WANT TO UNDERSTAND EUROPE AND W's TRIP?

The analyses of Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson this Sunday explain the current situation of Europe and the United States as clearly as any I've read.

The money quotes:

Mark Steyn-re the EU Constitution: "Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional. That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. constitution is, to define the distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures for the "mohair subsidy" and other notorious Congressional boondoggles. President Ronald Reagan liked to say, "We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around." If you want to know what it looks like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution."

Victor Davis Hanson: "We keep assuming that Europeans are like Britain and Japan when in fact long ago they devolved more into a Switzerland and Sweden--friendly neutrals but no longer real allies. In the meantime, let us Americans keep much more quiet, wait, and watch--even as we carry a far bigger stick."

Read the articles for much more insight into our relationship and W's well done visit!

WORD FOR THE DAY: chary

HINT: "We should be chary of our relationship with Europe."

MY TAKE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

Do not pay attention to all the complex details both supporters and detractors of W's Social Security changes try to use to bring you into their fold. Here is an inescapable fact:

Social Security is a PAY AS YOU GO system - today's workers transfer money to the receivers of Social Security - and in 2018 (or 2025 or 2042 ad infinitum) - those workers will have to transfer money to the receivers of Social Security.

Therefore, as the demographics change - the ratio of workers to retirees is decreasing due to longer life - more must be paid in by each worker. This fact will break the system at some point in the future!

So W is simply trying to get away from the PAY AS YOU GO system, giving each of us some control over OUR money to nurture, under controls, for our supplemental retirement nestegg.

Social Security has served a great purpose. It is now time to transform it to a system that will work long into the future!

WORD FOR THE DAY: calumny

HINT: "Calumny is used by both sides of this issue."

TWO GOOD REASONS TO ELIMINATE THE U.N.

Nicholas Kristof is obviously enraged by the lack of attention from the world regarding the genocide in Darfur. Sorry you have to look at the pictures, but this is what the U.N. is allowing to happen month after month, without raising a finger! Why do we need them?

Claudia Rosett, who is the leading reporter on the Oil-for-Food scandal (a measly $20 Billion ripped off from the Iraqi people) points out the total ineffectiveness, and lack of interest, of the UNHCR (United Nations Human Rights Commission) in assuring the rights of the North Korean refugees to mainland China - which is their charter. Why do we need them?

I am left with the same question I posed after Mark Steyn's U.N. analysis the 15th of this month: "Why the U.N.?" Someone please explain!

WORD FOR THE DAY: oeuvre

Hint: "The U.N.'s oeuvre is nothing to be proud of."

DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING LIBERALS?

Dennis Prager has the answer in his column on "feelings."

The question I have: How can you make decisions on "feelings" when there are 5-6 billion different "feelings" on this planet? You can not establish a norm! You can have no consistency over time! You have no base from which to establish controls on society!

The money quote:

"The entire edifice of moral relativism, a foundation of leftist ideology, is built on the notion of feelings deciding right and wrong. One man's terrorist is another man's freedon fighter."

WORD FOR THE DAY: antipode

HINT: "The antipode of moral relativism makes more sense!"

U.N. Oil-for-Food does have a positive side!

"There is one sense in which Oil-for-Food did accomplish something good. In swelling and rotting to a degree that in the end the world could not ignore, Oil-for-Food, in the postmortem, offers an unprecedented view into the inner workings of the United Nations."

Claudia Rosett, The New Republic, 2/16/05, "Kofi Annan's silence. Blame Game"

The fish rot's from the head!

Paul Johnson, eminent British historian...

analyzes the current efforts of the U.S. and explains "Why Millions Say, Softly, God Bless America."

He says things about the world that others are afraid to say (political correctness is king) and has the authority as one of the worlds great historians to say them!

A great read is his book "Intellectuals" - where he explains in realistic terms the west's historic intellectuals.

WORD FOR THE DAY: jobbery

Hint: If you read the above article, you will learn that Italy is consumed by this!

