He just keeps going and going and going…

He started out all right. Jimmy Carter always does. Whether as president or ex-. Remember when he was the country’s bright, shining hope after Richard Nixon’s reign of darkness and then the vague non-administration of Gerald Ford, the Great Pardoner?

But before long Americans were looking back to the nondescript Mr. Ford as if he’d been George Washington. Nothing made the bumbling, likeable Gerald Ford look better than having been succeeded by a walking, ever-talking disaster.

The Carter administration was that bad: stagflation, gas lines, appeasement, never-ending sanctimony . . . . You name a colossal mistake and Jimmy Carter probably made it a policy.

As a former president, Mr. Carter started off well, too, wielding hammer and nails with Habitat for Humanity. Good for him. When he was building houses, the worst he risked was a bruised thumb. But then he decided he was God’s gift to American foreign policy, and began making trouble for every chief executive and commander-in-chief who came after him.

That is so well put…

Was there any part of the globe, from the Caribbean to the Middle East, from Haiti to North Korea to the Balkans, where Jimmy Carter didn’t cozy up to dictators? Wherever he goes, tyrants smile. The long, dispiriting trail of former President Carter’s overseas travels has been marked by one diplomatic disaster after another.

As for Jimmy Carter’s role as a monitor of free-and-fair elections, the low point must have come when he gave his blessings to Robert Mugabe’s takeover in Zimbabwe. Naturally, utter disaster followed. It hasn’t ceased there since.

And now Mr. Carter is at it again, preparing to pay court to just about the bloodiest terrorist leader in the Middle East, which is no mean distinction in those violent parts. He’s about to lend his ex-presidential presence to terrorist chieftain Khaled Meshaal, who as head of Hamas hides out in Damascus under Syrian aegis. (Let others die for the cause in Gaza; its leader is quite comfortable, thank you.)

You go, Greenberg!

The only proper greeting for someone like Mr. Meshaal would be, “You’re under arrest.” Instead, we can expect to see Jimmy Carter pay his usual homage to those who champion violence. He calls this peace-seeking. Which raises the question, if this is promoting peace, what would encouraging violence be?

Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States, and I have since had to rethink my previous belief that people who are elected President are elected because of a combination of common sense, patriotism, the ability to reason, an abundance of perspicacity and intelligence. Back in those days, I was a Democrat with some pretty liberal leanings. I had voted for Carter, in fact, I had never cast a vote for a Republican.

Beebeep! But then along came Jones Jimmuh… and my very first Republican vote was cast for Ronald Reagan, and I haven’t voted Democrat since for any post above San Francisco mayor or city supervisor, and that only because nobody but Democrats ever seem to make it onto the ballot out there. The key is to select the lesser of several wingnuts.

I really, really do try to keep the blockquotes to a minimum and leave most of the reading of a linked article or column to the reader, but this one is just so, so…

The Carter Center in Atlanta, a kind of think tank for failed thought, keeps producing bad ideas. This visit to the Mideast is only the latest. You have to wonder if Jimmy Carter will have his picture taken with a terrorist leader who by now has been responsible for the murders of scores of innocent men, women and children — about 250 at last bloody count.

Of course he will, he’s Jimmy Carter!

…tomorrow or the day after know, any lack of response on my part will not be due to neglect, lack of interest, death, incapacity, abduction, meeting with foul play or failure to pay my Internet bills, it will be, quite simply, that I’ll be travelling and may not have Internet access in the process.

This particular trip will be an hasta la bye bye to Chicago (nothing against the Windy City, I think it’s a great town), it’s just time for me to be moving on. I’ve spent a year here, at least double the amount of time I’d intended (a sojourn in the Carribbean for the winter had formerly been on the menu, but I’ve simply enjoyed being here too much to leave as and when planned) and other experiences await.

But in the meantime, I am embroiled in packing, finishing up my taxes in time to meet tomorrow’s mailing-in deadline, packing, settling my affairs here in Chi-town, packing, and… yes, also some packing.

Did I mention packing?

And then, of course, there is the appetite thing. As soon as I publish this post, a very large ham, cheese and red onion omelet with from-scratch hash browns and 7-grain toast (I’m going through a bored-at-normal-bread phase just now that will probably last the usual few days, which by then will be time for Passover, which will mean no bread at all for several days) kind of meal will go into production. Breakfast for dinner, a novel idea! Brits I know do this all the time, and I applaud them for it.

