Liberal Arrogance

There are no more persistent problems in schools than the constant attempt to place modern morals on ancient cultures.

 

Yes, slavery is terrible by today’s morals – but EVERY civilization for many thousands of years practiced it and we marvel at the work that slaves did, but some attack American slave-owners. Some even take that opportunity to attack great men like Washington and Jefferson for their slaves but that again places today’s mores on a time when the morals were vastly different. (Even in the late 1700s, slavery was accepted although things were beginning to change.)

 

It is de rigueur among liberals to attack America for its use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the world was in the grasp of a terrible war that had lasted years and killed millions of people. No one who was not alive then can appreciate the need for the use of those terrible weapons.

 

Someday, the Second-Guessers will look back at something that we accept as “normal” much as it is easy to condemn cigarette smokers today. But smoking was “normal” (actually fashionable) just 25 years ago. Had you been alive in 1690 in New York City, and certainly if you had lived in Atlanta, it is likely you would have accepted slavery.

 

If you had been a Marine Corporal sitting on Okinawa in 1945, do you think you would have oppose “Fat Boy?” Unlikely. Suppose you had been the Corporal’s mother in Cincinnati?

 

By the end of your life, you will see many changes from normal and accepted, to quaint, to “how could they,” to immoral. You may find that something you do today without thinking (because it is an accepted norm), has become immoral by the time you are 75. Perhaps it will be eating meat, or using a private automobile, or getting married, or …

 

Future mores are not predictable. Assessing how you might have behaved 50 or 100 or 500 years ago is arrogance.

Is This a Record?

SAN DIEGO Union— A Mexican national wanted in a series of sexual-assault cases who had been deported from the country 10 times has been arrested, officials said Tuesday.

Carlos Ceron Salazar, 30, of Escondido, was booked into San Diego Central Jail Monday on charges of assault with intention to commit rape, mayhem and sexual battery in connection with a December 2006 attack on a woman who was jogging at Miramar Lake Recreation area, San Diego police said. “

Ten deportations? How many strikes does it take? Returning after one deportation is a federal FELONY offense, so what does it say about the US Attorney for the San Diego area that this guy has ten deportations?

 

The Blame Game

Problems, particularly economic ones, are usually cumulative. A great example is the 40 year Ponzi scheme of Madoff which could have been ended in any one of numerous administrations.  

 

This is the error that many fail to understand or address in their economic finger-pointing. Ascribing current conditions to one administration or one political party is pointless unless you have a mathematical methodology of assigning blame. Problems may start in one administration, get inflamed or reduced in the next, and again in the next, and sometimes multiplied but seldom ended because they develop political constitutes.  

 

The common denominator is – government. Only a power that can choose winners and losers, that can take from one to give to another with impunity, and that has no feedback loop to correct initial design problems can claim the blame.  

 

That the flawed instrument is managed by a Red or a Blue human misses the point. We don’t need “more regulation”.  We need people who can use the existing regulations or just their powers of observation to see and report to the people.  

 

I don’t care if Chris Dodd in the Senate Banking Committee or Barney Frank in the House Banking Committee has the power to enforce regulations – if they would just tell us the truth. It is they who said there was no problem with Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Bush knew the problem, Chris Cox knew the problem,  Henry Paulsen knew the problem. They were all, Democrats and Republicans alike, dogs that REFUSED to bark! They had the power and the responsibility, but they failed.  

 

There is little we can do about flawed people at the helm, although a hanging or two might focus their attention.

I vote: “Aye”.

Trusting the Experts on Global Whatever

I would like to join with Douglas Dunn in the morning NC Times and ask that deniers of experts to simply cease their carping!

 

Our Detroit experts, both engineers and management, have told us that Detroit builds the best cars in the world, that we should buy them, and that should end it. There has been almost unanimous agreement in Detroit for many decades among Detroit experts!  

 

There has been almost unanimous agreement in Washington and New York among the experts that our banking system is safe and secure. This is true not only for the financial experts, but even the political experts with oversight have assured us of the soundness of the system: Names like Cox, and Dodd and Barney Frank all agreed with Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulsen that there is no problem. Our Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulsen has an M.B.A. from Harvard, and he was a Phi Beta Kappa so he is an expert we can trust.  

