, when I was young" But in America, that has not been the case. In America, the older generations used to say the opposite -- "When I was a kid, things were worse."
Can we return to the America of my youth? No. Can we return to the best values of that time? Yes.
But not if both houses of Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court move the country even further leftward. If that happens, many of the above noted changes will simply be accelerated: More laws restricting "offensive" speech will be enacted; litigation will increase and trial lawyers will gain more power; the American military will be less valued; trees will gradually replace the flag as our most venerated symbol; schools will teach even less as they concentrate even more on diversity, sexuality and the environment; teenage sex will be increasingly accepted; American identity will continue to be replaced by ethnic, racial, gender or "world citizen" identity; and the power of the state will expand further as the power of the individual inevitably contracts.
It's hard to believe most Americans really want that...
[...but silence will be interpreted as consent - if we don't manage our government, the special interests extremists will][Recommended > ]
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Life Expectancy Hits Record High in United States
Americans' life expectancy reached a record high of 78.1 years in 2006, with disparities among ethnic groups and between the sexes generally narrowing, according to government data released yesterday. The death rates from most diseases went down, with influenza mortality falling steeply and AIDS mortality marking its 10th straight year of decline. Infant mortality in 2006 also fell from the previous year, continuing a trend stretching back nearly 50 years.
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Colorado to Offer 'Sniff Lottery' Scratch Tickets
Denver - When is a lottery scratch ticket not just a scratch ticket? When it's a scratch, and sniff, ticket. Starting Monday, the Colorado Lottery will begin selling $3 Scented Crossword tickets through lottery retailers statewide. They're available in three varieties: Crossword Bouquet, Chocolate Crossword and Coffee Crossword. Lottery officials say the scents are activated when players scratch off the latex on the tickets' play area
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Al-Qaida's Vietnam
CIA Director Michael Hayden says the terror group has suffered "near-strategic defeat" in Iraq. It has been routed from Anbar, Diyala and Baghdad provinces, and now is getting a beating in its last stronghold of Mosul, in the north. It is reviled by the Iraqi populace, and its downward trajectory began with indigenous uprisings at its expense.
When the United States lost Vietnam, it lost credibility and saw an emboldened Marxist-Leninist offensive around the Third World. Al-Qaida is a global insurgency and not a nation-state -- and thus its circumstances are radically different from ours 40 years ago -- but it has suffered a similar reputational loss.
The Iraq War had been a powerful recruiting tool for al-Qaida when it was winning. No more. Osama bin Laden rendered what is called the "bandwagon effect" in international relations -- the tendency of states to go along with the dominant power -- in his homespun Arabic analogy of people liking the strong horse over the weak horse. In Iraq, al-Qaida's proverbial horse is a broken-down nag... [snip]
Lately, the Iraq War has looked more and more like another Vietnam -- not for us, but for al-Qaida...
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Foe, Not Friend
[HT:RS]
The United States is in mortal peril from a false friend: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The peril emanates from the totalitarian legal-religious-military-political code the Saudis call Shariah and their assiduous efforts to impose it worldwide. The danger is enormously exacerbated by the almost-complete failure of American officials at every level of government to acknowledge, let alone act to prevent, the Saudis’ true agenda. [snip]
A recent expose by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon of congressional and independent investigations of the murderous September 11, 2001 attacks describes evidence of financial, logistical and other material support by Saudi government personnel...
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A Terrifying Decision
Remarkably, a court recently upheld a jury verdict that found the owners of buildings that were terrorized more culpable than the terrorists.
A New York state appeals court upheld the jury's allocation of 68 percent of the blame for the 1993 World Trade Center bombings on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the buildings. Citing the jury's finding that several explicit warnings were provided to the Port Authority by credible sources, including Scotland Yard, the majority of the blame (and corresponding damages) was placed on the Port Authority. Moreover, the court cited precedent that holds that an owner's negligence can be at least 50 percent to blame for harm even when the harm was caused by another party's deliberate actions.
"Defendant's negligence had been extraordinarily conducive of the terrorists' conduct -- so much so that the fulfilment [sic] of the terrorists' plot and the ensuing harm could with clear justification have been understood as primarily attributable to that negligence," the court ruled. "The intentional act [of the terrorists] causally did little more than bring the incipient catastrophic potential of the negligence to terrible fruition."
