My two cents on the media lamenting their loss of respect from us commoners that I've, so far, seen discussed by InstaPundit, Juan Gato, and Andrea Harris: The media should see a message in the absolute explosion in the number of political weblogs that have begun since 9/11. I, for one, would never have felt it necessary to express myself in this forum if what I saw on TV and read in papers, magazines, etc. accurately reflected and portrayed what I feel. And I don't believe I'm alone in feeling this way.

UPDATE: The Rottweiler has a vicious and thorough fisking of this whine with links to several others at the end.

With the first Sunday of NFL coming up, I've decided to leverage DirecTV's NFL package, a quad-output satellite dish, world-class remote control skills, a laptop, a broadband Internet connection, mental instability, and the most understanding wife in the world to start a new Sunday feature on this blog. I'm not sure exactly what form it will take but I have somewhat of an idea. Suggestions and feedback, if there are any, will be considered but the decision about what form the feature will take and how long I will pursue it will depend on just how far I can push that envelope of understanding and whether it adds or detracts from my personal enjoyment of the games.

One thing that annoys me is to hear people talk about "the tragedy of 9/11." Charles Krauthammer agrees. 9/11 was an act of war.

Whenever I hear Sept. 11 referred to as just a tragedy, I wince. The San Francisco Earthquake was a tragedy. The Johnstown Flood was a tragedy. Hurricane Andrew was a tragedy. A tragedy is an act of God. Sept. 11 was no act of God. It was an act of man. An act of war.

Yes, Sept. 11 occasioned many tragedies--many terrible deaths, many terrible injuries, many terrible sorrows. These tragedies elicit a deep compassion and a shared grief. Which is why this coming Sept. 11 will be a day of compassion and grief; of sorrow and remembrance; of celebration, too, of the courage and sacrifice of the heroes of that day.

But we would pay such homage had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon collapsed in an earthquake. They did not. And because they did not, more is required than mere homage and respect. Not just sorrow, but renewed anger. Not just consolation, but renewed determination. And not, God help us, ``closure,'' that clarion call to passivity and resignation, but open-ended action against those who perpetrated Sept. 11 and those who would perpetrate the next Sept. 11.

The temptation on any anniversary is just to look back. But on Dec. 7, 1942, the country did not just look back on the sunken Arizona. It looked forward to the destruction of Japan.

(Link via Damien Penny. I know, I shouldn't need to rely on other people to provide me with links to Krauthammer's columns.)

Yesterday, Juan Gato revealed the reason for his lack of posting lately was partly because he was "sick of having to repeat myself to those who repeat themselves."

I'm happy to report that he's all better now!

Is The Miami Herald more left-wing than the Guardian? Okay, I know that's not a fair question and I honestly am not very familiar with the Herald or its ideological bent. Anyway, a more accurate question would be: Is the AP more anti-American than the Guardian? Look at these two stories, which are basically the same story, one of which appeared in the Guardian and the other picked up off of the AP wire by the Herald. Of the few differences that exist, the AP version appears to reflect more favorably on Iraq and less so on the US.

From the Guardian,

In Baghdad, school teacher Abdel Kareem Muhsin has just finished a weapons course and now has sent his two teenage sons off for military training. Military training for civilians as young as 13 isn't new in Iraq - the government program started in 1996, ostensibly as a way of keeping boys off the streets during school holidays. [Emphasis mine]

In the AP story

The 50-year-old history teacher recently finished a course on using light weapons. His sons' military training is part of a 6-year-old program that was originally a way to keep teenagers off the streets and out of trouble during school holidays.

Notice the AP story has removed any mention of the fact that 13-year olds are being given military training, which quite likely would be in violation of certain articles of the Geneva Conventions regarding using children as soldiers.

In another section, the AP story has added this paragraph, which does not appear in the Guardian version.

President Bush has accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of rebuilding a banned weapons program, supporting terrorism and posing such a threat that "regime change" in Iraq is critical and crucial for world harmony.

Maybe it's just me but the tone of this paragraph seems rather snarky. The use of the word "harmony" is what did it for me. The writer appears to intentionally insert a contradiction, that war is "critical and crucial for world harmony", to raise doubt in the reader's mind about the logic of Bush's stance.

Contrast this sentence in the Guardian

Sabri and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz have been lobbying the United Nations to resume negotiations on weapons inspectors on Iraq's terms: the ending of sanctions and restoring Iraqi sovereignty over all its territory.

with this one from the AP

Sabri and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, a veteran diplomat, have been lobbying - unsuccessfully so far - the United Nations to resume negotiations on weapons inspectors on Iraq's terms.