And then, well, while I’m not a major fan of crunching on dry matza, I love matza bry (a fully cooked/ scrambled matza, egg & cinnamon dish) and also the simple expedient, going back to my days as a wee lad, of breaking up egg matza in a large bowl, pouring hot milk over it and then adding a ton of sugar. Mmmmmm………. Just no humotz (leavened bread or leavened bread products) on the premises, let alone eaten, coupled with the rememberance of why (upon leaving Egypt and slavery therein, the Children of Israel had to do so in something of a hurry –that tenth plague really convinced the CEO of Egypt that G-d meant business, but it wasn’t deemed a good idea to hang about and afford him the opportunity to change his mind — and there was simply no chance of waiting around for their bread to leaven — hence, matza) we Jews don’t eat leavened bread during Passover (Pesach, in Ivrit — Hebrew) Yum, matza! At least consumed as described above, or also devoured with a generous coating of jam — yum!

Digression aside, however, any lack of response on my part over the next day or two will be compensated immediately afterward.

Now, I think I need to do some… how do you call it? Packing…

…General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker wasted their valuable time testifying before Congress.

Oliver North tells it like it is.

Five years ago this week, American soldiers and Marines liberated Baghdad from Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and the foreign fedayeen who had flooded into the despot’s capital. For those of us who were there, it was an unforgettable event. But as Ambassador Ryan Crocker so cogently noted this week while he and Gen. David Petraeus were testifying before Congress, “The euphoria of that moment evaporated long ago.” The assembled lawmakers, perched on their raised daises, barely noted the anniversary — while subjecting the warrior and the diplomat to a 16-hour spectacle. For the general and the ambassador, it had to be an excruciating exercise in patience and bladder control.

The hearings — two in the Senate and two more in the House — all were choreographed carefully to give maximum exposure to the potentates on the Potomac. The masters of the mainstream media all were gathered. Professional protesters were present. The solons, all carefully prepared by their staffs, made their little speeches and then shamelessly angled for the best “gotcha” question to win the sound bite sweepstakes — and the honor of being replayed repeatedly on the news and entertainment channels. Like so many of these hearings, it was a bit like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “Greatest Show on Earth” — without a ringmaster. I know — as they say — I’ve “been there, done that.”

Yeah, he’s “been there, done that”, all right (and I can’t say I envy the man for that particular ordeal, when I worked on Wall Street some quarter century ago, my immediate supervisor, who had gone through a congressional grilling over the Hunt Brothers affair, told me in graphic detail what that’s like), though I don’t know if he was ever issued the tee-shirt. I’ll say this though: Despite the rhetoric of our political left, the man is the kind of patriot this country needs a hell of a lot more of, and the kind of journalist the media should be proud of (fat chance of that!) — the kind who calls it like he sees it and retains the perspective that he is an American who knows what it means to serve his country in time of war. The kind of guy who would rather cover a combat situation with shrapnel and bullets whizzing past his head than sit in a lounge in the “Green Zone” and get his information second hand, or buy photos from some photographer who may or may not have Photo-Shopped them to favor the enemy’s propaganda campaigns.

Sadly, the attending members of Congress evinced little interest in hearing from a decorated general fighting a bloody military campaign or a skillful U.S. ambassador trying to help a democratically elected government survive against brutal foreign and internal foes. Rather, it seemed as if our elected representatives would have preferred hearing from soothsayers who could read palms and interpret horoscopes. That our Congress has sunk to such a level is a sad testament to the state of our political process.

Sadly, indeed.

Our Democrat-run Congress isn’t interested in facts, only in a political agenda that hasn’t got room for the concept of victory or for the elements of common sense necessary to protect our country from future terrorist attacks. In order to appeal to their political base, which consists of a Code Pink/Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan (remember her?)/George Soros/Jane Fonda/Barbra Streissand mentality, they are more concerned with an agenda that would involve our abandoning the Iraqis to an Islamic extremist take-over and the resulting Taliban style rule that would transform Iraq into what would amount to a terrorist stronghold with “legitimate” nation status.

This is a very liberal “progressive” point of view. Let’s enjoy instant gratification without giving the proverbial rat’s hind quarters about whatever tragedies it will present for us down the road apiece.