[we've a legal system broken at every level]
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Muslim children in Britain 'brought up to hate their homeland'
Radical British Muslims have formed chatrooms to discuss adopting orphans and bringing up children to be Islamic fighters, a study has found. Discussions on a number of radical websites have asked how children should be brought up to be "mujahideen" and whether they should be pulled out of mainstream schools...
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Russia rebuilding superpower military
Gen. Nikolai Makarov has replaced tough, old Gen. Yury Baluyevsky as the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces and has been tasked with rapidly modernizing them. Despite all the stories of a run-down and demoralized military that regularly appear in the Western media, Russia's armed forces remain the most powerful and effective land force across all of Eurasia...
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Why Irish Voters Rejected the Lisbon Treaty
Irish voters on June 12 said ‘No' to the superpower ambitions of European political elites, who want all 27 member-states of the European Union to ratify the 269-page (about 3000 pages with annexes) Lisbon Treaty that would turn the EU into a bureaucratic superstate.
Ireland was the only country to submit the "Reform Treaty" to a popular vote; all other member states of the EU intend to ratify the document through 'parliamentary procedures' [i.e., the very same bureaucrats who's power and job security will be enhanced by its passage][snip]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: "There will be no treaty at all if we had a referendum in France."
D'Estaing said: The approach "is to keep a part of the innovations of the constitutional treaty and to split them into several texts in order to make them less visible. The most innovative dispositions would pass as simple amendments of the Maastricht and Nice treaties. The technical improvements would be gathered in an innocuous treaty. The whole would be addressed to Parliaments, which would decide with separate votes. The public opinion would therefore unknowingly adopt the dispositions that it would not accept if presented directly."
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said that it did not matter if people had not read the treaty (he had not read it either, he admitted) and did not understand it because they should trust their elected leaders. [snip]
Although by EU law the Irish vote (53.4 percent said ‘No' and 46.6 percent said ‘Yes') should kill the treaty (because it requires unanimous approval to come into effect), European politicians will almost certainly find a way to keep it alive.
[you gotta read this thing -- how do you say "jaw-dropping-chutzpah" in european? and evidently no one is threatening to hang them, {an aspect also addressed, in part} -- Highly Recommended > ]
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Dirty US Media Secret: 'Rest of the World' Rebels Against Climate Taxes
The supposedly surprising rejection of the Lieberman-Warner climate bill last week had an element that Old Media in the US hasn't covered, but is very relevant.
While the press is ever eager to jump on politicians who fly in the face of supposed "world opinion" when it goes against US positions and traditions, it has been virtually silent over how "the rest of the world" has been rejecting the true linchpin of government climate policies: supposedly climate change-related higher taxes and fees. Consider the following:
• Germany -- "German Car Tax Plan to Be Delayed: Government."
• In Canada, a sympathetic columnist cautions the Liberal Party, which seems to think that the road back into power is through green taxes, about "The Suicidal Allure of a Carbon Tax."
• Australia -- "The Sun Sets on Rudd’s Climate Change Credibility."
• New Zealand -- "Emissions Bill Hanging by Thread"
Each story is about how a government or party is finding that citizens/voters are not at all keen on reducing their living standards in the name of supposed environmental purity.
The biggest media blackout is over the political situation in Great Britain, where Tony Blair's successor Gordon Brown hangs by a thread, largely because of his radical environmental initiatives... [snip]
If most of all of this is news to you, it's because the US press is studiously ignoring it. New York Times stories about Brown's situation on May 14 and May 23 have not a word about the Green Road Tax, even though many Labour MPs have been calling it a "ticking time bomb" for several weeks...
[the most pervasive spin: story 'selection' (omission)]
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"SPLASH AND DASH" BIOFUEL SCAM COSTS AMERICANS MILLIONS
U.S. taxpayers are being bilked to the tune of millions of dollars by a biofuel subsidy that helps to lower gas prices - in Europe. The scam is known as "splash and dash." Here's how it works:
• The scam stems from an existing $1 subsidy for every gallon of biodiesel fuel blended with regular diesel in the United States.
• Biodiesel is produced abroad using South American sugar cane or Asian palm oil and shipped to the United States, where it's blended with just a "splash" of regular diesel.
• A typical tanker-load of about 9 million gallons of biodiesel requires just 9,000 gallons of American diesel to make it qualify for the subsidy.