Labeling Tariq Aziz "a veteran diplomat" is the most generous description I've ever seen. I prefer lying accomplice of murderous fascist dictators myself.

The AP story contains another comment that is not present in the Guardian.

Iraq's neighbors, in particular, fear the destabilizing effects of another war pitting the United States against Iraq.

How dare the US disrupt the peaceful democratic neighbors of Iraq. That's not all, though. This quote from the AP story, absent from the Guardian, gives the game away.

"All places are targets. The U.S. and Britain have bombed schools and houses in the past, what would stop them now?" Muhsin asked.

That quote, presented without any counter-argument, reveals the motive. That it segues into a discussion of how the war talk has harmed the Iraqi currency adds even more strength to it. The facts are clear, it seems to say, the Americans and Brits are monsters who want to kill innocent Iraqis every chance they get and if they can't kill them they will make their already-miserable lives even more miserable.

But aren't they saying that bin Laden's people didn't do it?

As usual, Fred Pruitt has tons of good stuff today at Rantburg. He takes down the alleged senior alleged religious alleged leaders opposing the war that I addressed in this post, shreds the whiny surrenderfest Berkeley has planned to commemorate September 11, and discusses the little Canuck who traded in his helmet and hockey stick for a turban and a gun so he could go play jihad in Afghanistan.

I noticed this kind of late but it seems as though Hawkgirl Emily Jones has been sent harassing email by some moronic bit of misapplied semen who was offended by this link:The Portadown NewsIn case the unfortunately unaborted post-fetal waste of ejaculatory happens to stumble upon this site.

If you haven't already, go visit the Index of the Munich Olympic Massacre Blogburst at Kesher Talk and follow the links.

I miss the days when ex-Presidents allowed the sitting administration to perform the job for which the President was elected. Apparently, though, the TNP agenda is much too important to defer policy decisions to the elected.

The world changed in 1979. Or, more accurately, the world's perception of the US changed. Because of Jimmy Carter's feckless response to the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, militant Islamists came to believe that they could influence the foreign policy of the US by attacking America, symbols of America, and American citizens. As the ideology espoused by Carter, one that believes that the US should defer to foreign interests in the formulation of decisions affecting American interests and Constitutional rights, became more pervasive and exerted more influence on American policy, the Islamists' belief in their ability to manipulate the US by violence was confirmed with each successive incident. Each success hardened the Islamists' resolve and elevated their stature in the Islamic world. Looking back over the events of the last quarter-century, it should be obvious that until the Islamist movement and the states that support, harbor, train, and fund (some of whom are not themselves Islamists but will use them to further their own goals) it are crushed, every American everywhere in the world is at risk.

The idealism of people like Carter is not only unrealistic, it is dangerous. We can no longer assume that the people we are dealing with are rational and want for the world what Carter wants. They are motivated by a desire to impose a religious fundamentalist ideology that embodies all of the characteristics such as religious intolerance, racism, sexism, and homophobia that are repulsive when exhibited by Americans. The depth of their fundamentalist beliefs drives them to exploit the rights of the people that Western democracies recognize as a foundation to destroy those democracies. Agreements are viewed merely as a base to force further concessions. Peace is seen as nothing more than an opportunity to regroup and re-arm for war.

Our enemies will not quit until either we or they are destroyed. To ignore this fact or to be driven by an idealism that believes that they want peace, freedom, and prosperity for the world imperils the nations and the people who believe in these principles.

It's becoming more and more clear to me why our ancestors were willing to cross the Atlantic on anything that might possibly float rather than be subject to the religious leadership men like these.

Britain's two most senior churchmen have launched separate impassioned initiatives aimed at preventing war against Iraq.

In an article in The Times today the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, writes that a war would have grave consequences, possibly setting the Arab world against the West. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, has also raised his concerns in a private letter to the Prime Minister.

The Arab world is so friendly now. Aside from people in planes and office buildings being murdered in the US, British citizens are being blown up in Saudi Arabia, as are Americans in college cafeterias in the Middle East, and the Arabs can't wait for the day that one of them has nukes so they can drop one on Tel Aviv and others on New York, Washington, LA and London.

Their interventions are the latest in a number by bishops opposed to action against Iraq — and their comments are increasingly irritating the Government and its advisers. One official said that remarks from some senior clerics suggested they regarded Saddam Hussein as liberal-minded.