 

The political and intelligence experts had almost unanimous agreement that Iraq had WMD, and the credentials of those experts is unquestionable: Names like Clinton (squared), Albright, Powell, Bush, Kerry, Gore, Pelosi, the CIA, MI-5, Mossad, Frances’ DGSE…

 

…if you can’t trust experts, whom can you trust? Experts said it, I believe it, and that ends i …oh! That was a bumper sticker about the Bible, but what the heck, it fits all religions.

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 [TIF1]What is this?

Computer Tip

Here is a tip: Microsoft has extended their support this past week for XP, by months. I mention this before you make the mistake I made. Fearing the end of support (mostly security upgrades) I did the upgrade to Vista Ultimate yesterday – the installation goes easily enough, but I own every program in the Western world and almost all of them require some SERIOUS tweaks. The more you own, the more difficult. Much better to await a new computer with Vista on it and do a fresh load from your discs. I did the upgrade at Christmas so I would have the time to tweak — but this is bloody ridiculous.

Tired of Bush Bashing

It is a FACT that almost everyone, including most of the Bush bashers BELIEVED that Saddam had WMD, and the believed it because the Democratic administration said it YEARS before Bush was elected! Just off the top of my head, I have quotes from Bill Clinton, Madelyn Albright, John Kerry, Hillary, Tom Lantos, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle – all from BEFORE Bush ever arrived in Washington! I also have quotes from 2002 from the same people…can’t we just let history lie? (I even have Scott Ridder quotes…but I do not care and I wonder why so many do. )

The People Could Take the Joy Out Of Sex!

The environuts are at it again! Not satisfied with changing the world, they want to take the joy out of Christmas!

 

The Australian Courier Mail reports: “SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs.”

 

As I have suspected, the environuts harbor in their bosom a strident group of Purtitans – you remember that H.L. Mencken defined them as having “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”

 

These are simply the greatest bunch of killjoys the world has ever seen!

As If the UAW Was Not Bad Enough

The corporate management made many mistakes in Detroit. They failed to respond to the German and Japanese quality onslaught. They caved into union demands for temporary comfort at the cost of eventual collapse. They counted on mid-west love of Detroit iron. They decided that there were sufficient Buyers who would trade yearly to keep a failed business model afloat forever.

 

The company that had the best reputation for “engineering” in my youth was Chrysler, but they lost it to Ford who actually did have good engineers, but they also lost it to Germany. Everyone in Detroit believed that Americans, except the effete Easterners, would always buy whatever was put before them and that quantity beat quality for those accustomed to yearly models and yearly trades.

 

Managements’ problem is that they made a pact with the devil, the union. When management discovered they were wrong and had to turn, revise, rework, retool – their previously willing partner held a gun to their head and said, “NO!”

 

The only answer is an ESOP – sell GM and Chrysler to the UAW. They hold all the cards dealt to them, in the name of peace “in our times,” in decades past.

We’re Number One! (In Taxes!)

While the Bloggers discusses how many Gays can dance on the head of a pin, the State Legislature is plotting and planning to pick our collective pockets, and to make it worse to do so without the need for a 2/3 vote as required by State law!

 

Our State has increased spending by 40% in the past five years (from $100 billion to $140 billion), but that apparently is not enough. Unions are suing to deny the Governor the power to give them 2 days off a month, while private firms are laying off people and actually closing doors. The student population is lower than last year but we have hired 2,700 new teachers. Cities, counties and the State are all deeply in debt, but at no level will the union-dependent elected officials consider outsourcing non-essential services. (Employee unions hate competition.)

 

May I suggest everyone deny themselves the pleasure of just one nap, and take that time to contact the Governator’s local office, or their Legislator and express whatever their opinion is, even if it is that the State can’t possibly tax its citizens enough.

More Bad News for Detroit

Want to know why the Detroit auto bailout will fail?

 

The Automobile Club of Southern California (AAA) has published their auto recommendations, and of the six mid-sized sedans only one Detroit machine (a Chevy Malibu) makes the list. Of the three recommended small sedans, none were Detroit iron, and of the three recommended SUV/Crossovers, again none were Detroit.

 

The $14 billion cannot take Detroit far enough to change the entire playing field. Remember when we thought Japanese cars were built from used beer-cans, and how long it took to overcome that reputation? Now five out of six mid-sized sedans, two of three small sedans, and all three SUV/Crossovers are Japanese name-plates, and most are manufactured in America by American non-union labor.