• The ship then makes a "dash" for Europe, where its fuel is sold below market rates; that means each tanker-load that makes the dash nets importers about $9 million dollars in tax credits from the IRS.
• In 2007 this subsidy cost the American taxpayers $300 million; it's projected to cost them $600 million next year.
And while Congress and the National Biodiesel Board say they know the loophole is being exploited -- as America is exporting much more biofuel than it is producing -- they can't identify the guilty companies that continue to profit from this scam due to IRS rules...
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Judicial temperament?
"Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. We execute from revolutionary conviction."Judge James Burge, whose wall is graced by Fidel, and Barack too, just declared that Ohio must change its lethal injection death penalty procedure because the current method is not quick and painless enough.
Leaving aside the irony of admiring a ruthless butcher while being perhaps a bit prissy about executions, how is it consistent with a judicial temperament to revere a butcher like Che?
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MEAN TO TEENS
The hike in the minimum wage passed by the Democratic majority in Congress last year is a big reason teen joblessness is at its highest level in 60 years. Americans are now finding [again] out the true cost of the minimum wage increases.
Wall Street wasn't stunned when the U.S. jobless rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May from 5 percent in April. It expected a repeat of past arbitrary price hikes have had on hundreds of thousands of youths looking for summer jobs. Many, if not most, won't find jobs because they've been priced out of the market:
• The minimum wage was hiked 14 percent to $5.85 an hour last July.If that sounds like a lot, the actual cost is much higher after you fold in taxes, benefits and Social Security that businesses pay on behalf of young workers. Economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, has found a 10 percent minimum wage hike cuts employment of young, unskilled workers by 8.5 percent. [historically, every 10% increase in the mandated wage has been followed by a ~2% decrease in entry-level jobs]
• Next month, it will go up an additional 12 percent to $6.55 an hour.
• In July 2009, it's slated to rise 10.7 percent to $7.25 an hour.
Employers forced to shell out an added 40 percent over three years to employ the least educated, least trained and overall least productive workers are finding a good reason not to do so. Young people should get paid more only after they work a while, gain some experience and actually become valuable to their employer -- rather than having higher pay mandated by the federal government.
[so why do they do it time and again if it hurts our lowest income earners the most? A: Government labor unions, virtually all of which have hard-wired their cost of living increases not just to inflation but also what the minimum wage is. It goes up, their pay goes up. sweet]
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Violent Attacks from Mexico on the Rise
Attacks against agents of the U.S. Border Patrol and tourists are on the rise.
“This fiscal year 744 incidents of violence have been perpetrated against Border Patrol agents, a 26 percent increase over the same time last year,” reported Department of Homeland Security Secretary Micheal Chertoff in his third “State of Immigration Address” Monday. [snip]
While DHS has witnessed more attacks on their staff, other government agencies have shown concern about attacks on U.S. tourists traveling in Mexico. Earlier this year, the State Department issued a travel alert to caution U.S. tourists against increasing violence in Mexico that will be in effect through the summer.
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Hunting Season for Whites
Between the night of May 31 and the wee hours of the morning of June 1, 2008, between 20 and 30 black teenagers formed a mob to terrorize the citizens of Mount Clemens, Michigan. These hoodlums robbed people of cell phones and wallets, threw a brick through the window of a moving car, and beat up their victims so badly that at least one of their targets was hospitalized with a fractured skull. In an article in the Macomb Daily entitled “Mob, Carnival Attacks May Be Linked” (6/5/2008), the mother of one of the victims told police that “her son was on the ground trying to fend off the attackers who were ‘about ready to kick his head in’ when deputies arrived.”
The horror of what transpired was articulated in another article in the Macomb Daily entitled “Mob of Young Men Attacks” (6/2/2008)... [see article, snip]
In every single article about the mob incident in which 20 to 30 black teenagers terrorized Mount Clemens, the journalists of the Macomb Daily, Detroit Free Press, and Detroit News neglected to mention the race of the perpetrators of this horrific crime spree. or that of their targeted victims... [snip]
When Beckmann inquired as to whether or not there is a “law to charge them with some kind of hate crime,” Hackel [the Sheriff] answered, “Well, that’s questionable. I don’t know if it applies to an unprotected class, and I don’t know if whites are part of that. I’m not sure.”
Beckmann was shocked to hear Hackel suggest that whites are not entitled to equal protection under the law. A taken aback Beckmann asked:
“You mentioned ‘unprotected class.’ You mean white people are not protected by hate crime legislation?”