Of course they do. Opposing the Western hegemons bestows instant moral credibility upon all despotic thugs.

Tony Blair himself has been careful to refrain from comment on the criticism other than to say: “You have to decide what the greatest risk is and what the morally right thing to do is." The Prime Minister has promised to publish evidence to support his conviction that Iraq poses a grave and imminent threat. However, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor writes that unless the evidence is both persuasive and incontrovertible, concerns in this country and abroad are unlikely to be allayed.

How dare Blair introduce morality into the discussion. (See comment above.) Persuasive and incontrovertible proof shall consist only of a written confession by Saddam Hussein that he has nuclear weapons in conjunction with Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor finding a nuclear warhead personally signed by Saddam on his bed.

Even with such evidence, important questions remained to be addressed, including the effect on international law and how well it would be respected in future if military action were not endorsed by the UN.

We always have to leave ourselves a way out to continue to oppose military action of any kind by the West under any circumstances.

The Cardinal received swift backing from Catholic bishops and theologians both here and abroad. The Right Rev Thomas McMahon, one of four Catholic bishops who signed a Pax Christi petition handed to Mr Blair last month, said a strike against Iraq would be “wicked and foolhardy”.

Bishop McMahon said: “It would be wicked in the sense that it goes against Article 2 of the UN Charter. No matter how evil Iraq’s armaments are, unless and until the Iraqi Government itself launches an attack it is wrong for us to do so.”

Self-defense is only justifiable if you are dead. And even then we'll blame it on the victims.

Dr Eamon Duffy, Fellow and President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and president of the Catholic Theological Association, urged Mr Blair and President Bush to take heed of the Cardinal’s comments, which he described as a shrewd counsel of prudence and an urgent call to moraliy.[sic]

“If the democratic West is to retain moral credibility and if we are to avoid a murderous confrontation with an Islamic world radicalised by poverty and resentment of Western imperialism, then we have to move beyond defending our interests and punishing our enemies. We need to demonstrate our desire to share the freedoms and prosperities we enjoy with the world’s poor.”

See, because all of the problems in the Arab world are the fault of the West anyway, we must sit passively while the bloody savages, who cannot possibly be held responsible for their own actions, take their righteous vengeance on us. Until such day as they have the weapons with which to do this, we must share our freedoms and prosperities with them by relinquishing all of our wealth to their murderous, oppressive, fascist dictators.

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, said Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor did not go far enough in questioning the validity of a pre-emptive strike. He said going to war had to be a response to an attack. To strike first would be an unjustifiable act of terrorism and must be condemned outright.

Bishop Gumbleton, when that attack occurs are you going to stand in front of the families of those mercilessly and uselessly slaughtered and accept responsibility for not permitting us to prevent the attack that killed their loved ones? I didn't think so. In fact, you'll blame it on us Americans, you morally bereft moron.

But the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, said that military action against Iraq would be legitimate if there was persuasive evidence that Saddam Hussein was dedveloping [sic] weapons of mass destruction.

Hey! Who let him in?!

It's amazing how people can speak of morality while defending fascist thug despots like Saddam Hussein, as if all evil in the world originates from the democracies of the West. Christopher Johnson encountered some similar idiots earlier tonight.

Since European leaders don't have to worry about trivialities like the opinions of the common man, the poll I discussed below doesn't mean too much. Especially since we have the support of the only European who really matters.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, besieged by critics in his political party and by public opinion polls showing strong opposition to military action against Iraq, today forcefully articulated the case against President Saddam Hussein and delivered a spirited defense of the United States and President Bush.[...]

In tones that were alternately angry, lecturing and puzzled, Blair today lashed out at the Iraqi government, describing it as "appalling and brutal and dictatorial." He said it was continuing to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in violation of nine previous Security Council resolutions.

"This isn't just an issue for the United States," Blair told reporters in the northern city of Sedgefield, his parliamentary district, during a 90-minute news conference. "It is an issue for Britain, it is an issue for the wider world. America shouldn't have to face it alone." Britain will publish a dossier of Iraq's violations within the next few weeks, Blair said.[...]

"Look, I would never support anything I thought was wrong out of some blind loyalty to the United States," he said. "Some of what I read -- I mean, let's not beat around the bush -- a lot of it is just straightforward anti-Americanism."[...]

"Some of the talk about this in the past few weeks, I have to say, has astonished me," he said. "You would think that we're dealing with some benign little democracy out in Iraq."