So rather than ask pertinent questions or seek the truth about our brave troops’ progress in Iraq…

When will it end? When will we be out? When can we take the money we’re spending on the war and divert it to bailing out our constituent borrowers and lenders caught up in the subprime mortgage mess? Petraeus and Crocker came equipped with facts, maps, charts and progress reports, but for this crowd, they should have brought Ouija boards, tarot cards and a crystal ball.

I don’t know, though I can guess, how fellow right thinkers and other sane Americans feel about this, but speaking for myself, I find it rather chilling that the majority of those we’ve elected to lead our country seem to be addressing this grave responsibility we’ve bestowed upon them using a far left field (perhaps pre-adolescent would be a more accurate term) approach.

They apparently don’t see fit to apply any sort of reality to their reasoning, that’s for sure, it’s more like “screw the down-the-road penalties, get the votes now!”

Well, good for them! When suicide bombers, briefed in Baghdad, walk into restaurants, theatres, shopping malls and other crowded places in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Duluth and blow themselves up along with scores of men, women and children, our fearless leaders can always “blame Bush”.

Speaking of whom…

While Congress was berating the general and the ambassador, the commander in chief was honoring one of the more than 4,000 Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq. In an Oval Office ceremony, President Bush presented the Medal of Honor — our nation’s highest award for valor — to the parents of Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, a Navy SEAL. Mike — as his fellow SEALs called him — was killed Sept. 29, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq, when he threw himself on top of an enemy grenade in order to spare the lives of his fellow SEALs.

His platoon commander, now a lieutenant commander with whom our Fox News team has been embedded, said of the 25-year-old hero, “He made an instantaneous decision to save our teammates.” Though wounded by shrapnel in the explosion, one of those with him that terrible morning said of Monsoor’s unhesitating action: “He never took his eyes off the grenade. His only movement was down toward it. He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs’ lives.”

Monsoor is just the fourth member of our armed forces to be awarded the Medal of Honor since war was declared against us Sept. 11, 2001. Call your grandstanding members of Congress and ask whether they know the four names.

Hmmmm, let’s see, there were Corporal Jason Dunham, USMC, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Paul Smith and Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, Iraq, and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, Afghanistan.

Saying “Thank you” is not nearly enough.

I wonder if Representative John Murtha knows these four names or, for that matter, if he even cares. Probably not.

It came in an email, and I thought, “If liberal academics can revise history to their liking, why can’t conservatives?”

World History

Subject: For those that don’t know a lot about history…Here is a condensed version..

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals; and

2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery.

That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men or wussies. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth; the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

A few modern liberals like Mexican light beer (with lime added), but most prefer a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc, with passion fruit and kiwi aromas which are marked by grassy notes, then rounded out on the midpalate by peach flavors. Crisp and refreshing, with a hint of chalky minerality on the finish; or Perrier bottled water. They eat raw fish but dislike beef. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, Ivy League professors, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated-hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink Sam Adams, Harpoon IPA or Yuengling Lager. They eat red meat and still provide for their women.

Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively.

Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history.

A Major Hat Tip to Brenda!

…has been the provision within our legal system that allows conscienceless scumbags with law degrees to victimize anyone they please via frivolous, fraudulent and/or overstated lawsuits. I say “victimize” because our legal system compels people who are subjected to these lawsuits to hire attorneys to defend them and, win or lose, they are out the cost of their defense. Some of us can weather these costs, others can’t: The latter lose businesses, homes and sometimes the very money needed to survive.

John Stossel has a column up at today’s Jewish World Review that tells it like it is.

“We cannot use force.”

That was my response last week when a lawyer shouted at me, “You media types are bullies, too!”

We were arguing about my Wall Street Journal op-ed that called class-action and securities lawyers bullies and parasites who enrich themselves through extortion. It’s legal extortion, but extortion nonetheless.

These aggressive lawyers and their Naderite defenders don’t get it. Or they pretend they don’t.

Oh, they get it all right, they simply suffer from any lack of morals — can anybody say “parasite”?

Hmmmm, for some inexplicable reason, John Edwards comes to mind…

There are only two ways to do things in life: voluntarily or forced. We reporters may be obnoxious, intrusive, stupid, rude, etc., but we cannot force anyone to do anything. All our work is in the voluntary sector.

But litigation is force. When a plaintiff sues, a defendant is forced to mount a defense. If he settles or loses, he’s forced to pay. Government is the enforcer.

Exactly.