Hackel answered that question by saying, “It doesn’t appear as such at this point and time that there is something that would qualify.”
Even though a horde of black thugs beat to the point of unconsciousness one innocent white man who was reported to have a fractured skull, threw a brick at a car that was driven by an innocent white woman, and beat up an innocent white man at a gas station to the point where employees had to clean up the bloody mess the following day, it is unlikely that the thugs will be charged with committing hate crimes, because the criminals were black and the victims were white.
Because of this simple fact, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did not seemingly arrive in Mount Clemens the very next day after the altercation to protest “racism,” and there is no “Million Man March” scheduled to protest the black-on-white crimes that occurred.
If a mob of whites were to do to innocent black victims what the black mob did to innocent white victims, the American people would not hear the end of it...
[which is where the media, again, plays a part. Heard about this on TV? Any doubts had the races been reversed you would have? {think: Jena, Louisiana}. Worse than the media's duplicity is the fact that we, today, in America, have laws on the books literally establishing special 'protected classes' based on race {as well as sexual orientation}. What would Dr. King make of this? How much longer will we tolerate it? It matters who you elect.]
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Brown Comes through...
[credit where due;]
There were questions surrounding Gordon Brown when he became Great Britain's Prime Minister. Taking office with echoes of "lap dog" following his predecessor Tony Blair, many wondered just how committed Brown would be to the "Special Relationship" between the US and Great Britain and whether he would initiate a more independent course in foreign affairs.
Brown may yet eschew supporting the US on many issues. But on increasing sanctions on Iran and sending additional troops to Afghanistan - two things the US devoutly wished Brown would accede to - the British Prime Minister has come through.
Brown has also promised to stick with Bush on Iraq - something of a surprise but perhaps a little dose of reality about the situation there, and the consequences of failure, added some 'clarity'...
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Odierno Tells Senate U.S. Military Headed in Right Direction in Iraq
The United States “is not out of the woods yet” in Iraq, but the nation is headed in the right direction, the man nominated to be the next Multinational Force Iraq commander said today.
Odierno, who served as Multinational Corps Iraq commander until October 2007, said Iraq has made significant progress, specifically over the past 18 months. “I believe a self-reliant government of Iraq that is stable, one that is committed to governance and protecting its own people and serving all its people, a place that's denied as a safe haven for terrorists and extremists and one that is integrated into the international community and a partner of the war on terror is absolutely possible in Iraq,” he said. “And I think it's closer today than it has been.”
Odierno told the senators that he would not make sweeping pronouncements about Iraq, but he did say that, generally, the increased capability of the Iraqi security forces has been extremely important to progress here.
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The Airline Bomb Plot
[that was so nearly the 'Airline Bomb-ing']
...Here's another hypothetical: Would this conversation be different today if in August 2006 seven airliners had taken off from Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, bound for the U.S. and Canada and each carrying about 250 passengers, and then blew up over the Atlantic Ocean? [snip]
The view that 9/11 "changed everything" did not hold up under the weight of our politics. Divisions re-emerged between Democrats and Republicans, in office and on the streets. These fights reignited over the Patriot Act, Guantanamo and the warrantless wiretap bill (or "FISA" revision). These arguers stopped to stare momentarily at their televisions when Islamic terrorists succeeded in mass murder in the 2004 Madrid train bombing and the 2005 London subway bombing, but quickly returned to partisan grandstanding... [snip]
The arrests of the men [before they could execute their crime {suicide bombers are not deterable, they must be interdicted}] was the result of broad and prolonged surveillance. For months, the suspects were bugged, photographed and wiretapped. Here in the U.S., our politics has spent much of the year unable to vote into law the wiretap bill, which is bogged down, incredibly, over giving retrospective legal immunity to telecom companies that helped the government monitor calls - originating overseas...[snip]
Philip Bobbitt, author of the just released and thought-provoking book, "Terror and Consent," has written that court warrants are "a useful standard for surveillance designed to prove guilt, not to learn the identity of people who may be planning atrocities."
Planning atrocities is precisely the point.
[Recommended >]
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Canada's 'Human Rights' Inquisition Comes After Stein
Steyn's crime? Daring to criticize radical Islam. For his temerity, Steyn and the Canadian magazine Maclean's (which printed Steyn's essay, an excerpt from his book) are being put on trial by the "human rights commission" of British Columbia, one of several such bodies both Steyn and Maclean's have been forced to deal with by the Canadian Islamic Congress.