Asked if he endorsed Bush's insistence on "regime change" -- a euphemism for Hussein's overthrow -- Blair replied: "Either the regime starts to function in an entirely different way -- and there's not much sign of that -- or the regime has to change."

Fact #1: The decision to commit British forces to aid us will rest almost entirely with one person, Tony Blair. Fact #2: No other European country is capable of providing any meaningful assistance. Which leads to Fact #3: The only opinion in Europe that is of any consequence to us is that of Tony Blair. And he is firmly on our side. (link via InstaPundit)

The European concept of cause-and-effect is becoming nearly as distorted as that of the Arab world. Women are to be blamed for being raped. As Mark Steyn related a couple weeks ago

Five days before 9/11, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65% of the country's rapes were committed by "non-Western" immigrants -- a category which, in Norway, is almost wholly Muslim. A professor at the University of Oslo explained that one reason for the disproportionate Muslim share of the rape market was that in their native lands "rape is scarcely punished" because it is generally believed that "it is women who are responsible for rape."

So Muslim immigrants to Norway should be made aware that things are a little different in Scandinavia? Not at all! Rather, the professor insisted, "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because their manner of dress would be regarded by Muslim men as inappropriate. "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."

And the US is responsible for the fact that murderers hijacked its planes and drove them into buildings containing thousands of people.

A majority of Europeans think that US foreign policy is partially to blame for the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

A survey of American and European attitudes towards foreign relations found that 55 per cent of respondents from six European countries agreed that US policy had contributed to the attacks.

I wonder if they understand that that foreign policy is the same one that saved them from destroying themselves twice this century and kept the Soviets from running over them for fifty years. (link to Steyn column from LGF)

Not content with merely having the portion of your taxes that our government commits to the UN go to support murderous Third World despots? Well, Jacques Chirac has an idea for you! A globalization tax!

French President Jacques Chirac will urge world leaders to launch talks on a new international tax to fight world poverty, sources with him at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg say.

The sources said Chirac rejected the existing "Tobin Tax" proposal to raise levies purely on foreign exchange transactions but would call in a speech to the summit for discussion on a wider tax on wealth generated by globalisation.

"It could be a tax on airplane tickets, on carbon dioxide, on health products sold in industrialised countries, and indeed on international financial transactions," one source said.

Another in a long line of brilliant ideas by the French, such as...um...well...I know there had to be one sometime. Give me a while and I'll think of one.

Iraq is asking Kofi Annan for another Arab do-over.

Andrea Harris has one of the most passionate and spot-on rants I've ever read.

I have to return to the post below. Nelson Mandela, how dare you! You got yours, so screw everybody else, right? Since you were able to complete your rise from political prisoner to president of your country, suddenly stability is more important than freedom.

Maybe you think that since you have no counterpart (a highly-publicized political prisoner) in Iraq that things can’t be that bad. Know why there is no Nelson Mandela in Iraq? Because they’re all dead! Anyone who shows the potential to become such a personality is brutally and viciously slaughtered, both to remove him and to discourage any who might aim to take his place. Had you lived under Saddam Hussein, nobody would have ever heard of Nelson Mandela. You’d have been dead before anyone outside your village had ever known your name.

For all their oppressive racism, the leaders in South Africa who imprisoned you did care a little about the opinions of civilized nations. Saddam Hussein has no such qualms. He cares about the opinion of those in the civilized world only to the extent that he can manipulate it by exploiting the suffering he imposes on his people.

Nelson Mandela, you have successfully made the transition from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Jesse Jackson. You’ve gone from being a symbol of courage in the face of oppression to being nothing more than a leftist mouthpiece.

UPDATE: The Rottweiler takes a chunk out of Nellie.

My memory is kind of fuzzy but I don't seem to remember too many people back in the 80's worrying about the "chaos" that regime change in South Africa would bring. The money quote is this one:

Mandela also said no country should take the law into its own hands, particularly the United States because "they are the only superpower in the world today, and they must be exemplary in everything they do."

In other words, since the US has too much power it must receive permission from the rest of the world before it can do anything.

Sweden has been held up as a model of how the European-style welfare state can be successful. Recently, though, despite its healthy climate and the popularity of exercise among its people, an epidemic has stricken the Swedish work force.

Sick Swedes -- and what makes them sick -- are one of the main election issues.

The governing center-left Social Democratic Party, seeking to extend an eight-year spell in office, has commissioned studies and written reports saying job conditions are getting harder and more stressful.[...]

Workers who have taken time off contend the pressures and strains of the job are legitimate reasons for going on sick leave.