Charles Krauthammer picks on W!

His column in the NY Daily News today points out his belief that W is taking the wrong tact trying to sell the Social Security problem as a "crisis" and should instead be explaining in detail the inadequacies of the system and why we must start fixing it now.

A short and clear description of the "real" Social Security pay-as-you-go ("ponzi") system is of value to understand the real problem!

Enjoy your weekend!

WORD FOR THE DAY: inchoate

HINT: W's inchoate proposal has a long way to go!

Want to understand Social Security?

Jeff Jacoby in a Boston Globe column titled "An eighth of every paycheck" gives the clearest explanation of the program that I have read. If we could get all to read and understand this column, our politicians would begin to get some good direction from us as to what we would prefer for a fix, for there is clearly action required - and I believe major changes in the philosophy of the program - in the near future.

Read the column and find out what your Senators and Representatives are saying - then let them know what you think. It is important!

WORD FOR THE DAY: cavil

Hint: many people have these against the proposed changes to Social Security.

SO YOU THINK WE SHOULD SUPPORT THE UN?

I seem to be stuck on Mark Steyn, but as long as he keeps putting out information untarnished by PC (political correctness) I will keep listening to him and sharing his insight.

If you can read this article and still have a good thing to say about our potential "World Government" you need to do a sanity check. This group is actually quite sick! - but we are not allowed to talk about it. Share your thoughts with me.

WORD FOR THE DAY: poseur

SO YOU THINK IRAQ IS OUR #1 WAR?

Mark Steyn, with his usual insight and rapier wit, advises the status of the real #1 War. Would you believe:

1) An unemployed waitress in Berlin faces the loss of her welfare benefits after refusing a job as a prostitute in a legalized brothel.

2) A British court has ruled that a suspected terrorist from Algeria cannot be detained in custody because jail causes him to suffer a "depressive illness."

3) Seventeen-year-old Jeffrey Eden of Charlestown, R.I., has been awarded an A by his teacher and the "Silver Key" in the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards for a diorama titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself."

It's the culture, stupid! That is the #1 War and we are not faring too well. Read it here.

WORD FOR THE DAY: sentient

HAVE FUN THIS WEEKEND!

WORD FOR THE DAY: tor

Let's all relax over the weekend and start again on Monday!

Victor Davis Hanson has it right!

In the February 2005 issue of Commentary Magazine Mr. Hanson has an article titled
"Has Iraq Weakened Us?." His conclusion is the opposite, but I thought the most interesting
quote from the article is this:


"If Americans have learned anything from the careers of Qaddafi, the Saudi royal family, Saddam Hussein, and the Iranian clergy, it is that huge petroleum profits accruing among illegitimate autocrats are a recipe for global terrorism and regional havoc. One way to end the present pathology is for the United States, accepting that concerns for our national survival can sometimes trump the logic of finding the cheapest energy source, to develop a policy that helps drive down world petroleum prices. Another option is far more aggressively to promote democratic reforms among the petrol sheikdoms themselves. A third is to do both. Given the entry of India and China into the world petroleum market, fostering tighter global demand while potentially circumscribing our own clout, the hour is more urgent than ever; but the Middle East is also, and once again thanks to the ongoing reform of Iraq and Afghanistan, more fluid and perhaps more promising than ever." (My emphasis.)

He is saying in my interpretation:

1. Nuclear Power Plants to reduce our dependency on oil
2. Win in Iraq, thereby promoting democratic reforms in the oil sheikdoms
3. Agressively pursue both of these

Sounds like we are on the right track if we can start looking at nuclear power as a necessity.

WORD OF THE DAY: sully

I LOVE MARK STEYN.....

for his ability to cut to the quick. From a recent story about an innovative Slovak who pissed his way out of an avalanche, he generates a column pointing out the correctness of W's approach to terrorism and the ignorance of his detractors. Read it here.