Just look at organizations like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) in the aftermath of the Flying Imams debacle, where they opted to intimidate anyone who reported suspicious activity on the part of Muslims on airplanes by suing the people, causing them to have to spend money they couldn’t afford to spend on defense council (thankfully, Congress established the John Doe clause, nipping that one in the bud), or any ever-hungry, rank & file liberal trial lawyer.

Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. Only in America can I sue you for dubious reasons, force you to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers (not to mention the psychic costs — the anxiety and lost sleep that lawsuits create), and when a judge rules that my claim is bunk, I don’t even have to say “sorry.” I can blithely move on to sue someone else. In other countries, I would have to pay your legal fees to at least compensate you for some of the financial damage I caused. “Loser pays,” it’s called.

As Shoprat pointed out in a comment on one of my recent posts, this is a result of our electing lawyers (and in context, since the post was a rant about complicated tax laws, accountants) to Congress — they can always be counted upon to enact laws that generate profitable work for their colleagues, and for them as well, should they lose an election and have to go back to work in the private sector.

“Loser Pays” is an excellent concept, and while I’ve never been an advocate of applying foreign law to our own, I think this is something we ought to emulate. Remember when SCOTUS applied Euro-law to their deliberations re GITMO/Camp Delta? Well….

“Loser Pays” would definitely put a damper on frivolous lawsuits!

However,

The trial lawyers have even gamed the language. They call “loser pays” the “English Rule,” as if it’s some weird British law. But it’s not. It’s really the Rest of the World Rule. America is the odd man out because we rarely punish litigators who misuse force.

Litigators fight for a living, day after day. Practice makes perfect. They get good at winning. Because of their clout, “loser pays” never gets though the legislature.

Which just goes to show that “justice” and “the law” are nowhere near synonymous in many cases. Like Arlo Guthrie said in Alice’s Restaurant, “…and Officer Obie realized that this was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it!”

An example John Stossel cites, a response to the airing of the issue on 20/20,

“After a real estate deal fell through, the owner of the property, a lawyer, sued me for $25,000 in damages. After two years, I won a summary judgment, which he immediately appealed. We are still in litigation over this, and there is nothing I can do to stop the process. I have offered settlements all along the way, but at this point I have paid more for my mandatory defense than the entire case was worth. If that’s not bullying, I don’t know what is. He continues to do everything in his power to prolong the case, knowing full well what it is costing me. By the time this is all over and I ‘win,’ I will have spent $35,000 and dealt with the stress of the case for more than five years. We are a modest, middle-class family. What was once the hope of being able to pay for my children’s college education now lines a lawyer’s pockets. I have had no recourse but to take it.”

Great, some litigation “professional”, in demonstration of the remorseless greed of his ilk, lines his pockets at the expense of some childrens’ futures. Bravo, Mr. Lawyer! Use the money to put a jacuzzi in your condo! Buy a new Porsche! Put hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place!

Scumbag!

America needs judges willing to say no to the lawyer bullies. America also needs “loser pays.” Otherwise, the parasites will bully away your money and your choices.

Amen to that, brother John! I always knew there was a reason you number among my personal Top 5 columnists!

…I knew I just had to share it, as it couldn’t be more accurate.

CHARLEY REESE explains incompetent Congress

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. Bush ALONE for creating deficits.

The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.

–CHARLEY REESE (born January 29, 1937) is a syndicated columnist known for his plainspoken manner and paleoconservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971-2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities. King Features Syndicate distributes his column, which comes out three times each week.

H/T Shana

Look, we on the right and those on the left have our political differences, more bitter and more divisive today than in decades, but the fact of the matter is that we elect our politicians to do a job for us, that job being to govern our country to their best ability.

Though they seem to have forgotten, they are our employees, not the other way around. They are there to work for us, as Americans, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. As members of the same team, that being, collectively, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President, their job is to represent the nation as a whole, as co-workers, and to work together to see that the best interests of this country and its citizens are served.

In the private sector, such behavior and such results as we’ve seen on the part of our government would result in a whole bunch of pink slips and the same amount of new hires, so why should government be any different? Why do we give these career politicians the sort of free passes for failure that we, as citizens, would never get in our own occupations?

In the case of our elected officials, each and every one of us voters is “the boss”. If our employees can’t work together in a proactive manner, securing the fruition of our best interests, we need to fire them and hire people who will.