"The wheels are spinning too quickly," said Anna Eriksson, 29, a nurse who took off for two months last year, calling herself burned out. "The working environment simply has become tougher. You have to do twice the work you did before."

Anbritt Ludvigsson, a 60-year-old payroll administrator who has been on paid leave for 18 months, said a combination of family problems and a heavy work load disabled her.

"I couldn't log onto the computer. I had forgotten everything," she recalled, struggling to hold back tears.

This result of this epidemic is that

one of every six working-age Swedes is off work because of illness or injury.[...]

In all, about 340,000 Swedes -- one in every 26 of a population of 8.9 million -- are getting sick pay from the National Social Insurance Board, a third for longer than a year. An additional 470,000 are on disability pensions -- early-retirement benefits paid by the government to those who stop working before the retirement age of 65. These often are bigger than regular pensions.

So, out of a work force of 4.4 million (work force figure from the CIA World Fact Book), 810,000 people are collecting sick pay or disability. What could be the cause of this epidemic? Although I'm not a doctor, I think this graph can shed some light on this phenomenon. From 1992 to 1997, the number of Swedes collecting sick pay had fallen by over 40%. But, since the end of 1997, the number of Swedes receiving this benefit began a steady and rapid increase, more than doubling in just over four years.

The question arises, what could have happened around the end of 1997 to cause so many people to become sick? Again, the graph is enlightening. At the beginning of 1998, the level of compensation paid to those collecting sick pay increased from 75% to 80% of their wages*. Could it be that raising benefits actually attracts people to welfare programs instead of motivating them to work? Even some Swedes believe this is more than just coincidence.

Opponents [of the governing center-left Social Democratic Party], led by the center-right Moderate and Christian Democratic parties, say the government is looking for a cure in all the wrong places. The problem, they say, is not workers' health but cushy welfare policies that are eroding the work ethic.[...]

Opponents of the generous policies say that paid sick leave has come to be seen as an entitlement rather than a benefit and that frivolous claims are partly to blame for the abrupt rise in sick leave since 1997, when only about 170,000 Swedes received payments.

Swedes "need to be pampered, placed on treadmills and surrounded by fruit baskets to cope with work," book publisher Helena Riviere wrote in an opinion article for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Riviere said the generous leave policies invite people to abuse the system by calling in sick simply because they're "fed up with work or dissatisfied with their lives in general."

A recent survey of 2,000 Swedes by the polling institute Temo found that 60 percent believe it's acceptable to call in sick for reasons other than illness -- for family problems or stress, for example.[...]

Economists Magnus Henrekson and Mats Persson say the high sick pay may be part of the problem. In an article for an academic journal, they linked variations in sick leave during the past five decades to changes in the compensation system.

Their theory doesn't explain why sick leave numbers started growing in 1997 after a steady decline in most of the '90s. But Henrekson and Persson note the surge intensified in 1998 after the Social Democratic government raised compensation levels to 80 percent of wages from 75 percent.

"One thing is certain. When you raise compensation levels, more people take advantage of the system," Henrekson said.

This situation is an example of the Achilles heel of the European-style welfare state. People will work only if the marginal benefit from working exceeds the benefits of not having to commit time and energy to their employers. People have to be offered more money for working than they can make for not working. How much more is an individual preference. Thus, as state benefits increase more people are motivated to take advantage of them, whether legitimately or not. To pay for these benefits, taxes must increase, which reduces disposable income from working, further closing the gap between what one can make from working or not working. So the number of collectors of benefits increases and the number of payers of taxes/producers of goods decreases.

This can eventually have serious macroeconomic effects. Reducing the number of payers/producers exerts a drag on the economy, as it is able to produce fewer goods. Increasing the number of collectors decreases demand, also exerting a drag on the economy, because the collectors are receiving less pay, thus having less money to spend, to not work than they would receive for working. The worst part, though, is that as the number of collectors increases they become a powerful political force fighting any reduction in benefits. So the increase in benefits/taxes drags on the economy start to snowball after a time. Unfortunately I believe that the countries of Europe, within the next decade or so, are going to find this out in a very harsh way.

* - This graph says that compensation levels were "raised 5 percent". This is not correct. The levels were raised 5 percentage points, from 75% to 80% of income. This was actually an increase of 6.67% in the levels of compensation. Being something of a math geek, errors like this from groups like CNN who should know better, or at least want you to think that they know better, always kind of irk me.

I've made my first post at IsraPundit.