He clearly defines what we all really mean when we say bring "democracy" to the middle east:

" I prefer to speak of "liberty" or, as Bush says, "freedom", or, as neither of us is quite bold enough to put it, capitalism - free market, property rights, law of contract, etc. That's why Hong Kong is freer than Liberia, if less "democratic". If I had six or seven centuries to work on things, I wouldn't do it this way in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the "war on terror" is more accurately a race against time - to unwreck the Middle East before its toxins wreck South Asia, West Africa, and eventually Europe. The doom-mongers can mock Bush all they want. But they're spending so much time doing so, they've left themselves woefully uninformed on some of the fascinating subtleties of Iraqi and Afghan politics that his Administration turns out to have been rather canny about."

Think about that paragraph - it is full of correct analysis of our current situation.

And at the close you will run across the words "pissoir" and "cystitis" which serve as the binding of the column! Enjoy the read!

George Will, Newsweek Feb. 14, 2005 Issue

George Will was one of my favorite pundits. Over the last 3 or 4 years he has shown a subtle but perceptible shift leftward, so my interest in his views has waned. I may have to start reading him again.

This column is about Social Security repair and W's State of the Union Address, in which he not so subtly reminded our federal legislators that all civilian federal employees may particapate in a plan very similar to his proposed changes:


"Begun in 1987, the Thrift Savings Plan, which as of December 2004 had assets of $152 billion, is a retirement-savings plan open to all civilian federal employees, including senators, and all members of the uniformed services.

They can invest as much as 14 percent of their salaries in one of five retirement funds. Consider the rate of return of C Fund, one of the five. It is a common-stock fund, so it should represent the risks that Reid thinks should terrify Americans:

In only four of 17 years has the rate of return been negative. But in 11 years the rate has been greater than 10 percent, in eight years it has been greater than 20 percent, in four years it has been greater than 30 percent. The compound annual rate of return for the last 10 years has been 12 percent, and the return over the 17 years has been 12.1 percent.

Reid participates in the plan, but opposes allowing all Americans the comparable opportunity that Bush is proposing. But if the numbers just cited are the result of roulette, the legislators should let the rest of us into the game in which they are prospering."


Game, Set and Match in my opinion! Harry Reid and the "federal elites" do not want us to have the perks they enjoy!

Another memorable quote regarding Howard Dean:


"Last week Howard Dean, almost certainly the next Democratic Party chairman, said: "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for." Either Dean means what he says, in which case he is as unhinged as the rest of the party's Michael Moore caucus, or he does not, in which case he is a blowhard like, well, Moore."


It is fun to watch the Democratic Party implode!

THE GLOBAL THRONG

Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of and documents much of the "...lunacy that appeared after 9/11..." and that we still see today from the Left. A must read for all, particularly if you are of the Left.

The Money Quote:

"Perhaps the result of this frustration is that European intellectuals damn the United States for action in Iraq, but lament that they could do nothing in the Balkans. Democrats at home talk of the need for idealism abroad, but fear the dirty road of war that sometimes is part of that bargain - thus the retreat into "democracy is good, BUT..." So here we have the global throng that focuses on one purported American crime to the next, as it simmers in the luury of its privilege, education, and sophistication - and exhibits little power, new ideas, intellectual seriousness, or relevance."

"Why the world's elites gnash their teeth." is the sub-title and it couldn't be more accurate!

"Shut Up, al-Jazeera"

William F. Buckley takes on this disgusting middle eastern television-radio network in his column at NRO.

The money quote:

"The indecision of the U.S. government in facing the aggressions of the
network [al-Jazeera] brilliantly illustrates the special immobilization of liberal reasoning. "Administration officials," reports the New York Times,
"have been nervous to talk about the station, being sensitive to charges
that they are trying to suppress free expression."" (My emphasis).

Mr. Buckley is one of the finest "writers" in the punditry business and if you want to expand your vocabulary, I recommend reading him often. Do you know the work "cavil"? Read this column and you will!