July 16, 2005

African Misadventure

After all the concerts raising money for African aid and the G8 summits gaining governments’ pledges to send money to African countries, the fact remains that most of them are dictatorships run by corrupt, despotic pricks ala Robert Mugabe, a typically fucked-up African dictator, who do not represent the people, just themselves.

These are the folks who will receive the bucks we send, and these are the people who will keep the money for their own use(can anybody say, Numbered Account?).

African countries are so badly mismanaged by self-motivated, self styled monarchs who have no problem with letting their people starve as long as they live in luxury, and these leaders control dissent through imprisonment, torture and execution.

In my opinion, sending all this money to African countries at this time is no different from flushing it down the nearest commode and, since some of it comes out of my taxes, I feel completely justified in taking umbrage with it. These African countries need to be repaired from within before they are ready to be helped from without.  

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs has a post that tells it like it is.    

by @ 9:43 pm. Filed under Civil & Human Rights

Wishful Thinking

Over at Intellectual Conservative, there is a list of MSM headlines we would love to see but never will.  Check it out.

by @ 8:34 pm. Filed under Humor

Bush Tax Cuts Perform

Despite reverberations of the Democrats’ whiny doomsaying about the Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains(yes, they were so loud they still echo a couple of years after the cuts went into effect), you know, despite the shouting about how the tax cuts only help the rich, etc, the tax reductions are proving out. Per an editorial in yesterday’s Opinion Journal,

Let’s see if we can get this straight:When tax revenues fall and budget deficits go up, it’s bad news. But when tax revenues rise and deficits decline, it’s still bad news.


 


At least that seems to be the way a sizeable chunk of Washington is reacting to this week’s report from the White House budget office that the federal deficit is down by nearly $100 billion this fiscal year, that the deficit as a share of GDP is down to 2.7%(very near its historical average), and that this is all happening because tax receipts are surging by more than 14%: Uncle Sam is having a better year so far than even Paris Hilton, but half of the Beltway is depressed.


 


John Spratt, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, seems especially upset that this revenue surge isn’t coming from wage income, but rather from investment income–that is, the so-called non-withholding income tax collections, which have skyrocketed some 30% this year. “These are typically taxes paid on one-time capital gains, bonuses, stock-options income that may not recur, he laments.


 


Well, sure, Congressman, the 2003 reduction in the tax rates on dividends and capital gains seem to be resulting in much higher tax revenues on…dividends and capital gains. This is called the Laffer Curve effect, and we think Mr. Spratt is validating it. If he wants those revenues to “recur,” maybe he’ll vote to make these tax cuts permanent.

So, once again events have, as they say, overtaken the tax hungry left, who refuse to acknowledge that the revenues of big business and wealthy investors can be better spent for good of country by being reinvested, generating more taxable income than by being sucked up and spent by the government.

This brings to mind four lines from the 1971 Ten Years After song, I’d Love To Change The World:

Tax the rich


feed the poor


’til there are no


rich no more…

So then what?

Asshats!

The Laffer Curve is a graph that illustrates the relationships between tax rates and taxes collected by a government.


It shows that when tax rates hit certain levels, productivity declines and as a result, less taxes are collected.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you know the government’s going to snatch up most of your profits, anyway, why bother making an effort? Here’s a lesson we can learn from Europe–and Canada, for that matter. In those countries taxes are significantly higher than they are in the U.S., and none of them comes anywhere near the level of productivity we enjoy in the United States. Hell, the output of the vast majority of our states, individually, is higher than the collective output of the European Union

No matter what the port side of politics, even while brandishing rabid, anti-Bush leftist economist/columnist/stooges like drooling Paul Krugman tries so hard to make “go away,” the truth remains: The capitalists in our capitalist republic are the entities that pay most of our taxes as it is.

If the tax man charges less, the freed-up profits of the taxee are invested and generate more taxes on profit volume.

Duh! Wake up, Democrats!

Of course they won’t, and not because of any logical or patriotic reasons, simply because the Democrats have evolved, since being indoctrinated by their liberal faction, into a party whose leanings tend toward socialism. We are the richest and most powerful nation on earth because we are who we are. Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

And yes, I can understand why the Democrats on the Hill are distressed by the positive results of the Bush tax cuts; they are once again standing there, looking forlorn. Being proven wrong time and time again has to be a frustrating experience. I tend to think, for some reason, of Rita Repulsa when she is beaten still again by her becostumed super hero teenage enemies, or of Snidely Whiplash after Dudley Do-Right has again cleaned his clock. “Curses, foiled again!”


 


But you have to give the Dems credit where credit is due: It’s awfully hard work trying to make a strong President fail at his job, and to that end they have thus far shown a level of dedication and perseverence that even our enemies would have to admire. Then again, our enemies probably appreciate their efforts, since those efforts are in anything but our country’s best interests. If the Dems applied the same tenacity for this country that they do against it, they’d have a lot more people in Congress and maybe even a shot at winning the White House in 2008.