What to do about this outrage? The editors at National Review have a few suggestions...
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NBC Claimed Bush Allowed Al-Qaeda in Iraq Before War, Media Now Ignore Pre-War Presence
[HT:MS]
While it is currently conventional wisdom in the media that there was no Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the 2003 invasion, as evidenced by the media's failure to correct Barack Obama's recent claim that "there was no such thing as Al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."
In fact, four years ago, the NBC Nightly News claimed not only that there was an Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the invasion, busy plotting attacks against Europe, but that the Bush administration intentionally "passed up several opportunities" to attack terrorist bases in Iraq "long before the war" in 2002 because of fear it would "undercut its case" for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. (Transcripts follow)
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Irish voters reject EU power grab
The Treaty of Lisbon, in effect a new constitution for the European Union intended to add to the power of EU bureaucrats at the expense of democratically elected national governments, was rejected by Irish voters yesterday. Predictably, the New York Times is disappointed. [snip]
"I think the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, will have to explain himself at the summit." [?]
The arguments used to advocate the treaty to Irish voters betray a mentality common to welfare states: we subsidized you, so now give us political power... [snip]
In fact, as many observers have noted, the key to Ireland's stunning economic growth the last two decades was not EU subsidies (handed out to countries that are poorer than the EU average - welfare, in other words), but rather radical tax cuts and deregulation, which ignited the "Celtic tiger" phenomenon, propelling the Irish to genuine prosperity. Benjamin Powell of the Goldwater Institute explains: [see piece for list of impressive stats > ][snip]
Apparently the Irish voters, having learned from their experience with a low taxes and reasonable regulation, are not anxious to return to a system premised on the notion that bureaucrats must regulate everything in detail, and taxes must be high.
Needless to say, the EU will press on with its power grab, regardless of voters' wishes...
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Thabo Mbeki blocks UN Zimbabwe agenda
Harare - The horrors of Zimbabwe's political violence will not feature on the agenda of the UN Security Council meeting overnight after South African President Thabo Mbeki blocked an attempt to put the crisis on the program.
The Security Council will now discuss only the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, separating it from the ongoing political violence in the lead-up to the presidential runoff. (Snip) The US and Britain were furious with South Africa's block at the UN, achieved with Russia's help...
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Study: UN Global Warming Forecast Violates Accepted Principles
"These dire predictions are not the result of scientific forecasting," said J. Scott Armstrong, an internationally known expert in forecasting methods from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who co-authored the NCPA study. "Rather, they are opinions derived from a political process."The most accepted forecasting methods were determined by internationally-known experts and expert reviewers and are available in the Principles of Forecasting handbook. These principles were designed to be applicable to making forecasts about diverse physical, social and economic phenomena. The NCPA study applied these forecasting principles to audit 2007's Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which predicted big increases in average world temperature by 2100. The audit found that:
• Out of 140 forecasting principles, 127 are relevant to the procedures used to arrive at the climate projections in the IPCC report;
• Of these, the IPCC report clearly violated almost half (60);
• An additional 12 forecasting principles appear to be violated, and there is insufficient information in the report to assess the use of 38 others; therefore
• Only 17 out of 127 applicable forecasting principles can be shown to have been followed by the IPCC.
The authors also note that the IPCC forecasters themselves are part of the unreliability problem, as political considerations influenced all stages of the IPCC process, including writing the final version expressly to reflect the language negotiated by the political appointees to the IPCC.
"As a result of these violations of forecasting principles, the forecasts in the IPCC report are invalid," says Armstrong. "There is no scientific forecast supporting the widespread belief in dangerous human-caused ‘global warming.' In fact, it has yet to be demonstrated that long-term forecasting of climate is possible at all."READ MORE
Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development
... Over the last several the major oil companies have been driven away from investing money in future exploration and production. The so-called Supermajors, Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron. Conoco, and Total have paid more in taxes than they have invested in the oil business. For the three year period, 2005 to 2007 these companies have paid $292 billion in taxes and invested $265 billion in capital projects... [snip]
Sarkozy proposes EU cut in fuel tax
[HT:PS]
Paris - President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on Tuesday proposed cutting fuel taxes Europe-wide, responding to economic discontent that has prompted French fishermen to mount protests now spreading to other European shores and sectors. Sarkozy urged the European Union to suspend part of the value-added tax on fuel to counter rising crude oil prices that have risen repeatedly to new highs in recent weeks. For more than two weeks, angry fishermen have blocked ports across France to protest rising fuel prices...