It’s great that so many people enjoy the salesmanship skills it takes to convince a majority of voters in their respective bailiwicks to elect them, but it would be even greater if they also had the skills, to say nothing of the negotiating abilities and statesmanship, to work together, compromise where needed and produce results that actually benefit We, The People, their employers.

Instead, as Charley Reese wrote so eloquently, we have a bunch of people at management level who are not part of any solutions, but rather are the factors behind the problems.

…and his retinue are apparently encountering some degree of resistance, at long last.

British environmental analyst Christopher Monckton says Al Gore’s latest attack on global warming skeptics shows the former vice president and other climate alarmists are “panicking.”

And well they should be.

On Sunday, CBS News correspondent Leslie Stahl asked Al Gore on the television show 60 Minutes what he thinks of people like Vice President Dick Cheney who doubt that global warming is caused by human activity.

“I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona, and those who believe the earth is flat,” replied Gore. “That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off.”

However, Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy advisor for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s, says the former vice president can enjoy his “flat earth fantasies” for a few months, but in the end, the world will be laughing at him.

“The alarmists are alarmed, the panic mongers are panicking, the scare mongers are scared; the Gores are gored. Why? Because global warming stopped ten years ago; it hasn’t got warmer since 1998,” he points out. “And in fact in the last seven years, there has been a downturn in global temperatures equivalent on average to about [or] very close to one degree Fahrenheit per decade. We’re actually in a period … of global cooling.”

Hmmm…

Mr. Monckton, my hat is off to you!

Monckton contends Gore is now “panicking” because he has staked his reputation as a former American VP on “telling the world that we’re all doomed unless we shut down 90 percent of the Western economies.” He also contends that Gore is the largest “global-warming profiteer.”

It’s pitiful that Algore, a typical modern Democrat, is willing to screw the rest of us, using a typical liberal agenda, in order to make megabucks for himself. Nancy Pelosi, another leftist hypocrite, is probably foaming at the mouth in anger that she didn’t think of this racket first.

Gore’s group The Alliance for Climate Protection is currently launching a new $300 million ad campaign that demands reforms in environmental law to help reduce the supposed “climate crisis.” But Monckton points out that in the U.K., Gore is not allowed to speak in public about his “green investment company” because to do so would violate racketeering laws by “peddling a false prospectus.” He says that fact came about after a British high court found Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, riddled with errors.

Emphasis mine, and speaking of emphasis, bravo, U.K.!

It’s good to see that someone, somewhere, has exposed Algore for the opportunitic fraud he really is. Now let’s see some prosecution for same: After all, an individual who commits fraud on a bank or other business to the tune of a few hundred bucks gets a felony sentence. Gore has swindled the world at large for millions, yet he’s still walking around free.

What’s wrong with this picture?

…this response by the Dutch government to the aforementioned Wilders video amounts to little more than snivelling in hopes that the usual suspects (Muslims) don’t do the usual “how dare you imply that we’re not the Religion of Peace®!? Now we’ll have to remind you that we are peaceful by rioting, murdering, burning and blowing things up!!!!”

Bracing for reaction, the Dutch government late Thursday distanced itself from a lawmaker’s newly released film linking the Koran to violence and terrorism, saying the problem was “not religion, but the misuse of religion to sow hatred and intolerance.”

Truncating…

“The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence,” Balkenende said in a statement read during a press conference. “In fact, the victims are often also Muslims.

“We therefore regret that Mr. Wilders has released this film. We believe it serves no purpose other than to cause offence. But feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.”

Wilders late last month accused the prime minister of cowardice, saying he appeared to be so fearful of the consequences of the film that was willing to capitulate, rather than defend democratic freedoms.

Geert Wilders is 100% correct. The cowardice of dhimmi governments is only enabling these Seventh Century animals to increasingly cow western countries into bowing down to the concept of submission that is the English translation of Islam.

Consider that word: Submission.

Those of us here in the civilized world who are of secular belief are thus because we love our G-d. Love of G-d, think about that for a moment.

Then consider those among us who are atheists. They enjoy the freedom of not believing in G-d, and we don’t oppress them for this. They have free will, and are entitled to believe or disbelieve according to their choice.

On either side of the equation, there is freedom to practice our beliefs according to our own choices.