I mean, the Democrats aren’t serious about believing all this crap they spew, right? They aren’t really that stupid, right?  It’s all politics, it’s gotta be, because if it isn’t it means that over there on the left side of the aisle are a whole lot of folks with issues that need to be resolved with professional help, or something.

Nah! It’s only partisan politics.

Right?

By the way, we don’t recall Mr. Spratt and other Democrats lamenting when a similar spike in taxes from investment income was boosting tax revenues to historic heights as a share of GDP during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, as per the nearby chart. Then it was all said to be an economic miracle; now it’s a windfall for the wealthy. This selective budget criticism couldn’t be related to who’s sitting in the White House, could it?


 

by @ 4:12 pm. Filed under The Economy

July 15, 2005

Stephen J. Cannell

I’m one of those people who snort novels. My favorite novelists are(some living, others deceased) Tom Clancy, Desmond Bagley, Robert Ludlum, Jack Higgins(ne Harry Patterson), Leslie Charteris, John Sandford, Adelaide Manning and Cyril Coles, David Morrell, Patricia Cornwell, Larry Bond, James Clavell, Janet Evanovitch, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, Eric Von Lustbaader, John LeCarre, Len Deighton and… Stephen J. Cannell.

Here’s a genius: He’s created a whole lot of successful TV series’, among them The Rockford Files, The A Team, Renegade, Silk Stalkings and Hunter. He’s also appeared in various guest roles, most notably as Lt. “Dutch” Dixon, the corrupt cop who framed fellow cop Reno Raines(Lorenzo Lamas) for murder and pursues him throughout the series.


I’d be derelict if I didn’t mention lovely Renegade co-star  Kathleen Kinmont, just on GP.

Cannell’s written a number of novels, all of which I’ve read and enjoyed tremendously. His books are refreshingly original and he researches his topics so that they are based in situations and details that smack of reality, and they are fluid reading, easy to read cover to cover, never a dull moment, constantly absorbing. Their genre is mostly crime/mystery.

Of all his novels to date, my favorite by far is King Con, a simultaneously amusing and riveting story about a man named Beano Bates who is the acknowledged master of the confidence game — the Bates clan, scattered throughout the U.S., are a family of proficient con artists and in King Con, Beano brings them all into a megastakes, high-ticket con to bring down a major mobster.

Cannell provides a graphically detailed look into the dynamics of the con game, including the insiders’ terminology such as “telling the tale”,  the different types of cons and how they work and the book is filled with great, well defined and often amusing characters. The novel is full of pleasant surprises yet also has its share of realistic brutal violence.

Cannell has a remarkable sense of humor that manifests itself in all of his books and I have yet to read one that isn’t fun to read.      

by @ 12:18 pm. Filed under Great People

July 14, 2005

Al-Ja’fari Interview

Iraqi Prime Minister Dr. Ibrahim al-Ja’fari, interviewed by London based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, provided the viewpoint of himself and his new democratic government regarding the violence in Iraq, the eventual coalition troop withdrawal and the biased coverage Iraq recieves from the Arab media.

….”the first timetable is the exit of the multinational forces at a time that would serve the terrorists and make them destroy the Iraqi citizen and put an end to our democratic experience. The other timetable is to build our security forces and our national army to make them capable of defending Iraq. According to the latter [timetable], the multinational forces will leave with our gratitude, and this is what we have agreed on.”    


 


Them’s my sentiments exac’ly.

Back in June, a bunch of scum sucking liberal politicians started pressing for an exit date from Iraq. That  had to be one of those efforts I’ve referred to before to make President George W. Bush come out a failure, for purely partisan lefty political reasons. Setting a date would let the terrorists over there know they can stand down and just wait for us to pull out, then renew their attacks with the vim and vigor of the well rested after we’ve gone.

This would make the liberals and their Democrat lackies, who assininely predicted that Iraq would be a quagmire ala Vietnam, realize their politically corrupt fantasies. If you’ll recall, as soon as we exited ‘Nam, the communists from the north swarmed in and turned South Vietnam into another “workers’ paradise.” They murdered, tortured and/ or simply oppressed a citizenry who had trusted us to protect them. Since Iraq is not the Vietnam the libs claimed it would be, they seek to make it so. In order to do this, strictly to make Bush appear to have “fucked up royally”, they are more than willing to condemn the Iraqi people to a tragic existence under a severe, fundamentalist Muslim regime. Even the feminist liberals, in order to discredit Bush, are more than happy to assure that the millions of women in Iraq fall under the thumb of subservience to their male counterparts, to the beatings, the lack of respect and the infant genital mutilation that would become coin of the realm.

No sweat, these hypocrite liberals would cheerfully celebrate their dubious victory.

Meanwhile, in the land of reality, there is a whole country full of people who are relishing their freedom from a sadistic despot and his psychopathic sons. They are embracing democracy with all their hearts, and that is good. A free country spawns beau coups less terrorists and its success influences its neighbors.