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A Supreme Error
Upon reading the opinion in Boumediene v Bush, one must conclude that the majority knew where they wanted to go and simply had to figure out how to get there. The trip was not a pretty one.
How could it be when the justices seemingly wrote a map based on ideas cherry picked from over 400 years of established law and backfilled with justifications to create a new right for alien combatants that Americans themselves do not enjoy?
...as Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissent – they for the first time in our nation’s history, conferred a Constitutional right of habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war – a broader right than has been given to our own citizens. The court majority did so acknowledging that they could find no precedent to confer such a right to alien enemies not within sovereign U.S. territory...
...It is truly stunning that this court has seen fit to arrogate unto itself a role in the most important issue facing any country, self-defense, in a case in which Congress has in fact repeatedly acted. This was not a case where Congress did not set the rules; it did. But the court still decided – in the face of overwhelming precedent to the contrary – to intervene...
I also find it just a tad ironic that in a case involving habeas corpus, which literally means that one must produce a body (or person) before a court to explain the basis on which that person is being detained, the decision of this court may mean more fallen bodies in the defense of a Constitution some of these justices ignored...
People can disagree over whether Congress got it right, but at least members have to face the voters. What remedy do people have now if they don’t like the court’s decision? None. If that thought is not enough to cause concerned citizens to turn out on Election Day to elect a new president, then I don’t know what will be.
[we've a legal-system crisis in this country that must be addressed]
[Recommended > ]
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Let’s Get Something Straight
[HT:MN]
I liked Tim Russert, even though I thought his BS gotcha nonsense was thorough idiocy and not helping the debate at all. He was a likable guy- friendly, always smiling. I understand it is a loss for the beltway folks, and he had a lot of really good friends and meant a lot to people, and I would be dishonest if I failed to mention that I feel sad by his passing.
But let’s get something straight- what I am watching right now on the cable news shows is indicative of the problem- no clearer demonstration of the fact that they consider themselves to be players and the insiders and, well, part of the village, is needed. This is precisely the problem. They have walked the corridors of power so long that they honestly think they are the story. It is creepy and sick and the reason politicians get away with all the crap they get away with these days.
Tim Russert was a newsman. He was not the Pope. This is not the JFK assassination, or Reagan’s death, or the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. A newsman died. We know you miss him, but please shut up and get back to work.
*** Update ***
This post was not an attack on Russert, someone I have said I liked and will miss. It is a sad situation- he was clearly widely loved, and his death is a terrible loss for his family and friends. But that is beside the point, as this post was a commentary on the coverage of his passing, which seems to me, at least, to be indicative of a larger problem.
On the upside of the coverage, though, is this observation that at least MSNBC will not be running prison reality shows all weekend.
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America's generosity is unmatched
[a recent topic of discussion]
... a publication called the Index of Global Philanthropy, which is produced annually by the Center for Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute in Washington. This is the just released third annual edition of this index. It produces a unique snapshot portraying the full extent of American generosity to developing countries, by amount and by source.
Usually when the question of aid to the developing world arises, we think of government funds. But this index shows that, whereas it may be the rule in the rest of the industrialized world that most aid is government aid, in our country this isn't the case. Most of the contributions that Americans make abroad are private and voluntary. And they are large.
In 2006, the latest year for which data is available, the index reports that Americans contributed privately and voluntarily $34.8 billion to individuals and organizations in developing countries.
Of particular interest in this year's index is the $8.8 billion reported from religious organizations. [snip] The average contribution of congregations was $10,700. To put this in some kind of perspective, the $8.8 billion in giving from American religious institutions [alone] to developing countries was $1.5 billion more than the total giving from all private sources in 30 of the world's major industrialized democratic countries - combined...
[about once a year we'll get some media-hyped story about a prominent European stating how selfish Americans are - sighting government foreign aid as a % of GDP - without ever mentioning that government philanthropy isn't the American model (as it is Europe's). Next time someone tries to pull this stunt might I suggest you ask to compare private donate rates: Americans routinely embarrass all other governments - to say noting of those nations' private giving (why should they? that's what their governments are for...}]
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