Under Islamic rule (and I say “rule” because that’s exactly what their 7th Century form of leadership entails), there are no such freedoms. Either you worship Allah according to the strict laws of Sharia (SUBMISSION!) or you are severely disciplined — here in the harsh, barbaric environs of the civilized world, we think of severe discipline as fines or incarceration, which at the very worst includes, in addition to 3 hots and a cot, all sorts of civil rights barely accorded the victims of crimes. In the Islamic world, we’re talking more mellow, Religion of Peace® kinds of stuff like amputations, stonings and decapitation, you know, the less extreme, civilized kinds of things that we here in the west haven’t yet graduated to. We are so far behind!

The Dutch Council of Churches Thursday called the film a “caricature” of Islam, and a Dutch lawyer, Els Lucas, lodged a legal complaint against Wilders, accusing him of inciting violence and discrimination. Lucas has in the past filed complaints against Wilders, charging that his stance on Islam violates Dutch law.

In a separate legal challenge, a Dutch court Friday is due to consider a petition, brought by the country’s Islamic Federation before the film’s release, asking whether the material breaches hate-speech laws.

It’s dhimmitude and cowardice like the above that Islam and its proponents count on to score here in the western world. They prey on our civilized, humanitarian nature, exploit it, in fact, while also threatening us with violence, in order to insinuate their doctrine on us, and stoooopid, naive politicians go along with them — why fight violence with violence when you can simply surrender to it, right?

G-d help us all….

…has Fitna, the Geert Wilders video, an absolute must-watch.

AOW, I salute you!

This year, I decided to do my own taxes for a change, just to see how easy or complicated it might be.

Wow!

Tax accountants really have a good racket, though I won’t say that it’s an easy one — on the other hand, they do have the specialized knowledge that most of us non-accountants don’t. What we laymen (and lay-women) don’t have any particular training in is meat and drink to the accountant.

Now, I realize that lawyers and accountants in Congress bend over backwards to enact rules and regs that guarantee work for their colleagues and, once they return to the private sector, them by the simple expedient of complicating their respective fields to the point of requiring interpretation by said professionals, I also have to say that this practice is directly comparable to the steamy brown piles one encounters in your run-of-the-mill cow pasture.

The government already charges us for the privilege of earning money, why should we also be required to pay others to figure out how much we have to pay for the selfsame privilege of making a living?

So I get the 1099 from my brokers, listing all my trades on both the buy and sell sides (keeping in mind that I once worked back office on Wall Street, some 2-plus decades ago and learned to pluck liquidations from long lists, in actively complex accounts, of day trades, etc). I have a number of trades that involved averaging up from the original investments, that is, adding shares to already existing members of my portfolio because the original positions were notably bullish.

The problem is that the 1099 provides one list of buys and another of sells, and it’s left up to the client to match them up with the liquidations. Sure, this may sound like a no-brainer, but they don’t bother to include a breakdown of which added purchases belong to which positions, and the appropriate tax forms (1040, schedule D) demand only purchase and liquidation figures.

Do these extra 400 shares belong to this position, or that one? Do these 200 belong to this initial trade, or the other one in the same stock? Etc, etc…

I call my brokers, and they suggest that I ask my tax advisor. I call the IRS, and they give me what amounts to doubletalk — I say, “Look, I’m only interested in paying taxes on whatever profits I made on stocks in the course of 2007. I can present that figure to the dime.” They say, “You have to itemize each buy and sell, stock, dates and P&L.” and then get into the form numbers of the additional documents I’ll need to submit.

What a bunch of B.S.!!!!

Considering the hassle versus the volume of my trading, I don’t think I’ll ever buy stock again. If it’s absolutely necessary that I pay someone else to figure my taxes on same, then why should I? I already have to pay the government thousands of dollars in taxes, why should I also have to pay someone else to figure out how much I have to pay? Either they simplify the process, or stay at home!

Now, I have no objection (well, little objection) to paying taxes, since that seems to be a part of the scheme of things, but having the general issue complicated to the point of having to pay what amounts to an interpreter is beyond the pale! The 1099 includes the P&L for the year, yet the IRS requires that I itemize to detail what is already on the effin’ document (Line 1A) rather than submit the document {as someone who works for someone else would a W-2} with a single figure in a box.

My point is that if the a&&h@%%s want to collect taxes, they should take it upon themselves to make calculating the damn things a simple process for those who have to pay them, not a feat that requires a middleman (or woman) whose services require a secondary payment.

I can’t help but wonder what one of those folks dressed up as indians who participated in the Boston Tea Party would have thought of this…