….”You are aware of what goes on in Iraq concerning the struggle of the Iraqi people… and the enemy of the Iraqi people with all his misdeeds, evils and savagery. Regrettably, many of the satellite television channels ignore and do not display the tragedies that occur in Iraq, such as the rape and murder of women and the violation of the sanctity of women, as though these things did not happen…


 


“There are crimes committed in Iraq that are not labelled as terrorism[such as] the murder of policemen and heroic Iraqi soldiers… The pure and honest Iraqi woman is killed and this is not reported as terrorism; The innocent Iraqi child is murdered and the Arabic media does not call it terrorism. The Arabic media remains hostile and not objective. I address my admonition to the satellite TV channels to rise to the level of their responsibility by showing the facts and calling a spade a spade.”   


 


Hmmmmm…. The Arab media sound an awful lot like our own Mainstream Media, don’t they?

Ja’fari warned that the culture of bloodletting that, in his words,  characterized the Saddam regime, “has now been adopted by the remaining elements of the [Saddam] regime, who declare: ‘Either we govern Iraq or we burn it.’ “


From the perspective of our efforts to secure democracy in the Mideast, we have done a lot. We have fostered actual democratic political efforts in a few countries over there, not least of which are Egypt and Lebanon and our efforts in Iraq have borne a democratically elected government there, as well.

The Democrats, for purely political purposes, don’t want to acknowledge any of this. They are politically motivated liars (ever heard the term, “the Angry Left?”) whose only interest is to depict Bush to be a liar and a failure so they can discredit the GOP and, hopefully for them, get some dishonest,  treasonous piece of shit like Hillary Clinton into the Oval Office in the 2008 election. Bye, bye America as we know it….

The battle for Iraq is one we need to win, because in doing so we’ll permit an Arab country to flourish and show the rest of the Islamic countries how well their citizens and, as a result their governments, can do when they are run by the will of the people….    


  


 


  

by @ 9:07 pm. Filed under Iraq

July 11, 2005

Patton’s Ghost

This is just too awesome not to share!

Hat tip to Brenda, my Conservative Democrat aunt who, unlike most of her fellow travelers, was blessed with the gift of logic and the strong sense of patriotism that runs in our family. 

by @ 8:10 am. Filed under Global War On Terror

July 10, 2005

Palestinian Doubletalk

In today’s Jerusalem Post, there is a dubious article titled Palestinians condemn London bombings.

Why do I call it dubious? No, I don’t question the article itself, merely the fact that Palestinians quoted “condemned” Thursday’s tragic events in London on the one hand, adding that they believe such acts can be harmful to Muslims and Arabs, then attempted to justify the bombings from the terrorists’ perspective.

Here is a good example, courtesy of Hamas. After condemning that which they specialize in(attacking the innocent, et al) they continue:

“We in Hamas call upon the international community to stop all forms of occupation and aggression against Arabs and Muslims, especially in Palestine, Iraq and Iraq(quotation as it appears in the article), said the statement. “The continuation of the occupation and aggression will lead to more tensions, hatred and bomb blasts.”

I’m reminded of that terrorist in True Lies called Aziz, the “Sand Spider”, when he is raving into the videocam about how he’ll use his stolen nukes to “rain fire” on American cities if his demands are not met.

That’s all that’s about.

Oh, and of course there’s the usual condolence/ deplorement bit from Arafat heir Fatah whip/ PA owner Mahmoud Abbas to Prime Minister Tony Blair, principally, I suspect, because Abbas desperately needs friends. It’s not an unrealistic idea that Hamas might eventually take down Fatah and rule the Palestinians(yes, I said “rule”, terrorist organizations don’t support democratic causes the way Democrats support terrorist causes), using the polls to achieve this goal. 

The article points out the fact that unlike in the aftermath of 9/11, the Palestinians didn’t party in the streets after the London bombings. Of course they didn’t, because they learned the first time what the rest of the world thinks of animals who joyously celebrate the butchery of large quantities of “infidels”.

This time, they’re trying to put a humane face on themselves, but don’t be fooled: Even as they “condemn” a terrorist attack, they plan their own such operations against innocent men, women and children in Israel. 

Recent history has shown that the late Rabbi Meir Kahane was right.   

by @ 7:29 am. Filed under Global War On Terror

July 9, 2005

Great Link

Intellectual Conservative offers this right on  post about the western traitors(my take) who take the side of terrorism in order to self-justify their pro-terrorist, anti-western political bias.

If they feel so strongly, why don’t they emigrate?

by @ 11:20 pm. Filed under Global War On Terror

I Told You So

On 1 July 2005, I posted my thought about the probability that Chief Justice William Rehnquist would be retiring at around the same time as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, triggering a judicial circus for the left. It would appear that I was right, even though so many other bloggers and a lot of media venues seemed to avoid dwelling upon such a scenario.

As I said, the liberal/Dems will have an obstructionist’s field day.

Trust me, they won’t have even an iota of patriotism in their veins, they’ll let the requirements of their War On Bush dictate their actions as ”politics first, America second” traitors are apt to do….

by @ 10:22 pm. Filed under The Court

Dumb- Ass Terrorists

In Jewish World Review, Mona Charen has a to-the-point column on why the Islamic terrorists are stupid. Per my second to last post, I concur.  

by @ 10:15 pm. Filed under Global War On Terror