Global warming blamed for rapes in Darfur

How far will global warming zealots go?

Today on NPR I heard a woman blame global warming for rapes of women in Darfur.

Here is the 'logic'.

Global warming cause drought. Women must walk great distances for water. Women must do it because there are bad people who will kill the men but only rape the women.

Why not stop the bad people?

Why not have an economy that has the capital to create a running water system?

Food Shortages due to Socialism II

"Egypt's authoritarian regime faces a mounting political threat over its inability to maintain a steady supply of heavily subsidized bread to its impoverished citizens;"

"That's especially true when the source of their hunger is not the absence of food supplies but their inability to afford to buy the available food supplies."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730107,00.html

Subsidies due more harm than good.

Rice 'Shortage' due to Socialism I

"Instead of tilling the ricefields and maintaining the stone and mud walls by hand for meager returns, young Ifugaos now prefer tourism-related jobs such as weaving handicrafts, woodcarving, and guiding tourists to tending the rice terraces, said Baguilat."

""The young Ifugaos have lost their links with the terraces, even disliking the idea of tilling the mountainsides. Well the reason is obvious. Aside from the tedious and manual labor required, terrace farming is no longer profitable and practical," he added."

"Rice farming is labor intensive, and it reaps relatively low financial returns. "When you can get a high-paying, white-collar job working in the city, who wants to push a plow in the mud all day?" Baguilat asked."

""You can't grow enough food to live on for a whole year. That's why many people are leaving to work in other places," she said."

http://www.philpost.com/0302pages/rice0302.html

Nanny State Chronicles I

In my area in MA, gasoline pumps have had the locking mechanism removed from the handle. I was told it was for safety.

It just occurred to me why. In winter, if locking mechanisms were available, people would put the nozzle into their care, get back into their nice warm car waiting for the fill. Then they would get out, creating static electricity from their nylon coat, create a spark and blow up their car.

The world is not getting any less technical. Either people will need to learn about static electricity or they can blow up their car.

Protecting stupid people from themselves just perpetuates stupidity.

Put the locks back on the nozzles!

Why can't they give it back?

Executives say they are overpaid.

Why can't they give the money back or agree to work for less?

There have been a few CEOs who have agreed to work for a $1 /yr.

Famous actors will work for scale on projects they really want to do.

Maybe people who are 'over compensated' accept such pay because they really hate what they do?

Dirty Harry and Iran

I was reminded today of Dirty Harry when one of Bill Bennett's callers wondered why the USA won't talk to Iran.
To paraphrase his comments, 'After all of the bad things the USA has done to Iran, the USA must start negotiations, apologize and that will make things better'.

Dirty Harry was a 'cowboy' cop. Shoot first, with his .44 Magnum, and ask question later. His nemesis in the movie hired someone to beat him to gain public sympathy and make Harry back off.

" [Harry Callahan has to explain why he shot a man]
Harry Callahan: Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That's my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How did you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher's knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross!
[walks out of the room]
The Mayor: He's got a point."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0066999/quotes

Does that sound like few countries we know?

It's the late '60s again and the hippies are making excuses again, blaming the USA for everything that is wrong.

Harry showed us the way to go and I think a few, like GW and maybe Giuliani, may remember.

Discipline

In Bin Laden, The Left and Me, Dinesh D'Souza defends his thesis that extreme Muslims are upset at the USA for its immoral culture.

When I lived in Saudi Arabia for three years, I worked with Saudi soldiers. Most who are truly from the rank and file of Saudi society. (It was considered a duty for a Saudi family to have a son in the military.) Of course religious discussions would occur and one telling point from those discussions is a comment made by one soldier is that men were weak and need Islam to keep them disciplined. Islam means submission and the religion and its followers, in particular the most devoted, believe that force must be used to keep its followers in line.

What I believe has allowed societies to prosper is discipline. Societies who promote and reinforce self-discipline and self-control have tended to prosper throughout history. Sparta is well known for its discipline and it accomplished much, but I don't believe they were successful as they forgot man is not a machine.

Examples I can think of that are non-Christian are Rome and Japan.

But where I believe why Judeo Christian societies have been successful is the religion promotes self-discipline. Certainly there were eras when an organized church tried to force faith and force discipline. However, after the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press, God and man were more officially, by the church, placed in direct communications with each other.

That self-discipline and moral code were the driving forces which created the USA, Canada and Australia and a prosperous Europe.

In recent decades, societal forces have lessened the importance of self discipline and hard work. Marxism and the creation of the welfare state have formalized and to institutionalized narcism and libertine behavior.

This, I believe is the source of the objection to D'Souza's recent work.

Two Deaths

I just wanted to put this down before I happened to see if anyone else said something more eloquent than I (which should not be too hard).

At this moment President Ford's state funeral has just finished. He is being honored by those he used to rule. Even those who disagreed with his decisions.

This morning, Saddam Hussein, another former head of state was executed by those who he used to rule.

While Ford was never elected to the job, he did his duty to the Constitution has he saw it. He lost to Carter in the next election and continued to try and help people until his natural death.

Hussein assassinated a former Iraqi president and eventually became a dictator which he personally murdered or forced to died on the battlefield millions in wars with Iran and the USA.

And the world, the media and the liberals have the gall say the USA is the worst country in the world.

Palestinian perceptions.

Although there might be objective sources of information about Israel and Palestine, I don't have the months and years to sift through the millions of pages of propaganda from all sides to find the truth.

Therefore, I will base by judgment upon my perceptions. As I have been told by so many, perception is reality.

My first perception is that Israel is the victim.
1. The Jews for centuries have been persecuted throughout Europe.
2. The murder of millions of Jews and theft of their property by the Germans with support of many others.
3. The day after creation of the state of Israel AND Palestine by the UN, all of its Arab neighbors attacked.
4. And for decades after have suffered continuous conventional and unconventional attacks.

And other observations:

5. Israel has an elected parliament while Palestinians have only recently held elections for a leader.
6. Neighboring nation-states have call for the either Israel's political and/or physical destruction, while Israel is supporting the creation of the state of Palestine.

There are many who have supported the US attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan because they supported an organization that attacked the USA. Many of those do not support the US attack of Iraq since Iraq did not attack the USA. Yet I know at least some of these same individuals must support the Arab's attack upon Israel in 1948. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq all attacked Israel without provocation. I am at a loss to explain their 'logic'.